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      Capitol attack: Trump not immune from criminal referral, lawmakers insist

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      Capitol attack: Trump not immune from criminal referral, lawmakers insistKinzinger asks if Trump ‘incompetent or a coward’ during 6 January riot while Raskin ponders 14th amendment to bar new run

      Is the US really heading for a second civil war?
      Donald Trump cannot hide behind immunity from criminal prosecution and faces the possibility of being debarred from running for public office over his role in the Capitol attack, several members of Congress said on Sunday.Unthinkable review: Jamie Raskin, his lost son and defending democracy from TrumpRead moreDays after the anniversary of the 6 January insurrection that left five people dead and scores injured after Trump supporters attempted to scupper the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, the threat of possible criminal proceedings looms large over the former president.Lawmakers from both main parties, including moderate Republicans, warned on Sunday that Trump will not be spared criminal liability should evidence emerge that he actively coordinated the attack.A Republican senator, Mike Rounds from South Dakota, told ABC’s This Week that any immunity from prosecution that Trump enjoyed while in the White House evaporated on 20 January 2021, when he left office.“The shield of the presidency does not exist for someone who was a former president – everybody in this country is subject to the courts of this country,” Rounds said.Rounds added that it was up to the justice department, not Congress, to decide whether evidence existed of criminal wrongdoing by Trump.On Saturday, the Guardian revealed that the House select committee investigating 6 January is homing in on the question of whether Trump led a criminal conspiracy to try and block Biden’s certification as his successor in the White House.Depending on what they find, the committee has the power to refer the matter to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution.Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois who sits on the committee, underlined the laser-like focus of the investigation on Trump’s potential complicity.Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said the key question now was: “What did the president know about 6 January leading up to 6 January?”Kinzinger added that the panel wanted to know why Trump failed to take any action for almost three hours while the violence at the Capitol was unfolding on his TV screen. Was it a sign of weakness or complicity?“It’s the difference between, was the president absolutely incompetent or a coward on 6 January when he didn’t do anything or did he know what was coming? That’s a difference between incompetence with your oath and possibly criminal.”While the question of whether the former president broke the law is fast rising up the political agenda, Congress is also considering another potential route to hold Trump accountable for the violence of a year ago: action under the 14th amendment of the constitution.Section three of the amendment holds that nobody in elected federal office, including the president, should engage in “insurrection or rebellion” against the union.Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland who led the second impeachment of Trump for “incitement of insurrection”, told ABC the 14th amendment might yet be “a blockade for [Trump] ever being able to run for office again”.While the relatively tiny number of moderate Republicans who have been willing openly to criticize the former president were airing their views on Sunday, the opposing tack taken by most party leaders was also on display.Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist from South Carolina, told a New York radio channel the Capitol attack was a “dark day”, but went on to lambast Biden for marking the anniversary this week.“It was an effort on his part to create a brazen political moment to try to deflect from their failed presidency,” Graham said.A moment of silence staged at the House to mark the anniversary was attended by only two Republicans: the congresswoman Liz Cheney and her father, the former vice-president Dick Cheney.Trump has birthed a dangerous new ‘Lost Cause’ myth. We must fight it | David BlightRead moreAfterwards, the older Cheney expressed his disappointment at the “failure of many members of my party to recognize the grave nature of the 6 January attacks and the ongoing threat to our nation”.Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas, attempted to defend congress members from his state, all of whom sat out the anniversary proceedings.“I don’t know that absolute attendance was the only way to show frustration with 6 January,” he told CNN’s State of the Union.But Hutchinson did say he regretted that large numbers of Republican candidates running for public office are openly embracing Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was rigged.“What worries me is that they are not demonstrating leadership,” he said.“We have to make clear that [6 January] was unacceptable, it was an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power and we have to make clear that President Trump had some responsibility for that.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS SenateDonald TrumpTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      DC media makes meal of supposed Sotomayor restaurant sighting

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      DC media makes meal of supposed Sotomayor restaurant sightingNewsletter reports supreme court justice dined with Democrats after incorrectly identifying Chuck Schumer’s wife as the justice

