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      in US Politics

      Biden hails ‘stunning progress’ on Covid but warns Americans: ‘Do not let up now’ – live

      by

      Key events

      Show

      5.43pm EDT
      17:43

      Interior Department reverses Trump-era policies on tribal land

      5.15pm EDT
      17:15

      Today so far

      5.02pm EDT
      17:02

      Biden raises minimum wage for workers paid by federal contractors

      4.26pm EDT
      16:26

      Governor calls for special prosecutor in Andrew Brown case

      4.07pm EDT
      16:07

      Texas sheriff who criticized Trump is nominated to head Ice

      2.33pm EDT
      14:33

      Interim summary

      2.14pm EDT
      14:14

      ‘Do not let up now’ – Biden

      Live feed

      Show

      5.43pm EDT
      17:43

      Interior Department reverses Trump-era policies on tribal land

      The US Interior Department has reversed Trump-era policies governing Native American tribes’ ability to establish and consolidate land trusts.
      The department restored jurisdiction to the regional Bureau of Indian Affairs directors to review and approve the transfer of private land into federal trust for tribes. The Trump administration had moved the oversight of the process to the department headquarters.
      “Qe have an obligation to work with Tribes to protect their lands and ensure that each Tribe has a homeland where its citizens can live together and lead safe and fulfilling lives,” said Deb Haaland, the first Native American woman to lead the department. “Our actions today will help us meet that obligation and will help empower Tribes to determine how their lands are used – from conservation to economic development projects.”
      The agency also reversed several Trump admin rules that hindered or complicated the process for putting land into trust.
      The AP explains:

      Whether land is in trust has broad implications for whether tribal police can exercise their authority, for tribal economic development projects to attract financing and for the creation of homelands and government offices for tribes that don’t have dedicated land.
      The Trump administration put 75,000 acre (30,300 hectares) into trust over four years, versus more than 560,000 acres (226,600 hectares) in the eight years of the Obama administration, Interior officials said.
      The trust land system was adopted in 1934, when Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act in response to more than 90 million acres (36.4 million hectares) of tribal homelands that had been converted into private land under the 1887 Allotment Act.
      Approximately 56 million acres (22.7 million hectares) are currently in trust. Combined that’s an area bigger than Minnesota and makes up just over 2 percent of the U.S.

      5.28pm EDT
      17:28

      Joe Biden and Jill Biden will visit former president Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter this week.
      A day after the president delivers his address to Congress, the Bidens will make a trip to Georgia, where the Carters reside. The Carters, who are both in their 90s, did not attend Biden’s inauguration due to the pandemic. Now that they have both been vaccinated, they will be able to safely visit with the Bidens.
      Biden will also likely hold some sort of drive-in event in Georgia to mark his 100th day in office, the White House has previously indicated.

      Updated
      at 5.35pm EDT

      5.15pm EDT
      17:15

      Today so far

      The blog will hand over from the US east coast to the west coast now, where our colleague Maanvi Singh is ready to take you through the next few hours of developing politics news. There’s plenty of it, so please stay tuned.
      Main items so far today:

      Joe Biden a little earlier signed an executive order raising the minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $15 an hour.
      The US president plans to nominate Ed Gonzalez – a Texas sheriff who vocally opposed Donald Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their families – to become the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
      Roy Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, has called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to handle the investigation into the police shooting of Andrew Brown, a 42-year-old Black man, in the state last week.
      Earlier this afternoon, Biden spoke outside the White House to hail progress towards ending the coronavirus pandemic, while warning that there was a long way to go. He said people in the US should not “let up” and should definitely get vaccinated ASAP as a patriotic duty.
      This followed new advice from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that fully vaccinated people in US can go without masks outdoors except in crowded settings.

      Updated
      at 5.37pm EDT

      5.02pm EDT
      17:02

      Biden raises minimum wage for workers paid by federal contractors

      Joe Biden a little earlier signed an executive order raising the minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $15 an hour.

      President Biden
      (@POTUS)
      I believe no one should work full time and still live in poverty. That’s why today, I raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour for people working on federal contracts.

      April 27, 2021

      The tweet and the sentiment didn’t go down terribly well with everyone.

      LADY BUNNY
      (@LADYBUNNY77)
      So in other words, you mean that everyone who makes minimum wage who is not a federal employee should work full time and still live in poverty.

