Steve Bannon

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Revisited … Jennifer Senior on Steve Bannon: Politics Weekly America podcast

      by

      More ways to listen

      Apple Podcasts

      Google Podcasts

      Spotify

      RSS Feed

      Download

      Share on Facebook

      Share on Twitter

      Share via Email

      Politics Weekly America is taking a break. So this week, Jonathan Freedland revisits the conversation he had in July, with writer for The Atlantic, Jennifer Senior, about the former White House chief strategist under Donald Trump, Steve Bannon

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      The Guardian and Observer charity appeal for 2022 is dedicated to tackling the cost of living crisis. You can donate here Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Marjorie Taylor Greene: Capitol attack ‘would’ve been armed’ if I was in charge

      by

      Marjorie Taylor Greene: Capitol attack ‘would’ve been armed’ if I was in chargeFar-right congresswoman says the violent crowd would have won on January 6 if she and Steve Bannon had planned it The far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has bragged that had she and the former Donald Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon been in charge of organizing the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, the violent crowd would have won, and everyone in it “would’ve been armed”.The notorious provocateur made her comments about the deadly January 6 attack during a speech to a gala of the New York Young Republicans Club on Park Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday night. Hatewatch monitored the event on behalf of the Southern Poverty Law Center.Greene, who entered the US House as a newly elected representative from Georgia last year, said: “January 6 happened, and next thing you know, I organized the whole thing, along with Steve Bannon here. And I will tell you something, if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”She went on: “See that’s the whole joke, isn’t it? They say that whole thing was planned and I’m like, are you kidding me? A bunch of conservatives, second amendment supporters, went in the Capitol without guns, and they think that we organized that? I don’t think so.”The audience – which included Bannon, Donald Trump Jr, and prominent figures on the far right – met Greene’s incendiary remarks with cheers and whoops of affirmation. Among the attendees were the founders of Vdare, a white nationalist website that opposes immigration.Greene’s speech was recorded, and parts of it were posted on Twitter by Patriot Takes, which monitors far-right extremism.The congresswoman has a long track record of controversial statements, including racist comments and expressions of support for the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon. In April, she was forced to testify about her actions in the run-up to the Capitol insurrection in a court hearing in Georgia in which opponents attempted to bar her from Congress.The hearing was presented with text messages between Greene and Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows less than two weeks after January 6. In one text, she told Meadows that other Congress members were telling her that “the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law … They stole this election. We all know that.”Greene told the court she had done nothing wrong and was a “victim” of the Capitol breach, which has been linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers. She said she had no memory of sending the martial law text.Other speakers at the Park Avenue event also deployed contentious rhetoric. The president of the Young Republican hosts, Gavin Wax, called for “total war” against liberals.“We want total war,” he said. “We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media, in the courtroom, at the ballot box. And in the streets.”Wax added: “This is the only language the left understands. The language of pure and unadulterated power.”TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansSteve BannonUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Inside the unhinged midterm election conspiracy theories on Truth Social