      Ted Cruz seeks to move on from Tucker Carlson mauling
      The most Washington website of all was forced to issue a diplomatic correction on Saturday, in a second recent iteration of perhaps the most Washington story of all: mistaken reporting about diners at Le Diplomate, a restaurant popular with DC politicos.‘When QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby’: Ron Johnson will run again for US SenateRead moreThe website in question was Politico, the capital and Capitol-covering tipsheet which with characteristic capitals informed readers of its Playbook email: “SPOTTED: Speaker NANCY PELOSI, Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER, Sen[ators] AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn) and DICK DURBIN (D-Ill) and Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR dining together at Le Diplomate on Friday night.”The email also offered readers a “pic from our intrepid tipster”.Alas, it did not show Sotomayor.The “pic” showed French café tables, waiters, diners and a woman turning from her dessert to talk to Klobuchar, who was maskless and sitting opposite a masked-up Durbin. Schumer’s distinctive hairline could be seen next to Durbin and Pelosi could be seen, also maskless, to the right of a dark-haired woman with her back turned: supposedly the supreme court justice.Politico might have paused before pressing send. Not only could the supposed Sotomayor’s face not be seen but only last month another supposed scandal at “Le Dip” proved to be a “le flop”.Then, a former Republican aide tweeted that Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, had been turned away.In fact, they were being seated outside. Politico covered the slip, reporting: “Within minutes we at Playbook were looped into this seemingly momentous news and were pretty excited ourselves to write about it today. Alas, our enthusiasm was dashed when we heard back from a Buttigieg spox who said there was nothing to it.”On Friday, a Sotomayor sighting would have been news. One of three liberal justices on the supreme court, she had not appeared in person for oral arguments earlier, over Joe Biden’s Covid vaccine mandate for private employers.Furthermore, in that hearing she had made an inaccurate claim about the Omicron-fuelled Covid-19 surge, saying: “We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition and many on ventilators.”As the Washington Post fact-checker put it, that was “wildly incorrect”, as “according to HHS data, as of 8 January there are about 5,000 children hospitalised … either with suspected Covid or a confirmed laboratory test”.The Politico photo also came amid continuing speculation about when or if another liberal, Stephen Breyer, might retire, thereby giving Joe Biden a pick for the court before possible loss of the Senate. Schumer would shepherd any nominee into place.Alas for Politico, it soon became clear its tipster was wrong. The woman in the picture was Iris Weinshall, the chief operating officer of the New York Public Library, who is married to Schumer. A correction ensued but to make matters worse, Weinshall was initially identified only by her husband’s name. To make matters worse still, Schumer’s office told other outlets that unlike in le grande affaire de Buttigieg, Politico had not called to check on the tip from “Le Dip”.Politico acknowledged the slip and said standards had not been met.“We deeply regret the error,” it said.TopicsWashington DCUS politicsSonia SotomayorUS supreme courtChuck SchumerNancy PelosiAmy KlobucharnewsReuse this content More

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      Unthinkable review: Jamie Raskin, his lost son and defending democracy from Trump

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      Unthinkable review: Jamie Raskin, his lost son and defending democracy from Trump The Maryland Democrat has written an extraordinary memoir of grief, the Capitol attack and the second impeachment

