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      Revealed: NYPD complaints surge under Adams to reach highest level since 2012

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      The New York City police department’s disciplinary issues are coming to a head during the third year of tough-on-crime Mayor Eric Adams’s administration, with complaints at their highest since 2012, stop-and-frisk encounters soaring and displays of impunity by rank-and-file officers, according to interviews and data from the city’s independent police watchdog agency.Disciplinary records and interviews with sources also reveal a persistent problem with instances of NYPD officers wearing morale patches on their bulletproof vests containing possible white supremacist imagery.This is an uncomfortable echo of four years ago, when the NYPD’s riot squad pummeled protesters and cops openly wore pro-Trump imagery, flashed white supremacist symbols while on duty and were discovered in membership lists of extremist militias.The first public clue of the NYPD’s renewed problem with far-right imagery emerged in the civilian complaint review board’s (CCRB) May monthly report. In December 2022, two officers from Staten Island’s 120th precinct responded to a fight between parents at a public school. One cop refused to provide his name to one of the mothers who also observed a patch with a skull image on the other cop’s bulletproof vests.“The skull patch on subject officer 2’s uniform was a specific imagery commonly used by white supremacist groups. Subject officer 2 stated that the patch was a gift, and the skull insignia did not have offensive connotations. The investigation found that the display of the patch on subject officer 2’s uniform was discourteous and offensive,” reads the summary in the CCRB document.According to sources with knowledge of the investigation, the cop with the offensive patch was Sergeant John J Pedersen, a 38-year-old who joined the NYPD in 2011 and has four sustained civilian complaints against him during his career. Pedersen will face a departmental trial for wearing the offensive patch.Pedersen’s conduct was not isolated: the CCRB has sustained complaints against several other cops for wearing the same sort of skull imagery – which resembles the logo of the comic book superhero the Punisher – while on duty, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. The CCRB has investigated at least 19 cases related to improper morale patches – mostly related to the Punisher skull insignia – since 2018, according to an agency spokesperson.There have been earlier indications of the CCRB’s focus on political patches: Sergeant Dana Martillo lost 40 days of pay after she was disciplined for wearing pro-Trump patches on her bulletproof vest during a February 2021 Black Lives Matter protest in Brooklyn, including a Punisher logo fashioned after former president Donald Trump. However, the scope of the watchdog agency’s crackdown and its consideration of the Punisher logo as white supremacist iconography has not been previously made public.“The Punisher symbol has since been adopted by several groups, most prominent among them the US military, white supremacists and law enforcement. Between 2017 and 2021, the Punisher logo has been visible on articles of clothing and weapons held at white supremacy rallies,” reads a passage from a closing report from a 2020 CCRB case in which three officers sporting such patches were sustained for misconduct by the review board.“The Punisher symbol represents a character that engages in criminal behavior and violence and has been adopted by white supremacist groups. The symbol is inconsistent with the mission and values of the NYPD, namely those of enforcing the law, treating citizens with respect and valuing human life. Additionally, the ‘Punisher’ logo’s association with white supremacist groups goes against the requirements of [the patrol guide], which prohibit[s] association with any person or organization advocating hatred, oppression or prejudice based on race,” the report reads.The broader problem with morale patches was formally communicated by the independent watchdog agency to the NYPD’s legal bureau last year in an official “risk management bureau” letter informing the NYPD of a persistent discipline problem involving extremist iconography, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.