Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 225 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Ending Roe v Wade is part of a long campaign to roll back democracy itself | Jill Filipovic

      by

      Ending Roe v Wade is part of a long campaign to roll back democracy itselfJill FilipovicThe demise of abortion rights is the outcome of years of Republican work to make it harder for people to vote and stack the bench with rightwing judges American democracy is at the breaking point, and a supreme court ready to gut or overturn Roe v Wade is the latest warning sign. A radical minority is accumulating ever more power, and they’re threatening to undermine equal rights under the law, basic human freedoms, and democracy itself.Republicans are quietly rigging election maps to ensure permanent rule | David PepperRead moreOn Wednesday, the supreme court heard arguments in a case challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, even for rape and incest survivors. Under the longstanding legal framework of Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, two of the supreme court cases that shape abortion rights in the US, states cannot outlaw abortion before the point of fetal viability, when the fetus can survive outside of the woman’s body (states can put restrictions on abortion before that point, so long as those restrictions don’t pose an “undue burden” on women seeking abortions). The Mississippi law violates that longstanding supreme court precedent.Yet the court agreed to hear it anyway, which was the first bad sign – why hear a case that so clearly flies in the face of what the court has already ruled? Wednesday’s oral arguments only contributed to the sense of doom, as a majority of the justices seemed ready and willing to overturn Roe.This didn’t happen by accident. The rightwing stranglehold on the courts has been a long-term project achieved by devious means. Republicans blocked Barack Obama from appointing dozens of judges to the federal bench, leaving those slots open for Donald Trump to fill. He stacked the courts with conservative reactionaries, many of whom were so unqualified that they failed to get the basic endorsement of the American Bar Association (ABA). Instead of appointing qualified candidates over rightwing stooges, the Trump administration simply cut the ABA out of the judicial vetting process.The most egregious of these Republican blockades came when Obama tried to appoint Merrick Garland to the supreme court seat vacated by Antonin Scalia. The right cried foul: it was wrong to change the balance of the court, they said, and it was an election year and therefore unfair to allow Obama a supreme court appointment; voters should decide the next president to pick a supreme court judge.A majority of voters wanted Hillary Clinton to have that role. But our undemocratic and archaic electoral college rules handed the victory to Donald Trump – the second time in less than two decades that the winner of the majority vote lost the White House.Trump, who ran on a promise of appointing anti-abortion judges who would overturn Roe v Wade, set about doing just that. He appointed Neil Gorsuch to the seat that should have been Garland’s. Then he appointed Brett Kavanaugh, despite the judge facing credible accusations of sexual assault. Finally, and most insultingly, Trump and his Republican Senate allies rammed through the appointment of the explicitly anti-abortion Amy Coney Barrett to the seat vacated by the feminist icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg – in his last year of office, and despite the supposed rule about a president letting the voters decide before an election.Trump voters – a minority of Americans in both 2016 and 2020 – are about to get what they want: an America in which women and girls are forced into pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood; an America in which women are second-class citizens, not entitled to control over the very bodies they live in, forced to risk their lives in the name of “pro-life” misogyny.The rest of us are stuck dealing with these minority religious views imposed on us.Strong majorities of Americans support abortion rights and do not want to overturn Roe. And in any case, the supreme court is supposed to be a bulwark against tyranny, an institution that defends and upholds constitutional rights, not one that punts those rights to the states.This court is not that. And that’s because of the shameful rightwing devastation of American democracy. Three members of the conservative supreme court majority, after all, were appointed by a traitorous president who fomented an attempted coup against the United States, and who has continued to undermine the electoral process by claiming that the last election, which he lost fair and square, was stolen. His party has devolved into a cult of personality, so tied to one narcissistic tyrant that it didn’t even bother releasing a political platform in the last presidential election. And because the Republican party knows it will lose if it has to play on an even playing field, its members have been systemically undermining voting rights for years.The demise of abortion rights in the US is the outcome of years of anti-democratic organizing to make it harder for people to vote, gerrymander districts, pull power from various elected offices when Democrats win them, and stack the bench with rightwing judges who will allow it all to happen.It’s terrifying. And of course forcing women into subservience and traditional roles is part of this process – that’s been the strategy in authoritarian nations throughout history, and it’s a pattern we’re seeing play out now, as the same nations that are scaling back democratic norms and processes are also going after women’s rights.That American women are facing a hostile supreme court and are looking at a future without abortion rights – and potentially without the constitutional right to contraception – isn’t a matter of law or “life”. It’s a sign of a democracy in decline.
      Jill Filipovic is the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionAbortionUS supreme courtRoe v WadeLaw (US)RepublicanscommentReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans accused of Islamophobia? Politics Weekly Extra – podcast

      by

      Rep Lauren Boebert was recently filmed saying she experienced a ‘Jihad squad’ moment with the Muslim Rep Ilhan Omar. The party leadership hasn’t rebuked her, and some colleagues are defending her words. This week Jonathan Freedland speaks to Dr Abdul El-Sayed about Islamophobia in American politics

