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      First Black Republican congresswoman honored in Utah memorial service

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      Family and friends of the former US congresswoman Mia Love gathered Monday in Salt Lake City to honor the life and legacy of the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress after she died of brain cancer last month aged 49.The former lawmaker from Utah, a daughter of Haitian immigrants, had undergone treatment for an aggressive brain tumor called glioblastoma and received immunotherapy as part of a clinical trial. She died on 23 March at her home in Saratoga Springs, Utah, weeks after her daughter announced she was no longer responding to treatment.Hundreds of mourners entered her service from a walkway lined with American flags at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Institute of Religion on the University of Utah campus. Long tables displayed framed family photos and bouquets of red and white flowers.Love served only two terms in Congress before suffering a razor-thin loss to Democrat Ben McAdams in the 2018 midterm elections as Democrats surged. Yet she left her mark on Utah’s political scene and later leveraged her prominence into becoming a political commentator for CNN.She was briefly considered a rising star in the GOP, but her power within the party fizzled out as Donald Trump took hold. Love kept her distance from the US president and called him out in 2018 for vulgar comments he made about immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations.Jason Love, her husband, drew laughter from the somber crowd at Monday’s service when he told stories of his wife’s “superpowers”.View image in fullscreenHe described discovering her influence after he tried to return the many toasters the couple received as wedding gifts and failing because he didn’t have receipts. His wife then entered the store and came out three minutes later with cash in hand.“I thought: ‘Wow, I have married a Jedi knight,’” he said with a laugh.Her motherhood, he said, was her greatest superpower.“She was an extraordinary mother, and she believed that the most important work she would do within her life was within the walls of her own home with her children,” Jason Love said. “She always made it a special place for each of them to feel loved and to begin to achieve their full potential.”A choir of Love’s friends sang some of her favorite hymns, as well as Ed Sheeran’s Supermarket Flowers. Her children, Alessa, Abigale and Peyton, read an op-ed their mother published in the Deseret News shortly before she died in which she shared her enduring wish for the country to become less divisive.Love’s sister Cyndi Brito shared childhood memories, including how Love used to rehearse all day and night for starring roles in her school plays. She was always the best at everything she did and made everyone around her feel important, her sister said.Brito read an excerpt of a speech her third-grade daughter gave at a recent school assembly for Black History Month honoring Love’s legacy.“Mia Love played many roles and had many titles, but the most important role and the most important title that Mia Love played in my eyes was auntie,” Brito recalled her daughter, Carly, telling classmates.Love did not emphasize her race during her campaigns, but she acknowledged the significance of her election after her 2014 victory. She said her win defied naysayers who suggested a Black, Republican, Mormon woman could not win a congressional seat in overwhelmingly white Utah.On Sunday evening, state leaders and members of the public visited the Utah capitol to pay their respects at Love’s flag-covered coffin behind ropes in the building’s rotunda.Love, born Ludmya Bourdeau, was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2022 and said her doctors estimated she had only 10 to 15 months to live, which she surpassed. With aggressive treatments, Love lived for nearly three years after receiving her diagnosis.Her close friend, Utah’s lieutenant governor, Deidre Henderson, told the audience on Monday that Love had asked her friends and family to rally around her like a campaign team when she was diagnosed.“‘I’m in fight mode,’ she told us, ‘and what I need from you all, more than anything, is to help me fight it. This is a campaign, and we are going to win,’” Henderson recalled.Love entered politics in 2003 after winning a city council seat in Saratoga Springs, 30 miles (48km) south of Salt Lake City. She was elected as the city’s mayor in 2009, becoming the first Black woman to serve as a mayor in Utah.In 2012, after giving a rousing speech at the Republican national convention, she narrowly lost a bid for the US House against the Democratic incumbent. She ran again two years later and won. More

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      Trump’s third term trial balloon: how extremist ideas become mainstream

