Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Caitlyn Jenner reportedly considering run for California governor

      by

      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterCaitlyn Jenner, the TV star and Olympic champion, is reportedly considering a run for California governor.The Axios reporter Jonathan Swan on Tuesday reported that Jenner is working with GOP fundraiser Caroline Wren to explore running against the California governor, Gavin Newsom, in an impending recall election. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times said on Wednesday that former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is advising Jenner on building her team.The recall campaign against Newsom, a Democrat, is spearheaded by Republicans who opposed the governor’s pandemic-era business shutdowns, as well as his immigration and tax policies.The campaign said in March it had filed the signatures needed to call an election to remove Newsom from office. If election officials are able to validate at least 1.5m signatures by the end of this month, the state will hold a recall election this year. Voters will choose first whether they want to recall Newsom and then who they would like to replace him.The recall campaign gained traction amid the previous coronavirus surge, with support from big business donors and a few Silicon Valley venture capitalists. The Republicans currently running against Newsom include the former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer; the conservative activist Mike Cernovich; and John Cox, who lost to Newsom in 2018 by 23 points. Strategists say that none of these candidates have an easy path to victory in a state that leans heavily Democratic.Some recall supporters say that a big-name Republican like Jenner would change the dynamics of the race. In the 2003 recall of former California governor Gray Davis, it was the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to run against Davis that helped energize the effort. Schwarzenegger ultimately replaced Davis.Jenner, a former Olympic medalist who starred in Keeping Up with the Kardashians, has been critical of Donald Trump’s views on trans rights, but has ultimately aligned with the Republican party on many major issues. Wren, who worked for Trump’s 2020 campaign fundraising committee and helped organize the rally that preceded the 6 January Capitol attack, connected with Jenner through a GOP nonprofit focused on LGBT issues, according to Axios.Democrats in California and in DC have aligned themselves with Newsom. The progressive Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has thrown his support behind Newsom, and Kamala Harris – a longtime friend of the California governor – appeared alongside him Monday during her visit to the state and praised him as “a real champion in California and outside of California”.The governor’s approval rating dropped from an early-pandemic peak, but it remains relatively strong in recent polls. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found 56% of likely voters would oppose a recall. More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden urges Republicans to back $2tn infrastructure plan: ‘Inaction is not an option’