      April 27, 2021

      The $15 minimum is likely to take effect next year and increase the wages of hundreds of thousands of workers, according to a White House document.
      The New York Times has a lot more on this, here, including this:

      White House economists believe that the increase will not lead to significant job losses — a finding in line with recent research on the minimum wage — and that it is unlikely to cost taxpayers more money, two administration officials said in a call with reporters. They argued that the higher wage would lead to greater productivity and lower turnover.
      And although the number of workers directly affected by the increase is small as a share of the economy, the administration contends that the executive order will indirectly raise wages beyond federal contractors by forcing other employers to bid up pay as they compete for workers.
      Paul Light, an expert on the federal work force at New York University, recently estimated that about five million people are working on federal contracts, on which the government spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

      Updated
      at 5.10pm EDT

      4.46pm EDT
      16:46

      When the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty a week ago today of murdering George Floyd last May, the judge in the case mentioned that sentencing was expected in eight weeks’ time.
      So the sentencing hearing had been expected on 18 June, but news just emerged from a brief court filing today that it will now be scheduled for 25 June.
      Chauvin is white and Floyd was Black and his murder, seen around the world on a bystander’s video as the officer kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes, fanned the largest civil rights uprising in the US since the 1960s.

      The only reason cited for the later sentencing date was a scheduling conflict, the Associated Press reports.
      The trial in the Hennepin county court house in downtown Minneapolis lasted three weeks before Chauvin was convicted on all three counts facing him.
      Second degree murder carries a maximum sentence of 40 years. That was the most serious charge, which Chauvin had denied, along with the other two charges, of third degree murder and manslaughter.
      The AP adds that the longest sentence Chauvin is expected to be given, according to experts, is 30 years, maybe less.
      The jury only deliberated for about 10 hours, over two days, before unanimously reaching its verdict.
      Do watch the Guardian’s excellent film about the trial and reverberations.

      Updated
      at 5.01pm EDT

      4.26pm EDT
      16:26

      Governor calls for special prosecutor in Andrew Brown case

      Roy Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, has called for a special prosecutor to be appointed to handle the investigation into the police shooting of Andrew Brown, a 42-year-old Black man, in the state last week.

      Governor Roy Cooper
      (@NC_Governor)
      Gov. Cooper issued the following statement urging a special prosecutor following the Pasquotank County shooting: pic.twitter.com/6m5UqxyZ09

      April 27, 2021

      Cooper, a Democrat, put out a statement saying such an appointment would be “in the interest of justice and confidence in the judicial system”.
      He said that: “This would help assure the community and Mr Brown’s family that a decision on pursuing criminal charges is conducted without bias.”
      Demonstrators called this morning for p0lice officers to be arrested, after an independent autopsy arranged by the family concluded that Brown was killed with a bullet that entered the back of his head.
      Attorneys for Brown’s family, who were shown only a 20-second clip of police body camera footage yesterday, said in a press conference in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, that the man’s hands were clearly placed on the steering wheel of his car, where police could see him, when they fired at him, and that he was driving away, presenting no threat.
      The local North State Journal adds that:

      Should the district attorney request a special prosecutor, the potential appointment could come from the North Carolina Attorney General’s Special Prosecution Division, the Administrative Office of the Courts, or the Conference of District Attorneys.
      Cooper’s call follows the announcement of an FBI civil rights investigation into the shooting.

      There will be a protest march tomorrow over the fatal shooting.

      Kyleigh Panetta
      (@KyleighPanetta)
      HAPPENING NOW: Church members announced they will march from Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church tomorrow at 11:30 to the location where #AndrewBrownJr was shot & killed here in #ElizabethCity. They’re calling on people of all denominations to join them @SpecNews1RDU pic.twitter.com/4x7aWhzdxJ

      April 27, 2021

      Updated
      at 4.33pm EDT

      4.07pm EDT
      16:07

      Texas sheriff who criticized Trump is nominated to head Ice

      Joe Biden plans to nominate Ed Gonzalez – a Texas sheriff who vocally opposed Donald Trump’s policy of separating migrant children from their families – to a key post as the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice), the White House has announced.

      Houston Chronicle
      (@HoustonChron)
      White House nominates Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez to lead ICE https://t.co/A5W3YP0SWI

      April 27, 2021

      Gonzalez is a Houston native and a veteran law enforcement officer and Democrat who has served since 2017 as sheriff of Harris county, the most populous county in Texas, Reuters reports.