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      It is noon on 20 January 2029. In the biting cold of Washington DC, thousands of people are gathered on the national mall to witness the swearing in of a new US president or, more accurately, an old US president: Donald Trump, aged 82, starting his third term in office.The scene is the realm of fantasy or, for millions of Americans, the stuff of nightmares. But in the president’s own mind it is apparently not so far-fetched at all. Last weekend he told an interviewer that he is “not joking” about another run and there are “methods” to circumvent the constitution, which limits presidents to two terms.For longtime Trump watchers it smacked of a familiar playbook of the American right and the Maga movement. Float a trial balloon, no matter how wacky or extreme. Let far-right media figures such as Steve Bannon make the case it’s not so outlandish because, after all, Democrats are worse. Stand by as Republicans in Congress avoid then equivocate then actively endorse. Watch a fringe idea slowly but surely normalised.“One of the most important lessons of the last decade is the way that ideas have migrated from the fever swamp into the mainstream,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster. “How Steve Bannon will say some crazy thing only to see it become Republican orthodoxy a few years later. We’ve seen that migration of ideas that seem absurd and are perhaps dismissed but develop a constituency.”This one is a long shot. The constitution’s 22nd amendment, ratified in 1951, clearly states: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Legal experts and constitutional scholars firmly reject any credible legal basis for a third term.Yet for months Trump, who began his first term in 2017 and his second in 2025, has been testing the water by suggesting that he could run again anyway. Initially treated by some as jokes or political manoeuvering, the comments have recently moved beyond veiled suggestions to become more explicit.Asked whether he wanted another term, Trump told NBC News: “I like working. I’m not joking. But I’m not – it is far too early to think about it.” Pressed on whether he has seen plans to enable him to seek a third term, the president replied: “There are methods which you could do it.”None of these “methods” is straightforward. Trump could try to whip up political support to repeal the 22nd amendment. But the procedural and political difficulties of amending the constitution make this extremely unlikely. Democratic-led states could also refuse to put Trump on the ballot.Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island: “The technical hurdle is very high. Given the political configuration now, and the control of state legislatures now, it would be impossible not only to repeal the 22nd amendment but to get him on the ballot in all 50 states.”Some argue that a constitutional loophole allows JD Vance to run for president with Trump as vice-president. Once elected, Vance would hand over power, much as Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev handed back the keys to the Kremlin to Vladimir Putin. But experts say this would violate the 12th amendment’s requirement that the vice-president be constitutionally eligible for president.Alternatively and most simply, Trump could run for president again and gamble that the supreme court, which contains six conservatives including three Trump appointees, would not stop him. Time and again over the past decade, he has crashed through barriers through brute willpower.None of it seems likely, but then nor did a reality TV star with no political or military experience winning election, nor did the instigator of the January 6 insurrection maintaining his grip on the Republican party, and nor did a man with 34 felony counts of falsified business records returning to the White House.Sykes, the author of How the Right Lost Its Mind, commented: “My instinct is to to regard it as a distraction but that’s a mistake because the opposition has suffered from a lack of imagination on occasion of what Donald Trump is capable of doing and what he intends to do. Clearly he’s putting this out to soften the ground.”Once unthinkable ideas have a habit of becoming very unthinkable in the Trump era. In the immediate aftermath of the US Capitol riot, Republican leaders moved to distance themselves from Trump and his “big lie” of a stolen election. Senator Lindsey Graham declared: “All I can say is count me out, enough is enough.”But Bannon and other rightwing influencers worked tirelessly to promote Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. Before long Republicans were rallying around Trump again, suggesting that he was right to raise concerns over election integrity and dismissing a congressional panel that investigated January 6 as a witch hunt. Last year a CNN poll found that 69% of Republicans sayJoe Biden’s win was not legitimate.Sykes noted another recent example: presidential ally Elon Musk suggesting that federal judges who rule against the Trump administration be impeached. Now opinion polls suggest that a majority of Republican voters are in favour of the move.Sykes added: “If Donald Trump keeps putting this idea out there, there’s no reason to believe that he can’t get Maga [the Make America great again movement] behind him and then the question is whether the courts would go along with it. What happens if the court says, no, you can’t serve another term, but enough states put him on the ballot anyway? Who’s going to stop him?”View image in fullscreenTrump’s third-term talk may also be a strategy to maintain political relevance and influence, wrongfooting opponents by keeping them guessing. It prevents him from being seen as a “lame duck” president and keeps the spotlight on him rather than his potential successors.The comments could also serve to deflect attention from other controversies. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Trump mused about a third term in the same week that his administration had been rocked by a scandal over senior officials accidentally inviting a journalist into a Signal group chat about military attack plans.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSome Republicans are downplaying Trump’s remarks as jokes or simply an effort to “get people talking”. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, stated: “It’s not really something we’re thinking about. He has four years. There’s a lot of work to do.”But the issue is gaining traction on the right. Just three days after Trump was sworn in on 20 January, Republican representative Andy Ogles proposed a House of Representatives joint resolution to amend the constitution so that a president can serve up to three terms – provided that they did not serve two consecutive terms before running for a third (this would continue to bar Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama from running again).At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, Bannon proclaimed, “We want Trump in 28,” and argued forcefully for a constitutional change. The case was also put by Third Term Project, a thinktank exploring presidential term limits, with a logo portraying Trump as Julius Caesar.Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump, has seen this movie before. “It starts out as ha-ha, Trump is trolling the libs, and then it’s well, Trump is trolling the libs but he’s got a good point. Well, he’s got a good point and the Democrats are so evil we should set aside any restraint to pursue this idea. Then it’s why aren’t you getting in line with this idea, every Republican?”Wilson added: “That arc is a known pattern now with Trump. Remember January 6. Every Republican – almost – came out and condemned that the day it happened and the idea became less and less defensible the more we knew about Trump’s role in it. But they became less and less willing to speak the truth. They became less and less willing to to resist and so I think that pattern is real, it exists, it’s been visible to us for a long time.”Democrats are moving to counter Trump’s remarks and Ogles’ proposed resolution. Congressman Dan Goldman has introduced resolutions reaffirming support for the 22nd amendment.He told the MSNBC network: “I’ve unfortunately been spending enough time studying Donald Trump to know that he’s not a comedian. He doesn’t joke and he has a very set MO, which is to float a crazy idea, claim that he’s joking, have some sycophantic Republicans start to run with it, like in this case, Representative Ogles, and then all of a sudden it becomes normalized and socialised.”The two-term standard began when America’s first president, George Washington, voluntarily stepped down. Four of the next six presidents won a second term but passed on a third. In 1940 Franklin Roosevelt became the only president to successfully win a third election, couching his decision as one of necessity, not ambition, during the second world war. Roosevelt won again in 1944 but died the following year.Not long after, Congress began discussion of what became the 22nd amendment, limiting presidents to two elections, and ratified it in 1951. There has been occasional talk of repealing it since. Ronald Reagan, another two-term president, publicly supported repeal, telling an interviewer that he “wouldn’t do that for myself, but for presidents from here on”.Trump, however, has shown no qualms about grabbing power for himself, claiming that the public demands it because he has the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the past 100 years. Asked this week about a hypothetical showdown with Obama in 2028, he replied: “I’d love that, boy, I’d love that.”Some observers note that Trump’s approval rating is already on the slide. Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, insisted: “This is not a serious effort. This is an effort to make Donald Trump into the most powerful politician that ever happened. The guy is not God. He will fall to the normal rhythms of politics. He’ll lose the midterms in 2026 and then people will be sick of the guy.”Others, however, warn that Trump has been written off to easily before. Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, said: “This is no joke and no distraction. It needs to be taken seriously. Trump just saying, ‘Fuck it I’m running’ and daring people, the party, the media, the military, the courts, to stop him – I don’t know that he could be stopped.“It’s been an utter failure of imagination to be prepared for how far this guy will go. People never thought January 6 will happen; we never thought a president would try to overthrow an election. A guy who would do that, if he wanted to, would try to do anything to stay in office and run again.” More