      David Blight: Trump has birthed a new Lost Cause myth
      Unthinkable is the perfect title for this extraordinary book, because it describes a superhuman feat.The Steal review: stethoscope for a democracy close to cardiac arrestRead moreJamie Raskin is a fine writer, a Democratic congressman, a constitutional scholar and a deeply loving father. When 2020 began, he had no inkling that just 12 months later his country and his family would face “two impossible traumas”.On 31 December, his beautiful, brilliant, charismatic 25-year-old son, Tommy, took his own life. Six days later, a vicious mob invaded Raskin’s workplace, the cradle of democracy, leaving several dead and injuring 140 police officers.Raskin suffered “a violent and comprehensive shock to the foundations”. Never had he felt “so equidistant … between the increasingly unrecognizable place called life and the suddenly intimate and expanding jurisdiction called death”.This is where the superhuman part came in. Instead of succumbing to unfathomable grief over the death of his son, Raskin seized a lifeline thrown by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and agreed to lead the effort to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the riot which might have derailed the peaceful transition of power.He found “salvation and sustenance … a pathway back to the land of the living”.“I’m not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021,” he told CNN, less than three weeks after Tommy’s death.Raskin’s astonishing story of tragedy and redemption, of “despair and survival”, depended entirely on all the “good and compassionate people” like Tommy, “the non-narcissists, the feisty, life-size human beings who hate bullying and fascism naturally – people just the right size for a democracy … where we are all created equal”.Tommy Raskin was the fourth generation in a great liberal family. His maternal great grandfather was the first Jew elected to the Minnesota legislature. His father, Marcus Raskin, was one of the earliest opponents of the Vietnam war when he worked in the Kennedy White House. In 1968, Marcus Raskin was indicted with William Sloane Coffin, Dr Benjamin Spock and others for conspiracy to aid resistance to the draft. When Raskin was the only one acquitted, he famously demanded a retrial.Jamie Raskin taught constitutional law then ran for the Maryland Senate, with Tommy, then 10, his first campaign aide. In the state legislature, Raskin helped outlaw the death penalty and legalize same-sex marriage.Tommy was a second-year student at Harvard Law School when Covid began. Like so many others with clinical depression, the catastrophe deepened his symptoms. His father described his illness as “a kind of relentless torture in the brain … Despite very fine doctors and a loving family … the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last.”Congressman Jamie Raskin: ‘I’ll never forget the terrible sound of them trying to barrel into the chamber’Read moreThis is also a political memoir, of the Capitol attack and the second impeachment. Driving to the Capitol, Raskin spotted MAGA supporters heckling a young Black driver and a car with a bumper sticker reading: “If Guns Are Outlawed, How Am I Going To Shoot Liberals?”He realizes these “fascist bread crumbs throughout the city” should have activated “some kind of cultural alarm”. More chillingly, he reports the decision of some Democrats to cross their chamber after Congress was invaded, “because they thought a mass shooter who entered would be less likely to aim at the Republican side of the House”.But Raskin was never afraid: “The very worst thing that could ever have happened to us has already happened … and Tommy is with me somehow every step of the way. He is occupying my heart … He is showing me the way to some kind of safety … My wound has now become my shield of defense and my path to escape, and all I can think of is my son propelling me forward to fight.”The most powerful part of Raskin’s book, the heart-shattering part, is his love letter to Tommy, a “dazzling, precious, brilliant … moral visionary, a slam poet, an intellectual giant slayer, the king of Boggle, a natural-born comedian, a friend to all human beings but tyrants and bullies, a freedom fighter, a political essayist, a playwright, a jazz pianist, and a handsome, radical visitor from a distant future where war, mass hunger and the eating of animals are considered barbaric intolerable and absurd”.Raskin realized that for the last week of his life, his son had made an effort to impersonate someone in perfect mental health, so no one would intervene. These were his parting words: “Please forgive me. My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.”Raskin takes some solace remembering the story of Abraham Lincoln’s son Willie, who died of typhoid fever at the age of 12 in 1862, plunging his parents into depression.It had been a point of pride that Raskin responded to every constituent, but a deluge of condolences made that impossible. There was also a call from Joe Biden, three days after Tommy died. The president-elect promised “the day would come when Tommy’s name would bring a smile to my lip before tears to my eyes”.Congressman Jamie Raskin on the day democracy almost crumbled in the US: Politics Weekly podcastRead moreEventually Raskin was convinced to write one letter for everyone sending condolences, one for everyone who wrote about impeachment and a third for everyone who offered condolences and political solidarity. One actually wrote: “I was looking for a condolence card for the loss of your son which also said ‘and thanks for saving our country too’, but Hallmark apparently doesn’t make those.”Naturally, one of Raskin’s son’s heroes was Wittgenstein, who believed the truth of ethical propositions is determined by the courage with which you act to make them real.“On this standard,” Raskin writes, “there have never been truer ethical claims than the ones made by Tommy Raskin, because he was all courage and engagement with his moral convictions.”May this book and Tommy’s example inspire us all to rescue our gravely beleaguered democracy.
      Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy is published in the US by Harper
      TopicsBooksUS Capitol attackUS politicsDemocratsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesMarylandreviewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Being tough, being a fighter’: Obama and Biden salute Harry Reid at Las Vegas funeral