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: CNN, MSNBC, AP Listen to this week’s episode of UK Politics Weekly. Listen to Today in Focus to hear about the latest fight over abortion rights in the US. Listen to Grace Dent’s conversation with Tom Watson about his eating disorder. Listen to this week’s Football Weekly special. Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Funding bill to avoid US shutdown wins enough Senate votes

      by

      Funding bill to avoid US shutdown wins enough Senate votes House of Representatives earlier passed resolution, then Republicans launched failed Senate bid to defund vaccine mandates
      House votes to fund government amid shutdown threats by Senate Republicans – live A bill to fund the US government through mid-February has gained the support of enough members of the Senate to win passage and prevent a partial shutdown of federal agencies at the end of this week.The vote late on Thursday came after some Republican senators threatened to block the process in order to voice their opposition to the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates. Senators voted on an amendment to defund the federal vaccine mandate, which ultimately failed, clearing the way for the passage of the short-term funding bill.The measure, which was approved by lawmakers in the House earlier in the day, will keep the federal government funded for the next two and a half months.Biden announces plan to get booster shots to 100m Americans amid Omicron arrival in USRead moreThe need for vaccine mandates, which have been introduced by Joe Biden, has taken on additional importance as the US braces for the impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant.The plot by Republican senators to undermine the vaccine mandate came after some Republican states have already sought to diminish mandates, by expanding unemployment benefits for employees who have been fired or quit over the requirement to get the vaccine.On Wednesday, the House Freedom Caucus, a group of rightwing Republicans in the House of Representatives, urged their Senate colleagues to block the funding bill, also known as a continuing resolution, “unless it prohibits funding – in all respects – for the vaccine mandates and enforcement thereof”.In a letter to Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, the House Freedom Caucus said that the Friday deadline gave their Senate colleagues “important leverage” to prevent funding for mandates.Biden introduced vaccine mandates, which require employees to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing, for federal workers and contractors in July. In September, Biden ordered healthcare workers to be vaccinated and companies with 100 workers or more to require Covid-19 vaccines or testing, which the government said would cover more than 100 million employees. Those measures have been put on hold by court rulings, after Republican state attorneys general, conservative groups and trade organizations sued to stop the regulations.TopicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS SenateRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 225 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      A Republican power grab in Ohio might be the GOP’s most brazen yet | The fight to vote