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      ‘Hands Off’ protests take off across US and Europe to oppose Trump agenda – live

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      Also speaking at in Washington DC was Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March.Carmona said:
      We are exercising the People’s Veto on Musk, Trump, Zuck–all these broligarchs–who want a country ruled by bullies to benefit billionaires. And they don’t care what–or who–they have to bulldoze to make it happen.
      But here’s the thing: We are the majority. Workers. Students. Parents. Teachers. Activists. We are the backbone of this country. Not the elites. They’re scared that a movement this large can threaten their power.
      But despite all the nonsense they’ve put us through, we’re still here and our numbers are growing.
      What I know is true about Women’s Marchers, and what I suspect to be true about everyone here today is that we are not afraid of hard work. That’s who we are: regular people who stepped up when there was work to be done…We are enough, and I believe that we will win.
      The strength of a movement isn’t measured by our easy wins, but by the hard days when we showed up anyway. And that’s what we need to do. Work hard. Work together. That is true people power. That is how we win.”
      Speaking in Washington DC, the former commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Martin O’Malley, told demonstrators:
      You and I are different. We do not believe, as Elon Musk believes, that you only have value as a human being in our country if you contribute to his economic system that makes him wildly rich.
      No, you and I are different. Elon Musk thinks that the greatest waste and inefficiency are people that don’t contribute to his economy. Therefore, the elderly who can’t work, people with disabilities who can’t work, they’re the wasteful inefficiency. Elon Musk is going after you and I.
      Protesters across the US rallied against Donald Trump’s policies on SaturdayThe “Hands Off” demonstrations are part of what the event’s organisers expect to be the largest single day of protest against Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk since they launched a rapid-fire effort to overhaul the government and expand presidential authority.Here are some images coming from Hollywood, Florida, where demonstrators are protesting against Donald Trump’s administration:Hundreds of protesters – including Americans living abroad – have taken to the streets across major European cities in a show of defiance against Donald Trump’s administration.On Saturday, demonstrators rallied in Frankfurt, Germany, as part of the “Hands Off” protest organized by Democrats Abroad, Reuters reports.In Berlin, demonstrators stood in front of a Tesla showroom and the US embassy in protest against Trump and the Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Some held signs calling for “an end to the chaos” in the US.In Paris, demonstrators, largely American, gathered around Place de la République to protest the US president, with many waving banners that read “Resist tyrant”, “Rule of law”, “Feminists for freedom not fascism” and “Save Democracy”, Reuters reports.Crowds in London gathered in Trafalgar Square earlier on Saturday with banners that read “No to Maga hate” and “Dump Trump”.Protesters also gathered in Lisbon, Portugal, on Saturday with some holding signs that read “the Turd Reich”.In addition to large US cities, anti-Donald Trump protests are also taking place through the US’s smaller towns, including in red counties.Here are some photos coming through BlueSky from St. Augustine, a small town in Florida of 14,000 people in a red county:Jamie Raskin, a Democratic congressman from Maryland and the party’s ranking member on the House justice committee, said today’s demonstration was part of a “creative and nimble” strategy to resist Donald Trump.Talking to the Guardian, he said mass protests needed to be combined with a “smart legislative strategy” to be effective.Studies of authoritarian regimes abroad had shown that a strategy of either mass protest or legislature resistance did work on their own, he said, in response to a question about the failure of demonstrations to unseat strongman leaders in countries like Hungary, Serbia and Turkey.Here are some images coming through the newswires from across the country as thousands take to the streets in demonstrations against Donald Trump’s administration:About 600 people registered for the event, billed as a “Hands Off” rally, at the Ventura Government Center on Victoria Avenue in California.Ventura, with a population of 109,000, is a laidback beach and agricultural community with a vibrant cultural scene, about 65 miles north of Los Angeles.Leslie Sage, mother of two, drove up from nearby Thousand Oaks and said: “I’m a white woman and I want everyone to know white women don’t support Trump.” Sage’s sign read: “Russian Asset, American Idiot.”She came with her friend Stephanie Gonzalez. “As a double lung transplant recipient, I’m outraged that access to medical care and funding for research is at risk. This president is deranged.”People showed up from Ventura but also Ojai, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Camarillo and Simi Valley.Harlow Rose Rega, an eight-year old from Ventura, came with her grandmother Sandy Friedman. Harlow made her own sign: “Save my future.”Friedman is worried about her social security. “I worked my whole life and so did my husband. Now I’m afraid Trump will take it away,” she said. Signs indicated protesters are worried about a range of issues – racism, national parks, health care, environment, veteran benefits, grocery costs and more. Some people said AI helped with their signage but refused to create anti-Trump slogans specifically so they worked around that.In Ventura, a chant of “Donald Trump has got to go. Hey hey ho ho!” started amid lots of cheers and honking cars.A mix of English and Spanish songs is also blasting from the mobile sound system. People are in good spirits and friendly with peacful though loud protests and no evidence of Trump support.Several hundred vociferous anti-Trump demonstrators converged on a traffic circle in Florida’s Fort Lauderdale suburb of Hollywood Saturday morning to vent their rejection of the 47th president’s policies and myriad executive orders.Chanting “hey hey, ho ho, Trump and Musk have got to go,” the predominantly white protestors jeered motorists in Tesla Cybertrucks and hoisted a variety of colorful placards that left little doubt where they stand on the topic of Donald Trump.“Prosecute and jail the Turd Reich,” read one. Some reserved special ire for the world’s richest person: “I did not elect Elon Musk.” Others emphasized the protestors’ anxieties about the future of democracy in the U.S.“Hands off democracy,” declared one placard. “Stop being Putin’s puppet,” enjoined another.“This is an assault on our democracy, on our economy, on our civil rights,” said Jennifer Heit, a 64-year-old editor and resident of Plantation who toted a poster that read, “USA: No to King or Oligarchy.”“Everything is looking so bad that I feel we have to do all we can while we can, and just having all this noise is unsettling to everyone,” Heit said.Heit attended a protest outside a Tesla dealership in Fort Lauderdale last week, and the Trump administration’s frontal assault on the rule of law and the judiciary has outraged her.“We’re supposed to be a nation of laws and due process,” she said, “and I am especially concerned about the people who are being deported without any due process.” More

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      George Santos prosecutors seek seven-year prison term for campaign fraud

