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      Mitch McConnell cleared for work by congressional doctor after freezing

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      Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate, was given a clean bill of health by the congressional physician, a day after freezing in front of reporters for the second time in a month.In a short statement, the physician, Brian P Monahan, said he had consulted with McConnell and told him “he is medically clear to continue with his schedule as planned”.At the same time, however, it was reported that a “handful” of Republican senators were weighing an attempt to force the party to confront the issue of their 81-year-old leader’s uncertain health and ability to fulfill the role.In Covington, Kentucky, on Wednesday, McConnell appeared to freeze during questions from reporters. He was eventually escorted away. It followed a similar incident in Washington in July, at the US Capitol. McConnell then returned to resume the session, saying he had been “sandbagged” – a reference to a fall suffered by Joe Biden at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado in May.Four months previously, in March, McConnell fell himself, sustaining a concussion and a rib injury that kept him away from Congress. After his first freeze, other falls were reported.On Wednesday, a spokesperson for McConnell said the senator had felt lightheaded and would consult a doctor. On Thursday, Monahan said: “Occasional lightheadedness is not uncommon in concussion recovery and can also be expected as a result of dehydration.”But with the health of ageing politicians increasingly at issue in Washington – also over reports of Biden, 80, feeling “tired” and the California Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein appearing confused at 90 – McConnell’s health remains in the spotlight.Polling shows majorities of voters believe many politicians stay in their jobs too long. More than half support maximum age limits for elected officials.Frank Luntz, a leading Republican pollster, told CNN: “It’s one of the problems that we have with Washington, which is that there is a time to lead and a time to pass on the torch to another generation.”Calling the response by McConnell’s office to his Wednesday freeze “insufficient”, Luntz added: “I understand why the public is saying about some of these people – give somebody else the chance to do the job.”Three Johns – Thune of South Dakota, Cornyn of Texas and Barrasso of Wyoming – are in line to contest the Republican succession when McConnell does step down. All have avoided stoking speculation. Thune is 62, Cornyn and Barrasso both 71.On Wednesday, it was widely reported that McConnell had sought to reassure those three and other Republican senators about his fitness to lead to the end of his seventh six-year term, in 2026.A Thune aide told news outlets McConnell “sounded like himself and was in good spirits”. Jim Banks, a House Republican running for Senate in Indiana, posted a photo with McConnell, saying they “enjoyed a wide-ranging discussion” that evening. Banks told Axios: “He was engaging. Very dialed in on my race and following closely.”The next day, Politico reported the discussions among Republicans about whether to move to confront the issue of McConnell’s health. But the only senator who was quoted, speaking anonymously, predicted any attempt to move McConnell aside would fail, just as a direct challenge from Rick Scott of Florida failed conclusively last year.“If a handful goes down that path, it will be a rerun of the last time,” the unnamed senator was quoted as saying.Scott told CBS News: “I expect [McConnell will] continue to be the Republican leader through this term … We’ll have another election after the 2024 elections.”Elected in 1984, McConnell is the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, having taken charge of the minority in 2007. As majority leader, between 2015 and 2021, he presided over a radical reshaping of the federal judiciary, stocking lower courts with conservatives and installing three rightwingers on the supreme court.Memorably, McConnell described himself as “stronger than mule piss” in support of Brett Kavanaugh, the second of those supreme court justices whose confirmation was rocked by allegations of sexual assault.Despite McConnell’s long record as a ruthless political warrior, he has maintained at least superficially friendly relations with Joe Biden, who sat alongside him for 23 years as a senator from Delaware.On Thursday, Biden told reporters: “I spoke to him today. He was his old self on the telephone.”The president, who suffered two brain aneurysms in 1988, added: “It’s not at all unusual to have the response that sometimes happens to Mitch when you’ve had a severe concussion. It’s part of the recovery. I’m confident he’ll be back to his old self.” More

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      Mitch McConnell appears to freeze again for more than 30 seconds

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      The Republican leader in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, experienced another public health scare on Wednesday when he appeared to freeze for more than 30 seconds while speaking to reporters in his home state, Kentucky.McConnell, 81, was eventually escorted away by staff, footage from an NBC News affiliate showed.Asked for his thoughts about running for re-election in 2026, McConnell laughed and said: “Oh, that’s a …” He then appeared to freeze.Coming to his side, an aide said: “Did you hear the question, senator? Running for re-election in 2026?”McConnell did not answer. The aide said, “All right, I’m sorry you all, we’re gonna need a minute.” Another aide exchanged quiet words with the senator, who said: “OK.” The first aide asked for another question, saying: “Please speak up.”The aide repeated questions loudly into McConnell’s ear. He gave quiet, halting answers.Told, “It’s a question about Trump,” McConnell said he would not comment on the presidential race “on the Democratic side or the Republican side”.The two aides then escorted McConnell away.The incident came a little more than a month after McConnell appeared to freeze while talking to reporters at the US Capitol in Washington.McConnell returned to answer questions then, saying he had been “sandbagged” – a reference to remarks by the 80-year-old president, Joe Biden, after he tripped and fell at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado in June.The Washington incident was followed by reports of McConnell suffering multiple falls, including one in March that left him with concussion and a rib fracture, keeping him away from Washington.Elected to the Senate in 1984, McConnell became Republican leader in 2006. Now the longest-serving Senate party leader in history, he has earned a reputation for ruthlessly partisan operations, memorably describing himself as “stronger than mule piss” when it came to stocking the supreme court with conservative justices.Aides have said McConnell will stay in his role as Republican leader until the end of his term, in 2026. Were he to vacate the role before that, his temporary replacement would be appointed by the governor of Kentucky. Andy Beshear is a Democrat but state law says he must pick from a shortlist named by the same party as the retiree. Democrats hold the Senate 51-49, with vulnerable senators up for re-election in Republican-run states next year.Public incidents involving McConnell and other ageing politicians, particularly the 90-year-old California Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, have stoked growing public opinion that too many party leaders and grandees have put off retirement too long.Biden was 78 when he was inaugurated president, the oldest ever, and would be 86 at the end of his second term if he wins re-election next year. On Tuesday, the Guardian reported that a new book about Biden’s presidency, based on access to his trusted advisers, says Biden has often told aides he is tired.After the incident in Kentucky on Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Biden, a senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009, would wish McConnell well.Biden later told reporters he would try to get in touch with his “good friend” and would “wish him well”.A spokesperson for McConnell told reporters the senator had “felt momentarily lightheaded” and would consult a doctor before his next event.Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, said: “For goodness sake, the family, friends and staff of senators Feinstein and McConnell are doing them and our country a tremendous disservice. It’s time for term limits for Congress and the supreme court, and some basic human decency.” More