“The CCRB takes all cases involving extremist imagery on uniforms very seriously, and images that invoke white supremacy are no exception,” a spokesperson for the watchdog agency wrote in an emailed statement. “CCRB investigators used the NYPD patrol guide to determine if the uniform modification in question constitutes misconduct.”The NYPD did not respond to repeated requests for comment.Michael Sisitzky, assistant policy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, expressed alarm at the extremist imagery issue but noted it fit into a longer pattern. “These complaints are not entirely new, we’ve heard similar reports of officers sporting those patches or making white supremacist gestures at protests. Most recently, our monitors have seen really aggressive activity by the department towards the George Floyd and Palestinian solidarity protests,” Sisitzky said.More alarmingly, Sisitzky said, the NYPD’s command staff under Mayor Adams’s term has taken a hard turn to the right.“The adversarial and hostile tone and rhetoric towards New Yorkers from the command staff have been really troubling – figures like [Chief of Department] Jonathan Chell and [Assistant Commissioner] Kaz Daughtry have been using social media to attack members of the city council and judges, recently called out protesters as ‘anti-American’, and are slurring folks as supporters of terrorism.”The behavior of senior NYPD officials like Chell and Daughtry has provoked rebukes from the city council and prompted New York City’s department of investigation to open an inquiry into the use of social media by the police department.Adams, for his part, unequivocally supports the NYPD’s new aggressive approach towards its political opponents.The CCRB, which is the external investigative agency for complaints of NYPD misconduct, is staring down precipitous budget cuts: the current budget calls for a $25.7m cut to the watchdog agency’s budget. In response to prior rounds of cuts, the CCRB has ceased investigating whole categories of complaints if they are isolated incidents, including failure of officers to provide their name and shield number, threats by a member of service, discourtesy, refusal to process a civilian complaint, property seizures, forced hospitalizations or untruthfulness.Yet some 2,355 complaints were made against NYPD personnel as of 1 June, according to CCRB data. That is the highest total number at this point in the year since 2012, when 2,374 complaints were logged against police.Before 2023, complaints against NYPD officers had dropped steadily since 2019, but the Adams administration’s return to stress policing tactics last seen under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly resulted in a huge spike in misconduct allegations last year, as the Guardian first reported last fall. Vehicle stops have skyrocketed 50% as well, without a commensurate increase in seized contraband, arrests, summonses or other legal actions.What’s more, NYPD line officers are not accurately documenting the true number of stop-and-frisk encounters with New Yorkers and appear to face no accountability for this lapse, according to a letter filed at the end of 2023 by the court monitor overseeing a consent decree that ostensibly reins in the NYPD’s conduct on the street per a 2013 settlement agreement.The letter singled out “neighborhood safety teams” and “precinct safety teams”, the terms used by the Adams administration to rebrand the NYPD’s notorious, aggressive anti-crime units that were behind the huge rise in stop-and-frisk encounters during the Bloomberg administration, when hundreds of thousands of mostly Black and Latino New Yorkers were stopped and searched.Lupe Aguirre, a staff attorney at the NYCLU, criticized the budget cuts to the CCRB.“Transparency remains a real issue with the NYPD, and the CCRB is a critical source of insight into the agency’s disciplinary system,” Aguirre said. “Without it, we don’t really have a sense of how the NYPD’s internal accountability systems are working and how problematic cops remain on the force and are held accountable.” More

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      Videos of Biden looking lost are a viral political tactic: ‘low-level manipulation’

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      Joe Biden wandered off.Standing among the west’s major leaders in Italy last week, the US president turned away, seemingly in confusion, and had to be alerted back to the group to take a photo – at least, that’s what rightwing media showed.“WHAT IS BIDEN DOING?” the Republican National Committee’s research Twitter account wrote.In actuality, it was nothing strange at all. Biden had turned toward skydivers and given them a thumbs up, a broader view of the video showed.It happened again at a fundraiser with former president Barack Obama. Biden “appears to freeze up” on stage, the New York Post wrote, saying Obama had to lead Biden off the stage in the latest example of the president being “dazed or confused”.A zoomed-out video of the incident showed Biden waving and taking in the applause from the crowd after a lengthy discussion moderated by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.For viewers of rightwing media or social media feeds tailored toward conservatives, these videos of Biden surface near-daily in an attempt to underscore one of the president’s key liabilities, his age.They’re often selectively edited to make Biden look, well, old. They kick off a series of headlines about how his age or senility is showing, then another series of headlines about how the videos are created to mislead.The videos, and the subsequent hand-wringing over them, show how bifurcated today’s political and social media ecosystems are. Few watch a full speech or a full newscast, instead getting a quick example of what they missed from an account they align with. Your view of a given event – of a speech by a president, or a campaign rally – is colored first, and often predominantly, by the way it’s presented by the people you follow.An NBC News editor referred to these video news cycles as a reflection of the online media ecosystem this election, calling them “a bizarre Rorschach test in which some people see one thing and most everyone else sees something else”.They also show that the looming threat of deepfakes – AI-generated content that makes people say or do things they haven’t actually done – doesn’t hold a candle to the much more common, and easier to create, cheap fakes – videos edited specifically to mislead.“This old-fashioned, sort of low-level kind of manipulation has been perfectly capable of misleading and manipulating people for quite a long time,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow for media and digital disinformation for the Alliance for Securing Democracy.While deepfakes or other AI-generated content would likely be flagged and potentially removed from social media channels for going against their policies, these selectively edited videos typically don’t break rules because, to some degree, all content is edited in some way, Schafer said.The Biden administration derided the videos as cheap fakes made in bad faith and defended the president’s mental fitness, though at one point Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, called the videos “deepfakes”, which they are not. That kicked off another round of criticism on the right, with people claiming Jean-Pierre was spreading misinformation herself.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe left isn’t immune from posting misleading images about Trump, either. One photo showing Trump holding his son’s hand claims the former president needed help walking off a stage, while a video showed he was actually shaking his son’s hand.There are often similar videos of Trump posted either separately or in response to a Biden video news cycle – of the former president waxing on about sharks and electricity, or wandering away, or holding someone’s hand while walking. He notably got the name of his own doctor wrong in a speech over the weekend while challenging Biden to take a cognitive test.In reality, both presidential candidates are old, a fact that doesn’t change. Trump is 78; Biden is 81. Whether you view them as prone to senior moments, incoherent and rambling, or slow on their feet relates mostly to your views on who they are – and the content you’re seeing about it.The two candidates’ ages may create more of these gaffes, and the coverage of these gaffes gets extended because voters are concerned about the age of the next president. There seems to be a “little bit of a ping pong game of who has the senior moment du jour”, Schafer said. Endless repetition of age-related criticisms can influence voters and reinforce concerns they have over fitness for office, which is why these news cycles, and promotion by both campaigns, continue.These separate media ecosystems aren’t new this election cycle, though they create alternate realities for their viewers. It’s not just how something is covered, but whether it’s covered at all, Schafer noted. A viewer of some rightwing media could be served coverage of a story incessantly while it doesn’t make headlines in the broader press.“It is highly problematic when we talk about having a shared sense of reality because that’s what the real function of democracy should be,” he said. “We have an agreed-upon set of facts, and then there’s a lot of interpretation of those facts.” More

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      Ethics committee investigating Matt Gaetz over alleged sexual misconduct

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      A bipartisan Capitol Hill committee is investigating Matt Gaetz, the far-right Republican congressman and vocal Donald Trump supporter, over longstanding allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other alleged ethical breaches, it said on Tuesday.The announcement by the House ethics committee – which contains an equal number of Democrats and Republicans – reignited a swirl of scandal surrounding the outspoken Trump ally that had abated somewhat after an earlier criminal investigation into allegations against him was dropped.In a statement, the committee said it had spoken to dozens of witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas, and reviewed thousands of pages of documents as part of its long-running investigation into Gaetz’s conduct, which was initially opened in April 2021.As a result of that review, the committee said, certain allegations deserved further examination.“The committee is reviewing allegations … that Representative Gaetz may have: engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favours to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct,” it said.The committee said other allegations made against Gaetz – specifically those of sharing inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misusing state identification records, improper personal use of campaign funds and accepting a bribe – were no longer being investigated.The committee’s statement came a day after Gaetz issued what appeared to be a pre-emptive post on X in which he accused it of pursuing “frivolous investigations” into him and compared its tactics to the Soviet Union.“The House ethics committee has closed four probes into me, which emerged from lies intended solely to smear me,” he wrote. “Instead of working with me to ban congressional stock trading, the ethics committee is now opening new frivolous investigations. They are doing this to avoid the obvious fact that every investigation into me ends the same way: my exoneration.”He added: “This is Soviet. Kevin McCarthy showed them the man, and they are now trying to find the crime. I work for north-west Floridians who won’t be swayed by this nonsense, and McCarthy and his goons know it.”The latter comment referred to his antagonistic relationship with McCarthy, the former Republican House speaker who was toppled last October in an internal party coup that Gaetz spearheaded.McCarthy said Gaetz’s enmity towards him was fuelled by his refusal to shut down the House ethics committee inquiry. However, the inquiry has continued under McCarthy’s successor, Mike Johnson, who has forged a close alliance with Trump.In its statement, the committee acknowledged Gaetz’s denial of the allegations against him but suggested he had given less full cooperation, complaining of “difficulty in obtaining relevant information” from him and others.It added: “The committee notes that the mere fact of an investigation into these allegations does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred.”The committee’s investigation was opened after the New York Times reported in March 2021 Gaetz was being investigated by the Department of Justice over whether he had sex with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, thus violating federal sex-trafficking laws. The investigation had been opened in the latter stages of Trump’s presidency, under the then attorney general William Barr.It was eventually closed in 2023 without any charges being brought, enabling the committee – which had earlier stalled its inquiry in response to a request the DoJ – to reauthorise its investigation. More

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      The Guardian view on the US and vaccine disinformation: a stupid, shocking and deadly game | Editorial

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      In July 2021, Joe Biden rightly inveighed against social media companies failing to tackle vaccine disinformation: “They’re killing people,” the US president said. Despite their pledges to take action, lies and sensationalised accounts were still spreading on platforms. Most of those dying in the US were unvaccinated. An additional source of frustration for the US was the fact that Russia and China were encouraging mistrust of western vaccines, questioning their efficacy, exaggerating side-effects and sensationalising the deaths of people who had been inoculated.How, then, would the US describe the effects of its own disinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic? A shocking new report has revealed that its military ran a secret campaign to discredit China’s Sinovac vaccine with Filipinos – when nothing else was available to the Philippines. The Reuters investigation found that this spread to audiences in central Asia and the Middle East, with fake social media accounts not only questioning Sinovac’s efficacy and safety but also claiming it used pork gelatine, to discourage Muslims from receiving it. In the case of the Philippines, the poor take-up of vaccines contributed to one of the highest death rates in the region. Undermining confidence in a specific vaccine can also contribute to broader vaccine hesitancy.The campaign, conducted via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now X) and other platforms, was launched under the Trump administration despite the objections of multiple state department officials. The Biden administration ended it after the national security council was alerted to the issue in spring 2021. The drive seems to have been retaliation for Chinese claims – without any evidence – that Covid had been brought to Wuhan by a US soldier. It was also driven by military concerns that the Philippines was growing closer to Beijing.It is all the more disturbing because the US has seen what happens when it plays strategic games with vaccination. In 2011, in preparation for the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the CIA tried to confirm that it had located him by gathering the DNA of relatives through a staged hepatitis B vaccination campaign. The backlash was entirely predictable, especially in an area that had already seen claims that the west was using polio vaccines to sterilise Pakistani Muslim girls. NGOs were vilified and polio vaccinators were murdered. Polio resurged in Pakistan; Islamist militants in Nigeria killed vaccinators subsequently.The report said that the Pentagon has now rescinded parts of the 2019 order that allowed the military to sidestep the state department when running psychological operations. But while the prospect of a second Trump administration resuming such tactics is alarming, the attitude that bred them goes deeper. Reuters pointed to a strategy document from last year in which generals noted that the US could weaponise information, adding: “Disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”The US is right to challenge the Kremlin’s troll farms, Beijing’s propaganda and the irresponsibility of social media companies. But it’s hard to take the moral high ground when you’ve been pumping out lies. The repercussions in this case were particularly predictable, clear and horrifying. It was indefensible to pursue a project with such obvious potential to cause unnecessary deaths. It must not be repeated. More

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      Biden surges in the 2024 race … for celebrity support

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      Hello!We’re sending the newsletter out slightly early this week, as Wednesday is Juneteenth. The holiday commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free – more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Juneteenth has been celebrated by Black Americans since the late 1800s and was made a federal holiday in 2021.While the day will be marked by parades and events across the US, the Biden and Trump campaigns are continuing their sprint to November.In the past week Joe Biden raised more than $30m at a star-studded fundraising event in Los Angeles. Jack Black, George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand were among the big name acts, and Biden is certainly leading the race for celebrity endorsements: Donald Trump can only offer the musician Kid Rock, the British actor turned strange man Laurence Fox, and the guy who played Superman on TV in the 1990s.But does it matter? Should we care whether or not Taylor Swift endorses Biden? (His campaign has been courting her for months.) We’ll take a look after the headlines.Here’s what you need to know1. A silent debate?The debate between Biden and Trump later this month will feature muted microphones, CNN announced on Sunday: meaning neither man will be able to talk over the other during the 90-minute event. The first Biden-Trump debate in 2020 was one of the great farces of our time, with Trump continually interrupting and heckling Biden, before telling a white supremacist group to “stand by”.2. Trump can’t remember his doctor’s nameTrump was in Michigan on Saturday, bragging about his mental acuity and demanding Biden take a cognitive test. Trump said he had “aced” a cognitive test administered by his presidential doctor, whom he identified as “Ronny Johnson”. “[Ronny Johnson] was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history. So I liked him very much,” Trump said. The only problem was that Trump was thinking of Ronny Jackson. The Biden campaign was quick to point out the error.3. Biden acts on immigrationBiden is set to announce a new executive action that will allow some undocumented immigrants who are spouses and children of US citizens to become American citizens themselves. The action will help about 500,000 American families, according to the Department of Homeland Security, and 50,000 children. Politically it could help insulate Biden somewhat from accusations from the left that he has given in to hard-right Republican demands on border immigration, while potentially shoring up his support with minority communities, which has slipped slightly since the last election.George Clooney and Julia Roberts v Phil Robertson and Randy QuaidView image in fullscreenIn the celebrity endorsement race – if such a race exists – Biden is defeating Trump comfortably.Saturday night was the perfect illustration. Biden flew west, to Los Angeles, for a campaign fundraiser with a who’s who of Hollywood names, including Clooney, Roberts, Black, Streisand, Jason Bateman, the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel – who compered proceedings – and Barack Obama, appearing alongside his former vice-president. The celebs coughed up $30m, a significant boost to the Biden campaign coffers.In May, Robert De Niro popped up to criticize Trump outside court in Manhattan, while Queen Latifah and Lizzo were featured at a fundraiser in New York in March. Michael Douglas hosted Biden for a campaign event at his home earlier this year.Trump, the former TV host and celebrity builder who has a long-running obsession with the rich and famous (he sent invitations for his third wedding to various stars including Billy Joel, who attended but later said he wasn’t sure why he was invited), has a less deep bench.Dean Cain, a former actor who played Superman in the 1990s TV series Lois and Clark, backed Trump in April – “I’m endorsing President Trump 100%. No question about it,” Cain told Fox News – but hardly anyone noticed because, well, very few people know who Dean Cain is.Kid Rock, the country singer and cowboy-hat wearer, has been a long-term Trump backer (“Many close to him wonder what the hell happened,” Rolling Stone reported last month.) There’s also Randy Quaid, best known for playing a booze-addled, alien-obsessed, ex-pilot in Independence Day, and Dennis Quaid, Randy’s brother. There’s the actor Jon Voight, who these days is perhaps most known for being Angelina Jolie’s dad. Phil Robertson, who invented a sort of pipe thing that replicates the quack of a duck and was a reality TV star before voicing his homophobia, is also keen.But that’s about it. If this was a celebrity-gathering competition, Biden would definitely win.But it isn’t. It’s an election. So does it matter?Kind of. Sometimes. Although not always.Hillary Clinton had the backing of all the hip-ish A-listers in 2016 – I remember listening to Demi Lovato belting out her hits at a Clinton event in Iowa one evening – and still lost. But studies have found that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008 did make an impact: it boosted Obama’s vote and increased contributions.There is a difference between then and now, however. In May 2007 the future president was a relative unknown: Winfrey was introducing him to some people for the first time. Few Americans alive haven’t heard of Biden and Trump, so the effect of an endorsement from, say, a duck-noise inventor is debatable.What some politicos believe really could make a difference is the backing of Taylor Swift. In 2023, one fairly innocuous Instagram post from Swift – “I’ve heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are. Make sure you’re ready to use them in our elections this year!” – inspired tens of thousands of people to register to vote.It’s safe to assume plenty of those new voters were young people – exactly the kind of voter Biden needs in November. No wonder that the Biden campaign is eagerly pursuing Swift, who backed Biden in 2020: the New York Times reports that Swift is “the biggest and most influential endorsement target” for the president.Swift is clearly on Trump’s mind, too. He brought her up at a meeting with Republican lawmakers in DC last week, spoke about Swift at length – “She probably doesn’t like Trump” – in an interview for a new book.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOf course, Swift hasn’t actually endorsed anyone yet. In 2020 she announced her support for Biden just one month before the election, so we could be waiting a while yet.Out and about: DetroitView image in fullscreenIf Trump had been hoping that the 80-minute headline speech at the Turning Point USA convention would improve his standing with Black voters, he would have been disappointed. The crowd before him on Saturday night in Detroit – which is 77% African American, and overwhelmingly Democratic – was almost exclusively white.The former president has been attempting in recent campaign appearances to present himself as popular with Black and Latino voters, as polls show his support among these demographic groups edging upwards. Michigan is also one of a handful of critical battleground states that are likely to determine the outcome of this year’s presidential race.Earlier on Saturday Trump visited a Black church in Detroit for an event billed as a “community roundtable” – but there was little audience crossover into the Turning Point event. Those attending were able to hear speeches from a range of Trump luminaries, including his former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon. Supporters could also pose for selfies in front of a gold-plated Mercedes bearing Trump’s image on the hood.– Ed Pilkington, chief US reporter, Detroit, MichiganBiggest lie: the vice-presidential hopefulsView image in fullscreenTim Scott, the South Carolina senator, and Byron Donalds, a Florida congressman, who are both auditioning to be Trump’s vice-president, each made similar claims during TV appearances this weekend – namely, that Biden is responsible for rampant violent crime.Scott said communities have been “ravaged by a wave of violent crime that we haven’t seen in five decades”, while Donalds claimed that while the murder rate might be down, it doesn’t mean violent crime overall is.Both are actually down. Recently released data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed big declines in violent crimes, including murder, and in property crimes in 2024 compared to 2023. Nor is it just a one-year drop. Violent crime is now at a nearly 50-year record low, Biden has said – and FBI crime data backs this up: it peaked in 1991, then has largely fallen, with occasional upward ticks such as 2020, which is often attributed to pandemic stresses.Unfortunately, while crime may be down, the public’s perception of crime is different. A Gallup poll in October found that 77% of Americans believe there is more crime in the US than a year ago, and Republicans seem to be happy to stoke those fears.– Rachel Leingang, misinformation reporterWho had the worst week: Republicans who like to smoke cigarsView image in fullscreenPity Tom Cole, the Republican congressman from Oklahoma, and his cigar-smoking pals, who have been left without a place to suck on their stogies after Cole left his position as chairman of the House rules committee.Cole spent 15 months as the Rules head honcho, and he allowed colleagues to puff on cigars in the rules office in the Capitol building. But it seems the new chair clamped down.“We desperately need a place to smoke cigars,” Cole told Business Insider this week.Smoking is banned in many public places in the US – including in Washington DC – but members of Congress can smoke all they like in their offices … which does little to counter the notion that politics is an elite little club, with its own little rules. More

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      Vermont Republican secretly poured water into colleague’s bag over months

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      A Vermont lawmaker was compelled to apologize publicly after being caught on video pouring water into her colleague’s work bag multiple times across several months.The bizarre behavior is allegedly a part of a campaign of harassment that one legislator aimed at another who represents the same district in the Green Mountain state, independent outlet Seven Days first reported.The Republican representative, Mary Morrissey, 67, confessed to dumping water in the bag of the Democratic legislator Jim Carroll, 62. She later apologized during a Vermont state house session on Monday, Boston.com reported.“I am truly ashamed of my actions,” Morrissey said.Morrissey did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.She and Carroll both represent the city of Bennington, about 25 miles outside of Manchester. Morrissey has served 13 terms in the Vermont legislature while Carroll has served two.Carroll told the Guardian that Morrissey had poured cups of water into his bag since January.Carroll says he first suspected Morrissey as she had been “nasty” to him for several months despite the two knowing each other since childhood and even attending the same church.“[She] would say demeaning things in front of other legislators,” Carroll said.But Carroll had no evidence, so he decided to launch his own investigation. For weeks, Carroll secretly recorded footage of his backpack to catch the person in the act.In two videos Carroll captured, Morrissey is seen dumping a cup of liquid into Carroll’s green tote bag. Morrissey’s face was not captured in the video, but fellow lawmakers were able to identify her by her gray hair.Seven Days later used a public records request to obtain footage of Morrissey dumping water into Carroll’s bag. That was after the outlet initially reported on Morrissey’s behavior and an ethics investigation into her.Carroll initially refused to release the videos to Seven Days but ultimately changed his mind.“I have been very reluctant to disclose the video because I believe it will deeply embarrass Representative Morrissey,” Carroll wrote in a statement to the outlet. “However, it has become clear to me that the media are aware of the details of Representative Morrissey’s behavior and likely will continue to report on that behavior in the near future.”Carroll said when he first saw the video of Morrissey, he felt “sad”. “There was no good that was going to come out of this,” he said.Morrissey later apologized to Carroll during a subsequent meeting and claimed that she didn’t know the bag belonged to him.According to Carroll, Morrissey initially said that she “flicked” water on the bag because she saw a bug on it. But she later added that she didn’t know why she decided to dump water on Carroll’s bag for months on end.“At the end of the meeting, I looked at her and said, ‘You know, this has really fucked me up.’ There were weeks when I didn’t know who was doing this or why,” Carroll said.“I walked around this place, paranoid of my fellow legislators, racking my brain trying to think, ‘What could I have possibly said or done?’”Carroll said that he was still weighing whether he should pursue charges against Morrissey for the harassment.As for whether he forgives Morrissey, Carroll said: “I guess I would have to say yes in the spirit of forgiveness, reluctantly. But if I had to be a smartass, I’d say her apology holds about as much water as my canvas bag.” More

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      Trump to stage Wisconsin rally days after calling Milwaukee a ‘horrible city’

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      Donald Trump is set to pitch for support in the key battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday, just days after calling its biggest population centre, Milwaukee, “a horrible city”.In what will also be his first visit to the midwestern state since last month’s felony conviction related to hush-money payments, Trump will stage a ticket-only rally in Racine, a city of about 76,000 on the shores of Lake Michigan, about 30 miles from Milwaukee.The former president will deliver remarks “on Joe Biden’s failed presidency”, according to his campaign.His message will compete with an advertising billboard placed nearby by the Democratic National Committee aimed at reminding locals of his Milwaukee comments, reportedly made last week to House Republicans during Trump’s first visit to Capitol Hill since the January 6 attack by a mob trying to overturn his presidential election loss to Joe Biden.“Want to know what’s really ‘horrible?’ Donald Trump for Wisconsin’s economy,” the ad will say.Republicans have scrambled to downplay or otherwise explain the unflattering reference to Milwaukee – all the more embarrassing because the city will host the party’s national convention, which starts 15 July and at which Trump’s nomination as its presidential candidate will become official.Trump himself, in characteristic fashion, has denied even uttering the remark, which was first reported by the Punchbowl website.“The Democrats are making up stories that I said Milwaukee is a ‘horrible city’. This is false, a complete lie, just like the Laptop from Hell was a lie, Russia … was a lie, and so much more,” he posted on his Truth Social site.“It’s called disinformation, and that’s all they know how to do. I picked Milwaukee, I know it well. It should therefore lead to my winning Wisconsin. But the Dems come out with this fake story, just like all of the others. It never ends. Don’t be duped. Who would say such a thing with that important state in the balance?”He conveyed a different message in an interview with Fox 6 News, in which he implicitly admitted the comment by attempting a clarification.“I think it was very clear what I meant. We’re very concerned with crime. I love Milwaukee,” he said. “But as you know the crime numbers are terrible, and we have to be very careful. But, I was referring to, also, the election,” when he unsuccessfully challenged vote tallies by falsely alleging fraud.Whatever the explanation, Democrats have announced plans to cash in by placing 10 billboards throughout Milwaukee blaring out Trump’s negative description in the run-up to the convention.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe ads coincide with a $50m advertising offensive in battleground states, the focal point of which is a Biden campaign video zeroing in on Trump’s convicted felon status following the conviction in a Manhattan court of falsifying documents to hide hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actor.The intense messaging reflects Wisconsin’s status as a potentially crucial swing state, with Racine county being one of its most competitive bellwether districts. Trump won the county by 50% and 51% in 2016 and 2020 respectively. Former presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush won it by comparable margins in their two election victories.Biden, who won Wisconsin by 21,000 votes in 2020, visited Racine last month, when he highlighted a $3.3bn investment planned in the area by Microsoft as evidence of the benefits of his economic policies.A RealClearPolitics survey this week showed Biden recording a 39.3% approval rating in Wisconsin, with 55.7% disapproving.Trump and Biden are running neck-and-neck in most national polls, with the former president showing leads in several battleground states. More

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      Boeing bosses accused of ‘strip mining’ company for profit in Senate hearing

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      The CEO of Boeing has acknowledged “something went wrong” at the embattled planemaker after another whistleblower came forward, alleging that corners were cut on its production line.Dave Calhoun acknowledged some employees who raised concerns about safety and quality inside the company faced retaliation.The executive did not have the number of managers fired for retaliating against whistleblowers “on the tip of my tongue”, he told senators, “but I know it happens”.At a hearing entitled “Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture”, Richard Blumenthal, chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, declared that the company was facing a “moment of reckoning” – and called for prosecutions.In heated exchanges, Calhoun – who has already announced plans to step down later this year – and Boeing executives were accused of “strip mining” the company for profit. “You’re cutting corners, you’re eliminating safety procedures, you’re sticking it to your employees,” said Josh Hawley, the Republican senator.“It’s working out great for you,” Hawley added, citing Calhoun’s “extraordinary” $33m pay package and asking why he had not yet resigned. “I’m sticking this through,” Calhoun replied. “I am proud of every action we have taken.”Hours before the session Sam Mohawk, a quality assurance inspector for the company in Renton, Washington, became the latest Boeing employee to go public with claims of safety issues. He alleged that he was instructed by his supervisors to conceal evidence from regulators.Boeing has come under intense scrutiny since a terrifying cabin panel blowout in January prompted fresh questions about quality and safety.View image in fullscreen“More than a dozen” whistleblowers have now come forward, according to Blumenthal, who urged other concerned workers at Boeing to contact his office. “Boeing needs to stop thinking about the next earnings call and start thinking about the next generation.”Calhoun insisted that he did not “recognize any of the Boeing you describe” when senators accused the company of weakening safety systems. “​Our culture is far from perfect,” he said, “but we are taking action, and we are making progress.”As he spoke, the families of victims of two Boeing plane crashes, in 2018 and 2019, in which 346 people were killed, and whistleblowers who spoke out about their experiences at the company, were sitting with him in the room.Turning to the families before starting his evidence, Calhoun apologized to them directly for their “gut-wrenching” losses.The company has delivered a quality improvement plan to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and claimed that employees have been emboldened to come forward with safety and quality concerns on the factory floor.But accounts from inside Boeing’s facilities have raised further questions. Earlier this month the Guardian reported on claims the firm’s largest factory was in “panic mode”.Whistleblowers including Sam Salehpour, a current engineer at Boeing, and Roy Irvin, a former quality investigator, have gone public with allegations about safety in recent months.“This is a culture that continues to prioritize profits, push limits and disregard its workers,” Blumenthal said of Boeing before Tuesday’s hearing. “A culture that enables retaliation against those who do not submit to the bottom line. A culture that desperately needs to be repaired.”Blumenthal said Mohawk recently told the panel he had witnessed systemic disregard for documentation and accountability of nonconforming parts.In a report released by the committee, Mohawk said his work handling nonconforming parts became significantly more “complex and demanding” after the resumption of production of the 737 Max, its bestselling commercial jet, in 2020. Production had been suspended following the two crashes in 2018 and 2019.Mohawk alleged the number of nonconformance reports soared 300% compared with before the grounding of the Max. The 737 program lost parts that were intentionally hidden from the FAA during one inspection, he claimed.Mohawk filed a related claim in June with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a federal regulator.Boeing said: “We received this document late Monday evening and are reviewing the claims. We continuously encourage employees to report all concerns as our priority is to ensure the safety of our airplanes and the flying public.”Reuters contributed reporting More