      by

      Inside the unhinged midterm election conspiracy theories on Truth Social Stuffed ballot boxes, ‘BlueAnon’, support for Russia and ‘corporate communists’ are catnip on the rightwing platform Ballot boxes being stuffed. “BlueAnon”. Men in underpants. Every Democratic candidate: a “complete weirdo psychopath”.To dive into Truth Social, Donald Trump’s Twitter-but-for-conspiracy-theorists social media platform, is to enter a world where all of the above are real topics of debate, breathlessly discussed by Trump-backing Republicans and anonymous rightwing provocateurs.Twitter sued by former staff as Elon Musk begins mass sackingsRead moreTruth Social has always been a platform for lies and obfuscations; about the 2020 election, the Democratic party, vaccines, Hunter Biden. But with less than a week before the election, the platform and its users have become even more unhinged.The site, formed as Trump’s alternative to Twitter after he was banned from that platform in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, is awash with false theories about how the Democratic party is attempting to manipulate the midterm vote, false claims about the attack on Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, and false accusations about Democratic candidates themselves.As one of the most followed Truth Social users, Donald Trump Jr, son of the former US president, has been one of the most prominent agitators.In the run-up to the election, Trump Jr has used the platform to echo rightwing talking points about vaccines, drugs, Ukraine and a host of other issues. His posts are eagerly lapped up by fellow Truthers, and he isn’t the only thought leader on the platform.The unusually named Catturd2 has emerged as one of Truth Social’s tastemakers since the site launched, and with more than 760,000 followers – Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority speaker has only 54,000 and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s on-off friend and lawyer, has 89,000 – when Catturd2 speaks, people listen.In recent days Catturd2 has mostly chosen to speak about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Like numerous other Truth Social users, Catturd2 has their doubts and has echoed a rightwing, homophobic, incorrect conspiracy theory about the attack – an idea Trump Jr also peddled on Truth Social.But Catturd2 has other thoughts, too, including on the Democrats running for election in the midterm elections.“Every single Democrat candidate is a complete weirdo psychopath,” Catturd2 wrote recently, in a truth that was liked by more than 6,000 accounts, and which largely captures the attitude of Truth Social users toward Democratic politicians and their supporters.Truth Social launched, chaotically, in February 2022. Billed as “a major new platform” where Republicans and Democrats alike could converse in an environment free from the “censorship” of big tech – an environment with an “ironclad commitment to protecting vigorous debate” – thousands of would-be users were unable to access the service for weeks, and Trump himself was said to be furious with the platform.Trump had planned a $1.3bn merger of Truth Social with Digital World Acquisition Corp, a blank check company, but the deal has been plagued by delays and is under federal investigation. In October it emerged that the co-founder of Trump’s social media company had told the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the company’s efforts to raise $1bn were based on “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws”.Still, Truth Social has managed to grow in popularity, with its number of users surging past other rightwing platforms like Gab, Parler and Gettr. Even if Truth Social’s 1.7m US unique visitors a month is dwarfed by Twitter and Facebook, it has become the go-to meeting place for Trump supporters to voice unsubstantiated concerns about voter fraud.As the election looms, ballot “drop boxes” have become the particular bete noire for the rightwing crowd. Introduced so that people can drop off their early voting or absentee ballots, to Truth Social users these drop boxes are nothing more than election fraud in plain sight – flimsy, poorly guarded containers where Democratic backers or members of the deep state regularly stop off to jam hundreds of fraudulent ballots into the counting system.On Truth Social, people have been called to action.“Get out and help patriots. Watch those ballot drop boxes. We can’t let them steal another election,” msannthrope wrote, in a post similar to hundreds of others on the platform.In fact, on Tuesday a judge issued a restraining order against a rightwing group in Arizona which had deployed people to watch over drop boxes, after accusations of voter intimidation, but the obsession with the boxes hasn’t gone away.Thousands of users posted a link this week to a story from a rightwing website which alleged irregularities at ballot drop boxes in Pennsylvania, a state which Trump and his supporters have accused of seeing fraud in 2020. Politifact, a non-partisan fact-checking website, reported that people had “successfully inserted 18 ballots into three of the eight ballot drop boxes in Centre County, Pennsylvania, before the official window of time when the boxes were open to receive ballots”.But, Politifact wrote: “The ballots are not evidence of fraud. The voters simply didn’t follow directions,” while Michael Pipe, the county’s commission chair and chair of its election board, told local news station KDKA-TV. The ballots will not count towards the Pennsylvania vote, Pipe said, because they were returned incorrectly.If misinformation is king on Truth Social, then that might explain how Marjorie Taylor Greene, a darling of the Trump-Republican movement who is known for both extremism and incompetence, has become one of the loudest voices in what is a very loud room.Throughout October, her account has been a flurry of vague assertions about the Democratic party: half-baked off ideas and theories tossed off apropos of nothing, without explanation or justification.“There are more Democrat conspiracy theories & theorists on Twitter than Qanon ever produced,” Taylor Greene wrote on October 28.“Most have blue check marks, post their pronouns, support war in Ukraine, are triple vaxxed & boosted, and work in corporate media, Hollywood, or the government.“Blueanon [an apparent play on the rightwing QAnon conspiracy theory] is dangerous.”It wasn’t clear – because she didn’t say – what had set Taylor Greene off. But she clearly enjoyed this foreboding, dystopian style, because the next day, she was back at it.“Corporate communists control the speech of their employees & customers by only allowing Democrat speech and punishing, silencing, and canceling Republican speech,” Taylor Greene said.If it was unclear how the concept of a corporate communist would actually work, then it was also unclear what Taylor Greene meant by her grimly threatening follow up: “But there is a shift beginning,” she wrote. “People are beginning to refuse to be silenced and a Patriot economy is beginning.”Perhaps the real motivation for these posts is simply that people on Truth Social love stuff like this. Truth Social is, according to its bosses, a platform where anyone is free to say whatever they want, but what they mostly want to say is that they don’t have anywhere to speak.“Why are people being censored for misleading or false information and not the biggest offenders, the media?” user mikesonfire pondered obliquely this month.Mikesonfire’s other posts have included a suggestion that the military, not “biased clerks” count votes, and that: “Russia invaded the Ukraine to stop the NWO [New World Order, a conspiracy theory which states a cabal of elites is striving for a world government] for producing more viral weapons”.Russia has been a particular fascination for Truth Social users, many of whom have spoken sympathetically about the country and its invasion of Ukraine. Other users have posted approvingly about a Russian government plan to ban people from suggesting homosexual relationships are “normal”, and the hashtag IStandWithRussia has been used repeatedly over the past month.In recent days, despite users’ apparent satisfaction with Truth Social, the main interest has been Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and how it might impact the Democratic party in elections and beyond.Musk’s vague promise to overturn Twitter bans has had people giddy with excitement, claiming it could open the door to a glorious era of Republican reign.“Democrats are not going to be able to handle free speech and the corrupt Democratic Party will fall apart after hearing the truth,” one Truth Social user gravely intoned after Musk purchased Twitter.Another posted: “3 PATRIOTS🇺🇸 TRUMP, MUSK, & [Steve] BANNON,” above a photoshopped picture of the three men. Others “truthed” photos of Musk entering the Twitter HQ, and reveled in the departure of Twitter employees.Troublingly for Trump and Truth Social, however, the most striking response from Truth Social users was the large number of them pleading with Musk to be allowed to return to Twitter.For now, Truth Social might be the platform of choice for those loyal to Trump and his election lies, but it seems large numbers of the platform can’t wait to get away.TopicsDonald TrumpElon MuskSteve BannonUS politicsSocial mediaNancy PelosiRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Steve Bannon vows ‘very vigorous appeal’ to four-month prison sentence – as it happened