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      AOC leads call for federal ethics investigation into Clarence Thomas

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      Five House Democrats led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wrote to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to demand a federal investigation of the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, over his acceptance of undeclared gifts from billionaire rightwing donors.“We write to urge the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into … Clarence Thomas for consistently failing to report significant gifts he received from Harlan Crow and other billionaires for nearly two decades in defiance of his duty under federal law,” the Democrats said.As well as Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive popularly known as AOC, the letter was signed by Jerrold Nadler of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee; Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a professor of constitutional law; Ted Lieu of California; and Hank Johnson of Georgia.This week saw publication of a bombshell ProPublica report which said Thomas had taken 38 undeclared vacations funded by billionaires and accepted gifts including expensive sports tickets.The report followed extensive reporting by ProPublica and other outlets including the New York Times regarding Thomas’s close and financially beneficial relationships with Crow, a real-estate magnate, and other influential businessmen.Thomas, 75, denies wrongdoing, claiming never to have discussed with his benefactors politics or business before the court. He has said he did not declare those benefactors’ gifts, over many years, because he was wrongly advised.Ethics experts say that Thomas broke federal law by failing to declare such largesse.Supreme court justices are nominally subject to the same ethics rules as all federal justices but in practice govern themselves.The chief justice, John Roberts, has rebuffed requests for testimony in Congress. Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee have advanced supreme court ethics reform but it will almost certainly fail, in the face of Republican opposition.Calls for Thomas to resign or be impeached and removed have proliferated but are also almost certain to fail. Confirmed in 1991, Thomas is the most senior of six conservatives on a nine-member court tipped dramatically right by three justices installed during the presidency of Donald Trump.In their letter to Garland on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow Democrats noted that Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, is “a far-right activist who often champions conservative causes that come before the court”.They were addressing, they said, “a matter of critical importance to the integrity of our justice system”.Outlining reporting about Thomas, the representatives said his “consistent failure to disclose gifts and benefits from industry magnates and wealthy, politically active executives highlights a blatant disregard for judicial ethics as well as apparent legal violations.“No individual, regardless of their position or stature, should be exempt from legal scrutiny for lawbreaking … as a supreme court justice and high constitutional officer, Justice Thomas should be held to the highest standard, not the lowest and he certainly shouldn’t be allowed to violate federal law.”Refusing to hold Thomas accountable, the Democrats said, “would set a dangerous precedent, undermining public trust in our institutions and raising legitimate questions about the equal application of laws in our nation.“The Department of Justice must undertake a thorough investigation into the reported conduct to ensure that it cannot happen again.” More

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      ‘Unprecedented, stunning, disgusting’: Clarence Thomas condemned over billionaire gifts

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      Conservative US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has been condemned for maintaining “unprecedented” and “shameless” links to rightwing benefactors, after ProPublica published new details of his acceptance of undeclared gifts including 38 vacations and expensive sports tickets.Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, rendered an especially damning verdict.“Unprecedented. Stunning. Disgusting. The height of hypocrisy to wear the robes of a [supreme court justice] and take undisclosed gifts from billionaires who benefit from your decisions. 38 free vacations. Yachts. Luxury mansions. Skyboxes at events. Resign,” she posted.From the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic judiciary committee chair, said: “The latest … revelation of unreported lavish gifts to Justice Clarence Thomas makes it clear: these are not merely ethical lapses. This is a shameless lifestyle underwritten for years by a gaggle of fawning billionaires.”The ProPublica report followed extensive previous reporting, by the non-profit and competitors including the New York Times, of undisclosed gifts to Thomas from a series of mega-rich donors.Supreme court justices are nominally subject to ethics rules for federal judges but in practice govern themselves.Durbin said Thomas and Samuel Alito, another arch-conservative justice who did not declare gifts, had “made it clear they’re oblivious to the embarrassment they’ve visited on the highest court in the land.“Now it’s up to Chief Justice [John] Roberts and the other justices to act on ethics reform to save their own reputations and the court’s integrity. If the court will not act, then Congress must continue to” do so.Roberts has rejected calls to testify, saying Congress cannot regulate his court. Durbin has advanced ethics reform but its chances are virtually nil, with Republicans opposed in the Senate and in control of the House.Thomas denies wrongdoing, claiming never to have discussed with his benefactors politics or business before the court and to have been wrongly advised about disclosure requirements. Nonetheless, condemnation was widespread.Adam Schiff, a House Democrat running for Senate in California, said: “The scope of Justice Thomas’ undisclosed receipt of luxury vacations from billionaires takes your breath away. As does this court’s arrogant disregard of the public. Every other federal court has an enforceable code of ethics – the supreme court needs the same.”Thomas joined the court in 1991, becoming the second Black justice in place of the first, Thurgood Marshall.Sherrilyn Ifill, former director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) legal fund, said Thomas had created “a crisis and we need to start treating it as such. Our profession, the Senate judiciary committee, newspaper editorial boards, and the chief [justice] will need to summon the courage needed to call for what, by now, should be the obvious next step.”Robert Reich, a former US labor secretary now a Berkeley professor and Guardian columnist, pointed to what that “next step” might be, saying Thomas “must resign or be impeached if [the supreme court] is going to retain any credibility”.Only one justice, Samuel Chase, has ever been impeached – in 1804-05. He was acquitted in the Senate. In 1969, the justice Abe Fortas resigned under threat of impeachment, over his acceptance of outside fees.Now, Republican control of the House renders impeachment vastly unlikely. Nor is Thomas likely to resign, particularly as Democrats hold the Senate, able to reduce conservative dominance of the court should a rightwinger vacate the bench.Nonetheless, calls for Thomas to go continued.Ted Lieu, a California congressman, said Thomas “has brought shame upon himself and the United States supreme court … no government official, elected or unelected, could ethically or legally accept gifts of that scale. He should resign immediately”.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a campaign group, said: “If three times makes a pattern, what does 38 times make? We’ll tell you: the fact that Clarence Thomas has taken 38 luxury trips with billionaires without disclosing them means this kind of ethical lapse is part of his lifestyle. He needs to resign.” More

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      Six months after the Ohio train derailment, Congress is deadlocked on new safety rules

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      Congress responded to the fiery train derailment in eastern Ohio earlier this year with bipartisan alarm, holding a flurry of hearings about the potential for railroad crashes to trigger even larger disasters. Both parties agreed that a legislative response was needed.Yet six months after life was upended in East Palestine, little has changed.While Joe Biden and Donald Trump have praised a railroad safety bill from the Ohio senators Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and JD Vance, a Republican, the Senate proposal has also encountered resistance. Top GOP leaders in Congress have been hesitant to support it, and the bill has faced some opposition from the railroad industry, which holds significant sway in Washington.As a result, it remains an open question whether the derailment that shattered life in East Palestine will become a catalyst for action. And for Republicans, the fight poses a larger test of political identity, caught between their traditional support for industry and their desire to champion voters in rural America.“These rail lines pass frequently through Republican areas, small towns with a lot of Republican voters,” Vance told the Associated Press. “How can we look them in the eye and say, we’re doing a good job by you? If we choose the railroads over their own interests, we can’t.”In East Palestine, a village of approximately 5,000 people near the Pennsylvania state line, the railroad has reopened both its tracks in the area but the cleanup continues. Norfolk Southern estimates that its response to the derailment will cost at least $803m to remove all the hazardous chemicals, help the community and deal with lawsuits and penalties related to the derailment.But residents still worry about the long-term health effects. Many are looking to Congress to act, hoping it will prevent another community from enduring the trauma, fear and upheaval they have endured.Jami Wallace, who has lived in East Palestine for 46 years along with her extended family, has helped lead a community group called the Unity Council to represent residents’ concerns and push for government action.“If our legislators don’t take East Palestine as an example of some of the reforms that need to be in the regulations that need to be put on, you know, the railroad industry, then they’re fools,” Wallace said. “Again, we don’t want to suffer for nothing.”Rail labor groups say the widespread cuts the industry has made in the name of efficiency in recent years have made railroads riskier, so they believe reforms are needed to reduce the more than 1,000 derailments that happen every year because just one can be disastrous.“There have been more than 60 high-profile derailments since East Palestine, including multiple in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Montana,” said the Transportation Trades Department coalition that includes all the rail unions. “Through it all, freight rail companies have maintained their fundamental disregard for public safety. Safety is just a buzzword to the railroads.”Vance, a freshman senator, said he was counting on a few more Republican senators to back the bill before it comes to a vote. The majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has already placed the bill at the top of the agenda for the fall.But Vance and Brown acknowledge their legislation faces an even steeper climb in the Republican-controlled House. GOP leaders there want to wait until the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) completes its investigation of the derailment – which will probably not happen until next year – before taking action. The NTSB in a preliminary report on East Palestine found fault with an overheated wheel bearing.But a contingent of Ohio House lawmakers, led by Democratic Representative Emilia Sykes and Republican Representative Bill Johnson, whose district includes East Palestine, want action now.“Let’s hit while the iron is hot,” Johnson said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBoth the House and Senate bills would increase fines for safety violations, require more inspections and increase the number of trackside detectors that monitor for overheated wheel bearings. In one significant difference, the Senate bill would require that most freight trains have two-person crews, while the House bill would not.Railroads have spoken out against the two-person crew requirement and urged Congress to wait for the final NTSB investigation to pass any new regulations.The industry has also stepped up its lobbying this year. In the first three months of 2023, industry groups spent a combined $7.1m on lobbying – a roughly $1.8m increase from the $5.3m it spent in the previous three months.The railroads say there is no data to show one-person crews are riskier than two-person crews.Railroads have a long history of resisting new regulations, and an industry group has already filed a lawsuit challenging some new state rules Ohio passed after the derailment. It maintains that any new regulations should be based on data that proves the rules would actually make railroads safer.As the bill proponents make a push in the coming months, Brown said he was counting on help from residents directly affected by the February derailment.“The area of the state this happened in is a very conservative, Republican part of the state. But I am their ally. They know it. They’re my allies in this,” said Brown, who is expected to face a tough reelection race next year. “They put pressure. They don’t care about partisan politics.” More

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      Donald Trump expects indictment ‘any day now’ in 2020 election subversion case – live

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      Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, said Hunter sought to create an “illusion of access” to his father Joe Biden to impress clients and business associates, but he insisted the then vice-president was never directly involved in any deals.The Republican-led House oversight committee conducted a more than-five hour interview with Archer as part of its expanding congressional inquiry into the Biden family businesses.The interview focused on the 2010s, when Hunter Biden sat on the board of the Ukraine energy company Burisma and his father was vice-president under President Barack Obama.Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers inside the closed-door interview said Archer testified that over the span of 10 years, Hunter Biden put his father on the phone around 20 times while in the company of associates but “never once spoke about any business dealings”, AP reported.Democratic Representative Dan Goldman told reporters that Archer testified that Hunter sold the “illusion of access” to his father and “tried to get credit for things that [Hunter] had nothing to do with”.But Republican representative Andy Biggs, who has co-sponsored legislation to impeach Biden, said Archer’s testimony implicated the president and quoted the witness as saying Burisma could not have survived without the “Biden brand”. He told reporters:
      I think we should do an impeachment inquiry.
      The Susan B Anthony List, the nation’s leading anti-abortion group, called Florida governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’ failure to support federal abortion restrictions “unacceptable”.DeSantis signed into law a controversial six-week abortion ban in Florida in April. In a recent interview with Megyn Kelly, DeSantis was asked if he would support abortion bans at the federal level.He replied:
      I’ve been a pro-life governor. I’ll be a pro-life president and I’ll come down on the side of life.
      DeSantis added that he would “be a leader with the bully pulpit to help local communities and states advance the cause of life but he avoided answering if he would enact a federal abortion ban.In response, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America group, criticized DeSantis, saying that “a pro-life president has a duty to protect the lives of all Americans”.Dannenfelser said in a statement:
      Gov. DeSantis’s dismissal of this task is unacceptable to prolife voters. A consensus is already formed. Intensity for it is palpable and measurable.
      A super PAC backing Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr raised $6.47m in July, according to a press release from American Values 2024.The press release noted that American Values 2024 has received donations from both Democrats and Republicans, including the Trump mega donor Timothy Mellon, Democratic Party donor Abby Rockefeller, and Gavin de Becker, a security consultant close to Jeff Bezos.Mellon said in the press release:
      The fact that Kennedy gets so much bipartisan support tells me two things: that he’s the one candidate who can unite the country and root out corruption and that he’s the one Democrat who can win in the general election.
      The super PAC said it raised $6.47m in July, bringing its total fundraising for Kennedy to about $16.82m.About $5m of that haul came during his testimony in front of the House judiciary select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, according to the press release.Kennedy’s appearance before the House subcommittee on 20 July came days after he told reporters at a press dinner that Covid-19 had been “ethnically targeted” at Caucasians and Black people, while Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people had greater immunity.The false claim was enthusiastically embraced by neo-Nazi groups, while being condemned by scientists and Jewish organizations.Donald Trump is demanding Republican support for impeaching Joe Biden over corruption allegations against Hunter Biden, the president’s surviving son.“Any Republican that doesn’t act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out,” Trump told a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.Republicans hold the US House, where impeachment would start, by just five seats. GOP members in Democratic areas seem likely to suffer at the polls next year.“If they’re not willing to do it,” Trump said, “we’ve got a lot of good, tough Republicans around.
      People are going to run against ’em, and people are going to win. And they’re going to get my endorsement every single time. They’re going to win ’cause we win almost every race when we endorse.
      Factcheckers dispute that. Surveying the 2022 midterms, the New York Times said: “Mr Trump endorsed more than 250 candidates, and his 82% success rate is, on the surface, impressive. But the vast majority of those endorsements were of incumbents and heavy favorites to win.”The paper added:
      In the 36 most competitive House races … Mr Trump endorsed candidates in five contests. All five lost.
      Trump’s influence on key Senate races won by Democrats has been widely discussed.In Pennsylvania, Trump also called for conditioning aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia on White House cooperation with investigations of Hunter Biden. Trump’s own first impeachment was for withholding aid to Ukraine in an attempt to uncover dirt on the Bidens. Pundits noted the irony.“So much for denying the quid pro quo, as he did in 2019,” said Peter Baker, the Times’ chief White House correspondent.A month out from the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump’s domination of the field increases with each poll.On Monday, the first 2024 survey from the New York Times and Siena College put Trump at 54% support. His closest challenger, Ron DeSantis, was at 17%. No one else – including Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley – was higher than 3%.DeSantis’s hard-right campaign is widely seen to be out of fuel and on a glide path to destruction. Trump dominates early voting states and in national averages leads the Florida governor by more than 30 points.Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia, is “ready to go” with indictments in her investigation of Trump’s election subversion. In Washington, the special counsel Jack Smith is expected to add charges regarding election subversion to 40 counts already filed over the former president’s retention of classified records.Trump already faces 34 criminal charges in New York over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. Referring to Trump being ordered to pay $5m after being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll, a judge recently said Carroll proved Trump raped her. Lawsuits over Trump’s business affairs continue.Heading for trials in primary season, Trump denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution. But his chaos-agent campaign, which he has said he will not abandon even if convicted and sentenced, does not just threaten the national peace. It threatens his own party.Joe Biden just decided to keep the US Space Command headquarters in Colorado, rather than move it Alabama, the Associated Press reports. And, surprising as it might seem, Biden’s decision may soon be caught up in the debate over abortion access.First, a recap: Donald Trump created Space Force in 2019, and near the end of his presidency ordered it moved from its temporary home in Colorado Springs, Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama. Biden has now reversed that decision, dealing a blow to the economy of a deeply Republican state whose senator Tommy Tuberville has lately been blocking hundreds of military promotions in protest of defense department policies intended to help service members obtain abortions.While there is no indication yet that Biden’s decision has anything to do with Tuberville’s blockade, the president has personally decried the senator’s campaign, calling it “ridiculous” and saying it threatens the military’s readiness.Here’s more on the decision, from the AP:
      The officials said Biden was convinced by the head of Space Command, Gen. James Dickinson, who argued that moving his headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson’s view, however, was in contrast to Air Force leadership, who studied the issue at length and determined that relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, was the right move.
      The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the decision ahead of the announcement.
      The president, they said, believes that keeping the command in Colorado Springs would avoid a disruption in readiness that the move would cause, particularly as the U.S. races to compete with China in space. And they said Biden firmly believes that maintaining stability will help the military be better able to respond in space over the next decade.
      House Republicans have announced an investigation into the deal reached between Hunter Biden and the justice department that would have seen the president’s son plead guilty to tax charges and enter a diversion agreement to resolve a gun charge.Biden was expected to formally accept the agreement with prosecutors during a federal court hearing in Delaware last week, but judge Maryellen Noreika objected to portions of the deal and ordered the two sides to renegotiate it and present it to her at a future date.Republicans have for years accused the president’s son of corruption, and since it was announced have called the plea agreement a “sweetheart deal”. In a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland, the Republican chairs of the House judiciary, ways and means and oversight committees demand a range of documents and explanations from the justice department.“The Department’s unusual plea and pretrial diversion agreements with Mr. Biden raise serious concerns — especially when combined with recent whistleblower allegations — that the Department has provided preferential treatment toward Mr. Biden in the course of its investigation and proposed resolution of his alleged criminal conduct,” the committee chairs write. Earlier this month, the House oversight committee heard from two Internal Revenue Service agents who claimed politicization of the Hunter Biden investigation, despite statements from the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney who led the case that he had the ultimate authority to bring charges.The letter marks the latest instance of the House GOP using the chamber’s powers to investigate the Biden administration. Since the start of the year, it has launched investigations into topics including the “weaponization” of the federal government under the Biden administration, and the state and federal prosecutions targeting Trump.A small group of progressive lawmakers led by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday urged the United States to bring lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry for its alleged efforts to sow doubt about the climate crisis.“The actions of ExxonMobil, Shell, and potentially other fossil fuel companies represent a clear violation of federal racketeering laws, truth in advertising laws, consumer protection laws, and potentially other laws, and the Department must act swiftly to hold them accountable for their unlawful actions,” reads the letter, which was also signed by Democratic senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.The letter, addressed to attorney general Merrick Garland, references the well-documented climate misinformation campaign waged over decades by oil and gas companies, and the dozens of lawsuits filed by states, municipalities, and the District of Columbia about that campaign.The letter was sent as swaths of the United States bake under sweltering temperatures. This summer’s record-breaking heatwaves in America and southern Europe, which have put tens of millions of people under heat advisories, would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, according to a recent study by scientists at World Weather Attribution.The senators also implore the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement agencies to file their own lawsuits against parties who participated in climate deception, and request a meeting with Garland.“The polluters must pay,” the senators wrote.Andy Biggs, a rightwing Republican member of the oversight committee, said Devon Archer revealed that Hunter Biden’s family name helped Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma’s business.That’s according to Punchbowl News:Fox News reports a unnamed source saying the same:It is unclear if Biden actually participated in the meetings, or just took the calls to speak with his son, as Democratic congressman Dan Goldman, who attended the interview with Archer, characterized the conversations.However, Punchbowl reports Biggs said Archer had no knowledge of an unverified bribery allegation against Joe and Hunter Biden that was reported to the FBI:Following the Republican-led House oversight committee’s interview with Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, a Democratic lawmaker on the committee downplayed the president involvement in his son’s business.Archer testified that Hunter would call up Joe Biden during business meetings in the period when they served on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, but only for “casual conversation,” Democratic congressman and committee member Dan Goldman said, Punchbowl News reports.“The witness was very, very consistent, that none of those conversations ever had to do with any business dealings or transactions,” Goldman said, adding that Hunter and Joe Biden spoke frequently.“[Biden] says hello to someone that he sees his son with. What is he supposed to say? ‘Hi, son. No, I’m not gonna say hello to the other people at the table or the other people on the phone.’”Here’s more of Goldman’s comments to the press:Several Republican presidential candidates have vowed that, in the as-of-now unlikely scenario that they are elected to the White House next year, they would pardon Donald Trump. But as the Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas reports, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is trying to distinguish himself by promising to do no such thing:Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson has said it is “inappropriate” for some of his fellow Republican presidential hopefuls to publicly discuss potentially pardoning Donald Trump, who is their party’s frontrunner for its 2024 nomination despite his mounting criminal charges.“Anybody who promises pardons during a presidential campaign is not serving our system of justice well,” Hutchinson said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “And it’s inappropriate.”The remarks from Hutchinson cut a stark contrast with comments from other Republicans in the running for the presidency, who said they would pardon Trump if they eventually defeated the Democratic incumbent, Joe Biden.Nikki Haley, once South Carolina’s governor and the Trump White House’s United Nations ambassador, has said she would be inclined to pardon the former president if she won the election to help the country “move forward”.Former New York city police commissioner Bernard Kerik, a leading Trump ally, will meet with special counsel Jack Smith in the coming days as part of the federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Kerik’s attorney told CNN on Sunday that the special counsel’s office will meet with Kerik and his lawyers “in about a week” to discuss efforts taken by former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate potential election fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. He said:
      We have a meeting scheduled in about a week with the special counsel’s office to talk about a lot of the efforts that the Giuliani team was taking at the time to investigate fraud, and that’s really going to get into, you know, the core of whether they can charge somebody with having corrupt intent.
      The meeting will come after Kerik turned over thousands of pages of documents to the special counsel’s office connected to the debunked voter fraud claims made by Trump and Giuliani.In early 2020, Trump pardoned Kerik for crimes including tax fraud and lying to investigators, for which Kerik had been sentenced to four years in jail. Later that year, Kerik worked with Giuliani on attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, a push which culminated in the failed but deadly January 6 attack on Congress.Donald Trump said he expects he could be indicted “any day now” as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection.Smith has been looking into Trump’s efforts to remain in office following his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden. Federal prosecutors have assembled evidence to charge Trump with three crimes, the Guardian has reported: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and a statute that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights.Trump, posting to Truth Social on Monday, wrote:
      I assume that an Indictment from Deranged Jack Smith and his highly partisan gang of Thugs, pertaining to my “PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY Speech, will be coming out any day now, as yet another attempt to cover up all of the bad news about bribes, payoffs, and extortion, coming from the Biden ‘camp.’ This seems to be the way they do it. ELECTION INTERFERENCE! PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!
      Carlos De Oliveira, the Mar-a-Lago property manager and third co-defendant in the special counsel’s classified documents case, declined to answer questions as he left the Miami courthouse.De Oliveira was escorted by federal agents and his attorney, John Irving, who said it was time for the justice department “to put their money where their mouth is” after charging his client.De Oliveira was added as a third defendant in Donald Trump’s complicated classified documents indictment on Thursday. He faces charges such as trying to obstruct justice, concealing records and documents, and making false statements to the FBI.De Oliveira, 56, was a valet, maintenance worker and more recently a property manager at Trump’s resort, Mar-a-Lago, according to the superseding indictment. The indictment said De Oliveira helped Trump’s personal valet, Walt Nauta, move 30 boxes of documents, from Trump’s residence to a storage room, and asked the person responsible for surveillance at the resort to delete the footage on behalf of Trump. He was also accused of draining the resort pool to flood the rooms that contained surveillance footage.When the FBI discovered the documents at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Trump allegedly called De Oliveira and said he would get him an attorney.Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, made his first appearance in a Miami courtroom on Monday as part of the special counsel’s investigation into the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.During the roughly 10-minute hearing, De Oliveira, the third and newest co-defendant in Trump’s classified documents case, heard the charges against him and received pre-trial orders. He was unable to enter a plea because he had failed to secure local counsel.Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres granted an extension request, and the arraignment is now scheduled to take place on 10 August at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida. De Oliveira was released on a $100,000 bond pending trial.De Oliveira was indicted on Thursday on four charges, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements to the FBI.Trump and his longtime valet, Walt Nauta, were charged in the classified documents case last month and face additional counts in the indictment that charged De Oliveira. Both Trump and Nauta have pleaded not guilty to the initial charges. More

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      Filthy Rich Politicians review: Matt Lewis skewers both sides of the aisle

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      When Covid began to ravage the US, Donald Trump lied through his teeth but Nancy Pelosi flaunted her assets. Trump repeatedly claimed the virus “would go away”. More than a million deaths followed. Pelosi, then House speaker, treated us to watching her eat $13-a-pint ice cream out of fridges that cost $24,000. Let them eat artisanal desserts?Forbes pegs Trump’s wealth at $2.5bn. Based on public filings, according to Matt Lewis in his new book, Filthy Rich Politicians, Pelosi and her husband’s net holdings are estimated to be north of $46m. In 2014, Trump lied when he said his tax returns would be forthcoming if and when he ran for office. In 2022, Pelosi successfully fought an attempt to ban members of Congress from trading stock. She, it was widely noted, does not trade stocks. But her husband does. Practically speaking, that is tantamount to a distinction with little difference.Despite it all, when Trump tore into Washington corruption, promising to “drain the swamp”, his message resonated. A congenital grifter, he knew what he was talking about.“Right now, your average member of the House is something like 12 times richer than the average American household,” Matt Lewis says. “And that, I believe, is contributing to the sense that the game is rigged.” More than half the members of Congress are millionaires.Lewis is a senior columnist at the Daily Beast and a former contributor to the Guardian. With his new book, he performs a valued public service, shining a searing light on the gap between the elites of both parties and the citizenry in whose name they claim to govern. Subtitled “The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling-Class Elites Cashing in on America”, Lewis’s book is breezy and readable. Better yet, it strafes them all. The Bidens and Clintons, the Trumps and Kushners, right and left – all get savaged.Looking right, Lewis mocks Steve Bannon and Ted Cruz for their faux populism, which he views as self-serving and destructive.“The very elites who seek to rule us also rile up the public to hate their fellow elites,” Lewis bitingly observes. “Although he claims to be a ‘Leninist’, Bannon is also ‘an alumnus of Harvard Business School, Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Goldman Sachs, Hollywood.’”As for Cruz, he graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law. The husband of a Goldman Sachs managing director, he helped pave the way for making loans by a candidate to their own campaign a money-making proposition. In a 2022 decision, in a case between Cruz and the Federal Elections Commission, the US supreme court ruled that a $250,000 loan repayment limit violated the first amendment and Cruz’s free speech rights. In plain English: a deep-pocketed incumbent can now tack on a double-digit interest rate to a campaign loan, win re-election, then essentially collect a handsome side bet. As Lewis notes, Cruz was already no stranger to ethical flimflam.Lewis also graphically lays out how swank vacation sites are de rigueur destinations for campaign fundraisers and political retreats – being in Congress is now a portal to spas, tennis and haute cuisine – and how book writing has emerged as the vehicle of choice for members of Congress to evade honoraria restrictions.Lewis quotes Marco Rubio telling Fox News: “The day I got elected to the Senate I had over $100,000 still in student loans that I was able to pay off because I wrote a book.” In 2013, Rubio received an $800,000 advance. A decade later, he branded Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan “unfair”.This, remember, is the same Florida man who once exclaimed: “It’s amazing … I can call up a lobbyist at four in the morning and he’ll meet me anywhere with a bag of $40,000 in cash.” Like many in government, Rubio blurs the line between the personal and the public.Lewis also tags Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a member of the progressive “Squad” in the House, for cronyism amid the throes of Covid. At the time, she proposed legislation that would have canceled rent and mortgage payments while establishing a “fund to repay landlords for missed rent”. The bill went nowhere but as luck would have it, Squad members Ayana Pressley (Massachusetts) and Rashida Tlaib (Michigan) took in rental income as Covid blighted the land. In 2021, Pressley’s rental income surged by “up to $117,500”.As for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, perhaps the most visible Squad member, Lewis raps her for appearing at the 2021 Met gala wearing a backless gown emblazoned with the words “Tax the Rich”. AOC’s Devil Wears Prada moment, Lewis says, “underscores how far-removed today’s Democrats are from being the party of the working class”.It was not something Eleanor Roosevelt would have done.“Such stunts feed the sense that our public servants are indulging in hypocrisy and taking advantage of the system,” Lewis writes.Elsewhere, Lewis describes Greg Gianforte “allegedly body-slamming” Ben Jacobs, then of the Guardian, during a House campaign in Montana in 2018. Here, Lewis goes easy on Gianforte, who is now governor. Gianforte pleaded guilty, a fact Lewis acknowledges. With that plea, the Republican’s lack of self-control went beyond the realm of “alleged” and into established fact.Filthy Rich Politicians closes with a series of proposals to boost confidence in the system. Lewis calls for a ban on stock trading by members of Congress and their families, heightened transparency and increased congressional pay. The prospects for his proposals appear uncertain.Last week, Josh Hawley of Missouri – for whom, like Cruz and many other Republicans, Lewis’s wife has worked – and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York introduced the Ban Stock Trading for Government Officials Act. The public overwhelmingly supports the substance of the legislation. Whether Congress steps up remains to be seen.“Let me tell you about the very rich,” F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote. “They are different from you and me.”
      Filthy Rich Politicians is published in the US by Hachette More

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      A Democrat’s obsessive quest to change the way America is farmed and fed

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      Each year for the last 26 years – nearly his entire tenure in the US Congress – Earl Blumenauer has advocated for a law that would utterly transform US agriculture.Nearly every time, though, his proposals have been shut down. Even so, he persists.Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, wants to see a version of US agriculture that centers people, animals and the environment, rather than the large-scale, energy-intensive commodity crop farms that currently receive billions of dollars in subsidies. In effect, he has a completely different vision for how 40% of the country’s land looks and works.“Every year is an uphill battle. We’re up against entrenched, wealthy, strong interests,” said Blumenauer, known for his signature bowtie, circular glasses and bicycle enamel pin. He’s the spitting image of a progressive environmentalist and doesn’t shy from discussing some of agriculture’s most divisive issues.But he remains optimistic and steadfast in his vision for the American food system. Now more than ever, he feels momentum and support surrounding the future of farming and food production. People care about where their food comes from and what kind of impact their food is having on the climate, he says.Blumenauer’s newest plan, the Food and Farm Act, was introduced earlier this year, as an alternative to the farm bill – the package of food and agricultural policies passed every five years that is up for renewal this fall. His proposal would redirect billions of dollars away from subsidies for commodity farms towards programs that support small farmers, climate-friendly agriculture and increasing healthy food access.The bill also prioritizes food waste management and animal welfare – areas that have been completely neglected by previous iterations of the farm bill.“We simply pay too much to the wrong people, to grow the wrong foods the wrong way, in the wrong places,” Blumenauer said.While unlikely to pass, Blumenauer’s bill, which has been introduced and referred to the agriculture committee, has won endorsements from prominent food writers such as Marion Nestle and Mark Bittman, as well as dozens of environmental, animal welfare and food justice organizations – representing the growing desire for change in US agriculture.At the heart of Blumenauer’s bill is farm subsidy reform. In the most recent iteration of the farm bill, approximately $63bn was dedicated to subsidies. These mostly benefited the largest farms and agribusinesses, with 70% of subsidy payments going to just 10% of farms, most of which produce commodity crops like soy, corn and wheat, which are often used to make animal feed, processed foods and even fuel for cars.This means that taxpayers are subsidizing processed food, but not the fruits and vegetables you buy in the grocery store – and that commodity farms have little incentive to switch to more sustainable modes of production or more nutritious foods that people will actually eat.“Most of us don’t even know that the public dollars initially designed to protect farmers and keep supply managed to feed a hungry nation in the Great Depression are now reinforcing wealthy agribusiness corporations to grow commodities that are not even meant for human consumption,” said Joshua Sewell, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.Farmers that grow what are called “specialty crops”, which include fruits and vegetables, usually don’t qualify for subsidies. Most of the farms excluded from subsidy payments are those using sustainable growing methods that preserve soil and benefit the climate in the long term.“It’s just maddening to me that the men and women who are working hard producing food, and particularly those that are doing so in a sustainable fashion, or who want to be involved with organics, they’re shortchanged,” Blumenauer said.The Food and Farm Act also proposes limiting the total payment a farmer or agribusiness can receive to $125,000, and narrows eligibility, so that only farmers with annual incomes less than $400,000 would be eligible. (Previously farmers who made less than $900,000 were eligible, and could receive more than $1m in subsidies.)In developing the bill, Blumenauer spent the last five years interviewing and engaging with agricultural producers in Oregon, a state that mostly produces milk, grass seed and wheat. He asked about their needs and wants, what’s working for them and what’s not. He always asks the same question: “What would a farm bill look like if it was just for you?”He found that many farmers and ranchers want to see a redirection of resources from the largest producers to small-scale farmers.“There is a pretty strong consensus that we’re not meeting the needs of farmers and ranchers and we’re not meeting the needs of the American public,” Blumenauer said.Blumenauer’s bill also considers agriculture’s impact on the environment.“Agriculture is one of the most environmentally destructive activities,” Blumenauer said. “There is an increasing awareness of how much carbon is produced and how much carbon we could save and sequester by making relatively modest changes in agricultural practices.”Many of the 2018 farm bill’s conservation programs, including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), pay money to the largest agricultural operations, even though their practices are often harmful to the environment, explains Sophie Ackoff, farm bill campaign director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Large producers are paid to make their operations more sustainable; however, much of that funding has been used for things like land clearing and road building, which provide little value to conservation.In 2019, 10% of the program’s funding went to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), which have negative impacts on water quality, animal welfare and human health.Factory farming and animal agriculture contribute nearly 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and previous farm bills haven’t acknowledged the impact of factory farms on the climate, says Alexandra Bookis of Farm Sanctuary.“As a system, it has a direct impact on the climate crisis that we haven’t addressed head on,” she said.Blumenauer’s bill would instead end all payments to CAFOs and factory farms, as well as ensure more funding goes toward sustainable farming practices and operations that “demonstrably improve the quality of the environment”. It also mandates that any farm receiving a subsidy payment must comply with certain environmental standards.Nutrition assistance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) is a point of political contention every farm bill cycle, as the title accounts for nearly 80% of the farm bill’s budget. In May, Republicans proposed expanding work requirements for recipients of Snap, which would make it more difficult for people experiencing food insecurity to qualify for the program.Blumenauer’s bill would not only expand Snap’s funding and eligibility, but it would also provide more funding for local food systems in urban and rural food deserts, as well as increase fresh fruit and vegetable consumption in schools.“It’s a win for people on food assistance, but also farmers selling locally. So many of the farmers I’ve worked with get into it because they want to feed their communities, they don’t want to just sell really expensive food,” Ackoff said.A significant portion of the bill is also dedicated to supporting new and beginning farmers – who often face barriers to entry, like lack of capital. It’s an area of untapped potential, and many young farmers are eager to grow food to feed their communities, they just need the resources to do so, Blumenauer says.“Frankly, these are appeals that really touch American citizens,” Blumenauer said. “The support for family farms, for resiliency, access for younger people – these are themes that are extraordinarily popular, and very important.” More