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      Prosecutors are seeking more than seven years in prison for disgraced former congressman George Santos after he pleaded guilty to federal fraud and identity theft charges.The US attorney for the eastern district of New York argued in a court filing on Friday that a significant sentence was warranted because the New York Republican’s “unparalleled crimes” had “made a mockery” of the country’s election system.“He lied to his campaign staff, his supporters, his putative employer and congressional colleagues, and the American public,” the office wrote. “From his creation of a wholly fictitious biography to his callous theft of money from elderly and impaired donors, Santos’s unrestrained greed and voracious appetite for fame enabled him to exploit the very system by which we select our representatives.”The office also argued that Santos had been “unrepentant and defiant” for years, dismissing the prosecution as a “witch-hunt” and refusing to resign from Congress as his web of lies was debunked.Even after pleading guilty before trial, prosecutors said his claims of remorse “ring hollow”, noting that he has not forfeited any of his ill-gotten gains or repaid any of his victims.“The volume of Santos’s lies and his extraordinary pattern of dishonesty speaks to his high likelihood of reoffending and the concomitant need to remove him from the community he has repeatedly victimized,” prosecutors wrote.The 87-month sentence proposed by prosecutors represents the high end of court guidelines in such cases. That would be roughly four to five years behind bars plus a mandatory minimum two-year sentence for aggravated identity theft, they said.Santos’ lawyers did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday, which was the deadline for both sides to submit their sentencing memos to court.A federal judge on Long Island is scheduled to hear arguments and decide on Santos’ sentence during a court hearing on 25 April.The once-rising Republican, who represented parts of Queens and Long Island, served barely a year in office before he was ousted by his House colleagues in 2023 – just the sixth congressperson ever expelled in the chamber’s history.Santos’ political demise came after it was revealed that he had fabricated much of his life story, leading to questions about how the political unknown had funded his winning campaign.The now-36-year-old cast himself as a wealthy businessman who had graduated from top colleges, worked at prestigious Wall Street firms and held a valuable real estate portfolio. In truth, he was struggling financially and faced eviction.Santos admitted in August that he duped voters, deceived donors and stole the identities of nearly a dozen people, including his own family members, to make donations to his congressional campaign.He was initially due to be sentenced in February, but a judge granted him a three-month reprieve to come up with more than half a million dollars in court fines.As part of his plea deal, Santos agreed to pay nearly $375,000 in restitution and $205,000 in forfeiture.Santos’s lawyers said at the time that he had little more than $1,000 in liquid assets and needed more time to build his newly launched podcast Pants on Fire in order to begin paying off the debt.Prosecutors maintain Santos profited handsomely from his infamy, arguing he has earned more than $800,000 from appearances on the video-sharing website Cameo and from a new documentary since his expulsion from Congress.Two of Santos’s campaign staffers have also pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection to the campaign financing scheme.Sam Miele, his former campaign fundraiser, was sentenced in March to one year and one day in federal prison. He admitted to impersonating a high-ranking congressional aide and charging donors’ credit cards without authorization while raising campaign cash for Santos.Nancy Marks, Santos’s former campaign treasurer, admitted she submitted to federal regulators bogus campaign finance reports filled with fake donors and even a fake $500,000 personal loan from Santos himself.The embellishments helped Santos hit campaign fundraising thresholds needed to qualify for financial backing from the national Republican party.Marks is due to be sentenced in May. More

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      I worked in Trump’s first administration. Here’s why his team is using Signal | Kevin Carroll

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      No senior US government official in the now-infamous “Houthi PC Small Group” Signal chat seemed new to that kind of group, nor surprised by the sensitivity of the subject discussed in that insecure forum, not even when the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, chimed in with details of a coming airstrike. No one objected – not the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who was abroad and using her personal cellphone to discuss pending military operations; not even the presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, who was in Moscow at the time. Yet most of these officials enjoy the luxury of access to secure government communications systems 24/7/365.Reasonable conclusions may be drawn from these facts. First, Trump’s national security cabinet commonly discusses secret information on insecure personal devices. Second, sophisticated