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    Republicans grumble that Hunter Biden special counsel is too little, too late

    The decision by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to appoint a special counsel in the investigation of Hunter Biden has rankled some of the same congressional Republicans who have demanded more scrutiny of the president’s son.Republicans might have celebrated Garland’s announcement as a vindication of their dogged efforts to uncover wrongdoing in Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings, which have become a central focus of their investigative work since regaining control of the House of Representatives in January. Instead, Republicans voiced doubt that the special counsel appointment would result in a fair investigation, and they took the opportunity to repeat their unfounded claims about Joe Biden’s allegedly corrupt financial activities with his son.Garland announced that he was naming David Weiss, the US attorney in Delaware who has overseen the investigation of Hunter Biden for roughly four years, as special counsel, due to “the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter”. The news comes as a previously agreed upon plea deal negotiated between prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s lawyers appears to have fallen apart, after the judge overseeing the case expressed concern over its parameters.“Today’s announcement affords the prosecutors, agents, and analysts working on this matter the ability to proceed with their work expeditiously, and to make decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law,” Garland said.Republicans generally scoffed at Garland’s reassurance. They pointed to Hunter Biden’s “sweetheart” plea deal as evidence that the Department of Justice cannot be trusted to handle the case, even though legal experts have noted the tax and gun charges initially brought against the president’s son are rarely prosecuted.Donald Trump, who has been indicted three times this year and faces dozens of criminal charges, has repeatedly cited Hunter Biden’s plea deal as an example of a double standard in law enforcement, and his presidential campaign was quick to release a statement on the announcement.A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign claimed the Bidens “have been protected by the justice department for decades” and that they “should face the required consequences”. A Trump-aligned Super Pac released a statement casting doubt upon Weiss’s ability to adequately conduct the investigation, even though Trump appointed Weiss to his post.The congresswoman Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican from Colorado, expressed similar skepticism over Weiss’s impartiality. “Given how Hunter has been treated this far, pardon me if I’m not extremely excited that anything will actually come of this,” she wrote on Twitter, which is now known as X.Republicans pointed to the timing of Weiss’s appointment as another knock against the justice department, arguing that Garland should have named a special counsel far earlier. Weiss said last month he had never asked to be named as a special counsel in the case, contradicting a whistleblower’s claims otherwise. In his announcement, Garland said Weiss requested a special counsel designation earlier this week so he could continue his investigation into Hunter Biden.“A year too late,” Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican of North Carolina, said of Garland’s announcement.House Republican leaders also emphasized that the special counsel appointment must not interfere with their own inquiries into Hunter Biden and his business dealings, which now span across multiple committees.“This action by Biden’s DoJ cannot be used to obstruct congressional investigations or whitewash the Biden family corruption,” House Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Twitter. “House Republicans will continue to pursue the facts for the American people.”Congressman James Comer, the Republican chair of the House oversight committee, described the special counsel appointment as “part of the justice department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family cover-up in light of the committee’s mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals”.In reality, House Republicans have so far presented no direct evidence that Joe Biden profited from Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings. Hunter Biden’s business associate, Devon Archer, told the committee last week that he was not aware of any wrongdoing on the part of Joe Biden.Despite that, Comer pledged his committee “will continue to follow the Biden family’s money trail” and “hold bad actors accountable for weaponizing law enforcement powers”.As Republicans prepared to ramp up their investigations, Democrats remained largely silent about the special counsel announcement. Democratic lawmakers appeared to greet the earlier news of Hunter Biden’s plea agreement with quiet relief, perhaps eager to put the matter behind them before the 2024 elections.But Weiss’s appointment as special counsel guarantees Hunter Biden will remain under investigation and in the headlines for a while longer, a reality that could complicate his father’s hopes of winning a second presidential term next year. More

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    Merrick Garland appoints special counsel in Hunter Biden investigation

    The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, sent shockwaves through American politics on Friday when he announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, the president’s son, ahead of the 2024 election.Garland named David Weiss, the US attorney in Delaware who has been investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings, as special counsel.In remarks to reporters in Washington, Garland said Weiss told him on Tuesday that “in his judgment, his investigation has reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a special counsel, and he asked to be appointed.“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel.”It was a momentous move from the usually cautious attorney general. Special counsel investigations of Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner to face Joe Biden in next year’s election, are ongoing, having produced multiple criminal charges and the prospect of trials in an election year.Special counsels are appointed in cases in which the attorney general believes the justice department faces a conflict of interest. Special counsels report to the attorney general but operate with independence.In the investigations of Trump, the special counsel Jack Smith has overseen indictments regarding the former president’s retention of classified information and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Another special counsel, Robert Hur, is investigating the retention of classified information by Biden after he left the vice-presidency in 2017. It was widely reported on Friday that negotiations are active about terms for a Biden interview.Hunter Biden, 53, is the president’s surviving son, after the former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden died in 2015, aged 46. Hunter Biden has been a lobbyist, lawyer, banker, consultant and artist. He has admitted to struggling with substance addiction.He is accused of failing to pay taxes on more than $1.5m in income in 2017 and 2018. He is also charged with unlawfully owning a firearm while addicted to and using a controlled substance.Last month, after a federal judge in Delaware said she needed more time to review a proposed deal to avoid the felony gun charge, Biden pleaded not guilty to the tax charges. The collapse of the plea deal was unexpected.On Friday, Weiss, who was appointed US attorney by Trump, said in a court filing plea deal negotiations were at an impasse and a trial was in order.Republicans in Congress are pursuing their own investigations of Hunter Biden’s business dealings, including in Ukraine and China, as part of a longstanding effort to generate political headaches for his father. They have so far turned up little of substance.In New Mexico on Thursday, Joe Biden generated headlines when he reacted testily to a Fox News reporter who asked about his son’s business dealings and whether Hunter ever put his powerful father on speakerphone when dealing with clients.“I never talked business with anybody,” the president said. “I knew you’d have a lousy question … because it’s not true.”Republicans have long claimed Weiss was being blocked from becoming a special counsel in the matter of Hunter Biden, a claim Weiss and the US justice department denied. On Friday, with Weiss appointed as a special counsel, Republicans still reacted with public displays of anger.In a statement, Republicans on the House oversight committee, which has been piloting congressional investigations of Hunter Biden and pushing for impeachment proceedings against his father, claimed the appointment of Weiss was “part of the DoJ’s efforts to attempt a Biden family cover-up in light of our committee’s mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals”.A Democrat on the committee, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, said such a reaction to getting what Republicans wanted showed the oversight chair, James Comer of Kentucky, had “no credibility” on the matter.But Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker, also had complaints.“This action by Biden’s DoJ cannot be used to obstruct congressional investigations or whitewash the Biden family corruption,” McCarthy said. “If Weiss negotiated the sweetheart deal that couldn’t get approved, how can he be trusted as a special counsel?”Aaron Fritschner, a staffer for the Virginia Democratic congressman Don Beyer, noted the theatricality of such Republican anger: “Half of the House Republican conference wrote to Merrick Garland last year asking him to appoint a special counsel in the Hunter Biden case. Now that he’s done it they are acting mad.”Liz Harrington, a Trump spokesperson, said: “Crooked Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and the entire Biden crime family have been protected by the justice department for decades even though there is overwhelming evidence and credible testimony detailing their wrongdoing of lying to the American people and selling out the country to foreign enemies … for financial gain.”Trump leads Republican primary polling by vast margins despite facing 78 criminal charges regarding hush-money payments to a porn star, retention of classified records and attempted election subversion. Further charges relating to election subversion are expected in Georgia next week.Polling shows both Biden and Trump to be historically unpopular with the voting public.Associated Press contributed to this report More

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    Hunter Biden: the moments that pushed president’s son into spotlight

    Hunter Biden, the president’s son, has been at the center of a years-long investigation into his tax affairs that was set to close with a guilty plea earlier this month. But that plea deal fell apart at a Delaware courthouse after the Trump-appointed judge said she could not agree to the agreement, which ensured Biden would avoid jail time in a separate case of illegally possessing a gun while using drugs.Amid the controversy, the president has repeatedly said he supports his son, and Hunter has been seen regularly at family events. Asked if President Biden would pardon his son in the event of any conviction, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters: “No.”But the younger Biden has been embroiled in a list of unrelated controversies for years, including his overseas dealings and struggles with addiction, which ex-President Trump and his allies have regularly sought to use as fodder for attacks.Here’s a comprehensive timeline of the moments that have propelled Hunter Biden into the limelight.Joe Biden Senate tenure: Hunter Biden’s consulting work for MBNA Corporation, a large Delaware-based banking chain, sparks backlash as his father, then a senator, was pushing for legislation favored by the online banking industry. The Obama-Biden 2008 campaign later rebuffs claims of improper action.Vice-presidency: Hunter Biden joins the board of Burisma, a private Ukrainian energy company, in 2014. Years later, House Republicans and Donald Trump spread baseless claims of wrongdoing by the Biden family, including that the vice-president helped push out the Ukrainian prosecutor general for failing to crack down on corruption in 2016 in order to protect his son.Administration officials say at the time there was no conflict of interest since the president’s son was a private citizen. Hunter Biden later says it was “poor judgment” to take the paid post but insists he did nothing wrong.October 2014: The Wall Street Journal reports Hunter Biden was discharged from the US Navy Reserve in 2013 after a test returned positive for cocaine.2016: After his brother Beau Biden’s death in 2015, Hunter Biden increasingly struggles with addiction, according to his memoir, released in 2021. He begins an affair with his late brother’s wife, Hallie Biden, afterwards. His wife, Kathleen Buhle, files for divorce in December, saying her husband spent extravagantly on alcohol and on gifts for other women.2018: Federal prosecutors reportedly launch an investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances, including his tax affairs and business dealings in China, as early as 2018. Hunter Biden allegedly failed to pay taxes between 2017 and 2018 and separately inked deals with Chinese executives.May 2019: Hunter Biden marries Melissa Cohen, an environmental activist and film-maker from South Africa, days after meeting.August 2019: An Arkansas woman, Lunden Roberts, files a lawsuit asking Hunter Biden for child support, claiming her daughter, Navy, is his son.Trump impeachment: Trump seeks to divert attention from his impeachment inquiry towards Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China and Ukraine.2020 presidential election: Trump repeatedly attacks Joe Biden over his family’s overseas business ties.December 2020: A month after his father wins the presidential election, Hunter Biden confirms a Delaware attorney has been investigating his “tax affairs”. He says he had learned of the investigation, overseen by Trump-appointed US attorney David Weiss, from his lawyer a day before he confirmed it publicly. The investigation had been temporarily paused in the months leading up to the election.2021: Hunter Biden pays back the amount he owed in taxes. He also gets back into art. Insider later reports that the younger Biden sold one of his paintings to a Democratic donor, Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, whom the president appointed to a commission in 2022.April 2023: An anonymous IRS whistleblower sends a letter to Congress saying the investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances was mishandled.20 June 2023: Hunter Biden is expected to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors after a federal court in Delaware announced it had reached a deal that was set to shield him from jail time over gun charges in a separate case.29 June 2023: Hunter Biden settles the lawsuit with Lunden Roberts and agrees to pay a monthly sum in child support, as well as turn over several paintings.19 July 2023: Two former agents at the IRS, including the previously anonymous whistleblower, testify at a GOP-lead House oversight hearing that DoJ officials “constantly hamstrung, limited, and marginalized” the US attorney, Weiss, in his investigation into Hunter Biden.26 July 2023: In a reversal, Hunter Biden pleads not guilty to two tax misdemeanor charges after the judge, Maryellen Noreika, says she cannot accept the deal over a disagreement between the prosecution and Biden’s legal team.The two sides settled a disagreement over whether Biden could face future charges for violating foreign lobbying laws. After a short recess, Biden’s lawyers said they agreed with the DoJ’s interpretation that he could face additional charges, subject to further investigation.But Noreika again raises a question regarding a diversion agreement – where the prosecutor agrees to dismiss charges, with conditions – that would have cleared Biden of his gun charges after two years if she found him to be compliant with the terms. Noreika said that power belonged to the DoJ, not her, and thus could not approve the deal.1 August 2023: Joe Biden says in an interview he “has seven grandchildren,” acknowledging for the first time Navy, four, the daughter of Hunter Biden and Lunden Roberts.August 2023: This is the deadline Noreika sets for the two sides to file additional briefs defending the constitutionality of the original plea deal.Republican lawmakers are separately targeting the entire Biden family. The GOP-led House oversight committee is investigating whether the family’s business dealings harm US national security, and some extreme members are calling for impeachment.August 11 2023: Merrick Garland, the attorney general, appoints special counsel David Weiss to oversee Hunter Biden case. More

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    Green investment boom and electric car sales: six key things about Biden’s climate bill

    The US’ first serious legislative attempt to tackle the climate crisis, the Inflation Reduction Act, is hitting its first anniversary both lauded for turbocharging a seismic shift to clean energy while also weathering serious attack from Republicans.Joe Biden hailed the bill, which despite its name is at heart a major shove towards a future dominated by renewable energy and electric vehicles, as “one of the most significant laws in our history” when signing it on 16 August last year.And the White House is trying to use the first year marker to extol it as a pivotal moment in tackling the climate emergency.“It’s the largest investment in clean energy in American history, and I would argue in world history, to tackle the climate crisis,” John Podesta, Biden’s chief clean energy advisor, told the Guardian. “With any legislation it takes time to get traction, but this is performing above expectations.”Podesta said there has been an “enormous response” in take-up for the tax credits that festoon the $369bn bill, directed at zero-carbon energy projects such as solar, wind and nuclear, grants for bring renewables manufacturing to the US and consumer incentives to purchase electric cars, heat pumps and electric stoves.Here are the key points to know about the impact of the act so far as it approaches its anniversary on August 16:1A boom in clean energy investmentThere has been around $278bn in new clean energy investments, creating more than 170,000 jobs, across the US in the first year of the Inflation Reduction Act, according to an estimate by the advocacy group Climate Power. The White House claims that there will be twice as much wind, solar and battery storage deployment over the next seven years than if the bill was never enacted, with companies already spending twice as much on new manufacturing facilities as they were pre-IRA.“It’s been more impactful than I or other observers would’ve thought,” said James Stock, a climate economist at Harvard University.Stock said that while the Inflation Reduction Act won’t by itself eliminate planet-heating emissions in the US, it is the “first substantive step” towards doing so and should help propagate the next generation of hoped-for clean fuels, such as hydrogen, in its 10-year lifespan. “As the tax credits are uncapped, too, we will see a lot more invested than we expected,” he said. “We could easily see $800bn to $1.2tn.”2More people are buying electric vehiclesThe Inflation Reduction Act includes rebates of up to $7,500 for buying an electric vehicle, and this incentive appears to be paying off – EV sales are set to top 1m in the US for the first time this year. Moreover, over half of US drivers are considering an EV for their next purchase, polling has shown.This transition isn’t without its hurdles, however – there has been a shortage of key parts in the EV supply chain, many models still remain prohibitively expensive and unions have been unhappy at the lack of worker protections for many of the new plants that are popping up. Climate advocates, meanwhile, have questioned why similarly strong support hasn’t been given to public transit or e-bikes to help get people out of cars altogether.3It will slash US emissions, but not by enoughThe US is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the Inflation Reduction Act is widely forecast to slash these emissions, by as much as 48% by 2035, from 2005 levels, according to one analysis.These forecasts have a relatively wide range of estimates due to uncertainties such as economic growth but even in the most optimistic scenario the US will require further measures if it is to get to net zero emissions by 2050, as scientists have said is imperative if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate impacts.“Even though we passed the IRA you ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, in promising a fresh climate bill recently. But given the riven nature of US politics, the prospects of such legislation is remote in the near term.A more likely way to bridge the emissions gap will be a raft of regulatory actions by the Environmental Protection Agency, such as new standards to cut pollution from cars, trucks and power plants, as well as progress by individual states. “We basically need everything to go right,” said John Larsen, a partner at Rhodium group, an energy analysis organization4The IRA has so far escaped Republican cuts – but Biden is fighting to get creditThe legislation was a breakthrough moment following decades of obfuscation and delay by Congress despite increasingly frantic warnings by climate scientists over global heating, with the bill itself borne from months of torturous, comprise-laden negotiations with Joe Manchin, the coal baron senator from West Virginia who held a swing vote for its passage.But the legislation has already faced the threat of repeal from Republicans, who universally voted against it, with the GOP’s first bill after gaining control of the House of Representatives this year gutting key elements of the Inflation Reduction Act. This is despite the majority of clean energy investments flowing to Republican-led districts.Biden has also faced the ire of climate progressives for somewhat undercutting his landmark moment with an aggressive giveaway of oil and gas drilling leases on public land, including the controversial Willow oil project in Alaska, and for incentivizing the use of technologies such as carbon capture that have been criticized as an unproven distraction at a time when the world is baking under record heatwaves.“Biden has an atrocious track record on fossil fuels, and that needs to change,” said Jean Su, an attorney and climate campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity who called on Biden to declare a climate emergency. There needs to be a “sea-change in this administration’s approach” on the climate crisis, according to Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator. “No more green lighting fossil gas projects. No more stalling on a climate emergency. Now is the time for us to live up to the full promise of the Inflation Reduction Act.”Polling shows the majority of American voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the climate crisis and only three in 10 have heard that much about the Inflation Reduction Act at all. Such perceptions will need to be turned around if the US president is to help secure the legacy of the bill in next year’s election.“We are going at a record clip to try to address this climate crisis,” said White House adviser Podesta. “I know people want us to hurry up and I wish we could produce a net zero economy immediately but this is a global transition that’s never occurred in human history. We need to get this job done.”The IRA act has not pleased leaders in the EU who have attacked it for being “protectionist” though some have argued they should instead be investing along similar lines.Clean energy investment has gone to red statesNo Republican voted for the Inflation Reduction Act but most of the investment that has been triggered by the bill has been funneled into projects in GOP-held Congressional districts. An emerging ‘battery belt’ is forming in the US south, with battery and electric vehicle plants popping up in states such as Georgia, Tennessee and Texas.“The IRA has been absolutely critical for us in terms of giving market certainties to go bold and big in our investment,” said a spokeswoman for QCells, a solar manufacturer that has embarked upon a major expansion in Georgia.5Renewables are booming – but there’s a transmission bottleneckIf the future wasn’t renewables before the IRA, it certainly is now – more than 80% of new electricity capacity this year will come from wind, solar and battery storage, according to federal government forecasts. The framers of the legislation hoped it will create a sort of virtuous circle whereby more renewable capacity will push down the cost of already cheap clean energy sources, seeding yet further renewable deployment.Solar panels may be dotting California and wind turbines sprouting off the east coast, but without the unglamorous build-out of transmission lines much of the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act may be lost.Not only is there a lack of physical poles and wires to shift clean energy from one part of the country to another, many clean energy projects are facing interminable waits, lasting several years, to be connected to the grid at all. There is more than 1,250 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity actively seeking grid connection, which is about equal to the entire existing US power plant fleet.“Something’s going to have to change to get this deployment online,” said Larsen. “Beyond that it will be about building stuff at scale, very, very quickly.” More

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

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

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    Data says Americans are becoming more conservative. What’s going on? | Jill Filipovic

    Earlier this summer, Gallup published some surprising numbers: more Americans identified as “socially conservative” than at any time in about a decade. Thirty-eight per cent said they were “conservative” or “very conservative” when it came to social issues, as opposed to 29% who said they were “liberal” or “very liberal”. A year earlier, 33% were on the conservative side, and 30% liberal.What accounts for the rightward shift?While these numbers tell us something interesting about personal identification, they don’t actually tell us all that much about policy. “Social issues” wasn’t defined by the Gallup pollsters, leaving respondents to interpret the term for themselves. But the line between “social issues” and “economic issues” isn’t all that clear. Is income inequality a social issue, an economic issue, or both? What about abortion, which has long been defined as a social issue, but has huge economic impacts for women and their families?What primarily seems to be driving the change is the Biden era.The last time we saw a similar peak in self-described social conservatism was in 2009, the year Barack Obama took office. Social conservatism hit a low in 2021, when Biden was inaugurated after a horrific and deadly pro-Trump insurrection brought national shame to the country and to the Republican party in particular.But it has steadily ticked up since then. And the shift has been driven largely by Republicans, whose conservative/very conservative identification on social issues has grown by 14 points since 2021. Independents have shifted rightward on social issues by five points. Democrats have stayed steady.Republicans, in other words, have doubled down on conservative identity now that their party is out of the White House. And that makes sense: being in the political opposition is often more motivating than being in charge, and feeling like your policy preferences are being sidelined can make you dig in harder than when you feel like you’re winning.There’s also been an age-related shift. While most age groups, aside from those over 65 who stayed more or less even, shifted rightward, the biggest shift – 13 points – was among those aged 30 to 49 (50-to-64-year-olds shifted by 11 points, while adults under 30 moved to the right by six points). This, too, may not be all that surprising: one’s 30s and 40s are the years when many adults find themselves turning inwards, toward nuclear family and home life, which can be a conservatizing force (for women, marriage tends to create a shift to the right; having children, for both sexes, may do the same).There’s actually not much evidence that Americans are growing more conservative when you break it down issue by issue. Support for abortion rights is at record highs, with even many Republicans wanting the government out of women’s uteruses. And Americans aren’t just more pro-choice broadly; they are now more likely to support abortion without restriction.Support for LGBTQ rights is also widespread. Seventy-one per cent of Americans support same-sex marriage rights. Sixty-six per cent favor allowing trans people to serve in the military. And 93% say gay people and lesbians should have the same job opportunities and protections as straight people.When it comes to guns, most Americans want stricter laws. And most Americans also say that more needs to be done to make racial equality a reality.It’s clear that Americans are a more liberal bunch than can be captured by amorphous self-identity questions. One issue, though, is different: crime.According to Gallup data from last year, 56% of Americans said there was more crime in their area than in the previous year – the highest percentage since Gallup began asking the question in 1972. And 78% said they believed crime was up nationwide. Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to believe crime was up, but 42% of Democrats believed crime in their area had risen. And most Democrats also believe that crime is up nationwide.Perception, of course, is not reality. “Crime” is also one of those amorphous terms – are we talking about murders or porch pirates or wage theft, or all of the above? The numbers generally show that, while there was a spike in violent crime during Covid, crime remains lower than it was at its peak in the 1990s. But crime statistics are notoriously poorly tracked, which leaves us with limited data. And “things aren’t as bad as they were at the height of violent crime in modern America” isn’t exactly comforting.People also tend to vote on perception, not data. If the general perception is that crime is rising, that can push voters to the right, as the Republican party has pretty firmly entrenched itself as the party of law and order. This is ironic, given that Republicans’ anything-goes stance on gun control fuels America’s endemic violence problem, but Republicans’ rhetoric on crime is much more aggressive than Democrats’. Republicans also tend to promote more policing and punitive measures in response to crime, while Democrats are more likely to push broader social investments, including in education and poverty alleviation.When many Americans think about rising crime, what they’re really considering is the general sense of things being safe and orderly or not. A big part of what’s driving the perception of rapidly rising crime, I suspect, is the reality of increasingly visible social dysfunction: homelessness, addiction and anti-social behavior.Since the pandemic, homelessness has surged, and there seems to be a higher number of visibly homeless people who are struggling with mental health disorders, substance abuse disorders or both. In New York City, there has been an 18% increase in the number of people who are sleeping on the streets and in the subways, and for the first time ever the city’s homeless population passed 100,000. The San Francisco Bay Area has seen a 35% rise in homelessness since 2019. Los Angeles has seen its homeless population increase by more than 40% since 2018. Maricopa county, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, has seen its homeless population increase by 72% since 2017.Large west coast cities are plagued by tent encampments, which are often sites of gang activity, illicit drug use and deadly overdoses, sexual violence and crime more broadly. The folks sleeping rough are not the majority of people who are unhoused on any given night, but they are a group that reads as homeless, erratic, potentially dangerous and reflective of broader social malaise. That read may not be kind or fair and accurate, but perceptions rarely are.Adding to the general sense of insecurity and instability are surging drug overdoses and the more amorphous sense – backed up with some data – that people are just acting erratically and badly in all kinds of new and disturbing ways. All of this may be combined into a general sense of “things are bad and seem to be coming apart at the seams” which can manifest as “crime is getting worse” – which in turn can drive people to the right if they don’t think Democrats and liberals are responsive to their concerns.And unfortunately, while mainstream Democrats do largely recognize that crime and concern for general order and stability is a problem, a lot of liberal pundits and people in media, and even some elected officials, deny and deflect. One way to drive people who share your values away from your party and your ideology is to deny what they can see with their own eyes.Luckily, there are a long list of issues that Democrats win on, and voters may be more inclined to vote for politicians who promise to protect the environment, reproductive rights and democracy itself than those who say they’ll “do something” about homelessness (especially if more voters understand that “something” has to be housing) or “get tough” on crime (especially if voters are exhausted by a system of brutal incarceration that doesn’t actually solve the problem).It is a problem for Democrats, though – and for progressive movement-building – if more Americans consider themselves socially conservative, whether their policy preferences perfectly line up with the Republican party or not. The latest numbers may just be a blip, spurred on by conservatives who feel victimized by a Democratic administration.But liberals are already at a disadvantage in a country where only a small minority – roughly one in five – has said for the last 20 years that they are liberal on economic issues, while 40% to 50% have consistently said they’re economically conservative. Republicans don’t represent a majority on policy, but conservatism seems to have a better brand than liberalism: while 40% of Americans say they’re conservative, just 26% say they’re liberal.That doesn’t necessary mean Democrats will always lose elections. But it is bad news for the majority of us who value liberal democracy and want to build a fairer, healthier, safer society.
    Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness More

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    Secret Trump memo outlined plot to overturn 2020 election; protection order hearing set for Friday – live

    From 3h agoGood morning, US politics blog readers. A lawyer allied with former president Donald Trump initially pitched the now-infamous plan to use fake electors in swing states to subvert the 2020 election results as “a bold, controversial strategy” that the supreme court would “likely” reject, according to a secret memo.Federal prosecutors are portraying the memo, dated 6 December 2020 and written by Kenneth Chesebro, as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts to keep him in power evolved into a criminal conspiracy, according to a New York Times report. The existence of the memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Trump.Chesebro, identified as “co-conspirator 5” in the federal indictment of Trump, reportedly argued that the plan would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column”. He wrote in the memo:
    I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6. But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.
    The document, described by prosecutors as the “fraudulent elector memo”, provides new details about how the plan originated and was discussed behind the scenes. The memo show the plan was a criminal plot to engineer “a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect”, prosecutors said.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
    3pm EST: President Joe Biden will speak about his administration’s clean energy and manufacturing investments in Albuquerque.
    5.55pm EST: Biden will fly to Salt Lake city.
    The House and Senate are out.
    An internal Trump campaign memo by Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer allied with Donald Trump, reveals new details about how the former president and his team initiated the plan to interfere with the electoral college process and install fake GOP electors in multiple states after losing the 2020 presidential election.The 6 December 2020 memo, made public on Tuesday by the New York Times, shows how Chesebro laid out the plan to put forth slates of Republican electors in seven key swing states that Trump had lost.The document, which federal prosecutors described as a “fraudulent elector memo”, revealed that Chesebro proposed the appointment of fake electors, and detailed a “messaging” strategy to portray them as evidence if legislatures later concluded Trump as the victor in those states.In the memo, Chesebro acknowledges that he is suggesting a “bold, controversial strategy” that the supreme court would “likely” ultimately reject. He argues that the plan would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column”.The memo was referenced in the four-count indictment against Trump by a Washington DC grand jury last month. The indictment identifies, but does not name, Chesebro as a co-conspirator in Trump’s alleged conspiracy to obstruct certification of the 2020 election.In separate, previously seen emails, Chesebro had also suggested having then-vice president Mike Pence open and count the electoral votes alone. Pence would then certify the fake electors’ votes, even though Biden would have won the state, according to the plan.There has been open debate within the Democratic party over whether Senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, whose health and cognitive abilities have come into question after a two-and-a-half-month absence due to shingles and other medical complications, should resign.Questions over Feinstein’s ability to effectively represent California, the most populous US state, have been a sensitive issue for Democrats going back years. As her diminishing health plays out in the public eye there is a renewed urgency to the situation. Riding out her term in absentia until retirement next year is also not a viable option, with Feinstein the tie-breaking vote on the Senate judiciary committee, which holds confirmation hearings for judicial nominees, and effectively the only person who can ensure that Joe Biden’s picks for judges go through.Feinstein’s compounding health issues and status as the oldest member of Congress now present Democrats with a complex problem that has pitted several prominent members of Congress against each other, as several lawmakers issued calls in recent weeks for Feinstein to step down.California Democrats, who voted her into office six times, are increasingly divided over whether she should continue to serve. More than 60 progressive organizations called on her to step down – noting that the 39 million constituents she represents deserve “constant representation”. It hasn’t helped that the senator has physically shielded herself from her constituents and the press, dismissing questions about her health and ability to serve.Feinstein’s eventual return to Washington on 10 May only prompted a new round of debate and news coverage, after she arrived looking exceedingly frail and appeared confused by reporters’ questions about her absence. Feinstein suffered more complications from her illness than previously disclosed, the New York Times reported, including post-shingles encephalitis and a condition known as Ramsay Hunt syndrome which causes facial paralysis.Read the full story here.California senator Dianne Feinstein’s latest medical setback comes days after she reportedly handed power of attorney over to her daughter.Katherine, a former San Francisco judge, is said to have been given power of attorney over her mother amid an ongoing dispute regarding her late husband Richard Blum’s estate, according to the New York Times.Senator Dianne Feinstein was hospitalized after tripping and falling in her San Francisco home, according to multiple reports.The 90-year-old Democratic senator was taken to a nearby hospital and returned home on Tuesday night, TMZ reported.Feinstein’s spokesperson told the San Francisco Chronicle that she spent an hour or two in the hospital. Her scans were clear, he added.Feinstein has struggled with her health in recent years. She was absent from the Senate for two-and-a-half-months due to shingles and other medical complications.The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s election subversion case, US district judge Tanya Chutkan, has set a date for a hearing on a proposed protective order by prosecutors.The protective order, if granted, will govern how evidence is handled in the case. The order, requested last Friday by special counsel Jack Smith’s team, asks for Trump to be prohibited from publicly sharing evidence in the case during the discovery phase.The decision to schedule the hearing for Friday morning comes a day after the special counsel’s office and Trump’s legal team filed dueling motions over the proposed protective order.Trump is not required to be present at the Friday hearing in Washington DC, Chutkan said.Donald Trump last week pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election by conspiring to block Congress from confirming Joe Biden’s victory over him. He also pleaded not guilty to charges that he obstructed the certification by directing his supporters to descend on the Capitol on the day of the January 6 attack.He is also accused of – and has pleaded not guilty to – scheming to disrupt the election process and deprive Americans of their right to have their votes counted.John Lauro slammed the indictment as politically motivated and full of holes. He said:
    This is what’s called a Swiss cheese indictment – so many holes that we’re going to be identifying.
    Lauro suggested that his side would argue that Trump’s actions were protected by his constitutional right to free speech as well as presidential immunity.Taking aim at Biden, the Democratic incumbent, Lauro added:
    This is the first time in history that a sitting president has used his justice department to go after a political opponent to knock him out of a race that creates grave constitutional problems.
    Lauro confirmed that he planned to file a motion to dismiss the conspiracy charges, as well as another to transfer the case from Washington DC’s federal courthouse to one in West Virginia, a state where Trump won 69% of the votes in 2020, his second largest margin of victory in a state after Wyoming.“We would like a diverse venue and diverse jury to have an expectation that will reflect the characteristics of the American people,” he said. “I think West Virginia would be an excellent venue.”Lauro was brought on to Trump’s legal team in mid-July. He has defended a string of controversial clients who include Dewayne Allen Levesque – manager of the Pink Pony nightclub in Florida who was acquitted of charges of racketeering, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting prostitution – and the disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who admitted to taking payoffs from bookies in exchange for a one-year, three-month prison sentence.Trump will not accept a plea deal in the criminal conspiracy charges, Lauro told CBS.Donald Trump’s attorney has suggested that Mike Pence could help his former boss fight off the 2020 election-related criminal conspiracy charges against Trump, claiming that the former vice-president would be the “best witness” for the defence.In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, attorney John Lauro played down differences between the former president and Pence’s accounts of what happened in the run up to the 6 January 2021 certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, whose supporters attacked the US Capitol that day.Asked on Face the Nation whether he feared that Pence would be called as a prosecution witness in the case, Lauro said: “No, no in fact, the vice-president will be our best witness.
    There was a constitutional disagreement between the vice-president [Pence] and president Trump, but the bottom line is never, never in our country’s history, as those kinds of disagreements have been prosecuted criminally. It’s unheard of.
    Earlier on Sunday, Pence – who is running against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – told CBS that he had “no plans” to testify for the prosecution. But he did not rule it out. In response to Lauro’s assertion last week that all Trump did was ask him to pause the certification, Pence said: “That’s not what happened.”The Fulton county district attorney’s office investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia has been issuing summons to witnesses to testify before the grand jury, as part of the final presentation by prosecutors that is expected to take just a couple of days before they ask the grand jury to return an indictment, according to two people familiar with the matter.Charges stemming from the Trump investigation could come as early as next Tuesday if the presentment starts on Monday, the people said. That dovetails with a timeline inferred from district attorney Fani Willis instructing her staff to move to remote work during that period because of security concerns, the Guardian has previously reported.The district attorney’s office has spent more than two years investigating whether Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia, including impaneling a special grand jury that made it more straightforward to compel evidence from recalcitrant witnesses.Unlike in the federal system, grand juries in the state of Georgia need to already be considering an indictment when they subpoena documents and testimony. By using a special grand jury, prosecutors can collect evidence without the pressure of having to file charges.The special grand jury in the Trump investigation heard evidence for roughly seven months and recommended indictments of more than a dozen people including the former president himself, its forewoman strongly suggested in interviews with multiple news outlets.Trump’s legal team sought last month to invalidate the work of the special grand jury and have Willis disqualified from proceedings, but the Georgia supreme court rejected the motion, ruling that Trump lacked “either the facts or the law necessary to mandate Ms Willis’s disqualification”.The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia is expected to present evidence to a grand jury and ask it to return indictments as early as next Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the matter.The prosecutors in the office of district attorney Fani Willis completed its internal reviews for criminal charges in the Trump case weeks ago, the people said. The review process, to identify any weakness with the case, is typically seen as the final step before charges are filed.Willis has also privately indicated to her senior staff that the prosecutors on the Trump case were sufficiently prepared that they could go to trial tomorrow, the people said.In the Trump investigation, prosecutors have developed evidence to pursue a sprawling racketeering case that is predicated on a statute about influencing witnesses and computer trespass by Trump operatives in Coffee county, the Guardian has previously reported.The extent of Trump’s legal jeopardy remains unclear. But the racketeering statute in Georgia is especially expansive and attempts to solicit or coerce certain activity – for instance, Trump’s call to the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger – could be included in the indictment.The district attorney’s office has also weighed several state election law charges, including: criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and conspiracy to commit election fraud, as well as solicitation of a public or political officer to fail to perform their duties and solicitation to destroy, deface or remove ballots.Willis originally suggested charging decisions were “imminent” in January, but the timetable has been repeatedly delayed after a number of Republicans who sought to help Trump stay in power as so-called fake electors accepted immunity deals as the investigation neared its end.The newly disclosed memo by Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro includes a strategy to explain why pro-Trump electors were meeting in states where Joe Biden was declared the winner, the Times reported.Chesebro wrote:
    I believe that what can be achieved on Jan. 6 is not simply to keep Biden below 270 electoral votes. It seems feasible that the vote count can be conducted so that at no point will Trump be behind in the electoral vote count unless and until Biden can obtain a favorable decision from the Supreme Court upholding the Electoral Count Act as constitutional, or otherwise recognizing the power of Congress (and not the president of the Senate) to count the votes.
    Good morning, US politics blog readers. A lawyer allied with former president Donald Trump initially pitched the now-infamous plan to use fake electors in swing states to subvert the 2020 election results as “a bold, controversial strategy” that the supreme court would “likely” reject, according to a secret memo.Federal prosecutors are portraying the memo, dated 6 December 2020 and written by Kenneth Chesebro, as a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts to keep him in power evolved into a criminal conspiracy, according to a New York Times report. The existence of the memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Trump.Chesebro, identified as “co-conspirator 5” in the federal indictment of Trump, reportedly argued that the plan would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column”. He wrote in the memo:
    I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6. But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.
    The document, described by prosecutors as the “fraudulent elector memo”, provides new details about how the plan originated and was discussed behind the scenes. The memo show the plan was a criminal plot to engineer “a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect”, prosecutors said.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
    3pm EST: President Joe Biden will speak about his administration’s clean energy and manufacturing investments in Albuquerque.
    5.55pm EST: Biden will fly to Salt Lake city.
    The House and Senate are out. More

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    US and EU leaders urged to change tack on Kosovo-Serbia tensions

    A group of influential politicians including the chair of the US, German and British parliamentary foreign affairs committees have written to US and EU leaders to urge them to reconsider their approach to easing tensions between Kosovo and Serbia.In a shot across the bows of those leading international efforts to normalise relations between the two countries, they have criticised the “lack of pressure placed on Serbia” and say the “EU-facilitated dialogue has yet to yield positive results”.The strongly worded letter reinforces Kosovan concerns, voiced behind the scenes, that the EU and the US are siding with the Serbian leadership.It comes two months after tensions flared in the north of Kosovo over mayoral elections that Pristina says followed the letter of the law but were marred by a boycott of Serbian voters resulting in a turnout of less than 4%.Kosovo’s prime minister blamed the violence in the north of the country on “fascist mobs” controlled by the government of neighbouring Serbia, and said he had rejected a US request to relocate recently installed mayors from their official offices.In turn, the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, denounced the elections as invalid and accused Kosovo of refusing to enter a dialogue.The authors of the letter say EU and US efforts to resolve the crisis are not working and urge a rethink of approach. “Attempts to disrupt democratic elections in Kosovo by Serbia must be criticised publicly as foreign interference with tangible measures implemented to hold them accountable if they continue to undermine free and fair elections,” the letter said.It was sent to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, who has been leading recent efforts in Moldova and Brussels to de-escalate tensions between the two countries.“The current approach is not working,” the authors wrote. “We would ask that the international community learns from our past and ensure we do not adopt a Belgrade-centred policy for the Balkans.”The signatories include Bob Menendez, the chair of the US senate foreign relations committee, Michael Roth, chair of the foreign affairs committee of the German Bundestag, and Alicia Kearns, the chair of the UK’s foreign affairs committee, along with politicians from the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Ireland, Lithuania, Estonia and Iceland.The letter added that Kosovo had “faced significant repercussions” following the election of mayors in four municipalities in the north of the country, elections that the majority Serbian population of the area boycotted.By contrast, the letter said there was a “lack of pressure on Serbia” following the detention of three Kosovan police officers by Serbian authorities and “a failure to hold to account those responsible” for attacks on the peace-keeping KFOR force.That, the signatories wrote, “highlights the current lack of even-handedness in addressing such flashpoints”.Vučić subsequently called on Kosovo authorities to withdraw what he termed “alleged mayors” in northern Kosovo to defuse a crisis that prompted violence.He claimed at a meeting of European leaders in Moldova and later in Brussels that the Kosovan leadership had refused to enter dialogue to resolve the crisis.Behind the scenes, Kosovans have accused the US and the EU leadership of in effect appeasing Serbia amid fears Russia would involve itself in the western Balkans. An additional 41 members of national parliaments and the European parliament also signed the letter.A spokesperson for Borrell confirmed he had just received the communique but suggested it was not representative of member states.The official pointed out that the letter was from 56 MPs among “thousands of parliamentarians”, with foreign policy set by 27 governments in the bloc in “unanimity”.“The EU is a neutral facilitator in the dialogue on normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia,” they said.It added that member states “are consulted on EU actions and the EU cooperates closely with its partners, particularly the USA”.“The EU is currently closely monitoring Serbia’s compliance to the EU’s requests and stands ready to take measures in case of non-compliance to these requests.” More