      by

      Steve Bannon has been sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress.Donald Trump’s former chief strategist was sentenced to serve four months on each of the two contempt counts for defying a congressional subpoena issued by the January 6 House panel investigating the former president’s efforts to reverse his defeat by Joe Biden.The prison terms will be served concurrently, district court judge Carl Nichols ruled. But the judge said he would stay the sentence pending an appeal by Bannon, as long as the legal paperwork is filed promptly.The statutory minimum was one month in prison on each count.BREAKING: Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon sentenced to four months of prison on each count of contempt of Congress concurrently and $6,500 in fines — and will stay the sentence pending appeal if that is filed in timely fashion— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 21, 2022
      We’ll have more details shortly…We’re closing our live blog now at the end of another tumultuous day, and week, in US politics. Thanks for joining us.
      The House panel investigating Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection issued a subpoena to the former president for documents and testimony.
      Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, was sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress, and fined, for defying his own subpoena. But he was allowed to remain free pending his appeal.
      The White House dismissed claims by Russia’s ambassador to the US that it had shut down communication with Moscow as the war in Ukraine continues. US defense secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu earlier.
      The Washington Post reported that documents seized by the FBI at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida contained secrets about Iran’s missile program, and China.
      Joe Biden touted a “record” reduction of the federal deficit, $1.4tn since last year and the largest one year drop in American history, the president said.
      A Miami judge dismissed one of the 19 voter fraud prosecutions loudly trumpeted by Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis. Former felon Robert Lee Wood, 56, voted after being sent a registration card by the state.
      Joe Biden is appealing to younger voters in a speech Friday afternoon touting his student debt relief program. The president is addressing students at the historically black Delaware state university in Dover.Ahead of his address, the supreme court gave Biden a lift on Thursday by refusing a request by a taxpayers’ group in Wisconsin to block the program, which cancels up to $20,000 in student debt for millions of borrowers.Biden addressed an enthusiastic crowd:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You are an example of why I’m so optimistic about the future. You are the most involved, the most educated, the most engaged, least prejudiced generation in American history.Biden says the debt relief program is changing lives, and urged those qualified to sign up online:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This is a game changer. We’re hearing from people all over the country. Over 10,000 students have written me letters so far. It’s as easy to sign up as hanging out with your friends or watching a movie.
      My commitment when I ran for president was if I was elected I’d make the government work and deliver for the people.And he attacked congressional Republicans for attempting to block the aid “to their own constituents”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As soon as I announced my administration’s plan on student debt they started attacking it and saying all kinds of things. Their outrage is wrong and it’s hypocritical.
      But we’re not letting them get away with it. They’ve been fighting us in the courts. But just yesterday, state courts and the supreme court said no, we’re on Biden’s side.Read more:Supreme court declines to stop Biden’s $400bn student debt relief planRead moreThe Biden administration’s strategic communications coordinator has dismissed claims by Russia’s ambassador to the US that Washington is blocking conversations with Moscow over the Ukraine war.Newsweek reported on Thursday the belief of Anatoly Antonov that no direct open lines of communication existed between the countries similar to the Kremlin-White House hotline credited with preventing nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.“The attempts of Russian diplomats in Washington to re-establish such contacts have been futile,” he said. “The administration is unwilling to talk with us as equals.”But in an interview on CNN Friday, John Kirby, the national security council coordinator for strategic communications, said that was not true.He pointed to defense secretary Lloyd Austin’s conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu earlier today, their first known contact for more than four months, as evidence:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There’s many channels open with Russia even down to the fairly low operational level. We still have a deconfliction line set up in Europe so that we can properly deconflict operations with respect to Nato’s eastern flank.
      You saw today the secretary of defense spoke with with his counterpart. The secretary of state has an open line of communication with foreign minister [Sergey] Lavrov if needed. There are many channels at various levels throughout our government to continue to communicate with Russia.
      That’s important, particularly now when when bellicose rhetoric by [Russian president Vladimir] Putin about the potential use of nuclear weapons only could lead to confusion and miscalculation.Maya Yang reports…The rightwing TV network Newsmax has said it had no plans to interview Lara Logan again, after the award-winning war correspondent turned rightwing pundit launched a QAnon-tinged tirade on air.Speaking to host Eric Bolling, Logan said “the open border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world” and claimed world leaders drank children’s blood.QAnon is a pro-Trump conspiracy theory which holds that leading liberal figures in US and world politics are, among other things, secretly murderous pedophiles.Logan told Bolling: “God believes in sovereignty and national identity and the sanctity of family, and all the things that we’ve lived with from the beginning of time.“And he knows that the open [southern US] border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world through all of these people who are his stooges and his servants.“And they may think that they’re going to become gods. That’s what they tell us … You know, the ones who want us eating insects, cockroaches and that while they dine on the blood of children? Those are the people, right? They’re not going to win. They’re not going to win.”Newsmax said in a statement it “condemns in the strongest terms the reprehensible statements made by Lara Logan” and had “no plans to interview her again”.Full story:Newsmax bans Lara Logan after QAnon-tinged on-air tiradeRead moreThe White House won’t comment specifically on the subpoena issued to Donald Trump by the January 6 House panel this afternoon. But it has thoughts on the direction of the inquiry.Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is addressing reporters aboard Air Force One as the Joe Biden makes his way to Delaware to speak on his student loan forgiveness program.Asked if she believed Trump would comply, Jean-Pierre said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m going to speak broadly, as we do not comment on any ongoing investigation, the department of justice is independent, but the president has spoken to this many times, it is important to get to the bottom of January 6.
      January 6 was one of the darkest days in our nation, and it’s important for the American people to know exactly what happened, so that it doesn’t happen again, so we don’t repeat that very dark day in our nation.The subpoena issued by the January 6 House panel this afternoon demands that Donald Trump provide documents and testimony under oath.It requires documents to be submitted to the committee by 4 November, and for Trump to appear for deposition testimony beginning on or about 14 November.“As demonstrated in our hearings, we have assembled overwhelming evidence, including from dozens of your former appointees and staff, that you personally orchestrated and oversaw a multi-part effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and to obstruct the peaceful transition of power”, a four-page letter accompanying the subpoena said.It was signed by panel chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, and vice-chair Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican.In a tweet, the panel says the vote to issue the subpoena was approved by a unanimous vote. The nine-member committee includes two Republican House members, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Cheney.In a letter to Mr. Trump, Chair @BennieGThompson and Vice Chair @RepLizCheney underscored Trump’s central role in a deliberate, orchestrated effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of presidential power. pic.twitter.com/rg7R37YE11— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) October 21, 2022
      Shortly before news broke that Donald Trump has been issued a subpoena by the House panel investigating his 6 January insurrection, the former president was lashing out over another episode.The Washington Post drew Trump’s ire for its story that classified papers seized by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida allegedly included documents containing secrets about Iran and China.Predictably, in a statement, Trump claims it’s a hoax:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The FBI and the department of ‘justice,’ which paid a man $200,000 to spy on me, and offered a $1 million ‘bounty’ to try and prove a totally made up and fake ‘dossier’ about me (they went down in flames!), are now leaking nonstop on the Document Hoax to the Fake News.
      Who could ever trust corrupt, weaponized agencies, and that includes Nara [the US national archives and records administration] who disrespects our constitution and Bill of Rights, to keep and safeguard any records, especially since they’ve lost millions and millions of pages of information from previous Presidents.
      Also, who knows what NARA and the FBI plant into documents, or subtract from documents – we will never know, will we?It’s safe to say Trump will have other things on his mind as the afternoon wears on.The House January 6 select committee has issued a subpoena to Donald Trump, compelling the former president to provide an accounting under oath about his potential foreknowledge of the Capitol attack and his broader efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The subpoena of constitutional and investigative consequence made sweeping requests for testimony about some of the most key moments before January 6, as well as documents and communications about his role in multi-pronged schemes to return himself to office.BREAKING: Jan. 6 committee formally issues subpoena to Donald Trump — https://t.co/OzljsNT0oF— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 21, 2022