adversaries such as Russia and China intercept such communications, especially those sent or received in their countries. Third, as a result, hostile intelligence services now probably possess blackmail material regarding these officials’ indiscreet past conversations on similar topics. Fourth, as a first-term Trump administration official and ex-CIA officer, I believe the reason these officials risk interacting in this way is to prevent their communications from being preserved as required by the Presidential Records Act, and avoid them being discoverable in litigation, or subject to a subpoena or Freedom of Information Act request. And fifth, no one seems to have feared being investigated by the justice department for what appears to be a violation of the Espionage Act’s Section 793(f), which makes gross negligence in mishandling classified information a felony; the FBI director, Kash Patel, and attorney general, Pam Bondi, quickly confirmed that hunch. Remarkably, the CIA director John Ratcliffe wouldn’t even admit to Congress that he and his colleagues had made a mistake.The knock-on effects of this are many. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, needs to address his colleagues’ characterization of European partners as “pathetic” with foreign ministers now dubious of the US’s intentions. Allies already hesitant to share their countries’ secrets with the US, because of valid counterintelligence concerns regarding Trump’s affinity for Vladimir Putin, will clam up even more rather than risk their sources being compromised by Trump’s appointees. Gabbard and Ratcliffe may have perjured themselves before Congress regarding whether their Signal chat included classified national defense information; certainly, their credibility on Capitol Hill is shredded. As a former CIA case officer, I suspect these directors’ own subordinates will prefer not to share restricted handling information with them going forward. Hegseth, confirmed as secretary by a vote of 51-50 despite concerns over his character and sobriety, lost any moral authority to lead the defense department by reflexively lying about his misconduct, claiming that the story by Jeffrey Goldberg, the unsuspecting Atlantic editor improvidently included in the text chain, is somehow a “hoax” despite the fact the White House contemporaneously confirmed its authenticity.Trump dismisses this scandal, now under investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general, as a witch-hunt, and his followers will fall in line. But every senator who voted to confirm these national security officials, despite doubts regarding their temperaments and qualifications, quietly knows that they own part of this debacle. For fear of facing Republican primary challengers funded by Elon Musk, these senators failed in their solemn constitutional duty to independently provide wise advice and consent regarding nominations to the US’s most important war cabinet posts. How would the senators have explained their misfeasance to service members’ bereaved families – their constituents, perhaps – had the Houthis used information from the Signal chat, such as the time a particular target was to be engaged, to reorient their antiaircraft systems to intercept the inbound aircraft?I happen to have served in Yemen as a sensitive activities officer for special operations command (central). Conspicuous in their absence from the Signal chat were uniformed officers responsible for the recent combat mission: the acting chair of the joint chiefs of staff Adm Christopher Grady, central command’s Gen Michael Kurilla and special operations command’s Gen Bryan Fenton. These good men would have raised the obvious objection: loose talk on insecure phones about a coming operation jeopardizes the lives of US sailors and marines standing watch on warships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, naval aviators flying over the beach towards the target, and likely special operators, intelligence officers and human sources working in the shadows on the ground.You don’t need 30-plus years in uniform to know that holding a detailed yet insecure discussion about a pending military mission is wrong; the participants in the chat knew, too. They just didn’t care, not as much as they cared about keeping their communications from being legally discoverable. They’re safe in the knowledge that in a new era without benefit of the rule of law, Patel’s FBI and Bondi’s justice department will never bring charges against them, for a crime which uniformed service members are routinely prosecuted for vastly smaller infractions. As the attorney general made plain in her remarks about this matter, federal law enforcement is now entirely subservient to Trump’s personal and political interests.Most senior US government officials in 2025 are, unfortunately, far gone from the fine old gentleman’s tradition of honorable resignation. But participants in the Signal chat should consider the Hollywood producer character Jack Woltz’s pained observation to the mafia lawyer Tom Hagen in The Godfather about his indiscreetly wayward mistress: “A man in my position cannot afford to be made to look ridiculous.” Trump, the justice department and the Republican Congress may not make them resign, but to the US’s allies and adversaries, and to their own subordinates, these officials now look ridiculous.

