US politics

Subterms

    More stories

    • 188 Shares23 Views

      in US Politics

      DHS head reportedly authorized purchase of 10 engineless Spirit Airlines planes that airline didn’t own

      by

      The secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, reportedly authorized the purchase of Spirit Airlines jets before discovering the airline didn’t actually own the planes – and that the aircraft lacked engines.The bizarre anecdote was contained in a Wall Street Journal report released on Friday, which recounted how Noem and Corey Lewandowski – who managed Donald Trump’s first winning presidential campaign – had recently arranged to buy 10 Boeing 737 aircraft from Spirit Airlines. People familiar with the situation told the paper that the two intended to use the jets to expand deportation flights – and for personal travel.Those sources also claimed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials had cautioned them that buying planes would be far more expensive than simply expanding existing flight contracts.Complicating matters further, Spirit, which filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time, in August, did not own the jets and their engines would have had to be bought separately. The plan has since been paused, according to the Journal.Meanwhile, Democrats on the House appropriations committee said in October that during this fall’s record-long government shutdown, the DHS had already acquired two Gulfstream jets for $200m.“It has come to our attention that, in the midst of a government shutdown, the United States Coast Guard entered into a sole source contract with Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation to procure two new G700 luxury jets to support travel for you and the deputy secretary, at a cost to the taxpayer of $200m,” Democratic representatives Rosa DeLauro and Lauren Underwood wrote in a letter to the DHS.A DHS spokesperson told the Journal that parts of its reporting about the plane purchases were inaccurate but declined to provide additional clarification.Congress had previously approved Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” in July, which dedicates roughly $170bn for immigration and border-related operations, a sum that makes ICE the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.In September, the Guardian reported that the Trump administration was moving immigrants detained as part of its deportation agenda in ways that violated their constitutionally protected rights, often by plane.Leaked data reviewed from charter airline Global Crossing (GlobalX) detailed the journeys of tens of thousands of immigrants who have been shuttled around the country before deportation. More

    • 213 Shares25 Views

      in US Politics

      Palestinian American hails Virginia win: ‘You can be bold on the Gaza genocide and still be victorious’

      by

      Sam Rasoul, the Virginia Democrat who is currently the longest-serving Muslim state lawmaker in the US and who faced accusations of antisemitism over language condemning Israel’s assault on Gaza as genocide, scored a resounding victory in Tuesday’s election that he believes shows voters are craving honesty from politicians.Rasoul, an American Palestinian state legislator since 2014, strengthened his majority as he was re-elected to an area of Virginia where the city of Roanoke leans Democrat and the surrounding areas are deeply conservative. In an election seen as a referendum on Trump’s policies, which have disproportionately affected Virginia, Rasoul increased his vote share from four years ago by more than 5% as Democrats trounced Republicans from the legislature to the governor’s mansion.“A 70% victory in the Bible belt of Virginia for a Palestinian Muslim is really a validation, beyond just Democrats winning, that you can be bold on the Gaza genocide and still be victorious,” Rasoul told the Guardian.His win came despite months of attack ads and rebukes from other party leaders in the state. He was accused of hate speech and antisemitism by his opponent, a Jewish Republican party member who ran as an independent, pro-Israel groups and senior members of his own party after he called the killing of at least 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 “the most evil cleansing in human history” and blamed Zionism, which he labelled “a supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way”.“But I don’t believe that issues win campaigns,” Rasoul said. “It’s good organizing and deep, trusted relationships that win elections because people are really only looking for two things. Are you being honest with me? And will you work hard for me?”Rasoul is part of the most progressive faction of the Democratic party, and like his friend and the newly elected mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, has put affordability at the centre of his politics.“The reality is that over the past 40 years, the Democratic party was so desperate to please special interests, that we’ve lost touch with middle- and working-class Americans,” he said. “The establishment voices are too often on the wrong side of history, and representing the wrong interests. What people are desperate for, as we saw with Zohran and locally in my race, are bold solutions that make them feel like we’re genuinely batting for them.”Mamdani first reached out to Rasoul in November 2023 – a month after Israel launched its full-scale invasion of Gaza, inviting him to participate in a hunger strike outside the White House. At the time, Rasoul had a much higher profile, and he had to Google the relatively unknown New York City assembly member before saying yes.“Forget about him being a democratic socialist, people are tired of political talk and just desperate for honesty. Zohran was able to provide real substance in an entertaining way that allowed people to connect emotionally to what he was conveying,” said Rasoul.Rasoul, 44, was raised in Roanoke valley in south-west Virginia, where his Palestinian parents eventually settled after leaving the occupied West Bank following the 1967 war that left thousands dead and forcibly displaced.He has a background in health administration and strategic planning for non-profits, and since 2014 has represented Roanoke City – an ethnically diverse Democratic-leaning district (around 60% white, 30% Black and 10% other, mostly Hispanic) with 86,000 predominantly Christian constituents.Rasoul, who is one of three Muslim members of the part-time Virginia general assembly and among only seven state (and one federal, Representative Rashida Tlaib) lawmakers of Palestinian heritage, has faced Islamophobia throughout his political career.In his first run for office, Rasoul was accused in a widely distributed mailer of being funded by the terror group Al-Qaida. In an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 2021, Rasoul was the only candidate asked during a debate if he would represent his constituents “regardless of faith and beliefs”, prompting accusations of Islamophobia and an apology from the TV station.The recent flurry of attacks accusing him of antisemitism began in July 2025 after he posted a picture online of the award-winning Palestinian writer Omar El Akkad’s book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.He said the social media post was meant to “clarify that the genocide in Gaza has nothing to do Judaism, but rather the result of Zionism”.Despite the attacks, and the impact of the war on voters, Rasoul believes it’s his principled stance and focus on affordability, housing and utility costs that have resulted in his re-election“It’s not that the genocide is at the top of everyone’s list, but issues like Gaza are proxies for people’s gauge on our moral compass. Until we have that trusted relationship, it doesn’t matter what we say. People know that when it’s hard, I will speak the truth and fight for the issues that they do deeply care about and that impact their lives,” he said. “We show up at their doors, to their fish fries, at their churches, and to their schools, and they know that I’m ready to work hard for them.“That’s how you win elections.” More

    • 200 Shares40 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats just won back Latinos who voted for Trump. Will they be convinced to stick around?

      by

      Latino voters delivered sweeping support to Democratic candidates across multiple states in Tuesday’s off-year elections, reversing what many Republicans had come to believe was a lasting political realignment after Donald Trump’s historic gains with the community in the 2024 election .The rapid reversal represents one of the most volatile electoral swings in recent memory and threatens to upend Republican redistricting strategies that banked on sustained support from Latinos, the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country. It also suggests that Trump’s appeal to Latino voters was highly personal rather than an embrace of the Republican party itself – a miscalculation that could reshape the landscape heading into the 2026 midterms.“What we saw on Tuesday wasn’t just a vote for specific candidates: it was a vote against the current situation that the Trump administration has sparked,” said María Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino, a non-partisan voter registration organization. “People are feeling that it’s becoming increasingly dangerous to be Latino in this country.”While exact data can take time to be collected after an election, exit polling from the 2025 gubernatorial races revealed the extent of the Democratic resurgence. In New Jersey, Democratic representative Mikie Sherrill captured 68% of Latino voters compared with Republican Jack Ciattarelli’s 31%, according to NBC News, a reversal of the national 2024 presidential result, where Trump won 46% of Latino voters to Kamala Harris’s 51%, according to Pew Research. In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a fluent Spanish speaker, secured 67% of Latino voters.MSNBC chief data analyst Steve Kornacki noted that the shift in municipalities in New Jersey with Latino populations exceeded 60%, where Trump had been more competitive or even victorious in 2024. Those same precincts swung dramatically toward Democrats in 2025, with shifts ranging from 15 to more than 40 percentage points. In Passaic county, which is approximately 45% Latino, Sherrill won by 15 points after Trump had carried it by three points the previous year.While the majority still voted for the Democrats, Trump’s 2024 performance among Latino voters represented a historic achievement for a Republican presidential candidate. Among Latino men specifically, 54% said they voted for Trump, driven largely by economic concerns and frustration with inflation, according to an Edison research exit poll. That breakthrough fueled Republican confidence that demographic trends were shifting in their favor, with House Republicans drawing congressional districts in states like Texas and Florida under the assumption these gains would persist with generic Republican candidates.But the 2025 results suggest those assumptions were premature. According to exit polling conducted by SSRS, 63% of California voters – and 70% of Latino voters specifically – said the Trump administration’s immigration actions had “gone too far”. In Virginia, those figures reached 56% overall and 77% among Latino voters.“You can’t come into my neighborhood and talk to me about rent or bread-and-butter issues if you can’t speak to the fear and dehumanization people are living with,” Kumar said. She noted that “almost a third of Latino voters who voted in 2020 didn’t vote in 2024 – and 70% of them were Democrats.”The timing of the electoral shift coincided with heightened immigration enforcement activity. Just days before the New Jersey election, Ruperto Vicens Marquez, a restaurant owner in Atlantic Highlands with work authorization and three young children, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), prompting community outcry.A Democratic congressional aide familiar with Latino voter engagement said the explanation was simpler than many analysts assumed. “Latinos didn’t swing back to Democrats because they suddenly became liberal. They swung back because the economy improved and Republicans crossed a line on immigration enforcement. People were scared – not politically activated, but genuinely scared.”The aide, who asked to remain anonymous to protect their job, added that many Latino voters who supported Trump in 2024 “thought they were voting for tough talk on border security, not militarized enforcement in their communities. No one voted for urban-warfare-style raids.”Despite the new electoral evidence, some Republican leaders remained confident the 2024 gains would endure. Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, told reporters: “I do believe that the demographic shift that we were able to see and experience in the 2024 election will hold.”Kumar, on the other hand, believes Latino voting behavior shifts based heavily on turnout, but also on economic conditions, candidate quality and the emotional salience of particular issues.“Republicans misread Latino voters this year,” she said. “Instead of doing oversight and accountability, they abdicated their responsibility to the whims of the president.”The Latino voter swing creates potential vulnerabilities in Republican-drawn congressional maps. In Texas, GOP mapmakers drew several south Texas districts with narrow margins, calculating that Trump’s gains represented a stable coalition. Those districts now appear more competitive than intended. Meanwhile, Democrats are seizing opportunities to redraw maps in states where they hold power, with California voters approving a ballot measure allowing the state’s independent redistricting commission to redraw congressional boundaries.Despite the backlash to immigration enforcement, economic concerns remained the top issue for Latino voters across all states where exit polling was conducted. The Democratic aide said that while “immigration is rarely the top issue on its own”, “ICE raids are activating, and when people feel targeted in their daily lives, that changes votes.”Still, the results underscore a fundamental reality about Latino voters that both parties have struggled to accept: the community is not a monolith, and does not represent a permanent coalition for either side.“It’s a swing vote … and so it’s for the Democrats to lose, and they have to start speaking to the real duress that the community is in, because it’s not small,” Kumar said. “When I have conversations with my Latino colleagues, it is a wholly different conversation than every other American that I interact with every day. There are two different lived experiences happening right now.” More

    • 188 Shares40 Views

      in US Politics

      A year after devastating Trump loss, have the Democrats begun to find their way back?

      by

      It has been a year of soul-searching, hand-wringing, and self-flagellation for Democrats after a ballot-box rejection so thorough that some had come to believe that the party had lost not only the White House and Congress but the culture itself.Shell-shocked, Democrats entered Donald Trump’s second term in a political stupor – unsure of who they were or what they stood for. Their base had lost faith in its aging leadership class, and their brand, in Democrats’ own words, had become “toxic”: a party increasingly confined to coastal states, big cities and college towns. And even there, warning signs were flashing.Then came Tuesday night – a coast-to-coast romp in the first major elections of Trump’s turbulent return to the White House that exceeded even the party’s most optimistic projections.“What a night for the Democratic party,” California governor Gavin Newsom marveled, after news networks projected the redistricting ballot measure he spearheaded had passed so decisively that some voters were still in line to cast ballots. “A party that is in its ascendancy,” he continued, “a party that’s on its toes, no longer on its heels.”Abigail Spanberger, a congresswoman and former CIA agent, stormed to victory in Virginia, becoming the first woman elected governor of the state, an office currently held by a Republican. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, another congresswoman and former Navy pilot, turned what was expected to be a close race into a rout. And in New York, Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist, made history by vanquishing the former three-term Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo to become the city’s first Muslim mayor, in a race that drew the highest turnout in decades.“Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship,” Spanberger proclaimed in her victory speech, while in New York, Mamdani celebrated “a new era of leadership” and declared that “no longer will we have to open a history book for proof that Democrats can dare to be great”.Their wins did little to resolve the big, existential questions of whether Democrats’ future lay in a full-throated adoption of leftwing populism or a tactical turn to pragmatic centrism. The night offered ammunition for either path, or perhaps both.Yet a year after Kamala Harris’s concession to Trump, Democrats have repeatedly found success not by picking a single ideological lane, but by embracing the forces of disruption that have dominated Trump-era politics. Their victories, while strikingly different in style and approach, point to a party less bound by orthodoxy and old notions of decorum – a recognition that the times have changed, and so must they.“This is not your grandfather’s Democratic party,” Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said the next morning. “We are not going to play with one hand behind our back. We’re not going to roll over. We’re going to meet you, fire with fire.”For much of the past decade, Democrats cast themselves as guardians of the system – defenders of the democratic institutions under siege by a “wrecking ball” former builder who bulldozed his way into the White House and then clawed his way back.After the tumult of Trump’s first term, Democrats turned to Joe Biden, a consensus-builder and institutionalist who once predicted that history would view his adversary “as an aberrant moment in time”. In office, Biden dedicated his presidency to restoring domestic political norms while preserving the liberal international order abroad. But with his legacy now framed by Trump’s re-election, many Democrats have abandoned Biden’s return-to-normalcy appeal, seeing it as ill-suited to the politcal moment.Instead, as Trump moves aggressively to consolidate power and tilt the electoral map in his favor, the party’s instincts have shifted sharply away from caution, yet many progressives felt they had been too slow to adapt. Shortly before the 2024 election, a survey found that the overwhelming majority of voters valued a candidate who could deliver “change that improves people’s lives” rather than one who was committed to preserving institutions.Tensions built earlier this year, when angry Democrats began calling on their leaders in Washington and in state capitols around the country to do something – anything – to stop Trump’s attacks on the federal government, the rule of law and his political opponents. Those fears grew into the No Kings protest movement, which saw an estimated 7 million people in all 50 states take to the streets last month.Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, argued that Tuesday’s wins, following mass days of protest, were proof that a more combative and less deferential politics was the way to defeat Trumpism. “The No Kings era is here to stay,” he wrote.That assertive posture extended to Capitol Hill, where Senate Democrats are refusing to lend the votes needed to reopen the government – now the longest federal shutdown in US history – unless Republicans extend healthcare subsidies: a bare-knuckle approach they had resisted as recently as few months ago.Meanwhile, in the redistricting battles unfolding across the states, party leaders and longtime champions of fair maps including Barack Obama campaigned for California’s retaliatory gerrymander, as Newsom called on other Democratic governors to follow suit.View image in fullscreen“Politics has changed. The world has changed,” Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential contender, told NBC earlier this month. “The rules of the game have changed.”In nearly every election held this year, Democrats improved on their 2024 showing. Exit polls in Virginia and New Jersey show that both governors-elect not only held their base but peeled off Trump voters, while re-engaging young men and Latino voters who defected in 2024. In New York, Mamdani saw enormous youth turnout for his candidacy.“On Tuesday night, we saw a lot of different kinds of Democrats win – and that’s kind of the point,” said Rebecca Katz, a veteran political strategist whose political firm, Fight, worked for Mamdani’s campaign. “To win big, we need a big tent.”Voters, she said, sent a clear message that a back-to-basics formula – a relentless focus on improving affordability and a campaign built around authentic and visible candidates – resonates.Katz, who also advised the successful swing-state Senate campaigns of John Fetterman in 2022 and Ruben Gallego in 2024, argued that the central divide in the party was no longer where a candidate falls on the moderate to liberal spectrum but a choice between boldness and caution: “Playing it safe is the riskiest thing Democrats could do right now.”Winning has given the wounded party a much-needed morale boost. In a fundraising appeal this week, Democrats told supporters to “remember this feeling”. Yet beneath the celebration, the old fault lines – over age, ideology, tactics, and style – still run deep.Several seasoned House Democrats are facing contentious primary challenges, fueled by generational impatience and a desire for the party to take a more combative approach to Trump. Democrats’ prospects in 2026 may hinge on whether progressives and moderates can unite behind a message that addresses both economic anxiety and the fears of Trump’s presidency.In 2028, Democrats say they need a nominee who can articulate a vision beyond their opposition to Trump, the glue that has held together a Bernie Sanders-to-Liz Cheney coalition.Appearing at a live taping of the podcast Pod Save America this week, Obama said it was exhilarating to see progressives “get off the mat”. But, he added, “we’ve got a lot of work to do” and cautioned progressives in the audience against pushing ideological “litmus tests”.“We had Abigail Spanberger win and we had Zohran Mamdani win,” the former president said, “and they are all part of a vision for the future.”Sanders, the progressive Vermont senator who campaigned for Mamdani, told reporters this week that ideological divisions in the party were “no great secret”.But he sensed a party-wide shift: “I think there is a growing understanding that leadership and defending the status quo and the inequalities that exist in America is not where the American people are.”Republicans have sought to downplay Democrats’ string of victories this year. Since 2016, Democrats have tended to perform better when Trump was not on the ballot, their coalition proving more reliable in off-year and special elections.“They say that I wasn’t on the ballot and was the biggest factor,” Trump said this week. “I don’t know about that. But I was honored that they said that.”Historically, the party out of power typically fares well in the midterm elections. But redistricting efforts are expected to tilt the 2026 House map toward Republicans. In the Senate, the task is even more daunting for Democrats, who will have to win in states Trump carried by double digits. While Trump’s plunging popularity has Republicans worried, Americans hold markedly negative views of the Democratic party as well.Still, Democrats see momentum building in parts of the country where they haven’t been competitive for years.This summer, Catelin Drey, a Democrat and first-time candidate, won a special election for a state senate seat in Iowa, breaking the Republican supermajority by flipping a district that backed Trump in the 2024 election. It was a consequential victory and one that gave Democrats a jolt of hope.For weeks after her election, she kept getting the same question: how did she pull it off?“I knocked on thousands of doors,” said Drey, 38, a mother whose campaign centered on affordability, especially the rising cost of childcare. “I had people tell me, ‘I’ve never had a candidate come to my door before,’” she said. “Seeing that kind of work ethic – having someone show up and say, ‘Yeah, life is really tough right now. What’s the hardest thing for you? How can I help? What would make things better?’ That type of attention is not what we’re seeing across the board right now.”Since Harris’s defeat last November, Democrats have produced a glut of election postmortems, polling memos and policy white papers offering theories about why they lost — and how to win again. Drey thinks the answer might be surprisingly simple.“Show up and work for the people you serve,” she said. “It’s not rocket science.” More

    • 150 Shares40 Views

      in US Politics

      Zohran Mamdani’s win shows the power of mobilizing non-voters | Ben Davis

      by

      One of the main media takeaways from the 2024 election was the much-discussed “vibe shift”. That is, a resurgence of cultural conservatism and a backlash to the shifting cultural attitudes on race, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration and the “wokeness” of the Obama and first Trump eras. The conservatives were in control not only of the White House, but, more importantly to them, the culture. Corporations, media outlets, and even Democratic politicians who had sought to portray a tolerant, inclusive image rushed to match this new vibe.Of course, the evidence for this shift was scant. Trump had won the election without a popular vote majority, and a closer look at the results showed a more conventional explanation: voters, rather than yearning for the days before there were interracial couples in television commercials or demanding a military crackdown on their cities, thought that they were working too hard for too little and maybe Trump would change it. They wanted lower prices, higher wages and a feeling of security. A year into Republican government and its top-down imposition of a new vibe, perhaps the reaction shows there finally is a vibe shift. Just not the one they planned on.The first electoral message of the second Trump era was an extremely strong one. Democrats beat Republicans up and down the ballot by shocking margins. In blue cities, progressives and democratic socialists beat moderates. Turnout was unprecedented for an off-year election. Democrats won the races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia by significantly more than both the 2024 results and the polls projected. Democrats won 64 out of 100 seats in the Virginia house of delegates. They also won over 60% of the vote in statewide races in Georgia and Pennsylvania, states that went for Trump in 2024.Democrats broke a Republican supermajority in Mississippi. Colorado voted by massive margins to increase taxes for free school meals. Maine voted for new gun control measures and against restrictions on absentee voting and new voter ID requirements by over 25%. Even scandal-tarred Democrats like Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who joked about murdering Republicans, won easily, by more than Harris carried the state a year ago.In California, voters passed a proposal essentially nuking most of the state’s Republican house delegation. Counties that voted for Trump last year voted by double digits to eliminate their own Republican representatives in response to Trump’s demands that Republican states eliminate their own Democratic seats. And in New York City, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani followed up his shocking primary win by winning a majority of voters in the general election, winning over a million votes, nearly as many as voted at all in the last mayoral election.Will this send a message to the White House and the right? Will it send a message to the Democratic establishment? While the Trump administration is clearly taken aback by the scale of the rejection, it is unlikely they will change their behavior. Indeed, they may even increase their aggression toward most of the country. For the Trump administration, backlash was anticipated. They knew everything they did would be unpopular, and they made the calculation that what they could do in two years with control is more valuable than whatever they lose.Their assault on the government and constitution cannot easily be rolled back. The entire political project is based on winning with minority support and using that power to further entrench minority rule. All of their actions have been aimed toward cementing minoritarian rule, and if anything, the scale of electoral backlash will cause them to accelerate their project. There’s a reason it’s called Project 2025, not Project 2027.What they’ve brought to the country is chaos and authoritarianism. Masked secret police kidnapping people in broad daylight, sending them to prison camps for life without charges or trial. Armed troops occupying major cities. Massive cuts to science and academia, even cancer research. Open graft and corruption. Gleeful cruelty, videos of immigrants and protesters being brutalized shared with pride. Under Republicans, even the air and the water are less clean. It’s no wonder people are upset, from base Democratic voters to working-class Latino voters who pulled the lever for a Republican for the first time in 2024.How do people resist a regime that is overtly anti-democratic as a principle? And why didn’t polls catch the scale of the Democratic wins? The answers to these questions are connected and can be seen in the historic Mamdani campaign. The Democrats won, in large part, from voters who do not like the Democratic party. The party’s favorable ratings are at historic lows. Huge majorities disapprove of the party’s leadership, and in particular, their lack of resistance to Trump.This is a wholesale change from 2017, when angry and upset Democrats rallied behind their party and its leaders. The second wave of resistance is far more anti-establishment, strident and left-wing. Rank-and-file Democratic voters now have far more positive views of democratic socialism than party leadership. These feelings opened the door for the Mamdani campaign, but the campaign showed how to harness them and provide real resistance.Trumpism is built on the disintegration of working-class institutions and civil society. Only a society with fraying bonds can produce a movement built on fear and resentment like this. The key to stopping it is rebuilding these institutions and this community. While many have known this for years, actually showing a path was easier said than done. Many campaigns have sought to bring the disaffected back into the political process in huge numbers. Mamdani’s was the first to succeed.In both the primary and the general, Mamdani reshaped the electorate, bringing hundreds of thousands of non-voters out to the polls, from young people to left-behind immigrant communities. For the first time, the electorate who came out to vote actually reflected the city’s demographics, rather than being predominantly older homeowners. Mamdani also built a coalition based on class, winning the city across races, powered by the lower-income renters and public transit users who make the city run, while losing among wealthy liberals and conservatives alike.But the most important number from Mamdani’s campaign is 100,000. That’s the number of people who actively volunteered for the campaign, knocking on doors, talking to their neighbors and co-workers. That’s one in every 10 people who even voted for Mamdani. They recognized politics as a living, breathing act of being in community, beyond just showing up to tick a box every few years. This has been foreign in this country for decades, but the Mamdani campaign and the Democratic Socialists of America are trying, and succeeding, in rebuilding this community and solidarity – in rebuilding working class political agency. To defeat Trump and the far right, this is what is necessary, across the country and on a massive scale. That’s the vibe shift we are just starting.

      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America More

    • 150 Shares40 Views

      in US Politics

      US supreme court issues emergency order blocking full Snap food aid payments

      by

      The supreme court has issued an emergency order temporarily blocking full Snap food aid payments.The high court’s order came after the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court on Friday to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly food stamp benefits amid a US federal government shutdown.After that request to block was denied, the Trump administration turned to the supreme court in a further attempt to block the order to fully fund Snap food aid payments.The application to stay reads: “If forced to transfer funds to Snap to make full November allotments, there is no means for the government to recoup those expenditures – which is quintessential irreparable harm. Once those payments are made, there is every indication that the States will promptly disburse them. And once disbursed, the government will be un-able to recover any funds. Worse, these harms will only compound if the decision below stands.“There is every reason to expect that if the shutdown lingers, the court below will not command the government to tap these funds again in December to support Snap – blowing a bigger hole in the budget for the child nutrition programs.”The application – which was filed at about 7pm ET – also requested that the supreme court grant the “immediate administrative stay of the district court’s orders by 9.30pm” on Friday.Shortly after 9.30pm, attorney general Pam Bondi shared a note on X saying that the supreme court “just granted our administrative stay in this case. Our attorneys will not stop fighting, day and night, to defend and advance President Trump’s agenda.”US district judge John J McConnell Jr had given the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through Snap, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, after the administration said last month that it would not pay benefits for November because of the shutdown.On Friday, Patrick Penn, deputy undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture, wrote in a memo to states that the government “will complete the processes necessary” to fully fund Snap for now and the funds will be available on Friday.But also on Friday, the Trump administration asked the appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund.The court filing came even as Britt Cudaback, the spokesperson for Wisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers, said on Friday that some Snap recipients in the state already had received their full November payments overnight on Thursday.“We’ve received confirmation that payments went through, including members reporting they can now see their balances,” she said.The court wrangling prolonged weeks of uncertainty for the food program that serves about one in eight Americans, mostly with lower incomes.Last week, in separate rulings, two judges ordered the government to pay at least part of the benefits using an emergency fund. It initially said it would cover half, but later said it would cover 65%. More

    • 175 Shares38 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Huge victory’ in Portland as judge’s final order bars Trump from sending national guard

      by

      A federal judge in Oregon on Friday blocked Donald Trump from deploying national guard troops to Portland, ruling there was no evidence of widespread violence to justify federal intervention.The US district court judge, Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, delivered her final order in the case on Friday. She found that protests near Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility were “predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level violence”.Earlier this week, Immergut barred Trump’s administration from deploying the national guard to Portland until at least Friday, saying she “found no credible evidence” that protests in the city had grown out of control before the president federalized the troops earlier this fall.In Friday’s ruling, she concluded that most altercations occurred between protesters and counter-protesters, not between protesters and federal agents. Immergut also acknowledged that while she “may lack jurisdiction to enjoin President Trump in the performance of his official duties”, her injunction only bars the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, from deploying members of the national guard to Oregon.This is the latest development in weeks of legal back and forth in Portland, Chicago and other US cities as the Trump administration has moved to federalize and deploy the national guard in city streets to quell protests.The ICE facility in south-west Portland has been the site of ongoing protests since June, when Portland police declared one a riot. The city of Portland and the state of Oregon sued the Trump administration in September after the president announced he had directed the defense department to federalize and deploy the Oregon national guard.Immergut previously issued a temporary restraining order barring the deployment of the national guard in Oregon, a decision the Trump administration appealed.The judge heard three days of witness testimony from law enforcement officers and officials describing conditions around the ICE facility. Oregon attorney general Dan Rayfield called Friday’s ruling “a huge victory”.“The courts are holding this administration accountable to the truth and the rule of law,” Rayfield said. “From the beginning, this case has been about making sure that facts, not political whims, guide how the law is applied. Today’s decision protects that principle.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling. More

    • 213 Shares42 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: supreme court blocks full Snap food aid payments following White House request

      by

      On Friday, moments after a federal appeals court ruled the Trump administration needs to fully fund Snap food aid payments, the White House turned to the supreme court in a further attempt to block the order.Within hours, the top US court issued an emergency order temporarily blocking full Snap food aid payments, which nearly 42 million people rely on to put food on the table.“Our attorneys will not stop fighting, day and night, to defend and advance President Trump’s agenda,” attorney general, Pam Bondi, posted on social media just after 9:30pm in Washington.Administration officials had asked the federal appeals court to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly food stamp benefits amid a US federal government shutdown, and was denied later the same day.US supreme court issues emergency order blocking full Snap food aid paymentsThe high court’s order came after the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court on Friday to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly food stamp benefits amid a US federal government shutdown.After that request to block was denied, the Trump administration turned to the supreme court in a further attempt to block the order to fully fund Snap food aid payments.Read the full storyJudge’s final order bars Trump from sending national guard to PortlandUS district court judge Karin Immergut issued her order minutes before a temporary restraining order was set to expire.Immergut, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in his first term, ruled last month that the president’s wildly false claims about conditions in Portland resembling those in a war zone, due to a small protest against immigration raids, were “simply untethered to the facts”.Read the full storyPeople at over 100 US universities protest against TrumpStudents, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education on Friday – the first in a planned series of nationwide, coordinated protests that organizers hope will culminate in large-scale students and workers’ strikes next May Day and a nationwide general strike in May 2028.Read the full storyUS grants Hungary one-year exemption from sanctions over Russian oil and gasThe decision came after Viktor Orbán pressed his case for a reprieve during a friendly meeting with Donald Trump in Washington.Last month, Trump imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russian oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft that carried the threat of further sanctions on entities in countries that buy oil from those firms.Read the full storySupreme court may take up case challenging legality of same-sex marriageThe US supreme court is considering taking up a case that could challenge the legality of same-sex marriage across the country. Hours after ruling that Donald Trump’s administration can block transgender and non-binary people from selecting passport sex markers that align with their gender identity, the justices are holding their first conference on the Davis v Ermold case. While their deliberations are typically kept private, the court may announce whether it will take the case as early as Monday.Read the full storyTrump says US will boycott G20 summit in South Africa, citing treatment of white farmersThe Trump administration has long accused the South African government of allowing minority white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attacked. As it restricted the number of refugees admitted annually to the US to 7,500, the administration indicated that most will be white South Africans who it claimed faced discrimination and violence at home.But the government of South Africa has said it is surprised by the accusations of discrimination, because white people in the country generally have a much higher standard of living than its Black residents, more than three decades after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule.Read the full storyWashington National Opera may leave Kennedy Center due to Trump ‘takeover’Leaving the Kennedy Center is a possible scenario after a collapse in box office revenue and “shattered” donor confidence in the wake of Trump’s “takeover”, according to WNO’s artistic director, Francesca Zambello.The president declared himself chair of the institution in February, sacking and replacing its board and leadership.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The federal government shutdown dragged consumer sentiment in the US to a near record low in November, according to a monthly survey conducted by the University of Michigan.

      Students, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education on Friday – the first in a planned series of nationwide, coordinated protests.

      Cornell University announced a settlement with the Trump administration, becoming the fifth university under investigation by the US government to do so.

      Elise Stefanik, a Republican New York representative and staunch supporter of Donald Trump, has officially launched her long-anticipated campaign for governor.

      Donald Trump has pardoned former New York Mets great Darryl Strawberry on past tax evasion and drug charges, citing the 1983 National League rookie of the year’s post-career embrace of his Christian faith and longtime sobriety.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 6 November 2025. More