      In a July 2019 Facebook post, Gonzalez said he opposed sweeping immigration raids after Republican former president Donald Trump, a month earlier tweeted hyperbolically that ICE would begin deporting “millions of illegal aliens”.
      “I do not support ICE raids that threaten to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom do not represent a threat to the US,” Gonzalez wrote. “The focus should always be on clear & immediate safety threats.”
      The nomination would need to be approved by the US Senate, divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to break ties.
      Biden campaigned on a pledge to reverse many of Trump’s hardline immigration policies. After Biden took office on January 20, his administration placed a 100-day pause on many deportations and greatly limited who can be arrested and deported by ICE.
      Biden’s deportation moratorium drew fierce pushback from Republicans and was blocked by a federal judge in Texas days after it went into effect.
      Biden announced on April 12 that he would tap Chris Magnus, an Arizona police chief, to lead U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Magnus had criticized the Trump administration’s attempt to force so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions to cooperate with federal law enforcement.
      Gonzalez similarly sought to limit ties between local police and federal immigration enforcement. In 2017, he ended Harris County’s participation in a program that increased cooperation between county law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.

      Meagan Flynn
      (@Meagan_Flynn)
      Wow. Thinking back to when Ed Gonzalez was the new sheriff in town, having run on a reform-minded platform, and quickly made the call to terminate Harris County’s 287(g) partnership with ICE. Now the White House wants him to lead the agency, @nkhensley reports: https://t.co/B9R2YvCWvF

      April 27, 2021

      Here’s another view:

      Stephanie Clay 🦋🏳️‍🌈🐝🛳
      (@_StephanieClay)
      Republicans will hate his nomination. That should tell you everything you need to know. Ed Gonzalez withdrew from the 287(g) collaboration program with ICE while he was sheriff of Harris County. Ed has fought ICE at every turn to protect Houstonians. https://t.co/RSn6kSFcOz

      April 27, 2021

      Updated
      at 4.14pm EDT

      3.32pm EDT
      15:32

      The White House is considering options for maximizing production and supply of Covid-19 vaccines for the world at the lowest cost, including backing a proposed waiver of intellectual property rights.
      No decision has been made, press secretary Jen Psaki said a little earlier.
      “There are a lot of different ways to do that. Right now, that’s one of the ways, but we have to assess what makes the most sense,” Psaki said, adding that US officials were also looking at whether it would be more effective to boost manufacturing in the United States.

      3.07pm EDT
      15:07

      It’s been incredibly difficult to cope with assessing the Oscars ceremony without the help of Donald Trump, so fortunately the former president has glided back into our lives for a moment to fill that void.
      Here comes a statement from Trump’s office. It speaks for itself.
      Statement by Donald J Trump, 45th president of the United States of America

      What used to be called The Academy Awards, and now is called the “Oscars”—a far less important and elegant name—had the lowest Television Ratings in recorded history, even much lower than last year, which set another record low. If they keep with the current ridiculous formula, it will only get worse—if that’s possible. Go back 15 years, look at the formula they then used, change the name back to THE ACADEMY AWARDS, don’t be so politically correct and boring, and do it right. ALSO, BRING BACK A GREAT HOST. These television people spend all their time thinking about how to promote the Democrat Party, which is destroying our Country, and cancel Conservatives and Republicans. That formula certainly hasn’t worked very well for The Academy!”

      So that clears that up. More

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      in US Politics

      Only racist ignorance lets Rick Santorum think America was ‘birthed from nothing’ | Nick Estes

      by

      Last week, Rick Santorum repeated a widely held myth of US exceptionalism. “We came here and created a blank slate, we birthed a nation from nothing,” the former US senator and CNN commentator told the rightwing Young America’s Foundation’s summit. “It was born of the people who came here.” His “we” doesn’t include Indigenous people who were already here or African people who were brought in chains. And that “blank slate” required the violent pillaging of two continents – Africa and North America. If the United States was “birthed from nothing”, then the land and enslaved labor that made the wealth of this nation must have fallen from the sky – because it surely didn’t come from Europe.It’s not the first time a CNN employee has espoused anti-Indigenous racism. Last November during live election night coverage, CNN labeled Native American voters as “something else”. The Native American Journalist Association (NAJA) asked CNN to issue an apology, which it refused to do. And just last week, CNN host Poppy Harlow misidentified the Minnesota lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, as “a white woman”. The network has yet to correct the error. NAJA (of which I’m a member) has since called for the firing of Rick Santorum and its membership to avoid working with CNN for its lack of ethics and accountability around various racist views among its staff.Racist depictions of Indigenous people in the media, however, points to a deeper issue. The erasure of Native histories and peoples – which existed long before and despite a white supremacist empire – is a founding principle of the United States. In fact, it’s still codified in US law. So when Rick Santorum and his ilk stress that Europeans possess a divine right to take a continent, create a nation from “nothing”, and maintain cultural superiority, they’re not entirely wrong. It’s the default position with a long sordid history.And maybe Santorum and his kind are right when they position the US as a Christian theocratic nation. After all, the founding principles of land theft, enslavement and dispossession stem from religious justifications. A 1493 papal decree known as the doctrine of discovery, justified the Christian European conquest of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. As secretary of state in 1792, Thomas Jefferson declared the doctrine, implemented by European states, was international law and thus applied to the nascent United States as well.Those views later inspired the Monroe doctrine, the assertion of US supremacy over the western hemisphere, and manifest destiny, the ideological justification of US westward expansion and colonization. An 1823 US supreme court case, Johnson v M’Intosh, upheld the doctrine, privileging European nations, and successors like the United States, title via “discovery” over Indigenous lands. Indigenous nations and sovereignty, the court ruled, “were necessarily diminished”.Such a legal and political reality for Indigenous people is so taken for granted that it is rarely mentioned in history books let alone mainstream commentary. Instead, a culture of amnesia permeates the United Sates. But purposeful forgetting can’t erase intent, it only perpetuates injury. Erasure makes the taking of Indigenous land easier.Although the United States quickly accuses other nations of genocide, it hasn’t acknowledged its own genocide against Indigenous people. To affirm it would mean to take measures to prevent it from happening again. That would mean halting ongoing theft and destruction of Indigenous lands, cultures and nations. A process of justice would have to follow suit. An entire legal order that underpins the backwards racist views and practices towards Indigenous people would have to be overturned. Indigenous land and political rights would have to be restored. A savage nation built of untold violence would have to be finally civilized and make amends with the people and nations it has attempted to destroy. After all the elimination of Indigenous nations was not only about taking the land, it was also about destroying an alternative – a world based on making and being in good relations versus that of a racialized class system based on property and conquest.That world still exists, and its stories still need to be told by Indigenous people.That’s a tall order that takes willpower, courage, and truth-telling we simply don’t see emanating from corporate newsrooms like CNN, to say nothing of political and ruling elite in this country. Firing Rick Santorum won’t solve these deep-seated inequalities and anti-Indigenous racism. But Indigenous genocide denial – the ultimate cancel culture – should have no platform if we are to finally transcend the 15th century racialist views codified in the doctrine of discovery. More