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      ‘Being tough, being a fighter’: Obama and Biden salute Harry Reid at Las Vegas funeral
      Two presidents, Pelosi and Schumer address service in Nevada
      Former Senate majority leader died at 82 in December
      Obituary: Harry Reid, 1939-2021
      Two presidents and Democratic leaders in Congress joined on Saturday to commemorate Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader who rose from poverty in Nevada to become one of the most powerful US politicians.Capitol attack panel investigates Trump over potential criminal conspiracyRead more“Being tough, being a fighter was once of Harry’s signatures characteristics,” Barack Obama said, at the service in Las Vegas.“He didn’t believe in high-falutin’ theories or rigid ideologies. Harry knew who he was. In a town obsessed with appearance, Harry had a vanity deficit. He didn’t like phonies. He didn’t like grandstanding.”Reid died on 28 December at home in Henderson, Nevada, at 82 and of complications from pancreatic cancer. He served for 34 years in Washington, leading the Senate through the great recession and a Republican resurgence after the 2010 elections.His work to push Obama’s signature healthcare act through the Senate was prominent among memories expressed at his funeral.Obama credits Reid for helping his rapid rise from the Senate to the White House. He delivered the eulogy.“He was more generous to me than I had any right to expect,” he said. “He was one of the first people to encourage me to run for president believing that, despite my youth, despite my an experience, despite fact that I was African American, I can actually win. At the time, that made one of us.”The turnout at the memorial service testified to Reid’s impact on some of the most consequential legislation of the 21st century.President Joe Biden escorted Reid’s widow, Landra Reid, to her seat before an honor guard bore Reid’s flag-draped casket to auditorium’s well.“Harry would always have your back, like the kids I grew up with in Scranton,” Biden said. “His story was unmistakably American. He was proof that there is nothing ordinary about America, and that Americans can do anything given half a chance.”Remembering a Senate colleague, Biden said America had lost “a giant, an honorable, decent, brave, unyielding man”.For Reid, Biden said, politics wasn’t about power for its own sake. It was about “power do right by people”.“That’s why you wanted Harry in your corner,” he said.Biden also worked with Reid for eight years after the senator from Delaware became vice-president to Obama.On Saturday, Biden spoke of his own decision to run for president in 2016, repeating themes outlined when he declared his campaign to oust Donald Trump from the White House and again last week, on the first anniversary of the Capitol attack.“The idea of America itself is under attack,” he said, “from dark and deepening forces. We’re in a battle for the soul America.”The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, also spoke. Schumer described Reid as a “truly honest and original character” and joked about receiving sartorial advice.Reid’s son, Leif, recalled his father’s well-known habit of abruptly ending telephone conversations without saying goodbye, sometimes leaving the other person – whether a powerful politician or a close family member – talking for several minutes before they realized Reid was gone.In a letter to Reid before his death, Obama recalled their close relationship, their different backgrounds and Reid’s climb from an impoverished former gold mining town in the Mojave desert to leadership in Congress.“Not bad for a skinny, poor kid from Searchlight,” Obama wrote. “I wouldn’t have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn’t have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination.”Trump has birthed a dangerous new ‘Lost Cause’ myth. We must fight it | David BlightRead moreOn Saturday, Obama spoke most clearly of Reid’s contribution to democratic principles. ”He understood we don’t have to see eye to eye on everything in order to live together and be decent toward each other,” he said. “That we can learn to bridge differences of background, race and religion.“He knew that our system of government isn’t based on demanding that everybody think exactly the same way.”In what almost amounted to a requiem for a vanished political era, Obama said Reid presumed to live in a big and diverse country and for people to still work together.“He may have been a proud Democratic partisan,” he said, “and he didn’t shy away from bare-knuckle politics. But what is true is that I never heard Harry speak of politics as if it was some unbending battle between good and evil.”TopicsDemocratsUS politicsUS CongressUS SenateNevadaBarack ObamaJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      ‘When QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby’: Ron Johnson will run again for US Senate

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      ‘When QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby’: Ron Johnson will run again for US SenateRepublican expected to announce run as soon as next week, delighting both his own party and Democrats seeking a win

      Can Democrats can salvage their midterm election hopes?
      The Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, a hardline Trump supporter once described as “what you get when QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby”, has reportedly decided to seek a third term, a step he once promised not to take.Capitol attack panel investigates Trump over potential criminal conspiracyRead moreTwo Republicans confirmed Johnson’s plan to the Associated Press and said he could announce as soon as early next week. Johnson did not comment.Both parties are likely to welcome the news, given Johnson’s emergence as a leading promoter of both Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud and Covid-19 misinformation.In a Republican party dominated by Trump, who has endorsed Johnson, a third run would avoid a chaotic primary.Among Democrats, Johnson is seen as beatable in a November contest which will help decide control of a Senate split 50-50 and controlled via Vice-President Kamala Harris.With Republicans favoured to take back the House, Democrats are desperate to hold the Senate, not least to protect Joe Biden’s chances of naming at least one justice to a supreme court skewed 6-3 in favour of conservatives after Trump’s time in power.Earlier this month, Brandon Scholz, a Republican operative, told the Hill: “I think you will find almost every Republican in Wisconsin and outside of Wisconsin wanting Ron Johnson to run because of what’s at stake, and that’s the majority of the Senate for Republicans. If he doesn’t run, that makes it more difficult.”A Wisconsin Democrat, Ben Nuckels, said: “Ron Johnson is what you get when QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby. And I hope that he does run. His candidacy makes the race far more competitive for Democrats. If Republicans want to see him run, I’ll agree with them on that.”In 2016, Johnson pledged not to run a third time, a promise rescinded when Democrats took Congress and the White House.Wisconsin is a battleground state. Joe Biden won by fewer than 21,000 votes in 2020, after Trump won a similarly thin victory in 2016. In midterms, the party that does not hold the White House generally makes gains. For example, in 2010, under Barack Obama, Republicans picked up 63 House seats and six in the Senate.Johnson rose out of the Tea Party movement stoked that year by opposition to Obama’s healthcare reform and by rightwing donors. He defeated an incumbent Democrat, Russ Feingold, then beat him again in 2016.Johnson is now one of Trump’s loudest defenders, standing by him after the attack on the US Capitol last year. The senator has espoused conspiracy theories about electoral fraud and the Capitol attack. On the legalistic side of Trump’s attempt to remain in power, Johnson planned to object to results in Arizona but changed his mind after the events of 6 January.In a statement, however, he said he still refused “to dismiss the legitimate concerns of tens of millions of Americans who have lost faith in our institutions and the fairness of our electoral process”.Newspapers called for him to resign. The Wisconsin State Journal said: “Johnson’s last-minute change of heart may be viewed by some as proof of his conscience. Yet it is more accurate to view his flip-flopping … as a hit-and-run driver fleeing the scene of an accident because the driver hears sirens in the distance – only to come back to the scene and flick an insurance card out the window and keep on driving.”Referring to Johnson and Republicans who went through with objections to electoral college results, the paper said: “These men are cowards.”Johnson has also been a loud voice for unproven Covid treatments, accusing federal agencies of failing to promote drugs approved early in the pandemic and opposing public health measures including vaccine mandates.Earlier this week, Dr Rob Davidson, leader of the Committee to Protect Healthcare, an advocacy group, “begged” Twitter to “look at the last two weeks” of Johnson’s feed “and shut him down like you did Marjorie [Taylor] Greene”.Black candidates for US Senate smash fundraising records for 2022 midtermsRead moreGreene, an extremist congresswoman from Georgia, was removed from Twitter last week, for spreading Covid misinformation.Johnson “has at least five strikes of Covid mis/dis-information”, Davidson said, adding: “Feeds like his undermine our ability to save lives and end the pandemic.”Johnson has protested Twitter decisions concerning tweets about Covid.Democrats running to face Johnson include the lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes; Alex Lasry, an executive with the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team; and the state treasurer, Sarah Godlewski.On Friday, Barnes said: “Ron Johnson has been a failure and Wisconsin voters know it. The only people cheering Johnson’s decision are the wealthy special interests and big donors who have made a killing during his time in Washington.”Also on Saturday, John Thune, a member of Senate Republican leadership, said he would run for a fourth term. His state, South Dakota, is not remotely as competitive as Wisconsin.TopicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022WisconsinUS SenateUS CongressUS politicsTea Party movementnewsReuse this content More

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      Harry Reid: Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and Obama attend Nevada memorial

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      Harry Reid: Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and Obama attend Nevada memorial
      Carole King and Brandon Flowers set to perform
      Former Senate leader died in December at 82
      Obituary: Harry Reid, 1939-2021
      The life of the former Senate majority leader Harry Reid was celebrated by two presidents and other Democratic leaders in Las Vegas on Saturday.Strategy shift: Biden confronts Trump head on after year of silent treatmentRead morePresident Joe Biden, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, were scheduled to speak at a memorial for the longtime Senate leader, who died on 28 December at home in Henderson, Nevada, at 82 and of complications from pancreatic cancer.Barack Obama, who credits Reid for his rise to the White House, was scheduled to deliver the eulogy.“The president believes Harry Reid is one of the greatest leaders in Senate history,” Karine Jean-Pierre, a deputy White House press secretary, said on Friday. “So he is traveling to pay his respects to a man who had a profound impact on this nation.”Biden served for two decades with Reid in the Senate and worked with him for eight years as vice-president.Elder M Russell Ballard, a senior apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was also to speak at the 2,000-seat concert hall about Reid’s 60 years in the Mormon faith. Vice-President Kamala Harris also attended.“These are not only some of the most consequential leaders of our time – they are also some of Harry’s best friends,” Reid’s wife of 62 years, Landra Reid, said in a statement announcing plans for the Smith Center for the Performing Arts event.“Harry loved every minute of his decades working with these leaders and the incredible things they accomplished together.”Reid’s daughter and four sons were scheduled to speak too.In a letter to Reid before his death, Obama recalled their close relationship, their different backgrounds and Reid’s climb from an impoverished former gold mining town of Searchlight in the Mojave Desert to leadership in Congress.“Not bad for a skinny, poor kid from Searchlight,” Obama wrote. “I wouldn’t have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn’t have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination.”Reid spent 34 years in Washington and led the Senate through a crippling recession and the Republican takeover of the House after the 2010 elections. He muscled Obama’s signature healthcare act through the Senate.Reid hitchhiked 40 miles to high school and was an amateur boxer before he was elected to the Nevada state Assembly at 28. He had graduated from Utah State University and worked nights as a US Capitol police officer while attending George Washington University Law School in Washington.In 1970, at 30, he was elected state lieutenant governor with a Democratic governor, Mike O’Callaghan. Reid was elected to the House in 1982 and the Senate in 1986.Reid built a political machine in Nevada that for years helped Democrats win key elections. When he retired in 2016 after an exercise accident at home left him blind in one eye, he picked a former Nevada attorney general, Catherine Cortez Masto, to replace him.Cortez Masto was the first woman from Nevada and the first Latina ever elected to the US Senate.“Most of all, you’ve been a good friend,” Obama told Reid in his letter. “As different as we are, I think we both saw something of ourselves in each other – a couple of outsiders who had defied the odds and knew how to take a punch and cared about the little guy.”Democrats could still salvage Build Back Better – and perhaps their midterm prospects Read moreThe singer-songwriter and environmentalist Carole King and Brandon Flowers, lead singer of the Las Vegas-based rock band the Killers, were scheduled to perform during the memorial.“The thought of having Carole King performing in Harry’s honor is a tribute truly beyond words,” Landra Reid said.Flowers, a longtime friend, shares the Reids’ faith and has been a headliner at events including a Lake Tahoe Summit that Reid founded in 1997 to draw attention to the ecology of the lake, and the National Clean Energy Summit that Reid helped launch in 2008 in Las Vegas. Among other songs, Flowers was scheduled to sing the Nevada state anthem, Home Means Nevada.Those flying to Las Vegas arrived at the newly renamed Harry Reid international airport. It was formerly named for Pat McCarran, a former Democratic US senator from Nevada who once owned the airfield and whose legacy is clouded by racism and antisemitism.TopicsUS SenateUS CongressUS politicsDemocratsJoe BidenBarack ObamaNancy PelosinewsReuse this content More

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      Bobby Rush, only politician to win against Obama, to retire from Congress

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      Bobby Rush, only politician to win against Obama, to retire from CongressDemocratic representative from Illinois faced Obama in a House primary in 2000 and beat him by more than 30 points The only politician ever to beat Barack Obama will retire from the US Congress at the end of the year.Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘Democrat or an idiot’, fellow Republican saysRead moreBobby Rush, a Democratic representative from Illinois, faced Obama in a House primary in 2000 – and beat him by more than 30 points. Obama went on to win a US Senate seat in 2004 and become America’s first Black president five years later.Rush said Obama, then 38, “was blinded by his ambition” and moved too soon, against the wrong target. Obama said he had his “rear end handed to me”.Rush, 75 and first elected to Congress in 1992, is a minister and social activist who co-founded the Illinois Black Panther party and was described by Politico on Monday as “a legend in Chicago politics”.In a video, he said: “I have been reassigned. Actually, I’m not retiring, I’m returning home. I’m returning to my church. I’m returning to my family. I have grandchildren. I’m returning to my passion.“I will be in public life. I will be working hand in hand with someone who will replace me.”Rush’s district is solidly Democratic but political rune-readers still found worrying signs for the national party. Rush is the 24th Democrat to announce that they will not run in 2022. Only 11 Republicans have said the same.Two of those, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, voted to impeach Donald Trump over the Capitol riot and subsequently concluded they had no place in a party he dominates.Republicans are favored to take back the House in November – despite their supporters having physically attacked it, in an attempt to overturn the presidential election, on 6 January last year.Rush made headlines during his time in Congress. In 2012, after the shooting death in Florida of the Black teenager Trayvon Martin, he showed solidarity by wearing a hooded sweatshirt on the House floor.“Racial profiling has to stop,” he said. “Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum.”It earned Rush a reprimand for violating rules regarding wearing hats in the chamber.Martin’s father, Tracy Martin, praised Rush and told the Washington Post: “This is something that needs to be talked about … This is a country of freedom of speech.” Rush could raise eyebrows with sharp comments, as when he dismissed an anti-violence plan by an Illinois Republican senator, Mark Kirk, as a simplistic “white boy” solution to a complex problem.Congressman Bobby Rush escorted off House floor for wearing hoodieRead moreHe also pushed legislation designating lynching as a hate crime, named for Emmett Till, a Black Chicago teen whose killing in 1955 fueled the civil rights movement.Born in Georgia, Rush served in the US army and became involved in civil rights campaigning. In 1969, he was arrested and convicted on a weapons charge.In his video on Tuesday, he said: “My faith tells me that there’s a reason I’m still here. By all rights, I should have been murdered on 5 December 1969, the day after the police assassinated [the Black Panthers leader] Fred Hampton.“They came for me the next day, shot down my door, but by the grace of God my family and I were not home.”Elected as a Chicago alderman, he made an unsuccessful bid for mayor before entering Congress. Just before the 2000 primary against Obama, one of Rush’s sons was shot dead. Rush subsequently focused on gun control.He is also a cancer survivor.“I am not leaving the battlefield,” he said. “I am going to be an activist as long as I’m here in the land of the living, and I will be making my voice heard in the public realm – from the pulpit, in the community, and in the halls of power.”TopicsUS CongressDemocratsIllinoisBarack ObamaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More