      Kevin Carroll served as senior counselor to the former homeland security secretary John Kelly and as a CIA and army officer More

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      Senators unveil bill to claw back power over tariffs amid Trump trade wars

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      Senior senators introduced new bipartisan legislation on Thursday seeking to claw back some of Congress’s power over tariffs after Donald Trump unveiled sweeping new import taxes and rattled the global economy with sweeping new import taxes.The Trade Review Act of 2025, co-sponsored by Senator Chuck Grassley, a top Republican lawmaker from Iowa, a state heavily reliant on farm exports, and Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, whose state shares a border with Canada, would require the president to notify Congress of new tariffs, and provide a justification for the action and an analysis on the potential impact on US businesses and consumers.For the tariff to remain in effect, Congress would need to approve a joint resolution within 60 days. If Congress failed to give its consent within that timeframe, all new tariffs on imports would expire. The legislation would also allow Congress to terminate tariffs at any time through a resolution of disapproval.Grassley was not among the four Republican senators who voted to approve a Democratic-led resolution that would nullify the national emergency Trump used to justify 25% tariffs on Canadian imports, which passed shortly after the president’s so-called “liberation day” tariff announcement on Wednesday.Yet support from Grassley, third in line to the presidency as the president pro tempore of the Senate, is a sign of the deep unease many Republicans have with the president’s efforts to remake global trade.“For too long, Congress has delegated its clear authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce to the executive branch,” Grassley said in a statement, adding that the proposed measure was a way to “reassert Congress’ constitutional role and ensure Congress has a voice in trade policy”.The legislation is modeled after the War Powers Act, passed in 1973, that seeks to limit the president’s ability to engage US troops into “hostilities” without Congressional approval.“Trade wars can be as devastating, which is why the Founding Fathers gave Congress the clear constitutional authority over war and trade,” Cantwell said in a statement.“Arbitrary tariffs, particularly on our allies, damage US export opportunities and raise prices for American consumers and businesses. “As representatives of the American people, Congress has a duty to stop actions that will cause them harm.”In a Rose Garden ceremony on Wednesday, Trump announced that the US would impose a major round of new tariffs on many of its largest trade partners and ones uninhabited by humans. The tariffs unleashed chaos across world financial markets, as economists warned that the levies would raise prices for consumers and businesses.Several countries threatened counter-measures as they digested Trump’s trade war escalation. More

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      ‘Did you stand up?’: read part of Cory Booker’s blockbuster 25-hour speech | Cory Booker