      It comes on the same day as Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, was sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to comply with his own subpoena.We’ll have more details soon …Our Washington bureau chief, David Smith, has filed a terrific interview with Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, the crack reporter and “Trump whisperer” whose new book seeks to explain the rise and fall and rise (and rise and fall and rise, ad infinitum) of the 45th president. It’s certainly worth your time this lunchtime. Here’s a taster, with a link at the bottom to follow:“He’s become something of a Charles Foster Kane-like character down in Mar-a-Lago these days,” observes Maggie Haberman, a Pulitzer-winning reporter for the New York Times, political analyst for CNN and author of Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, which has a black-and-white photo of Trump on its cover.Her analogy raises the question: what is Trump’s Rosebud, the childhood sled that symbolised Kane’s lost innocence? “His father is Rosebud, and I don’t think it’s one particular moment,” Haberman replies. “There’s no single childhood memory that is the key. It’s a series of moments that interlock and they point back to his father.”Fred Trump was a property mogul who had been disappointed by his eldest son Fred Jr’s lack of commitment to the family business. Donald Trump, by contrast, impressed his father by cultivating a brash “killer” persona and became heir apparent. Decades later, in the first weeks of his presidency, Trump had one photo on the credenza behind him in the Oval Office: his father, still watching.Speaking by phone from her car in midtown Manhattan, Haberman reflects: “His father basically created this endless competition between Trump and his older brother Freddie, and pitted them against each other. Donald Trump spent a lot of time seeking his father’s approval and that became a style of dealing with people, which was certainly better suited for a business than for a household.”“But it became one that Trump recreated in all aspects of his life. It became how he dealt with his own children. It became how he dealt with people who worked for him and then, in the White House, you read a number of stories about these battles that his aides would have. A lot of it was predetermined by lessons from his father.”But if Trump is Kane, who is Haberman?Maggie Haberman on Trump: ‘He’s become a Charles Foster Kane character’Read moreThe Biden administration is taking steps to protect residents of nursing homes, promising what it calls “aggressive action… to keep American seniors safe”.A White House fact sheet released Friday lays out measures including financial penalties for failing nursing homes, improved safety standards and more and better technical support for homes in need.The labor department is providing $80m in grants for nursing training and development, while the department of health and human services providing a further $13m for education and training initiatives.“Covid-19 laid bare the challenges in America’s nursing homes,” Biden’s domestic policy adviser Susan Rice said in a tweet.“Today, we’re announcing new steps to improve nursing home quality and accountability”.COVID-19 has laid bare the challenges in America’s nursing homes. In his State of the Union, @POTUS laid out an action plan to address these challenges—and, today, we’re announcing new steps to improve nursing home quality and accountability. https://t.co/yNG6rLn757— Susan Rice (@AmbRice46) October 21, 2022
      Joe Biden may have coined a phrase earlier, or tried to coin one at this late stage in the midterms race, when he said Republican economic policy amounted to “Maga-mega trickle down”.Trickle down economics is the idea that slashed taxes on the wealthy mean benefits for all those below them. Liz Truss was a devotee. She was also British prime minister for all of 45 days before announcing her resignation yesterday, after crashing the markets and cratering the UK economy.Biden may have been seeking to remind any Americans even vaguely aware of events across the pond when he told reporters: “If Republicans get their way, the deficit is going to soar, the burden is going to fall on the middle-class … They’re not going to stop there. “It’s Maga-mega trickle down.”For the avoidance of doubt, here’s how Larry Elliott, the Guardian’s economics editor, defines “trickle down”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The theory is simple. Governments should cut taxes for the better off and for corporations because that is the key to securing faster growth. Entrepreneurs are more likely to start and expand businesses, companies are more inclined to invest and banks will tend to increase lending if they are paying less in tax.
      Initially, the beneficiaries are the rich, but gradually everyone gains because as the economy gets bigger well-paid jobs are created for working people. Governments should stop focusing on how the economic pie is distributed and focus on growing the pie instead.
      Supporters of trickle down often cite the work of the US economist Arthur Laffer as proof that the theory works. Laffer said tax cuts for the wealthy had a powerful multiplier effect and any revenues lost by governments from reducing tax rates would be more than compensated for by the fruits of higher growth.For the further avoidance of doubt, Maga, written like that here because of Guardian style rules on acronyms, stands for “Make America great again”, aka Donald Trump’s campaign slogan in 2016.Biden was speaking at the White House, about the US deficit and efforts to reduce it. He said: “The federal deficit went up every year in the Trump administration – every single year he was president. On my watch, things have been different. The deficit has come down both years I’ve been in office, and I’ve just signed legislation that will reduce it even more in the decades to come.”Republicans will counter that Biden has passed a lot of legislation increasing government spending. And so the dance toward election day goes on.It’s a busy Friday again…In a bombshell scoop launched just as Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former campaign chair and White House adviser, was handed a four-month jail sentence for contempt of Congress, the Washington Post reports that some of the classified documents recovered from Trump’s Florida home in August included “highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China”.The Post cites anonymous sources who said that “if shared with others … such information” as found by the Department of Justice at Mar-a-Lago “could expose intelligence-gathering methods that the United States wants to keep hidden from the world”. Exposure of such information, the paper reports, could endanger people aiding US intelligence efforts or invite retaliation from the powers concerned.The Post also says at least one document described Iran’s missile programme while others described “highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China”.Trump or his spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the paper said.The FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on 8 August set off a monumental tussle between the former president and the Department of Justice. The contest has gone back and forth in the courts ever since, lawyers for Trump fighting a delaying action, a watching nation wondering if Trump might yet be indicted.Trump claims to have done nothing wrong by taking records from the White House after he was beaten by Joe Biden in 2020. Most observers say otherwise.More:‘Where’s the beef?’: special master says Trump’s Mar-a-Lago records claims lack substanceRead moreJoe Biden is speaking at the White House about the achievements of his economic plans, and what he says is a “record” reduction of the federal deficit.“This year the deficit fell by $1.4tn, the largest one year drop in American history,” the president said.“We’re rebuilding the economy in a responsible way.”In an earlier treasury department statement, the Biden administration said the annual deficit plummeted from $2.8tn in 2021 to about $1.4tn this year, the Washington Post reported.Biden is touting a “historic” Covid-19 vaccination effort for saving lives and helping the economy recover from the pandemic, and hailing successes in passing bipartisan bills such as the inflation reduction act, the Chips act boosting semiconductor production, and last year’s infrastructure act.Today’s speech is, however, a thinly disguised party political broadcast on behalf of the Democrats barely two and a half weeks before midterm elections in which they are expected to cede control of at least one chamber of congress.Warming to that theme, Biden said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Congressional Republicans love to call Democrats big spenders. And they always claim to be for less federal spending. Let’s look at the facts. The federal deficit went up every single year in the Trump administration, every single year he was president, and went up before the pandemic, and went up during the pandemic.
      In three years before Covid hit, the deficit ballooned by another $400bn. One big reason for that is the Republicans voted for a $2tn Trump tax cut, which overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and the biggest corporations. That racked up the deficit significantly.
      On my watch, things have been different. The deficit has come down in both years that I’ve been in office.Here’s Hugo Lowell’s report on the Steve Bannon sentencing hearing this morning:Donald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted with criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.The punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.The sentence handed down by the US district court judge Carl Nichols in Washington was lighter than recommended by prosecutors, who sought six months in jail and the maximum $200,000 in fines because Bannon refused to cooperate with court officials’ pre-sentencing inquiries.Bannon, 68, had asked the court for leniency and requested in court filings for his sentence to either be halted pending the appeal his lawyers filed briefs with the DC circuit court on Thursday or otherwise have the jail term reduced to home-confinement.But Nichols denied Bannon’s requests, saying he agreed with the justice department about the seriousness of his offense and noting that he had failed to show any remorse and was yet to demonstrate that he had any intention to comply with the subpoena.The far-right provocateur now faces a battle to overturn the conviction on appeal, which, the Guardian first reported, will contend the precedent that prevented his lawyers from disputing the definition of “wilful default” of a subpoena, and arguing he had acted on the advice of his lawyers, was inapplicable.Read the full story:Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of CongressRead more More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Steve Bannon: how the Trump ally’s varied career led him to prison

      by

      Steve Bannon: how the Trump ally’s varied career led him to prisonThe former media entrepreneur, naval officer and investment banker was at Trump’s side during his ascent and some of his most divisive moments01:33Moments after being convicted of contempt of Congress in July, Steve Bannon, a former media entrepreneur, naval officer, investment banker and Trump administration aide, walked out of a Washington courthouse and made a declaration that summed up what the better part of the last decade of his life had been about.Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of CongressRead more“I stand with Trump and the constitution, and I will never back off that, ever,” Bannon declared.On Friday, a federal judge sentenced Bannon to four months in jail and a $6,500 fine, for defying a subpoena from lawmakers investigating the January 6 insurrection.It was the latest twist in the varied career of the 68-year-old far-right provocateur.Bannon was by Donald Trump’s side during his ascent to the White House and guided some of his most divisive moments, including his decision to ban travelers from Muslim-majority countries and his equivocation over a deadly white supremacist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia.Bannon then met a fate common to Trump White House officials – pushed out, in his case after less than eight months and after repeatedly clashing with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser.But Bannon’s loyalty remained, and it paid off. On his last day in office, Trump pardoned Bannon, who had been convicted on federal fraud charges.Now Bannon is trying to keep his freedom again. This time he can expect no presidential pardon, at least not as long as Joe Biden is in the White House. But he will remain free while appealing his sentence, his strategy, according to people close to him, to drag out the proceedings until the January 6 committee’s mandate expires at the end of this year.“We may have lost a battle here today but we’re not going to lose this war,” Bannon said in July, after a Washington jury handed down its guilty verdict.The son of a working-class Irish Catholic family of Democrats, Bannon grew up in Virginia, attended military prep school and spent four years in the navy before graduating with a MBA from Harvard.He worked as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs then got into media financing, where he profited from the success of Seinfeld, one of the greatest TV comedies of all time.It was during his time as a film producer in Hollywood that Bannon met the conservative media entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. Bannon took over the Breitbart News website after its founder died of a heart attack in 2012. Bannon once described the outlet as the “the platform of the alt-right”, embracing the racism and antisemitism Trump would use as fuel for his electoral success four years later.Bannon made Trump’s acquaintance in 2010, and was impressed by his stance on China and international trade. He took over as Trump campaign chair months before the election in 2016, helping hone the populist edge used to upset Hillary Clinton.Bannon co-wrote the grim “American carnage” speech Trump gave at his inauguration and helped see through divisive opening actions including pulling out of the Paris climate accords.Amid infighting within Trump’s inner circle of advisers, Bannon was pushed off the National Security Council by April, and out of the administration entirely by August.Critics decry him as a nationalist and a nihilist bent more on destroying the American political system that reforming it. Bannon describes himself as a “Tea Party populist guy” and in the past has insisted that his goal is to get the Republican party to focus its policies on the American people.Steve Bannon: ‘We’ve turned the Republicans into a working-class party’Read more“We’ve turned the Republican party into a working-class party,” he told the Guardian in 2019.Left unsaid was Bannon’s view that Trump would be best to lead that party no matter the cost. In a recording obtained by Mother Jones, Bannon described in 2020 how the then-president planned to declare victory in his re-election campaign even before all the votes were counted.“That’s our strategy,” Bannon said. “He’s gonna declare himself a winner. So when you wake up Wednesday morning [after election day], it’s going to be a firestorm.“You’re going to have antifa, crazy. The media, crazy. The courts are crazy. And Trump’s gonna be sitting there mocking, tweeting shit out: ‘You lose. I’m the winner. I’m the king.’”TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS Capitol attackUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of Congress