      by

      Joe Biden has made a heartfelt plea for Republicans to work with him on a $2tn infrastructure plan, casting it as essential to preserving America’s superpower status and warning: “Inaction simply is not an option.”The US president signalled that he is open to negotiating his proposed corporate tax rate of 28% to fund the package. It represents a sharp increase from the 21% levy set by his predecessor Donald Trump’s tax bill in 2017, though is lower than the 35% rate under Barack Obama.But Biden also became fiery as he sounded the alarm about a nation in decline, investing less in infrastructure now than it did 25 years ago and in danger of losing an existential struggle with China.Biden’s promise as a candidate to seek bipartisanship has run into a wall of Republican opposition so far, first to his $1.9tn coronavirus relief package and now to his $2tn infrastructure investment – though opinion polls suggest both are popular with Republican voters.On Wednesday, with Kamala Harris, the vice-president, at his side at the Eisenhower Office Building in Washington, he continued to walk the line of trying to appeal across the aisle while bluntly making clear that he will push ahead if necessary.Promising that he and Harris will meet both Democrats and Republicans in the next few weeks, Biden said: “Debate is welcome. Compromise is inevitable. Changes are certain … We’ll be listening. We’ll be open to good ideas and good faith negotiations but here’s what we won’t be open to. We will not be open to doing nothing. Inaction simply is not an option.”Republican opposition to the American Jobs Plan has focused on the tax hikes and what they contend is an overly broad definition of infrastructure. The president sought to neutralise that argument.“Two hundred years ago, trains weren’t traditional infrastructure either, until America made a choice to lay down tracks across the country,” he said. “Highways weren’t traditional infrastructure until we allowed ourselves to imagine that roads could connect our nation across state lines.“The idea of infrastructure has always evolved to meet the aspirations of the American people and their needs, and it’s evolving again today. We need to start seeing infrastructure through its effect on the lives of working people in America.”High-speed internet, an electric grid that will not collapse in a winter storm, investing in “Made in America” goods from every community, pipes that provide clean drinking water, clean energy and facilities for military veterans are all part of the foundation of 21st-century living, Biden continued.The job creation potential is immense, he said, including for a people without a college degree – a demographic that has backed Donald Trump in presidential elections. “This is a blue-collar blueprint for increasing opportunity for the American people.”Biden attempted to draw a line from the personal – “How many of you know when you send your child to school the fountain they’re drinking out of is not fed by lead pipe?” – to the geopolitical, suggesting that in coming months much will be written about how China and the rest of the world is racing ahead of the US in investing in the future.“It used to be we invested almost 2.7% of our GDP in infrastructure. Now it’s about 0.7%. When we were investing it, we were the leader in the world. I don’t know why we don’t get this. One of the few major economies in the world whose public investment in research and development has declined as a percentage of GDP over the last 25 years.”These aren’t Republican bridges, Democratic airports, Republican hospitals or a Democratic power gridVisibly angry, he boomed: “Declined! The United States of America, that led the world!”As in previous speeches, Biden framed the imperative as in the context of competition with China and a fundamental battle for the future between democracies and autocracies.Beijing is not waiting to invest in digital infrastructure, research and development, he said. “But they’re counting on American democracy to be too slow, too limited and too divided to keep pace.“We have to show the world and, much more important, we have to show ourselves that democracy works, that we can come together on the big things. It’s the United States of America, for God’s sake.”Partisan divisions should not stop America doing the right thing for the future, Biden added. “These aren’t Republican bridges, Democratic airports, Republican hospitals or a Democratic power grid … We’re at an inflection point in American democracy. This is a moment where we prove whether or not democracy can deliver.”Biden insisted he is open to ideas on how to pay for the plan but again ruled out tax increases on people making less than $400,000 a year. The corporate tax rate used to be 35%, he noted, but Trump reduced it to 21%. “What I’m proposing is we meet in the middle: 28%.”Later, questioned by reporters, he said he might accept a rate below 28% so long as the projects are financed. “I’m willing to listen to that. I’m wide open, but we gotta pay for this. We gotta pay for this.“There’s many other ways we can do it. But I am willing to negotiate that. I’ve come forward with the best, most rational way, in my view the fairest way, to pay for it, but there are many other ways as well. And I’m open.”But a Twitter exchange on Wednesday made clear the steep climb Biden faces to work with Republicans, many of whom remain in thrall to Trump.Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democratic senator, tweeted: “Paid leave is infrastructure. Child care is infrastructure. Caregiving is infrastructure.”Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, replied: “So what ISN’T infrastructure?” More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      How Republicans are trying to prevent people from voting after ‘stop the steal’

      by

      At campaign rallies, Donald Trump specialized in crafting political slogans whose catchiness obscured the lack of actual policy behind them: lock her up, America First, build the wall, drain the swamp.But there was one Trump slogan that turned out to have a shocking amount of policy behind it – hundreds of pieces of legislation nationwide in just the last three months, in fact, constituting the most coordinated, organized and determined Republican push on any political issue in recent memory.The slogan was “stop the steal,” a tendentious reference to Trump’s big lie about the November election result.And the policy behind it was aggressive voter suppression, targeting people of color, urbanites, low-income communities and other groups whose full participation in future elections is seen by Republicans as a threat.For decades, conservatives have made limited government, lower taxes, “family” values, religious freedom, public safety, national security and restrictions on abortion the centerpiece of their pitch to voters.In 2021, those issues have been joined on the party platform by – and sometimes seem to be eclipsed by – a bold new policy proposal: prevent voting.“What’s different now is the absolute overt nature of this,” said the political analyst Lincoln Mitchell, an author and international elections observer.“In fairness to the Republicans, voter suppression has a long history in the United States that is not located in one party, but it’s located in one ideology, and that ideology is white supremacy,” Mitchell continued. “So for much of the post-Reconstruction period, until say 1970 or 1980 or so, that was either primarily the Democratic party – think of the old Dixiecratic south – or in both parties.”“It is only in the last 40ish years that it has become a Republican issue.”Since the November election, Republican state legislatures across the country have introduced more than 250 bills creating barriers to voting, cutting early voting, purging voter rolls, limiting absentee options and now, in Georgia, outlawing giving someone stuck in a 10-hour line a bottle of water.John Kavanagh, a Republican state representative from Arizona, articulated the underlying thinking in an interview last month on CNN. “Everybody shouldn’t be voting,” he said. The lawmaker later clarified that he thinks “all legally eligible voters should vote, but I do not want to register people who are disinterested and do not want to be registered to vote.”The same, less subtle message was delivered by Trump himself at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this past February. In his speech, the former president unraveled a 10-minute-long list of proposed suppression tactics, all of which state legislatures have since attempted to make into law, with some success.It’s not a coincidence that these bills are being introduced after a free and fair and secure election with record turnout“We should eliminate the insanity of mass and very corrupt mail-in voting,” Trump said, additionally calling for strict new voter ID laws, signature matching and citizenship verification at polling stations.Sylvia Albert, national voting and elections director of the government watchdog group Common Cause, called Republicans’ voter suppression efforts “shameless”.“These bills are shameless, partisan efforts to silence us,” Albert said in a media briefing last week. “And it’s not a coincidence that these bills are being introduced after a free and fair and secure election with record turnout. Americans exercised their right to vote and, in response, these politicians are saying, ‘actually, we didn’t really want you to vote’.”In Georgia, the Republican governor signed a law last month making it harder to vote by mail, nearly eliminating ballot drop boxes and giving the state legislature more power over elections. In the Pennsylvania state general assembly, Republicans have introduced more than 50 voter suppression bills. A Texas bill would require proof of disability if voting by mail.The Michigan legislature is set to consider 39 bills targeting voting rights, especially voting by mail. Arizona Republicans have introduced vote-by-mail restrictions, the purge of more than 100,000 people from a permanent early voting list with little notice, and a bill making it a potential felony to forward a ballot to a relative.“The Republican party is aware that in their current ideological formation, that if American democracy is modernized so that people have voting rights comparable to other democracies, they will lose control for a generation,” said Mitchell. “They will basically be out of national politics.”Quentin Turner, Michigan program director for Common Cause, said that Republican suppression efforts in the state targeted communities of color, particularly a proposal to restrict access to absentee ballot drop boxes after 5pm.“A lot of working-class people in Michigan, in Detroit especially, may not be out or done with their day by 5pm,” said Turner. “So they may not be able to go to a drop box that’s close to them.“While it doesn’t specifically say in the bill that it’s targeting Black and brown voters, the nature of the specifications of the prohibition would have a larger adverse impact in those communities.”The overtly racist nature of voter suppression has created what could be a political hazard for Republicans. Under pressure from activists, corporations have begun to condemn the laws, with American Airlines announcing on Thursday that it was “strongly opposed” to suppression legislation in Texas. Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines and Home Depot face a boycott call for what activists say was too little action, too late, against voter suppression in Georgia.Voter suppression efforts could also backfire on Republicans if they limit the participation of an unintended group of voters – for example elderly voters no longer able to vote by mail – or increase the turnout of targeted groups galvanized by the assault on the franchise, as in Georgia’s two Senate runoff elections this past January.“African Americans in the south have gone through a lot to vote, historically,” Mitchell said. “This is an undemocratic, racist barrier, but it’s a barrier put in front of a people that are used to undemocratic, racist barriers. And they are not afraid of that. And we saw that, twice, in Georgia.“‘They’re trying to stop us from voting? Screw them, let’s get even more people out.’” More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump’s obsession with Deep State conspiracy 'delusional', John Boehner says

      by

      Donald Trump’s obsession with the Deep State conspiracy theory, which holds that a permanent secret government of bureaucrats and intelligence officials existed to thwart his agenda in office, was destructive and delusional, John Boehner says in a new book.“Let me be diplomatic here,” the former speaker writes in the memoir, On the House. “That’s horseshit.”Boehner’s view chimes with that of Steve Bannon, a key propagator of the theory who was Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016 and a senior White House strategist.Trump, senior aide Stephen Miller and others have repeatedly blamed the Deep State for their problems. Bannon has said the theory is “for nut cases” and “none of this is true”.Boehner was a congressman from Ohio for 24 years, a figure in the Washington firmament, House speaker from 2011 until his retirement in 2015 – a period he spent in fierce opposition to Barack Obama.His memoir will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.His criticism of Trump comes as no surprise, not least because an extract of the book ran in Politico last week. Boehner is heavily critical of Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. Leading figures in the pro-Trump establishment duly lashed back.The Fox News host Sean Hannity responded to being called “one of the worst” by tweeting: “John Boehner will go down in history as one of the worst Republican speakers in history. He’s weak, timid and what’s up with all the crying John?”Boehner was a famously lachrymose House speaker, apt to tear up in simple nostalgia or when in the presence of the pope.Hannity added: “There was not a single time I was around him when he didn’t just reek of cigarette smoke and wine breath.”Boehner plays up to his somewhat clubbable image, his cover image a portrait with wine glass and cigarette. But his rebuke over the Deep State theory, which Trump, key aides and reporters continue to espouse now he is out of power, may still sting.Boehner examines the wellsprings of the theory, writing: “The Deep State as a boogeyman is not an idea the Trump Republicans invented out of whole cloth.“As long as I’ve been in politics, politicians have railed against this group or that group in Washington as the villains standing in the way of whatever they’re trying to do. I too railed against ‘the establishment’ as a young hothead.”Boehner says there is indeed “an entrenched bureaucracy that likes to protect the status quo”. But he says posturing against it took a “nastier turn” under Trump.Even before the former president took up the lie about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden which was repeatedly thrown out of court but still sent supporters to storm the US Capitol, he claimed the Deep State posed “a threat to democracy itself”.Boehner calls such talk “very destructive – not to mention delusional”, and defends the work of most bureaucrats and also lobbyists.“Playing hardball or ‘creative disruption’ or whatever you want to call it can and does work sometimes,” he writes. “Knee-jerk defenders of President Trump would often say that’s what he was up to whenever there was some new pronouncement of action that didn’t make sense.“Well, they may have been right in some cases … but having to constantly point to the Deep State as this boogeyman responsible for all these problems just seems … weird.” More

    • 188 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Katie Hill: Matt Gaetz backed me but he must quit if nude-photo reports are true

      by

      The Florida Republican congressman Matt Gaetz insisted on Monday he would not resign, amid a scandal over alleged sex trafficking.

      At the same time, the former Democratic congresswoman Katie Hill, who resigned amid a scandal over the non-consensual sharing of explicit images, said she and Gaetz formed an “unlikely friendship”, when he was “one of the few colleagues who came to my defense”.
      Gaetz is reported to have shared nude pictures of women with colleagues. Hill’s pictures were shared and published without her consent.
      Though she paid tribute to Gaetz for supporting her, Hill wrote: “If recent reports are true, he engaged in the very practice he defended me from – and should resign immediately.”
      Federal prosecutors are reportedly examining whether Gaetz and an ally paid or offered gifts in exchange for sex with underaged girls. Part of the investigation is reportedly examining whether Gaetz, 38, had sex with a 17-year-old and violated federal sex trafficking laws.
      The investigation was first reported by the New York Times, which also said Gaetz took ecstasy, an illegal drug. CNN has reported that Gaetz allegedly showed nude photos of women he slept with to colleagues in the House.
      Gaetz denies wrongdoing. He also claims to be the victim of attempted extortion.
      On Monday, he wrote for the Washington Examiner. Saying he wanted to “remind everyone I am a representative in Congress, not a monk, and certainly not a criminal”, he added: “This is how DC works. The guilty and wrong point fingers at the innocent and right … And no, I am absolutely not resigning.”
      He also wrote that his “lifestyle of yesteryear may be different from how I live now, but it was not and is not illegal. I defended Katie Hill’s ‘throuple’ when her own Democratic colleagues wouldn’t. I just didn’t think it was anyone’s business.”
      Hill resigned from Congress in October 2019, amid fallout from an acrimonious divorce and a relationship with a member of staff.
      “Matt was the first member of Congress who publicly and unapologetically defended me,” she wrote for Vanity Fair, “saying that while I might have made mistakes, I was a victim in this circumstance. At one of the darkest moments of my life, when I was feeling more alone than I ever had, Matt stood up for me – and that really mattered.”
      She also said she argued with Gaetz after he spoke about Andrew Gillum, another Florida politician embroiled in scandal, in a way she said was “bi-phobic and bullshit”.
      “We didn’t talk much after that,” Hill said.
      Of Gaetz’s alleged sharing of nude pictures, Hill wrote: “Sharing intimate images or videos of someone without their consent should be illegal, plain and simple. It shouldn’t matter if it was done to hurt someone, as with revenge porn, or to brag about your sexual conquests, like Matt has been accused of doing.
      “In fact, I’ve spent the last few months advocating for a bill called the Shield Act to be included as part of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, which just passed the House and is headed to the Senate. If enacted, it will become a federal crime to knowingly distribute an intimate visual depiction of someone without their permission.
      “While we don’t know enough to determine whether what Matt allegedly did would constitute distribution, this legislation clarifies that it’s a crime whether you intend to hurt someone or not by sharing their images. Even if he was just showing off and meant no harm to those women, it’s still unacceptable.
      “Unfortunately, Matt voted against the bill.”
      Hill has said she considered suicide, telling the Guardian: “I felt that if I just checked out entirely I could never … show that you can make a mistake and recover from it or that you can go through a horrible experience and then rise again.”
      She has published a book, started a podcast and remained active in Democratic politics.
      Gaetz is a prominent Trump ally but he has eagerly attacked Republicans disloyal to the former president. He has received scant support from his own party.
      Last week, Barry Bennett, a former Trump adviser, told the Daily Beast: “For something like this, a 10ft pole is not long enough.” More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      The next Georgia: Texas and Arizona emerge as voting rights battlegrounds

      by

      Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterAs Georgia Republicans face backlash over new sweeping voting restrictions, activists in other states are escalating efforts to oppose similar restrictions advancing in other states.Texas and Arizona have emerged as two of the next major battlegrounds over voting rights. Texas Republicans last week advanced legislation that would limit early voting hours, prohibit drive-thru voting and give partisan poll workers the ability to record voters at the polls, among other measures. In Arizona, Republicans are moving ahead with an audit of ballots from the presidential race while also advancing legislation that would make it harder to vote by mail.Nationally lawmakers have introduced 361 bills to limit access to the ballot in some way, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. Fifty-five of those bills are advancing in legislatures.After companies like Delta and Coca-Cola faced criticism for waiting too long to speak out against the Georgia legislation, advocates have been heartened by swift corporate condemnation of the Texas measure. American Airlines, which is based in Texas, said on Thursday it was “strongly opposed” to the Texas legislation. Microsoft and Dell also spoke out against the measures. Major League Baseball announced on Friday it was moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to Georgia’s sweeping new law.Joe Straus, the former speaker of the Texas house of representatives, also came out against the measures on Thursday, tweeting that businesses had “good reason” to oppose the bill. “Texas should not go down the same path as Georgia. It’s bad for business and, more importantly, it’s bad for our citizens,” he said.Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the Texas chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group, said those statements were significant and could help sway lawmakers, including Dade Phelan, the speaker of the Texas house of representatives. Gutierrez has been involved in fights over voting rights for more than a decade and said he could not recall another instance where there was the kind of broad opposition to the bills that exists now.“A lot of us are thinking that Texas is the next Georgia, but I think the big difference is all these prominent voices weighing in are coming in much earlier,” he said.Attention on Texas, one of the lowest-ranking states for voter turnout in 2020, escalated this week after lawmakers advanced a measure that appears squarely aimed at preventing local officials in urban areas from taking creative measures to expand voting access. In addition to blocking drive-thru and 24-hour voting, two popular options offered in Harris county, home to Houston, in 2020, the law also prevents officials from mailing absentee ballot applications to voters. In addition the bill imposes new requirements on people who assist voters and gives local election officials less flexibility in allocating election equipment.The measures would clearly empower partisan poll watchers. One measure allows poll watchers to record voters at the polls if they “reasonably believe” they are receiving illegal assistance. Another provision makes it harder for local officials in charge of an election precinct to remove poll watchers during voting.“It is a huge deal because of how many incidents we see in Texas of poll watchers misbehaving and needing to be disrupted for a good reason,” Gutierrez said.Texas has, as far as I’m concerned, the most disturbing bill that I have seen“This is an invasion of privacy, it’s an invasion of ballot secrecy, it could be potentially very intimidating,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for the Election Innovation and Research, who works with Republican and Democratic election officials across the country. “Texas has, as far as I’m concerned, the most disturbing bill that I have seen.”In Arizona, a state Joe Biden won by just over 10,000 votes in 2020, activists are also pushing a slew of anti-voting measures. One priority is a bill that would make changes to a list voters can join to automatically receive a mail-in ballot each election. About 75% of Arizona voters are on the list, according to the Associated Press (AP), but lawmakers want to enable the state to remove voters from the list if they don’t vote by mail in at least two consecutive elections. About 200,000 voters who didn’t vote by mail in 2018 or 2020 would be removed from the list, according to the AP.“This is a really important piece of our election system. It’s been in place just like it is for more than a decade. People trust it, they love using it,” said Emily Kirkland, the executive director of Progress Arizona, which is lobbying against many of the proposed changes. “This year, obviously fueled by all the conspiracy theories we saw going into and after the election, Republicans in the state legislature are attacking it.”Advocates are also concerned about another bill that would require voters to provide either their driver’s license or voter registration number along with their birthday when they return a mail-in ballot (Arizona currently uses signature comparison to verify the identity of mail-in voters). Those requirements would pose difficulties for many Native American voters, said Torey Dolan, a Native vote fellow at Indian law clinic at Arizona State University.Dolan said that it can be difficult to find out a voter registration number online and noted that the bill currently did not allow for the use of tribal identification cards as a form of identification. Many Indigenous elders, she noted, were not born in hospitals and have delayed birth certificates, and therefore have approximate birthdays.“Arizona election law, before this cycle, was not equally accessible to Native Americans,” she said. “As more barriers go up, it only exacerbates that gap from access.”Aside from legislation, Arizona Republicans are also moving ahead with more efforts to stoke uncertainty about the results of the 2020 election. The state senate, controlled by Republicans, is moving ahead with a recount and audit of 2.1m ballots in Maricopa county, the state’s most populous, months after the state certified the election. The county has already completed an audit of its voting equipment, which found ballots were counted correctly.One of the four firms the senate hired to lead the audit is led by Doug Logan, who has publicly said he believes there was widespread voter fraud in 2020 and advanced other conspiracy theories about the election, according to the Arizona Mirror.“Can you imagine the outcry if Democrats in Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin in 2016 in a state senate, had decided they wanted to, six months after an election, start an audit of the ballots of an election that was already certified and the people were already in office?” Becker said.“And then they hired the consultant, someone from out of state who had publicly argued that Hillary won the election and the election was fraudulent? That’s a mirror image of what’s happening in Arizona right now.” More