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      Editor’s note: the following is an excerpt from Cory Booker’s 25-hour marathon speech on the US Senate floorTonight, I rise with the intention of getting in some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.I rise tonight because I believe, sincerely, that our country is in crisis.And I believe that not in a partisan sense, because so many of the people that have been reaching out to my office – in pain, in fear, having their lives upended – so many of them identify themselves as Republicans.Indeed, conversations from in this body, to in this building, to across my state – and recently in travel across the country – Republicans as well as Democrats are talking to me about what they feel as a sense of dread about a growing crisis, or what they point to about what is going wrong.The bedrock commitments in our country – that both sides rely on, that people from all backgrounds rely on – those bedrock commitments are being broken.Unnecessary hardships are being borne by Americans of all backgrounds. And institutions which are special in America, which are precious, which are unique in our country, are being recklessly – and I would say even unconstitutionally – affected, attacked, even shattered.In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy, and even our aspirations as a people. From our highest offices: a sense of common decency. These are not normal times in America, and they should not be treated as such.John Lewis – so many heroes before us – would say that this is the time to stand up, to speak up. This is the time to get in some good trouble, to get into necessary trouble. I can’t allow this body to continue without doing something different – speaking out. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent. And we all must do more. We all must do more against them.But those 10 words: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” All of us have to think of those 10 words – 10 two-letter words: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Because I believe generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question: “Where were you? Where were you when our country was in crisis and when American people were asking for help? Help me. Help me.” Did we speak up?When 73 million American seniors, who rely on social security, were to have that promise mocked, attacked, and then to have the services undermined – to be told that there will be no one there to answer if you call for help – when our seniors became afraid and worried and panicked because of the menacing words of their president, of the most wealthy person in the world, of cabinet secretaries … Did we speak up?When the American economy, in 71 days – 71 days – has been upended, when prices at the grocery store were skyrocketing, and the stock market was plunging, when pension funds, 401(k)s, were going down, when Americans were hurting and looking up, where the resounding answer to this question was: “No.”Are you better off economically than you were 71 days ago? Where were you? Did you speak up?At a time when the president of the United States was launching trade wars against our closest allies, when he was firing regulators who investigate America’s biggest banks and biggest corporations – and stop them from taking advantage of the little guy, or the little gal, or my grandmother, or your grandfather – dismantling the agency that protects consumers from fraud, the only one whose sole purpose is to look out for them … Did you speak up?When the president of the United States, in a way that is so crass and craven, peddled his own meme coin and made millions upon millions upon millions of dollars for his own bank account – at a time so many are struggling economically – did you speak up?Did you speak up when the president of the United States did what amounts to a conman’s house – the White House – when the president tried to take healthcare away? Where were you? Did you speak up?Threatening a program called Medicaid, which helps people with disabilities, helps expectant mothers, helps millions upon millions of Americans – and why? Why? As part of a larger plan to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, who’ve done the best over the last 20 years.For billionaires who seem so close to the president that they sat right on the dais at his inauguration and sit in his cabinet meetings at the White House.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDid you speak up when he gutted public education, slashed funds for pediatric cancer research, fired thousands of veterans who risked their lives for their country? When he abandoned our allies and our international commitments?At a time when floods, fires, hurricanes and droughts are devastating communities across this country – when countries all around the world are banding together to do something – and he turned his back?Did you speak up when outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases are still a global threat, yet we have stopped engaging in the efforts necessary to meet those threats?Where were you when the American press was being censored? When international students were being disappeared from American streets without due process? When American universities were being intimidated into silence, challenging that fundamental idea of freedom of thought, freedom of expression?When the law firms that represent clients that may not be favored were attacked, and attacked, and attacked – where were you? Did you speak up when they came for those firms?Or what about when the people who attacked the police officers – defended this building, an American democracy – on January 6, who just outside those doors put their lives on the line for us, and many of them would later die … Where were you when the president pardoned them, celebrated them, and even talked of giving them money – people who savagely beat American police officers?Did you speak up when Americans from across the country were all speaking up – more and more voices in this country speaking up – saying: “This is not right. This is un-American. This is not who we are. This is not America.” Did you speak up?And so I rise tonight because I believe to be about what is normal right now, when so much abnormal is happening, is unacceptable.I rise tonight because silence at this moment of national crisis would be a betrayal of some of the greatest heroes of our nation. Because at stake in this moment is nothing less than everything that we brag about, that we talk about, that makes us special.At stake right now are some of our most basic American principles – principles that so many Americans understand are worth fighting for, worth standing for, worth speaking up for.