      by

      Steve Bannon given four months in prison for contempt of CongressFormer Trump strategist also fined $6,500 for refusing to comply with subpoena issued by Capitol attack committee01:33Donald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.Steve Bannon sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress conviction – liveRead moreThe punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.The sentence handed down by the US district court judge Carl Nichols in Washington was lighter than recommended by prosecutors, who sought six months in jail and the maximum $200,000 in fines because Bannon refused to cooperate with court officials’ pre-sentencing inquiries.“Others must be deterred from committing similar crimes,” Nichols said as he handed down the sentence, adding that a failure to adequately punish the flouting of congressional subpoenas would enshrine a lack of respect to the legislative branch.Bannon, 68, had asked the court for leniency and requested in court filings for his sentence to either be halted pending the appeal his lawyers filed briefs with the DC circuit court on Thursday or otherwise have the jail term reduced to home-confinement.But Nichols denied Bannon’s requests, saying he agreed with the justice department about the seriousness of his offense and noting that he had failed to show any remorse and was yet to demonstrate that he had any intention to comply with the subpoena.The judge noted in issuing the sentence that he weighed how some factors cut in Bannon’s favor: while he did not comply with the subpoena, he did engage with the select committee and emails appeared to show he had been acting on the advice of his then-lawyer, Robert Costello.Those mitigating factors suggested that Bannon perhaps did not act in the most contemptuous manner that he could have against the subpoena, and so warranted a lighter sentence than the justice department had recommended, Nichols said.Nichols also ruled he would stay the sentence as long as Bannon filed his anticipated appeal “timely”. With his second defense lawyer, Evan Corcoran, understood to have largely finalized the brief, according to sources familiar with the matter, Bannon should meet deadlines.The far-right provocateur now faces a battle to overturn the conviction on appeal, which, the Guardian first reported, will contend the precedent that prevented his lawyers from disputing the definition of “wilful default” of a subpoena, and arguing he had acted on the advice of his lawyers, was inapplicable.After walking out of the courthouse with his lawyers into a melee of reporters and television cameras, Bannon, dressed in a military-style jacket over several navy-colored shirts, vowed that Democrats would face their “judgment day” with an appeal that would prove “bulletproof”.The former Trump White House official then climbed into a waiting SUV and returned to his nearby Washington townhouse to immediately host a victorious episode of his War Room show. A person close to Bannon described him as feeling triumphant and unrepentant.Bannon was charged with two counts of contempt Congress after his refusal to comply at all with the select committee’s subpoena demanding documents and testimony last year triggered the House of Representatives to refer him to the justice department for prosecution.The select committee had sought Bannon’s cooperation after it identified him early on in the investigation as a key player in the run-up to the Capitol attack, who appeared to have advance knowledge of Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win on January 6.Among other moments of interest, the Guardian has previously reported, Bannon received a call from Trump the night before the Capitol attack while he was at a Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel and was told of then-vice president Mike Pence’s resistance to decertifying Biden’s win.The close contacts with Trump in the days and hours leading up to the Capitol attack meant Bannon was among the first targets of the investigation, and his refusal to comply with the subpoena galvanised the panel’s resolve to make an example of him with a contempt referral.During the five-day trial in July, Bannon’s legal team ultimately declined to present evidence after Nichols excluded the “advice of counsel” argument because the case law at the DC Circuit level, Licavoli v United States 1961, held that was not a valid defense for defying a subpoena.The justice department, according to Licavoli, had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bannon’s refusal to comply was deliberate and intentional, and the assistant US attorney Amanda Vaughn told the jury in closing arguments they should find the case straightforward.“The defense wants to make this hard, difficult and confusing,” Vaughn said in federal court in Washington. “This is not difficult. This is not hard. There were only two witnesses because it’s as simple as it seems.”That meant the only arguments left available to Bannon were either that he was somehow confused about the deadlines indicated on the subpoena, or that he did not realize the deadlines were concrete and failing to comply with those dates would mean he was in default.TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Steve Bannon expected to appeal contempt of Congress conviction