      by

      A Republican power grab in Ohio might be the GOP’s most brazen yetRepublicans in Ohio recently enacted new maps that would give them a supermajority in the state legislature – completely ignoring reforms that prevent this Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterHello, and Happy Thursday,Over the last few months, we’ve seen lawmakers in several states draw new, distorted political districts that entrench their political power for the next decade. Republicans are carving up Texas, North Carolina and Georgia to hold on to their majorities. Democrats have the power to draw maps in far fewer places, but they’ve also shown a willingness to use it where they have it, in places like Illinois and Maryland.But something uniquely disturbing is happening in Ohio.Republicans control the legislature there and recently enacted new maps that would give them a supermajority in the state legislature and allow them to hold on to at least 12 of the state’s 15 congressional seats. It’s an advantage that doesn’t reflect how politically competitive Ohio is: Donald Trump won the state in 2020 with 53% of the vote.What’s worse is that Ohio voters have specifically enacted reforms in recent years that were supposed to prevent this kind of manipulation. Republicans have completely ignored them. It underscores how challenging it is for reformers to wrest mapmaking power from politicians.“It’s incredibly difficult to get folks to say, ‘OK, we’re just gonna do this fairly after years and years and decades and decades of crafting districts that favor one political party,’” Catherine Turcer, the executive director of the Ohio chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group that backed the reforms, told me earlier this year. “I did not envision this being as shady.”In 2015 and 2018, Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved two separate constitutional amendments that were meant to make mapmaking fairer. The 2015 amendment dealt with drawing state legislative districts and gave a seven-person panel, comprised of elected officials from both parties, power to draw districts. If the panel couldn’t agree on new maps, they would only be in effect for four years, as opposed to the usual 10.The 2018 amendment laid out a slightly different process for drawing congressional districts, but the overall idea was the same. Both reforms also said districts could not unfairly favor or disfavor a political party.Something started to seem amiss earlier this fall when the panel got to work trying to create the new state legislative districts. The two top Republicans in the legislature wound up drawing the maps in secret, shutting their fellow GOP members out of the process. After reaching an impasse with Democrats, Republicans on the panel approved a plan that gives the GOP a majority in the state legislature for the next four years.When it came time to draw congressional maps, things did not go much better. The panel barely even attempted to fulfill its mission, kicking mapmaking power back to the state legislature. Lawmakers there quickly enacted the congressional plan that benefits the GOP for the next four years.The new map benefits the GOP by cracking Democratic-heavy Hamilton county, home of Cincinnati, into three different congressional districts, noted the Cook Political Report. It also transforms a district in northern Ohio, currently represented by Democrat Marcy Kaptur, the longest serving woman in Congress, from one Joe Biden carried by 19 points in 2020 to one Trump would have carried by 5 points.The maps already face several lawsuits, and their fate will ultimately be decided by the Ohio supreme court. Republicans have a 4-3 advantage on the court, though one of the GOP justices is considered a swing vote. We’ll soon see if voter-approved reforms will be completely defanged.Reader questionsPlease continue to write to me each week with your questions about elections and voting at sam.levine@theguardian.com or DM me on Twitter at @srl and I’ll try to answer as many as I can.Also worth watching …
      Few places better encapsulate the new Republican effort to undermine American elections than Wisconsin. Some Republicans there are calling for the removal of the non-partisan head of the state’s election commission.
      Georgia saw a jump in the percentage of rejected mail-in ballot requests in one of the first elections after Republicans imposed new requirements. Many of those who had their ballot requests rejected didn’t ultimately vote in person, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
      The Justice Department on Tuesday filed a statement of interest in voting rights lawsuits in Arizona, Texas and Florida. All three filings significantly defend the power and scope of section two of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most powerful remaining provisions of the 1965 civil rights law.
      TopicsUS voting rightsFight to voteRepublicansOhioUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans threaten government shutdown to undermine vaccine mandates

      by

      Republicans threaten government shutdown to undermine vaccine mandatesRightwingers in House urge Senate colleagues to stand in the way of funding bill unless it meets demands Republicans are preparing to shut down the American government on Friday, in the latest attempt by the party to thwart White House efforts to increase vaccine take-up, by undermining vaccine mandates across the country.Clamor is growing among some conservatives for Republican senators to oppose a stopgap funding bill, which would fund the government for the next few weeks, unless Democrats agree to not direct money towards enforcing a vaccine mandate for larger companies in the US.If the disgruntled Republicans, who reportedly include Senator Mike Lee, from Utah, are successful, the government would effectively run out of money on Friday and could be forced to furlough workers and shut down some federal services.The need for vaccine mandates, which have been introduced by Joe Biden, has taken on additional importance as the US braces for the impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant.The plot by the right comes after some Republican states have already sought to diminish mandates, by expanding unemployment benefits for employees who have been fired or quit over the requirement to get the vaccine.On Wednesday, the House Freedom Caucus, a group of rightwing Republicans in the House of Representatives, urged their Senate colleagues to block the funding bill, also known as a continuing resolution, “unless it prohibits funding – in all respects – for the vaccine mandates and enforcement thereof”.In a letter to Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, the Freedom Caucus said the Democratic-dominated House was set to vote in favor of the stopgap funding bill on Wednesday. The bill will then go to the Senate, where Democrats need Republican votes to pass the bill by Friday night.The House Freedom Caucus said that deadline gave their Senate colleagues “important leverage” to prevent funding for mandates.Biden introduced vaccine mandates, which require employees to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing, for federal workers and contractors in July. In September, Biden ordered healthcare workers to be vaccinated and companies with 100 workers or more to require Covid-19 vaccines or testing, which the government said would cover more than 100 million employees. Those measures have been put on hold by court rulings, after Republican state attorneys general, conservative groups and trade organizations have sued to stop the regulations.Republicans boost benefits for workers who quit over vaccine mandatesRead moreThe appeal by House Republicans came after Politico reported that some Republicans in the Senate were open to blocking the stopgap funding bill.“I’m sure we would all like to simplify the process for resolving the [continuing resolution], but I can’t facilitate that without addressing the vaccine mandates,” Lee told Politico.“Given that federal courts across the country have raised serious issues with these mandates, it’s not unreasonable for my Democratic colleagues to delay enforcement of the mandates for at least the length of the continuing resolution.”The Washington Post reported that Lee had planned to at least “block swift debate” on a funding bill.The growing threat of a funding scrap comes after McConnell said on Tuesday there would be no shutdown. While that came before Wednesday’s push from his colleagues, some Republicans had been clear for weeks that they would use the funding bill to oppose vaccine mandates.Republican senators threatened a shutdown at the beginning of November, when Roger Marshall, a senator from Kansas, led a group of 11 Republicans who sent a letter to Chuck Schumer, the Senate leader, threatening to stymie funding.In that letter, signed by 10 Republican senators including Lee and Ted Cruz, Marshall complained that Joe Biden’s plan to require larger businesses to mandate vaccines or weekly testing for workers was “nothing short of immoral”.“We will oppose all efforts to implement and enforce it with every tool at our disposal, including our votes on spending measures considered by the Senate,” Marshall wrote.“To be sure, we agree that countless Americans have benefited from the protection offered by the Covid-19 vaccines. Nevertheless, the decision whether to be vaccinated against Covid-19 is a highly personal one that should never be forced upon individuals by the federal government.”Marshall, a former member of the House who was sworn into the US Senate on 3 January 2021, has promoted a conspiracy theory about federal reports of coronavirus deaths on his Facebook account. Facebook said Marshall’s post violated policies against “spreading harmful misinformation”. Marshall said he was a victim of “corporate censorship”.Iowa, Tennessee, Florida, and Kansas, which all have Republican legislatures, have changed their rules in recent weeks to expand unemployment benefits for people who have been fired or quit after failing to comply with vaccine mandates. On Wednesday, the Guardian reported that Missouri was contemplating similar laws, with more states likely to follow.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsBiden administrationJoe BidenUS SenateUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Ilhan Omar airs death threat and presses Republicans on ‘anti-Muslim hatred’

      by

      Ilhan Omar airs death threat and presses Republicans on ‘anti-Muslim hatred’Democrat urges House Republican leaders to act after Lauren Boebert ‘jihad squad’ controversy03:46The US politician Ilhan Omar played a harrowing death threat left recently on her voicemail, as she implored House Republican leaders to do more to tamp down “anti-Muslim hatred” in their ranks and “hold those who perpetuate it accountable”.The Democratic Minnesota representative, one of only a handful of Muslim members of Congress, has been the subject of repeated attacks by conservative pundits and some Republicans in Congress, which she says have led to an increase in the number of death threats she receives.Recently a video of the first-term Colorado representative Lauren Boebert calling Omar a member of the “jihad squad” and likening her to a bomb-carrying terrorist went viral.“When a sitting member of Congress calls a colleague a member of the ‘jihad squad’ and falsifies a story to suggest I will blow up the Capitol, it is not just an attack on me but on millions of American Muslims across the country,” Omar said during a news conference on Tuesday. “We cannot pretend this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences.”She then played the voicemail, laden with profanity, racial epithets and a threat to “take you off the face of this fucking Earth”, which she said was among hundreds of such messages she has reported since joining Congress. Omar said the voicemail was left for her after Boebert released another video on Monday criticising her.In the grainy recording, a man can be heard saying: “You will not be living much longer, bitch,” and that “we the people are rising up”. He calls Omar a “traitor” and says she will stand trial before a military tribunal.Omar said: “It is time for the Republican party to actually do something to confront anti-Muslim hatred in its ranks and hold those who perpetuate it accountable.”Boebert’s remarks were the latest example of a Republican lawmaker making a personal attack against another member of Congress, an unsettling trend that has gone largely unchecked by House Republican leaders.A video posted to Facebook last week showed Boebert speaking at an event and describing an interaction with Omar – an interaction that Omar maintains never happened.In the video, Boebert claims that a Capitol police officer approached her with “fret on his face” shortly before she stepped into a House elevator and the doors closed. “I look to my left and there she is, Ilhan Omar. And I said: ‘Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine,’” Boebert says with a laugh.Omar called on the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, to “take appropriate action”. But so far McCarthy, who is in line to become Speaker if Republicans retake the majority next year, has been reluctant to police members of his caucus whose views often closely align with those of the party’s base.Boebert initially took steps to ease the situation, apologising last week “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended”. But after declining to apologise directly to Omar during a tense phone call on Monday, which Omar abruptly ended, Boebert again went on the attack.“Rejecting an apology and hanging up on someone is part of cancel culture 101 and a pillar of the Democrat party,” Boebert said in an Instagram video.So far, McCarthy is taking her side. When asked on Tuesday what he would do if Democrats tried to censure Boebert, McCarthy said: “After she apologised personally and publicly? I’d vote against it.”TopicsIlhan OmarDemocratsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans boost benefits for workers who quit over vaccine mandates

      by

      Republicans boost benefits for workers who quit over vaccine mandatesCritics say decision from legislatures in four states in effect pays people for not getting vaccinated Some Republican states are expanding unemployment benefits for employees who have been fired or quit over vaccine mandates, a move critics say in effect pays people for not getting vaccinated.Celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz set to run for US Senate as RepublicanRead moreFour states – Iowa, Tennessee, Florida, and Kansas – have changed their rules on unemployment to include people who have been terminated or who have chosen to leave their jobs because of their employers’ vaccine policies.The partisan divide is striking, Anne Paxton, staff attorney and policy director for the Unemployment Law Project in Washington state, told the Guardian. “It’s very hard to regard this particular move as being based on anything much more than political reasons.”The development also comes as the new Omicron variant has emerged, triggering concern that the strain could already be inside the US. If so, it would likely see a new spike in infections in America.There are 30 states with Republican-led legislatures that could follow suit. “I would be very surprised if it stopped at this four,” Paxton said. Missouri is contemplating similar laws, while states like Maryland are considering “mitigating factors” around unemployment and vaccine rules.Some Democrat states, on the other hand, have said that leaving a job because of mandates will disqualify former employees from these benefits unless they have demonstrated exemptions.“Partisanship continues to be a sharp dividing line in vaccine attitudes,” the Kaiser Family Foundation reported in October, with 90% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans saying they have gotten at least one dose.Only 5% of unvaccinated workers said they have left a job over mandates, and unemployment is dropping swiftly across the country.Unemployment benefits are not equivalent to full-time wages, Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Hastings College of the Law, pointed out. But rules like these may form an incentive against vaccination.“It’s like offering a financial benefit for not vaccinating,” Reiss told the Guardian. “If the person would not get unemployment benefits if they refused to wash their hands at work and were fired over that, they should be treated the same way.”Unemployment law in the United States is governed partly by federal law, but states have latitude to set their own requirements or restrictions, Paxton said.Typically, when employees are fired or they quit because of a business’s policies they aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits, unless they have an exemption for established religious or moral objections, or medical reasons.“Benefits are for people who are unemployed through no fault of their own,” Paxton said. But the interpretation of fault can vary.And in recent weeks, the Republican leaders of these states have signed bills protecting benefits around vaccination mandates, essentially liberalizing unemployment rules around vaccines in conservative states.If states want to change the rules around unemployment benefits for those who clash with employers’ policies, they should change the rules for everyone, Reiss said.“They should pass a law that’s broader that says, ‘Anyone who’s fired for cause gets unemployment benefits anyway.’ And that’s fine. That’s a value judgment, and states can make it,” Reiss said. But “limiting it to vaccines alone, it’s sending a message that vaccines are not important, and that’s a bad message.”There were already marked differences along partisan lines in how states handle unemployment benefits.“The blue states tend to be more generous in their eligibility rules,” Paxton said. “They tend to have higher benefits. And the red states have a tendency to be on the stingy side.”In Florida, for instance, the maximum benefit is set at $275 a week, which is lower than the weekly minimum in Washington.Many Republican-led states also opted to end federal unemployment assistance earlier this year.“They were not trying to help people who were jobless in that respect,” Paxton said. “So it’s hard to take this very seriously as a substantive, well-thought-out policy move in these four states.” Instead, she said, the decision seems to be less about unemployment policy and more about political tools “to aggravate the partisan divide,” Paxton said.Nine states have introduced restrictions on the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees and for federal agencies and contractors.Tennessee and Montana have banned private employers from mandating the vaccines, and seven other states have introduced wide-ranging restrictions on mandates, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. After Florida restricted the rules, for instance, Disney World halted its employee vaccination requirements.When it comes to ending the pandemic, Reiss said, working around mandates like these is “going to make it substantially harder”.TopicsUS politicsCoronavirusRepublicansnewsReuse this content More