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      in US Politics

      Republicans still orbiting Trump dark star fail to derail Biden’s first 100 days

      by

      For Democrats it has been a hundred days of sweeping legislation, barrier-breaking appointments and daring to dream big. For Republicans, a hundred days in the political wilderness.The party that just four years ago controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress now finds itself shut out of power and struggling to find its feet. As Joe Biden forges ahead with ambitions to shift the political paradigm, Republicans still have a Donald Trump problem.The former US president remains the unofficial leader of the party and exerts a massive gravitational pull on its senators, representatives, governors and state parties. Obsessed with “culture wars” and voter fraud, the Trump distortion field has made it difficult for Republicans to move on.“Trump is like a fire,” said Ed Rogers, a political consultant and a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush administrations. “Too close and you get burned. Too far away, you’re out in the cold. So the party spends a lot of time talking about the fire, managing the fire, orbiting the fire. It takes a lot of energy out of the party.”Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was the last time Democrats swept the board of White House, House of Representatives and Senate. On that occasion conservatives exploited the financial crisis to stir resentment about government spending, giving rise to the Tea Party and winning back the House in the midterm elections.It’s a lot easier to grift on people’s fears of other people and prey on their concerns about culture wars that really don’t existBut this time looks very different. Republicans were forced to watch from the sidelines as Biden oversaw the distribution of 200m coronavirus vaccination doses while bringing down unemployment. They failed to find a coherent line of attack on his $1.9tn Covid relief package, which opinion polls showed was popular with the public, including Republican voters.Instead of setting out a clear alternative agenda, the party has spent much of the past three months wading into issues that animate the Trump base, such as the rights of transgender athletes and the withdrawal of six Dr Seuss books due to racist content. In this policy vacuum “cancel culture” and “wokeness” are the rallying cries while the loudest voices, such as Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, are also the most extreme.Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “When you don’t have a plan you go to what you think you’re good at and that is creating tensions and divisions that move people emotionally rather than practically. So the reality is, you’re going to talk about Dr Seuss when you have nothing to say about Covid-19. You’re going to talk about transgender issues when you have nothing to say on infrastructure.”He added: “It’s a lot easier to grift on people’s fears of other people and prey on their concerns about culture wars that really don’t exist. But at the end of the day, when you’re watching family members get sick and die, when you’ve lost your business, when you’ve been fired from your job in the midst of a global pandemic, you don’t give a damn about Dr Seuss.”Republicans have also passed new voting restriction laws to appease activists pushing Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from him. When corporations raised objections to such measures in Georgia, the party lashed out and called into question its longstanding relationship with big business – a further sign of identity crisis under Trump.Its efforts to stall Biden’s momentum, for example by focusing on a sharp increase of migrants at the US-Mexico border, have fallen short; the president has a 59% approval rating, according to Pew Research Center study.Trump’s charge of “Sleepy Joe” has failed to stick as the 78-year-old president’s verbal slips prove relatively rare, while Biden’s identity as a white male has shielded him from base instincts that were whipped up against Obama and Hillary Clinton. And his longstanding reputation as a non-threatening moderate has made it hard for Republicans to credibly define him as a dangerous radical.Steele commented: “This goes back to the campaign. They tried to paint this guy a certain way and put him in a box. He’s just not boxable the way politically Republicans would like to box him in: try to create this impression this guy is some leftwing dictator or wolf in sheep’s clothing.“People have a 50-year relationship with this man. They know who he is and so that has not helped them the way it may have served them with someone like Barack Obama, who the country largely didn’t know when he first came on to the scene.”The iron laws of politics suggest that, if Republicans remain patient, Biden will suffer a major stumble or setback sooner or later. The coronavirus may prove stubbornly durable, the border crisis may flare up again or there may be some entirely unpredictable lightning strike. Even in the current climate, Republicans remain confident of winning back the House next year given that a first-term president’s party usually struggles in the midterms.Trump is still sucking all of the oxygen out of the room for RepublicansNothing can be taken for granted, however, in a world shaken by both Trump’s election and a pandemic that cost half a million American lives. Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist, said: “Talking about the border when everybody cares about Covid and the economy, talking about Dr Seuss, is not the way to electoral victory.“Biden is on a pretty steady course to deal with the pandemic and get the economy open and, if he does that and does it well, he has a chance to be the third president in a hundred years to do well in the midterms after his initial election.”Typically a party that has taken an electoral beating holds a postmortem and regroups in an effort to broaden its appeal. Republicans might also have been expected to reckon with the deadly 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol and change course.But Trump continues to cast a long shadow from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where a procession of party leaders have paid homage. The 45th president told Fox News last week that he will campaign aggressively during the midterms and is “very seriously” considering running for the White House again in 2024, ensuring that the party remains paralysed.Monika McDermott, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York, observed: “He is still sucking all of the oxygen out of the room for Republicans. Some of them seem satisfied with that, some of them don’t, but no one seems able to overcome that on behalf of the party or to put themselves forward to be an alternative to Trump in terms of leading the party. So at this point, they’re stuck with him.” More

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      in US Politics

      CNN urged to fire Rick Santorum after racist comments on Native Americans

      by

      The former US senator and CNN political commentator Rick Santorum has sparked outrage among Native Americans, and prompted calls for his dismissal, by telling a rightwing students’ conference that European colonists who came to America “birthed a nation from nothing”.“There was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture,” Santorum told the ultra-conservative Young America’s Foundation’s summit, entitled standing up for faith and freedom, and shared by the group to YouTube.“We came here and created a blank slate, we birthed a nation from nothing,” he said.Santorum’s comments, effectively dismissing the millennia-long presence of Native Americans and the genocide inflicted on them as the Christian settlers transformed and expanded their colonies into the United States of America, angered many within the Native American community, and beyond.“The erasure of Native people and histories, which existed before and survived in spite of a white supremacist empire, is a foundational sin of a make-believe nation,” the activist Nick Estes, a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux tribe and host of the Red Nation podcast, said on Twitter.“According to Rick Santorum, the US was founded as a ‘Judeo-Christian’ theocratic state. He might be right about that, but the idea that the first colonizers escaped religious persecution is laughable. Invasion was an economic enterprise for god, glory, and gold.”In his remarks, Santorum, a two-term US senator for Pennsylvania and a twice-failed candidate for the Republican party’s presidential nomination, likened the colonization of Native lands to an act of religious freedom.“I don’t know of any other country in the world that was settled predominantly by people who were coming to practice their faith,” Santorum said. “They came here because they were not allowed to practice their particular faith in their own country.”Others were outraged but not surprised by the comments of Santorum, who joined CNN as a senior political commentator in 2017.“Rick Santorum is just saying what the majority of Americans silently believe – the only ‘real history’ is US history,” said Brett Chapman, a Native American attorney and descendant of Chief Standing Bear, the first Native Indian to win civil rights in the US.“Everything centers around it. Many claim to appreciate and respect Native history yet know nothing about it. Let’s not act like he’s some lone wolf out there on this.”The Cherokee writer Rebecca Nagle pointed to CNN’s lack of Native American commentators, while giving a platform to Santorum, who has previously made offensive and false claims about other minority communities.On Monday, the Native American Journalists Association cautioned Native American and Alaska Native reporters from working with, or applying for jobs, at CNN in the wake of continued racist comments and insensitive reporting directed at Indigenous people.Last week, a CNN host incorrectly identified Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, as a white woman. The network has yet to correct its mistake.Politicians also weighed in. “Seriously is anyone surprised to hear this hot garbage coming from Rick Santorum?” Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said in a tweet. “Nothing was here?! No native American culture in American culture?! America hasn’t changed?!”Mark Pocan, Democratic congressman for Wisconsin, was even more critical. “Native & Indigenous nations lived, governed, and thrived here before their land was stolen and they were murdered in a mass genocide, you ignorant white supremacist,” he wrote.Meanwhile, Nick Knudsen, executive director of DemCast USA, a digital hub of Democratic opinion and online activism, said it was “long past time” for CNN to cut ties with Santorum, whose extreme views have become a lightning rod for controversy in recent years.In 2015, he insisted the US supreme court would not have the final say on same-sex marriage, the same year he said he regretted his comments from a decade earlier comparing homosexuality to bestiality.In 2018, shortly after a former student killed 17 teenagers and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, Santorum taunted survivors who formed themselves into gun reform campaigners.“How about kids, instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that?” he said on CNN’s State of the Union.The politician, who claimed the survivors’ March for Our Lives group was supported by “Hollywood elites and liberal billionaires”, later tried to distance himself from his comments, claiming that he misspoke.In a statement, the National Congress of American Indians, the nation’s largest organization representing American Indian and Alaska Native groups, criticized the former senator.“Rick Santorum is an unhinged and embarrassing racist who disgraces CNN and any other media company that provides him a platform,” Fawn Sharp, the group’s president, said.She said Santorum’s assertion that settlers birthed a nation were wrong. “What European colonizers found in the Americas were thousands of complex, sophisticated and sovereign Tribal Nations, each with millennia of distinct cultural, spiritual and technological development,” she said.“Hopefully, sophisticated and humane Native American philosophy will win out over the caveman mentality of people like Rick Santorum.”CNN did not respond to a request from the Guardian for comment.In a brief statement to the Guardian issued through a spokesperson on Monday afternoon, Santorum said: “I had no intention of minimizing or in any way devaluing Native American culture.” More

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      Josh Hawley attacks ‘woke capitalism’ and claims to be victim of cancel culture

      by

      In a new book, the Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri attacks what he calls “woke capitalism” and claims to be a victim of cancel culture over his actions around the Capitol attack of 6 January.Hawley, 41, is a leading figure on the far right of the Republican party, jostling to inherit Donald Trump’s populist crown and with it the presidential nomination in 2024.The Tyranny of Big Tech will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.In his introduction, Hawley seeks to defend his actions surrounding what he calls the “grisly riot” at the US Capitol which was stormed by a pro-Trump mob in scenes of violence that shocked the world and cost five lives.But he does not mention his most controversial act: raising a fist in solidarity with Trump supporters told by the then president to march on the building and “fight like hell” in service of his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.Hawley’s gesture became a worldwide symbol of a riot in which the mob roamed the halls Congress, in some cases looking for lawmakers to kidnap or kill. More than 400 people have been charged.Later on 6 January, in a process delayed by the riot and with the world in shock, Republicans in the House and Senate went through with formal objections to results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, states which Biden won.Hawley objected to the Pennsylvania result. In Arizona, Republicans are proceeding with a hugely controversial audit which Trump has backed. Had the two states been overturned, Biden would still be president.Publisher Simon & Schuster dropped Hawley’s book, only for it to be swiftly picked up by Regnery, a conservative imprint for which Simon & Schuster handles distribution.That notwithstanding, Hawley writes: “This is the book the corporate monopolies did not want you to read.”He also claims “not [to have] encourag[ed] the riot, as the publisher certainly knew” and says he “fiercely condemned the violence and the thugs who perpetrated it”.He says his “sin” was to formally object to election results in one state, “precisely as permitted by law” and as Democrats had done before.Hawley writes that he was “branded a ‘seditionist’ and worse. But like many others attacked by the corporations and the left, my real crime was to have challenged the reign of the woke capitalists.”On Monday, the senator responded to this story on Twitter.“Oh dear,” he wrote. “I’ve offended the delicate sensibilities of The Guardian! I didn’t get their approval before I wrote my book. Order a copy today and own the libs.”On the page, Google and Facebook are among Hawley’s main targets, in part for their exploitation of user data. He does not discuss his own links with donor Peter Thiel, founder of the tech firm Palantir, which became embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.Hawley has introduced the “Bust Up Big Tech Act” and found some common ground with Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat seeking antitrust reform. But the Republican remains a leading troll for liberal discontent. Last week, his was the sole vote against an anti-Asian hate crimes bill which 94 senators backed.On Monday, meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that more than 200 staff members at Simon & Schuster had signed and delivered a petition demanding the company cease all dealings with people connected to the Trump administration.The petition, reportedly supported by “several thousand outside supporters, including well-known Black writers”, followed the company’s rejection last week of a staff demand it not publish two books by former vice-president Mike Pence. More

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      in US Politics

      US lawmakers ‘making progress’ on police reform – but it’s still early stages

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      In the aftermath of former police officer Derek Chauvin being convicted of murdering George Floyd, it seems like there is momentum for the US Congress to pass some kind of police reform bill.Hearings on policing have been held and point people on both the Democratic and Republican sides are in ongoing talks. By most metrics, Congress is in a comfortable position to pass some kind of bill meant to deter police brutality and prevent another George Floyd or Eric Garner.But this is Congress in 2021. There have been plenty of moments where bipartisanship seemed high and failure seemed remote right before failure became certain. As a result, and despite the intense societal reckoning over racism playing out in America, there are few people who see the passing of meaningful new laws as a guaranteed outcome.Yet people are talking. “I’m optimistic that we’re making progress. I’m confident that I’m going to negotiate with people at the table and no one else,” Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said during a brief interview on Thursday.Scott’s comments came on a day where there was a flurry of movement among the principal lawmakers who will have to be involved in some kind of compromise bill’s passage. The New Jersey senator Cory Booker led a committee hearing on policing reform. The California congresswoman Karen Bass, who sponsored the ill-fated George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, engaged in early discussions with Scott and other members of Congress.Scott had met with Bass on Thursday and said those conversations went “well” but wouldn’t elaborate on specifics or sticking points in a compromise bill.Outside of Congress, high-profile lawmakers have called for passage of some kind of policing bill.Convicting the man who murdered George Floyd was just the first step toward accountability. Join me and the @NAACP_LDF in calling your senators to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to save lives. pic.twitter.com/9v5XoFxGfs— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 22, 2021
      Joe Biden has publicly urged Congress to make another attempt at passing a policing reform bill.“George Floyd was murdered almost a year ago,” the president said in remarks from the White House, adding: “It shouldn’t take a whole year to get this done.”Republicans argued that the Democrat bill put too much power and responsibility at the federal level. So Scott, after being appointed as the point-person on crafting a policing reform bill by the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, pushed his own policing reform bill in 2020 only to have Senate Democrats filibuster it. Scott’s bill proposed to use federal grant money to incentivize police departments to use body cameras and tactics for deescalating situations.But by the end of 2020 a policing reform bill looked like it would stay in the legislative graveyard. Republicans refused to sign on to Democrats’ policing bill and Democrats viewed the Republican counteroffer as a non-starter.In March, after Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, the chamber passed the George Floyd Policing Act. But since then it’s faced ongoing opposition from Republicans in the Senate. The legislation bars law enforcement from engaging in racial profiling, prohibits chokeholds and no-knock warrants. It also creates a national police misconduct registry.But in April 2021 it’s too early to say whether this policing reform momentum is on the same trajectory as in 2020. Discussions, according to multiple congressional aides, are very much in the earliest stages.The presence of Scott at the table is important.“McConnell and the conference trust Scott generally, and on this issue especially because of his past work on it,” said a former Senate Republican leadership chief of staff. “If there’s going to be a bipartisan reform bill that actually comes together this year, the conference trusts him to come up with a compromise that the majority of them will be able to support.”Scott has signaled areas of compromise, such as on qualified immunity where responsibility would fall to police departments instead of individual officers.Talks about sticking points aren’t in full swing yet. Congressional leaders are encouraging early bipartisan talks though. All lawmakers will say, though, is that early progress is being made.“Look, I’ve encouraged Senator Booker to talk to Senator Scott and see if they can come up with something. They are making progress. I’m not going to get into the details of their discussions,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer of New York said. “But if we could come up with a strong bill that deals with this systemic bias that’s been in our police forces for far too long, that would be great. So I’ve encouraged them to talk to one another, and their discussions are making some progress.” More

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      Arizona Republicans deploy Cyber Ninjas in pro-Trump election audit

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      Months after Donald Trump’s election defeat, Republicans in Arizona are challenging the outcome with an unprecedented effort to audit results in their most populous county – all run by a Florida company, Cyber Ninjas, with no elections experience.The state senate used its subpoena power to take possession of all 2.1m ballots in Maricopa county and the machines that counted them, along with computer hard drives full of data. The materials were then handed to Cyber Ninjas, a consultancy run by a man who has shared unfounded conspiracy theories claiming official election results are illegitimate.Elections professionals fear the process will severely undermine faith in democracy.“I think the activities that are taking place here are reckless and they in no way, shape or form resemble an audit,” said Jennifer Morrell, a partner at The Elections Group, a consulting firm advising state and local officials which has not worked in Arizona.Conspiracy theories about Joe Biden’s victory have had particular staying power in Arizona, which went Democratic for just the second time in 72 years. On Friday, Trump predicted the audit would reveal fraud and prompt similar reviews in other states he lost.“Thank you state senators and others in Arizona for commencing this full forensic audit,” he said in a statement. “I predict the results will be startling!”Cyber Ninjas began a manual recount on Friday, a day after Democrats asked a judge to put an end to the audit. The judge ordered the company to follow ballot and voter secrecy laws and demanded it turn over written procedures and training manuals before a hearing on Monday. He offered to pause the count over the weekend if Democrats posted a $1m bond to cover added expenses. The party declined.On a since-deleted Twitter account, Cyber Ninjas owner Doug Logan used hashtags and shared memes popular with people promoting unsupported allegations casting doubt on Biden’s victory. Logan says his personal views are irrelevant because he is running a transparent audit with video streamed online.“There’s a lot of Americans here, myself included, that are really bothered by the way our country is being ripped apart right now,” Logan said. “We want a transparent audit to be in place so that people can trust the results and can get everyone on the same page.”Logan refuses to disclose who is paying him or who is counting the ballots, and will not commit to using bipartisan teams for the process.The Republican-dominated Arizona senate refuses to let media observe the count. Reporters can accept a six-hour shift as an official observer but photography and note-taking are prohibited. It would be a violation of journalistic ethics for reporters to participate in an event they were covering.The state senate has put up $150,000 for the audit but Logan has acknowledged that is not enough to cover his expenses. A rightwing cable channel, One America News Network, raised money from unknown contributors which went directly to Cyber Ninjas. Logan would not commit to disclosing the donors and would not provide an estimate for the cost of his audit.Cyber Ninjas plans to have teams of three people manually count each ballot, looking only at the presidential and US Senate contests, which were won by Democrats.Logan said the counters were members of law enforcement and the military as well as retirees. He would not say how many were Democrats or Republicans and would not commit to ensuring the counting teams are bipartisan.The process was to be overseen by volunteers. As of a week ago, 70% were Republicans, according to Ken Bennett, a Republican former secretary of state serving as a liaison between the Senate and the auditors.Cyber Ninjas plans to review ballot-counting machines and data and to scan the composition of fibers in paper ballots in search of fakes. It plans to go door-to-door in select precincts to ask people if they voted. Logan was vague about how the precincts were chosen but said a statistical analysis was done “based on voter histories”.The audit has been beset by mistakes. Hand counters began the day using blue pens, which are banned in ballot counting rooms because they can be read by ballot machines. A crew from a group of Phoenix television stations, azfamily, had unfettered access to the supposedly secure facility as auditors were setting up equipment and receiving ballots and machines.Election experts said hand counts are prone to errors and questioned a lack of transparent procedures for adjudicating voter intent.Maricopa county conducted pre- and post-election reviews to check the accuracy of voting machines, including a hand count of a representative sample of ballots, as required by state law. The county hired two auditing firms that reported no malicious software or incorrect counting equipment.“We’re going to set up a new norm where we don’t accept the outcome of elections in a free and fair and just democracy, and that is the core of what is at stake here,” said Tammy Patrick, senior adviser at the Democracy Fund and a former Maricopa county elections official.“I think that is incredibly, incredibly problematic.” More