      by

      Steve Bannon expected to appeal contempt of Congress convictionAppeal to contend ex-Trump strategist should’ve been allowed to argue he defied Capitol attack subpoena on advice of lawyers Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon is expected to ask a federal appeals court to overturn his contempt of Congress conviction, contending that he should have been allowed at trial to argue he defied a subpoena from the House January 6 select committee on the advice of his lawyers.The appeal will seek the DC circuit court to quash the conviction for which he is set on Friday to face a potential six month prison sentence and $200,000 in fines as recommended by the justice department, according to sources familiar with the matter.Steve Bannon: justice department urges six-month prison term in contempt caseRead moreBannon’s appeal is expected to make the case that the legal precedent that prevented US district court judge Carl Nichols from allowing his lawyers to argue the definition of “willful” defiance used at trial, as well as the fact that he had relied on the advice of counsel, was inapplicable.The argument appears to capitalize on repeated acknowledgements by Nichols in pre-trial rulings that he considered the legal precedent to be outdated and might have otherwise permitted Bannon’s lawyers to say the former aide – because of bad legal advice – did not realize he acted unlawfully.“I think that the DC Circuit may very well have gotten this wrong,” Nichols said. “The problem is, I’m not writing on a clean slate here.”Bannon’s appeal is expected to echo points raised in his sentencing memo, which complained that the precedent set by the DC circuit in Licavoli v United States 1961 – that the justice department merely had to prove Bannon intentionally defied the select committee subpoena – was outdated.The definition of “willful” for contempt of Congress prosecutions has changed since the ruling in the Licavoli case, the memo noted, and the supreme court recently has said prosecutors have to show defendants knew their conduct was unlawful in order to prove they willfully violated a statute.That should have been the standard for Bannon’s trial, the memo argued, suggesting that would have paved the way for Bannon to make the case that he did not believe defying the subpoena was unlawful after his lawyers told him he was protected by executive privilege.Bannon could face an uphill struggle with his appeal. Even if the precedent was updated, legal experts said, Bannon would still have to defend against the justice department and the select committee’s argument that Trump never actually asserted privilege for his former strategist.And even if Bannon could produce correspondence to show Trump had asserted executive privilege – to date, there has only been an email from his lawyer appearing to make that assumption – he would have still needed to attend the deposition and assert it question by question, the experts said.A spokesman for Bannon declined to comment.Bannon was charged with two counts of contempt of Congress after his refusal to comply at all with the select committee’s subpoena demanding documents and testimony last year triggered the House of Representatives to refer him to the justice department for prosecution.The select committee had sought Bannon’s cooperation after it identified him early on in the investigation as a key player in the run-up to the Capitol attack, who appeared to have advance knowledge of Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win on January 6.Among other moments of interest, the Guardian has previously reported, Bannon received a call from Trump the night before the Capitol attack while he was at a Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel and was told of then vice president Mike Pence’s resistance to decertifying Biden’s win.The close contacts with Trump in the days and hours leading up to the Capitol attack meant Bannon was among the first targets of the investigation, and his refusal to comply with the subpoena galvanised the panel’s resolve to make an example of him with a contempt referral.During the five-day trial in July, Bannon’s legal team ultimately declined to present any evidence in defense after Nichols excluded the “advice of counsel” argument, and the justice department told the jury in closing arguments they should find the case straightforward.“The defense wants to make this hard, difficult and confusing,” assistant US attorney Amanda Vaughn said in federal court in Washington. “This is not difficult. This is not hard. There were only two witnesses because it’s as simple as it seems.”That meant the only arguments left available to Bannon were either that he was somehow confused about the deadlines indicated on the subpoena, or that he did not realize the deadlines were concrete and failing to comply with those dates would mean he was in default.TopicsSteve BannonDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Inside Steve Bannon’s ‘disturbing’ quest to radically rewrite the US constitution

      by

      Inside Steve Bannon’s ‘disturbing’ quest to radically rewrite the US constitution By taking over state legislatures, Republicans hope to pass conservative amendments that cannot be electorally challengedSteve Bannon, the former chief strategist in the Trump White House who is at the forefront of the Republican march toward hard-right populism, is throwing his weight behind a movement to radically rewrite the US constitution.Bannon has devoted recent episodes of his online show the War Room to a well-funded operation which has stealthily gained ground over the past two years. Backed by billionaire donors and corporate interests, it aims to persuade state legislatures to call a constitutional convention in the hope of baking far-right conservative values into the supreme law of the land.The goal is, in essence, to turn the country into a permanent conservative nation irrespective of the will of the American people. The convention would promote policies that would limit the size and scope of the federal government, set ceilings on or even abolish taxes, free corporations from regulations, and impose restrictions on government action in areas such as abortion, guns and immigration.“This is another line of attack strategically,” Bannon told his viewers last month. “You now have a political movement that understands we need to go after the administrative state.”By “administrative state”, Bannon was referring to the involvement of the federal government and Congress in central aspects of modern American life. That includes combating the climate crisis, setting educational standards and fighting health inequities.Mark Meckler, a founder of the Tea Party who now leads one of the largest groups advocating for the tactic, the Convention of States Action (Cosa), spelled out some of the prime objectives on Bannon’s show. “We need to say constitutionally, ‘No, the federal government cannot be involved in education, or healthcare, or energy, or the environment’,” he said.Meckler went on to divulge the anti-democratic nature of the state convention movement when he said a main aim was to prevent progressive policies being advanced through presidential elections. “The problem is, any time the administration swings back to Democrat – or radical progressive, or Marxist which is what they are – we are going to lose the gains. So you do the structural fix.”The “structural fix” involves Republican state legislatures pushing conservative amendments to America’s foundational document. By cementing the policies into the US constitution, they would become largely immune to electoral challenge.Were a convention achieved, it would mark the zenith of conservative state power in American politics. Over the past 12 years, since the eruption of the Tea Party, Republicans have extended their grip to more than half of the states in the country, imposing an increasingly far-right agenda on the heartlands.Now the plan is to take that dominance nationwide.Article V of the constitution lays out two distinct ways in which America’s core document, ratified in 1788, can be revised. In practice, all 27 amendments that have been added over the past 244 years have come through the first route – a Congress-led process whereby two-thirds of both the US House and Senate have to approve changes followed by ratification by three-quarters of the states. Meckler, working alongside other powerful interest groups and wealthy rightwing megadonors, is gunning for Article V’s second route – one that has never been tried before. It gives state legislatures the power to call a constitutional convention of their own, should two-thirds of all 50 states agree.A bar chart of party control of state legislatures since 1978.The state-based model for rewriting the US constitution is perhaps the most audacious attempt yet by hard-right Republicans to secure what amounts to conservative minority rule in which a minority of lawmakers representing less-populated rural states dictate terms to the majority of Americans. Russ Feingold, a former Democratic US senator from Wisconsin, told the Guardian that “they want to rewrite the constitution in a fundamental way that is not just conservative, it is minoritarian. It will prevent the will of ‘we the people’ being heard.”Feingold has co-authored with Peter Prindiville of the Stanford constitutional law center The Constitution in Jeopardy, a new book that sounds the alarm on the states-based convention movement. “Our goal is not to scare people, but to alert them that there is a movement on the far right that is quietly getting itself to a point where it will be almost impossible to stop a convention being called,” he said.His urgency is underlined by how active the movement has become. A convention resolution framed by Cosa has passed so far this year in four states – Wisconsin, Nebraska, West Virginia and South Carolina.The group has also been busy around November’s midterm elections, using its muscle and some $600,000 (£528,252) of its reserves to support candidates amenable to the idea. “We have built the largest grassroots activist army in American history,” Meckler told Bannon, probably hyperbolically.Bannon’s other guest on the War Room, Rick Santorum, a former Republican US senator from Pennsylvania who advises Cosa, told Bannon: “This is something that can happen very quickly. We are a lot further along than people think.”They are also much better funded than people might think. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), which monitors the constitutional convention movement, estimates that it pulled in $25m (£22m) in 2020, the last year for which figures are known. The funds were split between Cosa and other influential groups on the right. They include the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a network of state politicians and corporate lobbyists which has taken up the cry for a constitutional amendment to force balanced budget restrictions on Washington.Much of the income is dark money, with the origins hidden. CMD has managed to identify some key donors – among them the Mercer Family Foundation set up by reclusive hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, and a couple of groups run by Leonard Leo, the mastermind behind the rightwing land grab in the federal courts.More than $1m (£880,265) has also been donated in the form of Bitcoin.The attraction to these groups and donors of pursuing a states route to rewriting the US constitution is easily explained. Over the past 12 years, since the eruption of the Tea Party in 2010, Republican activists have deployed extreme partisan gerrymandering to pull off an extraordinary takeover of state legislatures.Bannon is not finished: his ‘precinct strategy’ could alter US elections for yearsRead moreIn 2010, Republicans controlled both chambers of just 14 state legislatures. Today, that number stands at 31. “Republicans are near the high watermark in terms of their political control in the states, and that’s why the pro-Trump rightwing of the party is increasingly embracing the constitutional convention strategy,” said Arn Pearson, CMD’s executive director.Should a convention be achieved, the plan would be to give states one vote each. There is no legal or historical basis for such an arrangement but its appeal is self-evident.One vote per state would give small rural conservative states like Wyoming (population 580,000) equal leverage to large urbanized progressive states like California (39.5 million). Collectively, small states would be in the majority and control would tip to the Republicans.Last December Santorum spelled out this minoritarian vision at a private ALEC meeting. In an audio recording obtained by CMD, Santorum said: “We have the opportunity, as a result, to have a supermajority, even though we may not even be in an absolute majority when it comes to the people who agree with us.”Pearson decried such thinking as “a profoundly anti-majoritarian and anti-democratic strategy that gives small rural states most control”.With the counting system skewed towards the conservative heartlands, the list of amendments that might be pursued is disconcertingly large. Though Meckler and his allies largely avoid talking about culture war issues, it is quite conceivable that a nationwide ban on abortion and a rescinding of gay marriage would be on the table.More openly, advocates have talked about imposing balanced budget requirements on the US government that would dramatically shrink federal resources. Some have even proposed making income tax unconstitutional.One of the more popular ideas circulating within rightwing constitutional convention circles, initially floated by the talk show host Mark Levin, is that states should grant themselves the ability to override federal statutes and supreme court rulings. It is hard to see how the federal rule of law could be sustained under such an arrangement with its unmistakable civil war undertones.Under Article V, 34 states would have to call for a constitutional convention to reach the two-thirds requirement. Cosa has so far succeeded in getting 19 states to sign up, with a further six in active consideration.ALEC, which sets a narrower remit for a convention focused on its balanced budget amendment, has gone further with 28 states on board.Either way, there is a shortfall. To address it, constitutional convention leaders have invented increasingly exotic mathematical formulas for attaining the magic number, 34. “We used to call it fuzzy math, now we call it wacky math,” Pearson said.Advocates filed a lawsuit in Texas in February that tried to get the courts to force a constitutional convention on grounds that they had reached 34 states already – they cobbled together unrelated state convention calls, including some dating back to the 1800s. In July two bills were also introduced to the US House requiring Congress to call a convention immediately.David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, said the willingness to adopt outlandish logic should sound further alarm bells. It raised the stakes even higher for the November elections.“The midterms are crucial,” Super said. “Changes at state-level matter, but will not get them to 34 states. If they can take control of Congress, they could bridge the gap.”Paradoxically, what happens to Congress in the midterms could have the biggest impact on the future prospects of a states-based constitutional convention. Should the Republicans take back control of the US House and Senate they would be in a position to advance radical Republicans’ demands.“We’ve already seen a willingness to play fast and loose with the math on all sorts of things in Congress,” Super said. “I would not be surprised if they were to make a serious attempt to adopt one of these bizarre accounting theories should they take control of both chambers in November.”That could mean a rapid dash for a convention before most Americans would have woken up to the danger.“If the Republicans prevail in Congress, they could try to call a convention right away,” Feingold said. “People should know that when they go to vote in November – this could fundamentally undermine their rights in a way that is both disturbing and permanent.”TopicsSteve BannonUS politicsUS constitution and civil libertiesRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More