      Cory Booker is a US senator from New Jersey More

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      Democrats’ deference to Biden was a disaster. They still haven’t learned their lesson | Norman Solomon

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      Joe Biden’s insistence on running for re-election was certainly disastrous. It kept credible contenders out of the Democratic presidential primaries and prevented the selection of a nominee who had gained momentum in the winnowing process. Even after his stunningly feeble debate performance on 27 June last year, Biden took several weeks before finally opting out of the race. That left Kamala Harris a mere 107 days between the launch of her campaign and election day.Ample evidence shows that the Biden team was riddled with obstinate denial and misrepresentation aimed at the public. But tales of tragic egomania in high places can take us only so far. What’s essential is to scrutinize how – and why – the Democratic party, its leaders and its prominent supporters enabled Biden and his inner circle to get away with such momentous stonewalling for so long.Democrats in Congress, with few exceptions, refused to jump off the Biden 2024 bandwagon until the debate disaster. Similar enabling also came from state party chairs and Democratic governors. Likewise, a wide range of party-allied organizations toed the Biden party line. Meanwhile, many activists took on the role of spectators, if not cheerleaders for another Biden campaign, in an unfolding tragedy of vast proportions.A common denominator was fear. Fear of being accused of disloyalty to the Democratic president. Fear of being ostracized by fellow Democrats or denounced by anti-Trump commentators. Fear of being accused of weakening the party by pointing out Biden’s evident frailty. Fear of damaging personal ambitions or future access to halls of power. And on and on.The silence and compliance helped Biden to coast toward renomination. Yet by midway through his term, polling numbers and increasingly shaky public behavior were clear signals that he would be a weak candidate. Support from working-class voters, the young, and people of color drastically eroded.Notably, leading progressives in Congress assisted Biden in fending off a serious primary challenge. Representative Pramila Jayapal, then chair of the congressional Progressive caucus, made a very early endorsement. “I never thought I would say this, but I believe he should run for another term and finish this agenda we laid out,” she said in November 2022. Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed Biden in April 2023. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed him three months later.Polls routinely showed that most Democratic voters did not want Biden to run again. But party leaders were on autopilot, choosing discretion over valor, benefitting their relations with the White House but undermining the party’s prospects of retaining it – as is now painfully and undeniably clear.A few weeks ago, speaking at a Harvard Kennedy School forum, Jayapal said: “I do think had the president just served one term, he would have gone out a hero, he would have passed the torch, he would have been celebrated for his accomplishments, we would have had a really strong Democratic primary with a lot of good candidates, and then we would have had the full election season to fight it out and to actually get somebody who could win.”Now, an open question is whether crucial lessons have been learned and will be heeded. At stake is the capacity of the Democratic party to defeat Trumpist forces in the midterm elections next year and in 2028.The outlook is not good. A grim reality is that the Democratic party and its loyalists have developed an enduring corrosive culture – which had everything to do with the insistence on continuing to fuel the faulty Biden 2024 locomotive as it dragged the party toward a calamitous defeat.I am not writing from a vantage point of hindsight alone. In November 2022, days after the midterm elections, my colleagues and I at the progressive non-profit RootsAction launched the Don’t Run Joe campaign (renamed Step Aside Joe when Biden announced his candidacy the following spring). During the next 20 months, not one other sizable national organization was willing to push for Biden to forego a re-election bid.We began in New Hampshire, the longtime first-in-the-country presidential primary state. (Biden had finished fifth with only 8.4% of the vote in the 2020 Democratic primary there. For 2024, he demoted New Hampshire to make South Carolina first.) On 9 November 2022, our kickoff digital ads reached Democrats across New Hampshire. Within days, upwards of 2,000 Democratic voters in the state had signed a Don’t Run Joe petition, conveying this message: “We cannot risk losing in 2024. We shouldn’t gamble on Joe Biden’s low approval rating.”That was the gist of our messaging that continued for more than a year and a half via online advertising, email blasts, social media, news releases, media interviews, mass texting to Democratic voters, leafleting at state party conventions and TV ads in several key states and Washington DC. A mobile Don’t Run Joe billboard circled the Capitol and White House as well as the site of a Democratic National Committee meeting.Don’t Run Joe placed full-page print advertisements in the Hill, aimed at congressional Democrats. One ad included a picture of men in suits with their heads in the sand. Presented as An Open Letter to Democrats in the House and Senate, the ad declared that “evasion is no solution” and concluded: “Conformity and fear of a White House rebuke have never served Democrats or the nation well. It is time to stop muffling genuine concerns and start being honest about the pivotal downsides of a prospective Biden ’24 candidacy. The future of the Democratic Party – and the country – is at stake.”Today, conformity and fear are still contagions afflicting the Democratic party, now impairing its capacity to roll back Donald Trump’s autocratic rule and effectively fight for a progressive agenda. The rebellion against Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, while encouraging, has not shaken the party’s underlying power structure. And habitual deference to uninspiring party leadership does not bode well.The day after the president’s recent demagogic speech to Congress, the new Democratic National Committee chair, Ken Martin, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, were the featured speakers for “a virtual National Update and Call to Action”. The next morning, I received a text from a progressive Democratic party activist, who summarized the event as “sad and weak,” adding: “Jeffries and Martin’s delivery was anemic, content essentially pablum.” The activist signed off with the words “Really frightened”.I asked if it would be OK to use the activist’s name while quoting from the text in an article. The reply was both understandable and symptomatic of how fear prevents the kind of open debate that the Democratic party desperately needs: “No, I am working inside the party … ”

      Norman Solomon is the director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book is War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine More