World news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      More than a third of US adults say Biden’s 2020 victory was not legitimate

      by

      More than a third of US adults believe Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president in 2020, according to a new poll.According to the Washington Post and the University of Maryland, 62% of American adults say they believe Biden’s win was legitimate – down from 69% in the same poll in December 2021.Thirty-six per cent say they do not accept Biden’s win.This week brings the third anniversary of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, which Donald Trump incited in his attempt to overturn his conclusive defeat by Biden the year before.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack, including law enforcement suicides. More than a thousand people have been charged and hundreds convicted in relation to the riot, some with seditious conspiracy.Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal.Colorado and Maine have moved to bar Trump from the ballot under section three of the 14th amendment to the US constitution, a post-civil war measure meant to prevent insurrectionists running for state or national office. Trump is expected to appeal.Maintaining his lie that Biden’s win was the result of electoral fraud, and using four federal and 13 state criminal election subversion charges (alongside 74 other criminal counts and assorted civil threats) to motivate supporters, Trump dominates polling for the Republican nomination this year.Reporting its poll, the Post said that among Republicans, only 31% now say Biden’s win was legitimate – down from 39% in 2021.The poll also showed Republicans becoming more sympathetic to the January 6 rioters and more likely to absolve Trump of responsibility for the attack, the Post said.Analysing the poll, Aaron Blake, a senior political reporter for the Post, said it mostly showed that Trump’s message over the 2020 election and January 6 had resonated with voters already disposed to believe it.Nonetheless, Michael J Hanmer, director of the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland, told the paper: “From a historical perspective, these results would be chilling to many analysts.” More

    • 263 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Trump to argue he is immune from January 6 charges as polls show him leading Republican field – US politics live

      by

      A new year has dawned, but the contours of the race for the Republican presidential nomination are much the same as they were throughout all of 2023. Donald Trump continues to lead in polls of the field, with the support of 62% of voters in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released yesterday. Soon, we’ll have more than polls to go on when gauging the race for the nomination. The Iowa GOP caucuses are less than two weeks away on 15 January, and will give us an idea of whether Trump’s strong polling edge will translate to votes.Trump is as busy in court as he is on the campaign trail, dealing with the four criminal indictments that were issued against him last year. The matter closest to going to trial is his federal charges over trying to overturn the 2020 election, which is set for a 4 March start date in Washington DC. Trump is trying to convince judges at various levels that he is immune from the charges, and is expected to today file the final brief on the matter to a federal appeals court. We will see what he, or more accurately, his lawyers, have to say for themselves when it comes in.Here’s what is going on today:
      The House and Senate are both out, though lawmakers are still bargaining over government funding levels, military assistance to Ukraine and Israel and potential changes to US immigration policy.
      Joe Biden is returning to Washington DC from vacation in the US Virgin Islands.
      Two planes collided at Tokyo’s airport, leaving five people dead as Japan recovers from Monday’s earthquake. Follow our live blog for the latest on this developing story.
      Police have arrested a man who broke into the Colorado supreme court building and opened fire early this morning, CNN reports.The assailant took an unarmed security guard hostage after shooting out a window and entering the building in downtown Denver, but the Colorado state patrol said no injuries resulted from the incident. In late December, the court had in a 4-3 ruling disqualified Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection.Here’s more on the shooting, from CNN:
      Tuesday’s incident began unfolding around 1:15 a.m. and ended nearly two hours later, when the suspect surrendered to police, according to the news release.
      “There are no injuries to building occupants, the suspect, or police personnel,” the release said, adding there was “significant and extensive damage to the building.”
      The incident began with a two-vehicle crash at 13th Avenue and Lincoln Street in Denver, near the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center, which houses the state supreme court.
      A person involved in that crash “reportedly pointed a handgun at the other driver,” the release said. That individual then shot out a window on the east side of the judicial center and entered the building.
      The individual encountered an unarmed security guard, held the guard at gunpoint and took the guard’s keys before going to other parts of the building, including the seventh floor, where he fired more shots, the release said.
      The suspect called 911 at 3 a.m. and surrendered to police, the release said.
      In addition to arguing in court, Donald Trump has taken to issuing personal attacks against the prosecutors who have brought charges against him in three states and the District of Columbia. As the Guardian’s Peter Stone reports, experts fear his campaign of insults could do real damage to America’s institutions:As Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts with four trials slated for 2024, including two tied to his drives to overturn his 2020 election loss, his attacks on prosecutors are increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian in style and threaten the rule of law, say former justice department officials.The former US president’s vitriolic attacks on a special counsel and two state prosecutors as well as some judges claim in part that the charges against Trump amount to “election interference” since he’s seeking the presidency again, and that “presidential immunity” protects Trump for his multiple actions to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.But ex-officials and other experts say Trump’s campaign and social media bashing of the four sets of criminal charges – echoed in ways by his lawyers’ court briefs – are actually a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and very tenuous legal claims, laced with Trump’s narcissism and authoritarian impulses aimed at delaying his trials or quashing the charges.Much of Trump’s animus is aimed at the special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged him with four felony counts for election subversion, and 40 felony counts for mishandling classified documents when his presidency ended.Just days ago, prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team argued that granting Donald Trump immunity from the charges he faces for trying to overturn the 2020 election would threaten US democracy, the Associated Press reports:Special counsel Jack Smith urged a federal appeals court Saturday to reject former president Donald Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, saying the suggestion that he cannot be held to account for crimes committed in office “threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation” of the country.The filing from Smith’s team was submitted before arguments next month on the legally untested question of whether a former president can be prosecuted for acts made while in the White House.Though the matter is being considered by the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, it’s likely to come again before the supreme court, which earlier this month rejected prosecutors’ request for a speedy ruling in their favor, holding that Trump can be forced to stand trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The outcome of the dispute is critical for both sides especially since the case has been effectively paused while Trump advances his immunity claims in the appeals court.Prosecutors are hoping a swift judgment rejecting those arguments will restart the case and keep it on track for trial, currently scheduled for 4 March in federal court in Washington. But Trump’s lawyers stand to benefit from a protracted appeals process that could significantly delay the case and potentially push it beyond the November election.After Donald Trump’s lawyers file their last written arguments in the case over his immunity claim today, they will meet alongside prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office next Tuesday to make oral arguments before the Washington DC-based federal appeals court.It’s unclear when the three-judge panel deciding the matter will rule, but the issue could then make its way to the supreme court. Last month, Smith asked the nation’s highest judges to immediately take up Trump’s claim that his position as president makes him immune from charges related to attempting to overturn the 2020 election, but the court declined to do so, saying the issue needed to follow the normal appeals process before getting to them.A new year has dawned, but the contours of the race for the Republican presidential nomination are much the same as they were throughout all of 2023. Donald Trump continues to lead in polls of the field, with the support of 62% of voters in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released yesterday. Soon, we’ll have more than polls to go on when gauging the race for the nomination. The Iowa GOP caucuses are less than two weeks away on 15 January, and will give us an idea of whether Trump’s strong polling edge will translate to votes.Trump is as busy in court as he is on the campaign trail, dealing with the four criminal indictments that were issued against him last year. The matter closest to going to trial is his federal charges over trying to overturn the 2020 election, which is set for a 4 March start date in Washington DC. Trump is trying to convince judges at various levels that he is immune from the charges, and is expected to today file the final brief on the matter to a federal appeals court. We will see what he, or more accurately, his lawyers, have to say for themselves when it comes in.Here’s what is going on today:
      The House and Senate are both out, though lawmakers are still bargaining over government funding levels, military assistance to Ukraine and Israel and potential changes to US immigration policy.
      Joe Biden is returning to Washington DC from vacation in the US Virgin Islands.
      Two planes collided at Tokyo’s airport, leaving five people dead as Japan recovers from Monday’s earthquake. Follow our live blog for the latest on this developing story. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump 2024 trials in limbo as supreme court becomes entangled

      by

      When Donald Trump was indicted in multiple criminal cases this summer, the conventional wisdom was that the former US president could spend vast amounts of time during the height of the 2024 presidential campaign stuck in courtrooms for back-to-back trials in New York, Florida and Washington.But the reality is that with the federal 2020 election interference case on hold pending appeals, and repeated delays pushing the classified documents case behind schedule by several months, for instance, Trump may find himself in courtrooms far less than expected.Trump has pleaded not guilty in his criminal cases: plotting to overturn the 2020 election in Washington, retaining national defense information and obstructing justice in Florida, conspiring to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, and paying hush money to an adult film star in New York.The US district judge Tanya Chutkan, overseeing the federal election case, set a trial date for March 2024. And with her clear determination to keep that date – including warning that she could even move it forward – the case was widely seen as the one to take place before next year’s election.(There has been no trial date set in Georgia, though the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has proposed an August start, while there has been uncertainty over whether the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg would put his case on hold should a federal trial happen.)That was until the US supreme court became entangled in the case in two major ways this month, in a development that could have far-reaching implications for the timing and for the eventual outcome of the trial.First, the court declined to decide the question of whether Trump could dismiss the charges on presidential immunity grounds before the US court of appeals for the DC circuit had issued its own ruling, remanding the case back to what could kickstart a lengthy appeals process.The supreme court then became entangled in a second way when, two days later, it agreed to review whether an obstruction statute that prosecutors have used against Capitol attack rioters – but formed two of the four charges against Trump – could be used in relation to January 6.Separately, the supreme court is almost certain to take up Trump’s expected appeal against the Colorado supreme court disqualifying him from being on the ballot for the state Republican primary under the 14th amendment, after finding that Trump “engaged” in insurrection.Depending on how quickly the court schedules oral arguments, how quickly it issues rulings and what decisions it ultimately makes, the timing and scope of the special counsel’s case against Trump could be dramatically altered just months before voters choose whether to give him a second term.“In the obstruction case, limiting the application of the obstruction statute – as the court has previously done – could knock out or impact that same charge in the indictment,” said former House counsel and current defense lawyer Stanley Brand, whose firm Brand Woodward has also represented January 6 defendants.The wild card, Brand added, was with the Colorado decision. “A ruling by the court on whether January 6 constituted an insurrection under the 14th amendment could similarly cast a shadow on allegations in the indictment,” he said.The worst-case outcome for the special counsel is that the federal election case remains frozen for weeks while the DC circuit considers the immunity question, Trump secures additional delay by seeking a rehearing before the full circuit, and then rules against the use of the obstruction statute.There is the possibility that the supreme court gives the special counsel its best outcome, where it takes the immunity claim quickly should the DC circuit rule against Trump, preserving the March trial date, and decides the obstruction statute is not being used too broadly and applies to Trump.But the uncertainty over two central parts of the special counsel’s election interference case now has a direct impact on whether Trump will spend more of his 2024 campaign in court, or on the trail.ImmunityThe US supreme court’s first entanglement was with Trump’s foremost defense to charges that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election results: that the indictment should be dismissed because he enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution for actions related to his “official duties” as president.The special counsel Jack Smith on Saturday issued a court filing in which his team said no one, not even presidents, were above the law. Smith’s argument suggested that, as president, Trump should be held to an even higher standard to protect the electoral process and reiterated that Trump engaged in “illegal acts to remain in power despite losing an election”.On Friday, the court declined to grant certiorari, remanding the matter back to the DC circuit to decide in a move that could carry profound consequences for the viability of the March trial.Even if the three-judge panel at the DC circuit – Florence Pan, Michelle Childs and Karen Henderson – rules against Trump quickly, Trump can then ask the full appeals court to rehear the case en banc, and then has 90 days to lodge his final appeal to the supreme court.The now-cemented potential for delay was laid out by the special counsel’s supreme court litigator and former solicitor general Michael Dreeben.“The court of appeals’ expedited briefing and argument schedule does not assure an appellate decision that will give this court adequate time to grant review, receive briefing, hold argument, and resolve this case in advance of the scheduled trial date,” Dreeben wrote in the government’s brief.Trump has also made no secret that his overarching legal strategy, for all of his criminal cases, is to pursue procedural delays. If the cases do not go to trial before next year’s election and he wins a second term, then he could direct his handpicked attorney general to drop all of the charges.And even if the case did go to trial before November, the people said, Trump’s preference would have been for the trial to take place as close as possible to the election because it would have given his 2024 campaign ammunition to miscast the criminal case against him as political in nature.ObstructionThe supreme court is also set to consider next year whether federal prosecutors can charge January 6 riot defendants with a statute that makes it a crime to obstruct an official proceeding of Congress, which also formed the basis of two out of the four charges against Trump.The case involves Joseph Fischer, who was charged with obstruction for assaulting police officers during the riot, which he sought to dismiss, arguing the obstruction statute passed under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in response to the Enron scandal, had to do with document or evidence tampering.The US district judge Carl Nichols, who presided in the case, interpreted the statute as requiring prosecutors to show that the defendant took some action with respect to a document or record and did not apply to Fischer as he assaulted police officers at the Capitol.But a split three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit reversed the decision, deciding that obstruction applied more broadly and encompassed impeding any official proceeding. Fischer, and two other January 6 defendants, appealed to the supreme court to resolve the issue.If the supreme court decides that section 1512 of title 18 of the US criminal code was being used too broadly, that could cripple part of the case against Trump as the special counsel looks to draw a line at trial from the former president’s January 6 speech to the violence.“The court’s grant of certiorari in the Fischer case over over the solicitor general’s objection may foretell trouble for the government’s use of the statute,” Brand said.And if the court strikes down the use of the obstruction statute because it disliked the way prosecutors were using general conspiracy statutes for specific crimes, like it did with Jeffrey Skilling in the Enron scandal, it could undercut the remaining general conspiracy statutes used in the indictment against Trump, Brand added. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Revisited: Al Sharpton on 60 years since the march on Washington – podcast

      by

      The Politics Weekly America team are taking a break. So this week, we’re looking back at one of our favourite episodes of the year.
      From August: Jonathan Freedland sits down with Rev Al Sharpton to discuss why he believes Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I have a dream’ speech has been abused by some on the right, why he is still fighting for police reform, and how James Brown was so influential on his life

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Win for Republicans as US judge upholds Georgia congressional map

      by

      A federal judge in Georgia on Thursday upheld a Republican-drawn congressional map, a ruling branded “a disgrace” by voting rights advocates who claim that the latest district lines illegally dilute the voting power of minority residents.The decision from Steve Jones set the stage for next year’s elections, with Republicans now likely to maintain their 9-5 advantage among the swing state’s 14 seats in the US House of Representatives.In three separate but similarly worded orders, Jones rejected claims that the new maps do not do enough to help Black voters. “The court finds that the general assembly fully complied with this court’s order requiring the creation of Black-majority districts in the regions of the state where vote dilution was found,” the judge wrote.The case is one of several pending lawsuits whose outcomes could determine which party controls the House after November’s vote. Democrats need to capture a net of five Republican seats nationally to win back a majority.The maps were redrawn in a recent special legislative session after Jones in October ruled that a prior set of maps illegally harmed Black voters. In a 516-page order, the judge, appointed to the bench by Barack Obama, a Democrat, told legislators to create a new map that included an additional district with a Black majority or near-majority.While the state filed an appeal, the Republican governor, Brian Kemp, also scheduled a special legislative session to comply with the order.In early December, the Republican-controlled legislature approved a map that adds Black-majority districts, including one in Congress, two in the state senate and five in the state house.But in doing so, Republicans also dismantled Georgia’s seventh district, held by the gun-control advocate Lucy McBath, a Black woman. Situated in a suburb north-east of Atlanta, it is composed mostly of minority voters, including Black, Latino and Asian residents.The court’s decision means that McBath is likely to have to seek to run in a new district for the second election in a row, after Republicans drew her out of the district she originally won. She wrote in a fundraising email on Thursday: “I won’t let Republicans decide when my time in Congress is over.”Democrats and voting rights groups had argued that the revised map violated Jones’s ruling, which had said the state could not remedy the problem “by eliminating minority districts elsewhere”. Republicans asserted that their effort complied with the decision because McBath’s district was not majority Black.But LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Atlanta-based Black Voters Matter fund, suggested Republicans and the gun lobby intentionally targeted a district where McBath has been able to build a multiracial coalition. She said of Thursday’s ruling: “It’s a disgrace. It is reflective of how politicised the courts are.“It amplifies the reason why we need a strong federal voting rights law. We need something that is ironclad and even holds the bench accountable. They’ve weakened the law in such a way that the judges are in many ways not even interpreting what the law is saying.”Brown added: “Georgia is a purple state, but those in power, the Republicans, have gone through extraordinary measures on every level of government – from the county level to the governor’s office – to suppress the Black vote and this indicative of that.”The office of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, said he was not involved in the issue and would not comment. “While the secretary is the named defendant, as with all political issues, our office isn’t involved in the maps, thus we won’t be commenting,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.The plaintiffs are represented by the law firm WilmerHale and the American Civil Liberties Union. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, the law firm and the ACLU did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the order.Georgia is expected to be a key battleground again in 2024, with suburban voters and Black voters playing a crucial part. Once a Republican stronghold, the conservative southern state has elected a Democratic president and two Democratic senators in recent years, although the governor and secretary of state are Republicans.With the control of the House closely fought in a partisan era, redistricting battles around the country can make all the difference. In Alabama, Democrats are hopeful of picking up another seat after challenging Republicans’ maps all the way to the supreme court.Democrats have also enjoyed some legal wins in New York but Republicans stand to gain in North Carolina, where they openly admit their maps are politically motivated. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Liars, expulsions and near-fistfights: Congress plumbs the depths in 2023

      by

      Before House Republicans left for their holiday recess this month, they addressed one last matter of business. They did not take up an aid package for Ukraine or pass an appropriations bill to fully fund the government through the fiscal year.The House chose instead to vote along party lines to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, even though Republicans have failed to uncover any proof that the president financially benefited from his family’s business dealings.“Instead of doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies,” Biden said of the vote. “The American people deserve better.”The vote was a fitting end to a year defined by new lows on Capitol Hill. From removing a House speaker to expelling an indicted member and issuing threats of violence, 2023 saw Congress explore new depths of dysfunction. And it all started with a days-long speakership race.The battle for the gavel (part one)After a disappointing performance in the 2022 midterms, Republicans took control of the House in January with a much narrower majority than they had anticipated. That created a math problem for Kevin McCarthy, a Republican of California and the conference’s presumed speaker nominee.Instead of the uneventful process seen in past speakership elections, McCarthy failed to win the gavel on the first ballot, as roughly 20 hard-right members of the Republican conference opposed his ascension. The gridlock forced the House to hold a second round of voting, marking the first time in a century that the chamber failed to elect a speaker on the first ballot.The standoff lasted for four long days and necessitated 15 ballots in total. Just after midnight on 7 January, McCarthy won the speakership with a wafer-thin majority, in a vote of 216 to 212. He would hold the job for just nine months.On the brink of economic collapseAs soon as Republicans (finally) elected a speaker, attention turned to the most pressing matter on Congress’s agenda for 2023: the debt ceiling.The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, warned that the debt ceiling, which represents the amount of money the US government is allowed to borrow to pay its bills, had to be raised or suspended by early June to avoid a federal default and prevent economic catastrophe.Despite those urgent warnings, hard-right members of the House Republican conference appeared prepared to let the US default on its debt in an attempt to force steep government spending cuts. With just days left before the expected default deadline, both the House and the Senate passed a bill to suspend the debt ceiling until January 2025.The bill passed the House with a vote of 314 to 117, as 149 Republicans and 165 Democrats supported the measure. But 71 House Republicans opposed the bill, accusing McCarthy of cutting a horrendous deal with Biden. One Freedom Caucus member, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, mocked the deal as “insanity”.In retrospect, the Freedom Caucus’s attacks on McCarthy marked the beginning of the end of his speakership.The indicted senator from New JerseyAs House Republicans clashed with each other, the Senate grappled with its response to a member accused of corruption so rampant that it bordered on comical. In late September, Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat of New Jersey, was charged in connection to what prosecutors described as a “years-long bribery scheme”.The indictment accused Menendez of exploiting his role as chair of the Senate foreign relations committee to promote the interests of the Egyptian government in exchange for kickbacks. A raid of Menendez’s home, conducted in 2022, revealed that those kickbacks allegedly included a Mercedes-Benz convertible, $500,000 in cash and 13 gold bars.Even as more of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate called on him to step down, Menendez insisted he would not resign, claiming he had been “falsely accused” because of his Latino heritage.Pete Aguilar, a Democrat of California and the highest-ranking Latino member of the House, said of those claims, “Latinos face barriers and discrimination across the board in so many categories, including in our justice system. This is not that.”The chair is declared vacantThe next near-disaster for Congress came in September, when the government appeared to be on the brink of a shutdown that would have forced hundreds of thousands of federal employees to go without a paycheck.But that fate was avoided because, with just hours left before the government’s funding was set to run out, McCarthy introduced a mostly clean bill to fund the government for 45 days. In the House, the bill won the support of 209 Democrats and 126 Republicans, but 90 Republicans opposed the legislation.Democrats and hard-right Republicans alike said McCarthy had “folded” in the funding negotiations, failing to secure the steep spending cuts demanded by hard-right Republicans. Outraged by the bill’s passage, Matt Gaetz, a Republican of Florida, introduced a motion to vacate the chair, forcing a chamber-wide vote on removing McCarthy as speaker.The motion passed, with eight Republicans joining House Democrats in voting for McCarthy’s ouster. Seated in the House chamber, McCarthy let out a bitter laugh as he became the first speaker in US history to ever be ejected from the job.The battle for the gavel (part two)McCarthy’s removal prompted another speakership election, and this one somehow proved even more chaotic than the days-long spectacle that unfolded in January.Republicans initially nominated the House majority leader, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, for the speakership. But Scalise was forced to withdraw from the race days later because of entrenched opposition to his nomination among hard-right lawmakers. The caucus then nominated Jim Jordan of Ohio, who attempted to pressure his critics into electing him as speaker by holding multiple unsuccessful chamber-wide votes. Jordan dropped out of the race when it became clear that opposition to his speakership bid was only growing.The election reached its peak level of absurdity on 24 October, when Tom Emmer of Minnesota withdrew from the race just hours after becoming the conference’s third speaker nominee in as many weeks. By then, it appeared even Republicans had grown tired of their manufactured crisis. Republicans’ fourth and final speaker nominee, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, won the gavel in a party-line vote, bringing an end to weeks of turmoil that had become the subject of nationwide mockery.‘You are a United States senator!’The fourteenth of November was a special day on Capitol Hill because it offered an opportunity for members of both the House and the Senate to embarrass themselves.In the House, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, one of the eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy as speaker, accused McCarthy of elbowing him in the kidneys. Burchett then chased after McCarthy to confront him, but the former speaker denied the allegation.“If I’d kidney-punched him, he’d be on the ground,” McCarthy told reporters.Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol, Senator Markwayne Mullin, a Republican of Oklahoma, challenged one of the witnesses at a committee hearing to a fistfight. Mullin had previously clashed with the witness, the Teamsters union president, Sean O’Brien, over social media and suggested they settle their score with a physical fight.“You want to do it now?” Mullin asked.“I’d love to do it right now,” O’Brien replied.“Then stand your butt up then,” Mullin said.“You stand your butt up,” O’Brien shot back.The chair of the committee, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, then intervened to prevent any violence and offered this pointed reminder to Mullin: “You know, you’re a United States senator.”From Congress to CameoThe House kicked off the final month of the year with a vote to expel George Santos, a freshman Republican from New York who had been indicted on 23 federal counts related to fraud and campaign finance violations.Santos had been plagued by controversy since before taking office, as reporters discovered he had fabricated most of the life story he shared with voters. A congressional investigation uncovered that Santos had spent thousands of dollars from his campaign account on Botox treatments, luxury items at Hermès and payments to OnlyFans, an online platform known for its sexual content.Faced with that mountain of evidence, more than 100 House Republicans joined Democrats in voting to expel Santos. The 311-114 vote made Santos only the sixth member of the House ever to be expelled from Congress.Without his day job, Santos has turned his attention to Cameo, which allows D-list celebrities to make money by filming short personalized videos for fans. Reports indicate Santos is already raking in six figures on the platform.Goodbye, KevinSantos is not the only House members leaving Congress this year. McCarthy announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he would resign from the House at the end of December. McCarthy’s decision brought an end to a 17-year career in the House that encapsulated the Republican party’s shift away from small-government conservatism and toward Donald Trump’s “Make America great again” philosophy.Despite his humiliating fall from power, McCarthy expressed unbroken faith in Americans’ goodness and in “the enduring values of our great nation”.“I’m an optimist,” McCarthy declared.That makes one of us, Kevin. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Top Trumps: the 10 worst things the former president said this year

      by

      In 2015, the man who coined Godwin’s law, a famous maxim about argument on the internet, wrote a column for the Washington Post. Its headline: “Sure, call Trump a Nazi. Just make sure you know what you’re talking about.”By the lawyer and author Mike Godwin’s own definition, his law reads thus: “As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or Nazis approaches one.” Since Republicans fell under Trump’s thrall, the law has often been invoked. Why? See our list of the 10 worst things Trump said in 2023:VerminIn November, in Claremont, New Hampshire, Trump continued his dominant primary campaign. His rant was familiar but it held something new:
      We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.
      Hillary Clinton, who Trump beat in 2016, had already likened him to Hitler. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian from New York University, told the Washington Post: “Calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanise people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”PoisonOf course, the signs were already there. In September, discussing immigration with the National Pulse, Trump said:
      Nobody has ever seen anything like we’re witnessing right now … It’s poisoning the blood of our country.
      He had already promised “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”. Plans to hold migrants in camps would be reported. But Mehdi Hasan of MSNBC summed up the “poisoning” comment as “a straight-up white supremacist/neo-Nazi talking point”. Trump went there again in December, too.DictatorTrump wasn’t done. In December, at an Iowa town hall, the Fox News host Sean Hannity asked if he would promise not to “abuse power as retribution against anybody”. Trump said: “Except for day one”, then explained:
      I love this guy. He says, ‘You’re not gonna be a dictator, are you?’ I say, ‘No, no, no – other than day one.’ We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that I’m not a dictator, OK?
      Noting Trump’s laughter and the crowd’s cheers, Philip Bump of the Washington Post wrote: “What fun! I guess we can put that to bed.”RetributionNo one could say such comments were surprising. In March, closing CPAC in Maryland, Trump told conservatives:
      In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.
      Jonathan Karl of ABC would report that the Trump strategist Steve Bannon said Trump was speaking in code, referring to a Confederate plot to take hostage – and eventually kill – President Abraham Lincoln.DeathIn September, the Atlantic profiled Mark Milley, then chair of the joint chiefs of staff. Milley’s work to contain Trump at the end of his presidency was already widely known but the profile set Trump off nonetheless. On Truth Social, referring to a call in which Milley assured Chinese officials he would guard against any attempted attack, Trump lamented …
      … an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!
      Milley was moved to take “appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCourtsThis has been the year of the Trump indictment. He faces four, spawning 91 criminal charges regarding election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments. On 4 August, lawyers for the federal special counsel Jack Smith notified a judge of a post in which Trump appeared to threaten them, writing:
      If you go after me, I’m coming after you!
      Trump claimed protected political speech but the exchange teed up one of many tussles over gag orders and the general impossibility of getting Trump to shut up.IndictA recurring question: if re-elected, will Trump seek to use the federal government against his enemies? The slightly garbled answer, as expressed to Univision in November, was of course … yes:
      If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them, mostly they would be out of business. They’d be out. They’d be out of the election.
      AnimalIn April, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, filed 34 charges over Trump’s 2016 payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who claims an affair. Trump had already made arguably racist comments about Letitia James, the New York attorney general. Aiming at Bragg, Trump used Truth Social to say:
      He is a Soros-backed animal who just doesn’t care about right or wrong.
      Calling Bragg an animal played to racism about Black people. “Soros-backed”, commonly used by Republicans, refers to the progressive financier George Soros and is widely regarded as antisemitic.Whack jobIn May, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse of the writer E Jean Caroll. Ordered to pay about $5m, he was not about to be quiet. The next night, in New Hampshire, he ranted:
      And I swear and I’ve never done that … I have no idea who the hell – she’s a whack job.
      Carroll called the comments “just stupid … just disgusting, vile, foul”. Then she sued Trump again.All-out warTrump is 77. Questions about his mental fitness for power are not going away. Recently, he has appeared to think he beat Barack Obama in 2016 and become confused about which Iowa city he was in. On 2 December, however, another Iowa gaffe seemed to point to a worrying truth:
      That’s why it was one of the great presidencies, they say. Even the opponents sometimes say he did very well … but we’ve been waging an all-out war on American democracy. More