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‘This was a terrible idea’: the incident that broke Republicans’ DeSantis fever
by Evelyn Reynolds 31 August 2024, 16:00
In the end, it wasn’t culture war feuding over restricting LGBTQ+ rights, thwarting Black voters or vilifying immigrants that finally broke Republicans’ DeSantis fever in Florida.Nor was it his rightwing takeover of higher education, the banning of books from school libraries, his restriction of drag shows, or passive assent of neo-Nazis parading outside Disney World waving flags bearing the extremist governor’s name that caused them to finally stand up to him.It was, instead, a love of vulnerable Florida scrub jays; a passion to preserve threatened gopher tortoises; and above all a unanimous desire to speak up for nature in defiance of Ron DeSantis’s mind-boggling plan to pave over thousands of unspoiled acres at nine state parks and erect 350-room hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.The outcry when DeSantis’s department of environmental protection (DEP) unveiled its absurdly named Great Outdoors Initiative last week was immediate, overwhelming and unprecedented. The Republican Florida senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott penned a joint letter slamming an “absolutely ridiculous” proposal to build a golf course at Jonathan Dickinson state park in Martin county. The Republican congressman Brian Mast, usually a reliable DeSantis ally, said it would happen “over my dead body”.Scores of Republican state congress members and senators, whose achievements during the more than five years since DeSantis was elected governor have been largely limited to rubber-stamping his hard-right agenda, lined up to denounce the projects. Many noted the plans had been drawn up in secret, with no-bid contracts destined for mysteriously pre-chosen developers outside the requirements of Florida law.Thousands of environmental advocates and activists swamped multiple state parks on Tuesday in a day of action to protest against not only the ravaging of broad swathes of wildlife habitat, but DeSantis’s lack of transparency and intention to limit public comment to only one hour at each state park during meetings that would be held simultaneously.By Wednesday, DeSantis’s initiative was in effect dead, as the governor, clearly chastened by the unexpected all-quarters challenge to his previously unquestioned authority, furiously back-pedaled at an awkward press conference in Winter Haven.“They’re going back to the drawing board,” he said of plans he conceded were “half-baked” and “not ready for prime time”.Desperately trying to pin blame elsewhere for a misadventure that was very demonstrably his own, he continued: “This is something that was leaked. It was not approved by me, I never saw that. It was intentionally leaked to a leftwing group to try and create a narrative.”His implausible comment denying accountability hung out to dry his own inner circle, notably his communications director, Bryan Griffin, who barely a week earlier was enthusing on X about an “exciting new initiative of the State of Florida … expanding visitor capacity, lodging, and recreation options in state parks”.The volte-face did not go unnoticed. On Thursday, a headline in the Tampa Bay Times questioned: “Is DeSantis losing his grip on Florida?”, the newspaper citing his disastrous run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination as one possible catalyst for the fast-growing revolt.“The DeSantis administration is very tightly controlled and micromanaged from the top down, so the thought that he wasn’t aware of this or didn’t support it, or that somehow the people in those agencies would have pushed a huge plan like that without the governor’s knowledge or support, it’s just ludicrous,” said Aubrey Jewett, political science professor at the University of Central Florida’s school of politics, security and international affairs.“People just don’t freelance and come up with these things on their own. This was a totally self-inflicted political wound, a political error by Governor DeSantis and his administration. There’s just no reason to pursue a policy where you pave over state parks to build golf courses and hotels, right? There’s no demand, nobody was asking for this, and they just decided they were going to do it anyway. It was politically tone deaf.”Jewett said the parks debacle hurt DeSantis on two fronts.“It shows how ill-conceived this plan was, that you not only have Democrats, progressives, environmentalists, objecting to these plans, you also have mainstream Republicans in the legislature and at federal level all saying that this was a terrible idea,” he said.“It also shows DeSantis has lost some of the grip he’s had on Florida politics for the last four years. It didn’t seem like anyone or anything could stand up to him, and nor did most Republicans want to. He hit home run after home run, right? He’d pick an issue, exploit it, push it, and Republican conservatives were like, ‘Yeah, let’s go get those liberals, let’s go get those woke people.’ He just seemed to be on a winning streak.“They also didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him because he showed time and again that if you crossed him, he would come after you, he’d be politically vindictive.“Well, now it’s totally changed. We have virtually every big-name Republican in the state coming out and saying this was a terrible idea. This incident really highlights perhaps how far DeSantis has fallen in terms of political control and impact on Florida.”DeSantis, meanwhile, denied he ever had such a grip. Pressed further on the state park humiliation at a Thursday press conference, the governor said anybody who thought he was dictating anything was “misunderstanding politics”.“I’ve never categorized [it] as me having a grip on anything,” he told reporters, according to Florida Politics, insisting he merely had “an ability to set an agenda and deliver the agenda” working with lawmakers.Delighted Florida Democrats, naturally, seized the moment. State party chair Nikki Fried retweeted the article and alluded to animosity during the Republican primary campaign between Donald Trump and the governor he repeatedly demeaned.“I don’t know who is having more fun: Trump watching DeSantis losing power, or DeSantis watching Trump losing this election,” she wrote.Jewett doubts DeSantis, who will be termed out of office in January 2027, can be quite so effective during his remaining months in the governor’s mansion – especially with the Republican-dominated Florida legislature rediscovering its spine.“Without a clear political path forward to something bigger, he really is just one more lame duck governor with two years to go. He can’t be re-elected, and it becomes a little more difficult to influence people because they know you’re going to be gone,” he said.“It’s entirely possible that the legislature may become a more coequal branch again and stand up for themselves. It’s still going to be dominated by Republican conservatives and DeSantis is still conservative, so on a lot of things they’ll be on the same page.“But right now, your normal allies on the Republican side are giving you just as much grief as anybody else, and it’s entirely self-inflicted. You step on a rake and boom, the handle comes up and hits you right on the nose.” More
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Who is running for president in 2024? Harris, Trump and the full list of candidates
by Evelyn Reynolds 28 August 2024, 20:06
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The 2024 election season is well under way.The campaign was marked by a consequential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, followed by weeks of pressure on Biden following his debate performance, culminating in his announcement that he would drop out of the race.As Biden reconsidered his re-election, there was an attempted assassination against Trump, followed by the naming of the Ohio senator JD Vance as the Republican vice-presidential pick.After Biden’s surprise announcement, he backed his vice-president, Kamala Harris, as his choice to replace him on the party’s ticket. Harris quickly secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic pick. She tapped the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate, and both were confirmed as their party’s nominees at the Democratic convention in August.Also in August, Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent candidate with no shortage of wild stories, suspended his campaign and threw his support behind Trump.Here is the full list of candidates as of 27 August, including some long-shots who hope to challenge the major party candidates in November..gu-candidate-container.svelte-yah0vs.svelte-yah0vs{cursor:pointer;display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;justify-content:center;width:80px}.gu-candidate-container.true.svelte-yah0vs.svelte-yah0vs{width:70px}.gu-candidate-container.true.svelte-yah0vs img.svelte-yah0vs{filter:grayscale(.8) opacity(.3) contrast(1.8);width:50px}.gu-candidate-container.true.svelte-yah0vs p.svelte-yah0vs{color:#707070}img.svelte-yah0vs.svelte-yah0vs{border-radius:100%;width:100%}p.svelte-yah0vs.svelte-yah0vs{color:#121212;font-family:Guardian Text Sans Web,Helvetica 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The remaining candidatesView image in fullscreenDonald TrumpFormer president of the United States. Running mate: JD VanceDonald Trump accepted the Republican party’s nomination for president for the third consecutive time. At the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, the former president formally accepted the nomination on a night that was supposed to be filled with calls for unity but instead was marked by alarmist language and false claims.Trump announced Vance – once a vocal “never Trumper” – as his pick for the nomination for vice-president at the Republican convention.View image in fullscreenKamala HarrisVice-president of the United States. Running-mate: Tim WalzHarris officially accepted the Democratic party’s presidential nomination at the Democratic convention in August in Chicago, after a whirlwind tour of battleground states alongside her running mate, Walz.Harris’s campaign came after weeks of pressure following Biden’s disastrous June debate, and after Biden announced he would not accept his party’s nomination and endorsed her to replace him on the Democratic ticket.Immediately following Biden’s decision, Harris confirmed her intention to “earn and win this nomination” as a flood of Democrats endorsed her campaign, heading off a competitive race for the Democratic ticket.Harris made her first official campaign stop in Delaware on 22 July and has crisscrosed the country, stopping in swing state after swing state, since.View image in fullscreenJill SteinDoctor and activist. Running mate: Butch WareLeftwing environmentalist Jill Stein formally launched her third presidential bid in an online conversation in November 2023. Stein also stood as the Green party’s candidate in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. Her candidacy follows the decision by Cornel West, the party’s original likely nominee, to leave the Green party and run as an independent.View image in fullscreenCornel WestProfessor and progressive activist. Running mate: Melina AbdullahThe progressive activist Cornel West announced in a video posted to Twitter that he was running for president as a member of the People’s party, a third party headed by a former campaign staffer for Bernie Sanders. West is currently a professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary and previously worked at Harvard but resigned, saying the school had an “intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths”.Dropped outView image in fullscreenJoe BidenPresident of the United States, dropped out 21 July 2024Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election, winning all the party’s primary contests. However, following a disastrous debate performance in June against Trump, and weeks of pressure, Biden announced on 21 July that he would not accept the party’s nomination. Biden endorsed Kamala Harris to replace him at the top of the Democratic ticket. Biden served in politics for more than five decades, culminating in his 2020 victory over Donald Trump.Ryan BinkleyBusinessman and pastor, dropped out 27 February 2024Binkley, a Texas businessman, was a long-shot candidate who is also a pastor at Create church. The self-proclaimed far-right fiscal conservative criticized both Democrats and Republicans for not being able to balance the federal budget, and said he would focus on health costs, immigration reform and a national volunteer movement.View image in fullscreenDoug BurgumGovernor of North Dakota, dropped out 4 December 2023Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, announced his campaign in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal on 6 June 2023. Viewed as a surprise, long-shot candidate, he touted his experience as a career businessman and leaned on his small-town roots in an announcement video titled Change. As governor, Burgum signed into law a near-total abortion ban, which makes the procedure illegal after six weeks, and only permissible in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency up to that point. He supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 and in 2020.View image in fullscreenChris ChristieFormer governor of New Jersey, dropped out 10 January 2024The former New Jersey governor has emerged as one of the harshest Republican critics of Donald Trump, whom he endorsed for president in 2016 after dropping out of that race. Christie says he broke ties with the former president after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, claiming that he hadn’t spoken to Trump since then. Christie, a lawyer and a lobbyist who served as a US attorney appointed by George W Bush, announced he was running for president a second time on 6 June 2023 in New Hampshire during a town hall.View image in fullscreenRon DeSantisGovernor of Florida, dropped out 21 January 2024Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida was predicted to be the strongest contender for the GOP nomination against Donald Trump, consistently polling second among Republican primary voters. He made his formal announcement on Twitter, during a Spaces event attended by roughly 300,000 users that was riddled with technological glitches, on 24 May 2023. DeSantis, who has served as Florida’s governor since 2019 and handily defeated the Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, in 2022, previously represented Florida’s sixth congressional district as a member of the US House from 2012 to 2018. As governor, DeSantis has signed a slate of laws banning minors from receiving gender-affirming care and restricting education on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, and he has become an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist party.Larry ElderConservative radio host, dropped out 26 October 2023The rightwing political commentator and radio talkshow host announced his run for president on Fox News as a guest on the now-canceled Tucker Carlson Tonight on 20 April 2023. In 2021, Elder joined a list of Republicans seeking to replace Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, in a failed recall. The Los Angeles resident was an outspoken critic of the state’s mask mandates, calling them “a joke”.View image in fullscreenNikki HaleyFormer ambassador to the United Nations, dropped out 6 March 2024Haley, who got her start in politics as a member of South Carolina’s general assembly, was governor of the state from 2011 to 2017. She ended her second term early to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations under Donald Trump before announcing her resignation in 2018. She became the first Republican to announce a run against Donald Trump, even though she previously said she would not run against him. Haley vowed to “fix” the US immigration system by “stopping illegal immigration” and described herself as pro-life, but said a federal abortion ban was unrealistic. Haley, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, would have been the first US president of Asian descent, as well as the first woman.Will HurdFormer congressman from Texas, dropped out 10 October 2023Former US Representative Will Hurd, of Texas, entered the crowded primary field as a moderate and critic of Donald Trump. Hurd announced his campaign in an interview on CBS. He followed that with a video posted online in which he called Trump a “lawless, selfish, failed politician” and laid out an agenda to curb “illegal immigration”, inflation, crime and homelessness. Hurd, who worked for nearly a decade in the CIA, served three terms in the House, from 2015 to 2021. He left office as the only Black Republican in the chamber.View image in fullscreenAsa HutchinsonFormer governor of Arkansas, dropped out 16 January 2024Hutchinson is the former governor of Arkansas, a post he held from 2015 to 2023. The relatively unknown politician announced his candidacy in an interview on ABC days after Trump was indicted in a Manhattan court, saying the ex-president should drop out of the race. Hutchinson is a businessman and lawyer who was appointed by Ronald Reagan to serve as a US attorney. He also served a stint in the US House of Representatives, winning a congressional seat in 1996 when he replaced his brother, Tim, who ran for Senate.View image in fullscreenPerry JohnsonBusinessman, dropped out 20 October 2023Johnson is a businessman who ran unsuccessfully for governor of Michigan in 2022 after providing fraudulent nominating signatures for that campaign. Originally from Illinois, Johnson founded dozens of companies, and lives in Michigan with his family. He has billed himself as Donald Trump “without the baggage” and has taken similar policy positions on curbing US debt and cracking down on the FBI.Robert F Kennedy JrLawyer and author, dropped out 23 August 2024Robert F Kennedy Jr, known for his work as an environmental lawyer and his anti-vaccine views, said he was running for president to end the “chronic disease epidemic”. Kennedy, who compared vaccine mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic to “Hitler’s Germany”, has promoted other baseless conspiracy theories such as telecom networks being used to control people. He is the nephew of John F Kennedy, the former Democratic president, who was assassinated in office, and is the son of 1968 Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy, who was assassinated on the campaign trail. He suspended his campaign on 23 August and endorsed Trump.View image in fullscreenMike PenceFormer vice-president of the United States, dropped out 28 October 2023Mike Pence officially launched his campaign for president on 7 June 2023, in a rare instance of a former vice-president challenging the president with whom he shared a ticket a few years ago. Pence joined a crowded Republican field in which he has consistently polled third, even before he officially announced his candidacy, though he trails far behind DeSantis and Trump. Pence was angling for a wide base among evangelical Christians and had vowed to ban abortion if he were elected. He denounced the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, and had used it as a talking point against Trump, who turned against him after he publicly refused supporters’ calls to overturn the results of the election.View image in fullscreenDean PhillipsRepresentative from Minnesota, dropped out 6 March 2024Dean Phillips, a three-term Democratic congressman from Minnesota, challenged Biden, saying the next generation should have the opportunity to lead the country. Phillips is the heir to a distilling company and once co-owned a gelato company. He entered public office spurred by fighting back against Trump.Vivek RamaswamyEntrepreneur and author, dropped out 16 January 2024The biotech entrepreneur and political newcomer announced his campaign in a video describing attacks on the “culture of free speech in America” and again on Fox News in an interview with now-fired Tucker Carlson. He is the author of Woke, Inc, a book that lobbies against “ESG” – a framework of corporate governance that encourages companies to consider the environment and social justice issues. Ramaswamy, who was the youngest candidate vying for the Republican nomination, had lobbied in favor of raising the national voting age to 25. Ramaswamy would have been the first president of Asian and Indian descent. He had also vowed to pardon federally indicted Donald Trump.Francis SuarezMayor of Miami, dropped out 29 August 2023Suarez, the mayor of Miami, was the first major Hispanic candidate seeking the Republican party nomination this election cycle. The son of Miami’s first Cuban-born mayor, Suarez had said he would broaden support for Republicans among Latino voters. He was the third candidate from Florida to join the crowded primary field, alongside frontrunners Trump and DeSantis. Suarez, who was first elected in 2017, filed paperwork to run the day after Trump appeared in a Miami court over federal charges and made his formal announcement on Good Morning America the day after that.View image in fullscreenTim ScottSenator from South Carolina, dropped out 13 November 2023In May, Scott became the second politician from South Carolina to run for the Republican nomination. He has served as a senator from South Carolina since 2013, when he was appointed by Republican challenger Nikki Haley to fill a vacancy. Scott, who is one of three Black members of the Senate and is the only Black Republican senator, said in his announcement speech that “America is not a racist country”. Scott joined fellow Republicans in opposing the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022. Scott served as a member of the House from 2011 to 2013 and before that spent stints in South Carolina’s general assembly and Charleston’s county council. During his 2010 campaign for the House of Representatives, Scott told Newsweek that homosexuality was a morally wrong choice.View image in fullscreenMarianne WilliamsonAuthorFailed 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, who also unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives in 2014, became the first Democratic candidate to announce she is running for president as a challenge to Joe Biden. Williamson, an author of self-help books, launched her long-shot bid with campaign promises to address climate change and student loan debt. She previously worked as “spiritual leader” of a Michigan Unity church. She originally ended her campaign on 7 February 2024 but announced on 28 February she was “un-suspending”. More
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Ex-senator and university president’s spending is under state scrutiny
by Evelyn Reynolds 16 August 2024, 20:20
Increased spending by the recently resigned University of Florida president Ben Sasse is coming under scrutiny after a student-run newspaper found that he awarded secretive consulting contracts and gave high-paying jobs to former members of his US Senate staff and Republican allies – actions that he defended on Friday.Both Governor Ron DeSantis and Florida’s chief financial officer are calling on the state university system’s governing board to investigate after the Independent Florida Alligator reported this week that as school president, Sasse gave six former staffers and two ex-Republican officials jobs with salaries that outstripped comparable positions. Most did not move to Gainesville – but work remotely from hundreds of miles away.Sasse, a former Nebraska senator, became the school’s president in February 2023.Overall, Sasse’s office spent $17.3m during his first year compared with the $5.6m spent by his predecessor Kent Fuchs in his final year. The university has an overall budget of $9bn.DeSantis’s office issued a statement saying that the governor “take[s] the stewardship of state funds very seriously and [has] already been in discussions with leadership at the university and with the [governing] board to look into the matter”.The chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, wrote on the social media platform X that the Alligator’s report “is concerning” and that the governing board “should investigate this issue to ensure tuition and tax dollars are being properly used”.Sasse resigned on 31 July, citing his wife’s recent diagnosis with epilepsy after years of other health issues. His hiring by the governing board to head Florida’s flagship university (UF) had been controversial as his only previous experience was five years as president of Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska, which has just over 1,600 students. UF has 60,000 students and 6,600 faculty members and is one of the nation’s top research universities.In a lengthy statement posted to X on Friday, Sasse defended the hirings and consulting contracts, saying they were needed as UF launches new satellite campuses and K-12 charter schools around the state, increases its work with artificial intelligence and looks to improve in the fields of medicine, science and technology.He said all the hirings were approved in the normal budget process, that some got raises to secure their services amid “competing opportunities and offers”, and he welcomes an audit.“I am confident that the expenditures under discussion were proper and appropriate,” he said.According to documents obtained by the Alligator, Sasse hired Raymond Sass, his former Senate chief of staff, to be the university’s vice-president for innovation and partnerships, a new position. His pay is $396,000, more than double the $181,677 he made in Sasse’s Senate office. Sass still lives in the Washington DC area. He did not immediately respond on Friday to a phone message and email seeking comment.James Wegmann, Sasse’s former Senate communications director, became UF’s vice-president of communications, earning $432,000 annually. His predecessor had earned $270,000. He still lives in Washington. He did not immediately respond on Friday to an email seeking comment.Taylor Silva, Sasse’s former Senate press secretary, was given the new position of assistant vice-president of presidential communications and public affairs. The job has an annual salary of $232,000. Silva did move to Gainesville. No contact information for Silva could be located. Silva is not listed in the university directory.Three of Sasse’s other former Senate staffers also got jobs with UF.Besides his former staffers, Sasse hired two others with strong Republican party ties.He hired the former Tennessee commissioner of education Penny Schwinn as UF’s inaugural vice-president of pre-kindergarten to grade 12 and pre-bachelor’s programs at a salary of $367,500. She still lives in Tennessee. She did not immediately respond to an email on Friday seeking comment.He also hired Alice James Burns, former scheduler for South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, as director of presidential relations and major events at a salary of $205,000. She also did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.Because most of these appointees still live outside Florida, travel expenses for Sasse’s office ballooned to $633,000, more than 20 times the amount spent annually under Fuchs.Sasse also hired McKinsey & Company, where he once worked as an adviser, to a $4.7m contract. The secretive firm is one of the country’s most prominent management consulting firms. The university has declined to say what its work includes. The firm did not respond to a phone call and email seeking comment.He also awarded about $2.5m in other consulting contracts, the Alligator reported. More
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Day two of the Republican National Convention: key takeaways
by Evelyn Reynolds 17 July 2024, 04:06
1. Confident in Trump’s victory, Republicans focused on winning control of the US SenateThe official theme of the Republican national convention’s second night was “Make America Safe Again”, with a focus on crime and border security. But as a series of Republican senate candidates got their turn in the spotlight on Tuesday, it was clear that a major theme of the night was helping the GOP win a majority in the US Senate. Among the featured speakers locked in competitive senate races were Kari Lake of Arizona, Eric Hovde of Wisconsin, Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Sam Brown of Nevada and Hung Cao of Virginia.Earlier on Tuesday, Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of Trump’s campaign, said the campaign was now very confident in Trump’s chances of victory. “We have nearly 20 paths to get to where we need to get,” LaCivita said. “[Democrats] have one, maybe two.” It’s a dramatic reversal just four years after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to forcibly prevent the certification of Biden’s victory.If Republicans win a majority of seats in the US Senate and keep control of the US House, they will have achieved the trifecta of power in Washington. Republicans will effectively have majority control over all three branches of government, with even the increasingly partisan supreme court dominated by a majority of rightwing appointees.Leading Democratic members of Congress are also raising concerns about Republicans taking the Senate majority, with representative Adam Schiff reportedly telling Democratic donors that he believes Democrats will not only lose the presidency if Biden continues as the party’s nominee, but that they may “very well lose the Senate” as well.2. Republicans falsely claimed Democrats rely on ‘votes from illegals’Trump supporters were still chanting “build the wall”. Trump and his vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, have both said they support “mass deportations”, and multiple RNC speakers falsely suggested that Democrats were trying to win elections by encouraging undocumented immigrants to vote.Florida senator Rick Scott falsely claimed it was “easy for Democrats” to rig elections, saying they did so by allowing “all the non-citizens to vote”.“Democrats decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children,” Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, said in a speech in which he referenced several examples of women and girls who had been raped by undocumented immigrants. It’s an echo of the remarks that Trump made at his campaign launch in 2015, when he falsely said that many Mexican immigrants to the US were rapists.Kari Lake, the Arizona senate candidate, falsely claimed that Ruben Gallego, the Democrat she is running against, had voted to allow undocumented immigrants to cast ballots in the upcoming election, a claim that Gallego’s campaign labeled “a blatant lie”.It’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote, and there’s no evidence that it happens often: a Brennan Center study found just 30 instances of suspected non-citizen voting out of 23.5m votes cast in the 2016 general election.3. Trump’s criminal cases and convictions went unmentioned amid rhetoric on ‘crime’As Republicans portrayed themselves as the party of law and order, there was little mention of the fact that their candidate has been juggling multiple criminal cases throughout the campaign and recently made history as the only former president to be convicted of felonies, in being found guilty on 34 felony counts as part of a hush-money scheme to cover up an affair.“Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, they stand with the criminals,” Randy Sutton, a former police officer, said in his remarks Tuesday night. In reality, though both Democrats have supported some criminal justice reforms, Biden has been an enthusiastically pro-cop Democrat for decades, and Harris was a career prosecutor who literally served as California’s top cop in her role as state attorney general. Neither of them has a mug shot or is able to continue campaigning only because they can afford bail, as is the case with Trump.As one Republican after another linked undocumented immigrants to rape, crime and violence, they did not talk about how Trump had been found liable in 2023 of sexual abuse and defamation in a civil trial brought by magazine writer E Jean Carroll, after being accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women in alleged incidents that spanned decades.Trump is characteristic of a much broader trend: US citizens are much more likely to be arrested for crimes than undocumented people. A recent study using data from Texas found that US-born citizens were more than twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes and more than four times as likely to be arrested for property crimes than undocumented immigrants.But in less explicit ways, Trump’s own legal troubles have lurked in the background of the RNC speeches, as Republicans have railed against progressive prosecutors and the media. Critical mention of Alvin Bragg, the New York district attorney who secured Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts in the hush-money case, prompted one of the loudest boos of the night. Bragg was accused of being a “soft-on-crime prosecutor” by a New York mother, Madeline Brame, whose son was murdered, and who accused Bragg of dismissing and reducing the charges faced by her son’s killers.4. In the name of ‘unity’, Trump’s Republican critics kissed the ring and urged others to fall in lineNikki Haley, one of Trump’s most determined rivals in the 2024 Republican primary, took the stage at the RNC, announcing, to cheers: “President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity.”“Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” Haley went on, prompting chants of: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”Earlier this year, Haley publicly called Trump “unhinged” and “diminished” and said he was “not the same person he was in 2016”.But on Tuesday night, both she and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, another Trump primary campaign rival, proclaimed their loyalty to Trump. Haley, in particular, urged Republicans who did not agree with Trump to nonetheless fall in line behind him in the election.“You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me,” she said. “I haven’t always agreed with President Trump, but we agree more often that we disagree.”Another never-Trump critic, JD Vance, who once wondered whether Trump was “America’s Hitler”, was named Trump’s vice-presidential pick yesterday.5. Despite talk of ‘national unity’ at the convention, Republicans went on attack Republican speakers at the convention continued to frame Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt this weekend as a miraculous act of God, rather than blaming the attack on Biden or on broader Democratic rhetoric.“God spared President Trump from that assassin, because God is not finished with him yet,” Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.But by the end of the day Tuesday, any idea that Trump’s party might embrace a tone of broader national unity had evaporated, amid fierce attacks on Harris, comparisons of Biden to the corpse in the film Weekend at Bernie’s, and Lake’s renewed attacks on the media. Lake, a former television anchor, said: “I don’t welcome everybody … in this room. You guys up there in the fake news have worn out your welcome.”Joan E Greve and Alice Herman contributed reporting More
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Former rivals Haley and DeSantis back Trump at Republican convention
by Evelyn Reynolds 17 July 2024, 03:27
Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, once Donald Trump’s biggest rivals in the Republican party, both gave full-throated endorsements to Trump’s presidential candidacy on Tuesday, a call for unity that served to underscore the former president’s control of the Republican party.On the second night of the Republican national convention, Haley and DeSantis, who both unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination earlier this year, spoke back to back in the 8pm hour of the convention as Trump grinned and applauded from his box elevated above the floor of the Fiserv Forum, where the convention is taking place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.“I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” Haley said. She said her speech was aimed at those “who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time”.“You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me. I haven’t always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree,” she said.Haley, who served as the governor of South Carolina and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, rattled off what she saw as Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments.“When Donald Trump was president, Putin did nothing. No invasions. No wars. That was no accident. Putin didn’t attack Ukraine because he knew Donald Trump was tough. A strong president doesn’t start wars. A strong president prevents wars,” she said, receiving loud applause.DeSantis also immediately made it clear that he was backing Trump.“Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement and let’s send Donald Trump back to the White House,” he said.Neither Haley nor DeSantis initially had speaking slots at the convention, but they were added after the attempt on Trump’s life on Saturday as Republicans sought to project unity.“President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity. It was a gracious invitation and I was happy to accept,” Haley said.Trump could be seen on the Jumbotron grinning widely as both gave their speeches. And he had reason to do so: just months ago, Haley and DeSantis were the most prominent Republicans critical of Trump.“He’s made it chaotic. He’s made it self-absorbed. He’s made people dislike and judge each other. He’s left that a president should have moral clarity, and know the difference between right or wrong, and he’s just toxic,” Haley said of Trump during an interview on The Breakfast Club in January.Haley, who has also called Trump “thin-skinned and easily distracted”, didn’t say she was voting for Trump until May.Austin Weatherford, the Biden campaign’s national director for Republican engagement, highlighted Haley’s words in a statement after her speech Tuesday.“Ambassador Haley said it best herself: someone who doesn’t respect our military, doesn’t know right from wrong, and ‘surrounds himself in chaos’ can’t be president,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That’s why millions of Republicans cast their votes in protest of Donald Trump and his attacks on our institutions, our nation’s allies, and civility.”DeSantis endorsed Trump shortly after dropping out of the presidential race in January, but reportedly continued to privately criticize him. He needled him on the campaign trail, saying America didn’t need a president who had “lost the zip on their fastball”.DeSantis and Haley took slightly different tacks in their speeches on Tuesday, emphasizing their different approaches to campaigning.Haley spoke about the need to expand the Republican party in comments that were met with tepid applause from the delegates on the convention floor – many of whom represent some of the party’s most loyal base.“We must not only be a unified party, we must also expand our party,” she said. “We are so much better when we are bigger. We are stronger when we welcome people into our party who have different backgrounds and experiences.”DeSantis, by contrast, leaned into attacking Biden. “America cannot afford four more years of a Weekend at Bernie’s presidency,” he said. He touted the success that Republicans have had in recent years, saying “the woke mind virus is dead and Florida is a solid Republican state”.DeSantis went on to detail a rightwing policy wishlist, including severe restrictions on immigration and the destruction of the “administrative state”.Even though DeSantis’s Trump-like appeal was not enough to win him the Republican nomination, his hard-right talking points triggered a much more boisterous response from the delegates than Haley’s talk of unity and party outreach. More
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DeSantis ‘freedom fund’ Pac targets abortion and marijuana ballot initiatives
by Evelyn Reynolds 11 June 2024, 19:49
The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, has launched a political action committee that is targeting popular ballot amendments on abortion access and marijuana legalization that will be voted on in November.The group, known as the Florida Freedom Fund, launched in May, Politico first reported. The committee is chaired by James Uthmeier, DeSantis’s chief of staff who was previously the Republican’s campaign manager during his unsuccessful presidential primary run.In addition to targeting ballot initiatives, the committee will get involved in school board races, Politico reported, citing an individual who is familiar with the group’s plans.Florida Republicans have attempted to maximize their political control of local school boards, especially amid book bans and far-right education laws banning discussions of race and sexual identity being passed in the state, WUFT reported.A spokesperson for the governor told Politico that the goal of the political action committee is to support issues and candidates that are “committed to preserving Floridians’ freedom”.“From up and down ballot races to critical amendments, we’re steadfast in our mission to keep Florida free,” a DeSantis spokesperson, Taryn Fenske, said.Reproductive-rights activists have been pushing for voters to support an upcoming ballot initiative that would enshrine broader abortion access in Florida’s constitution, Axios reported.Since Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect in June, fewer abortions have been performed in the state. Activists have also seen more people seeking care in states on the east coast with broader abortion access.Amending Florida’s constitution is a difficult task – 60% of voters will have to approve the ballot initiative.But support for the abortion access measure, known as Amendment 4, has been picking up steam before the November vote.Supporters of the constitutional amendment have raised more than $12m in two months since the state’s supreme court approved the measure in April, the Tampa Bay Times reported.“Seeing increased financial support for the Yes on 4 effort provides us a glimmer of hope. Regardless of income or background, every Floridian deserves the freedom to make their own healthcare decisions without government interference, including abortion, and we’ll keep up the fight to make that a reality,” the campaign director for Yes on 4 Florida, Lauren Brenzel, said to the Times.Both amendments appear to be garnering widespread support. Recent polling by Fox News predicted that both amendments would overwhelmingly pass, with 69% of voters supporting the abortion-access initiative and 66% favoring the marijuana-legalization amendment. More
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Republican activist with ties to DeSantis and Rubio indicted over January 6
by Eliana Willis 29 May 2024, 17:35
A Republican activist with links to Florida’s Republican senator, Marco Rubio, and its governor, Ron DeSantis, has been indicted on charges relating to the 6 January 2021 storming of the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.Barbara Balmaseda, 23, has been charged with five counts of being involved in the riot, including obstructing an official proceeding, knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building, and engaging in disorderly conduct with intent to impede a session of Congress.The indictment against Balmaseda, a former director-at-large of the Miami Young Republicans, follows her arrest on the same charges last December, after an FBI investigation alleged she had been communicating with members of the far-right Proud Boys organisation, which pledges allegiance to Donald Trump.It comes after investigators discovered a chain of mobile phone messages with a member of the group, including the potentially revealing information two days after the riot that he had her Taser.Balmaseda previously served as an intern in the office of Rubio, who voted to certify Biden’s election win, defying the then president, Donald Trump, and worked as an organiser for DeSantis’s 2018 campaign for governor.Nayib Hassan, Balmaseda’s lawyer, said she was pleading not guilty to the charges. “We look forward to presenting a vigorous defense on her behalf,” he said. Hassan added that he was awaiting the US supreme court verdict on an appeal against the conviction of another participant in the January 6 events, Joseph Fischer, saying it “may have a direct impact on Mrs Balmaseda’s case”.Balmaseda is accused of exchanging hundreds of texts with Gabriel Garcia, who was convicted last November of felony charges relating to the Capitol riot.According to documents submitted by an investigating FBI agent, Balmaseda’s messages were found on Garcia’s phone.Prosecutors say they identified the pair inside the Capitol building from January 6 footage, and allege that they had entered after they “climbed on equipment that had been staged in preparation for the presidential inauguration”.Two days later, Balmaseda allegedly messaged Garcia: “Hey! Good morning! You left a hat and a gas mask in Adolfo’s car, I also have your sunglasses in my purse and you have my taser.”The FBI investigator wrote: “As part of my investigation, I reviewed images sent in text and chat messages to Garcia’s phone, from a contact saved as ‘Barbarita Balmaseda’ in Garcia’s phone with the phone number XXX-XXX-4534 (the ‘4534 Number’).“In one text message thread, Garcia and ‘Barbarita Balmaseda’ exchanged hundreds of texts and images from August 2020 through January 2021.”A message in a separate WhatsApp thread on Garcia’s phone read: “My name is Barbara Balmaseda [I am] involved in local politics. id [sic] love to stay informed on the D116 race. Can you add me to the group chat?”A subsequent text showed a selfie-style picture featuring a woman, believed to be Balmaseda – wearing a Trump 2020 hat – posing alongside Garcia, who wore a hat sporting the words “Proud Boys”. More
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TV meteorologist attacks Ron DeSantis over Florida’s ‘don’t say climate change’ law
by Evelyn Reynolds 21 May 2024, 19:02
A TV meteorologist condemned the Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s so-called “don’t say climate change” law on air and urged viewers to vote.Steve MacLaughlin of WTVJ in Miami addressed viewers on Saturday amid rising heat records across the state, saying: “On Thursday, we reported … that the government of Florida was beginning to roll back really important climate-change legislation and really important climate-change language.”MacLaughin condemned DeSantis’s position on the matter, saying that it came “in spite of the fact that the state of Florida over the last couple of years has seen record heat, record flooding, record rain, record insurance rates, and the corals are dying all around the state”.He said: “The entire world is looking to Florida to lead in climate change, and our government is saying that climate change is no longer the priority it once was.“Please keep in mind the most powerful climate change solution is the one you already have in the palm of your hands – the right to vote. And we will never tell you who to vote for, but we will tell you this: we implore you to please do your research and know that there are candidates that believe in climate change and that there are solutions. And there are candidates that don’t.”McLaughlin delivered his comments after DeSantis recently signed several bills the governor claimed sought to “restore sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots”.“Radical green zealots want to impose their climate agenda on people through restrictions, regulations and taxes,” a notice posted by DeSantis said.In addition to prohibiting windfarms offshore and near coastlines, the bill prioritizes the expansion of natural gas and bolsters protections against gas appliance bans and repeals climate policies enacted during Barack Obama’s presidency.The gas industry has helped drive climate change and its resulting effects, including severe weather becoming more commonplace.Over the weekend, south Florida saw record temperatures, with Fort Lauderdale and Miami each reaching record highs of 95F (35C) on Sunday. Typical highs for this time of year are about 86F (30C), the Palm Beach Post reported.Since McLaughlin shared his segment on X on 18 May, it has been viewed nearly 407,000 times on the platform, with more than 3,300 likes and 1,400 reshares.Many were quick to praise McLaughlin for speaking out, with one user saying: “I know there’s often pressure on meteorologists not to speak. Thank you for speaking.”Another user wrote: “Thank you, Steve, for giving us the facts.”Someone else said: “So needed. Thank you for this.”Meteorologists across the US have faced harassment over their climate crisis reporting.Speaking to the Associated Press last year, Sean Sublette, a former TV meteorologist who now works at Virginia’s Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper, said: “More than once, I’ve had people call me names or tell me I’m stupid or these kinds of harassing type things simply for sharing information that they didn’t want to hear.”Meanwhile, last July, meteorologist Chris Gloninger announced he was stepping down from Des Moines’s CBS TV station affiliate KCCI due to post-traumatic stress disorder that he developed as a result of threats over his climate-crisis coverage. More

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