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      Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign ad

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      Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign adRightwing Republican viewed as serious 2024 presidential contender accuses reporters of ‘peddling false narratives’ Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday released a campaign advertisement drawing on the movie franchise Top Gun to attack the news media.The ad is the latest stunt by DeSantis to promote far-right talking points before Tuesday’s statewide primary and a possible future run for the Oval Office in 2024.In the parody, posted to Twitter, DeSantis wears a bomber jacket similar to outfits worn by the Top Gun star Tom Cruise in the franchise’s two films and discusses “taking on the corporate media” in an airbase.“The rules of engagement are as follows: number one – don’t fire unless fired upon, but when they fire, you fire back with overwhelming force,” DeSantis says in the video. “Number two – never ever back down from a fight. Number three – don’t accept their narrative.”DeSantis also dons a helmet with the logo “Top Gov”.The ad is intercut with a reel of DeSantis at previous news conferences and other events where he accuses journalists of “peddling false narratives”.In addition to attacking members of the press, DeSantis has embraced almost all conservative social issues in his quest to gain prominence among Republicans ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run.DeSantis has largely aimed his efforts at Florida’s education system, promoting Republicans on local school boards and signing bills that censor classroom material.Ahead of Tuesday’s primary race, DeSantis launched a statewide tour promoting 29 hand-picked candidates for non-partisan school board positions that support his education platform.He signed a law in March criminalizing discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms. The “don’t say gay” bill is a policy that critics overwhelmingly say further marginalizes LGBTQ+ communities.Last year, the governor took further aim at trans girls and women, banning their participation from sports in public schools and universities, with critics calling the law “cruel” and “horrific”.After the signing of that bill, Florida became the eighth state in the US to ban trans people from athletic events in schools, reported CNN.DeSantis has also severely restricted race education in Florida, signing a measure in April that bans teachers from instructing on certain topics around race and ethnicity.“We believe in education, not indoctrination,” DeSantis said during an April press conference.DeSantis also supported the banning of books, including mathematic textbooks, arguing that textbook manufacturers were “indoctrinating” children.He has also sought to curb abortion rights in the Sunshine state.After the US supreme court overturning Roe v wade in June, DeSantis supported a 15-week abortion ban in Florida that was contested and later reinstated.On 4 August, the governor suspended an elected state prosecutor who promised not to enforce the near-total ban, arguing that the elected official was violating his oath of office.DeSantis like other Republican candidates has also moved to investigate election fraud, a priority stemming from former president Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.Studies have shown that voter fraud is rare, usually happening in isolated instances and generally detected.But in April, the governor established a police force to prosecute voter fraud, with officials arresting and charging 20 people with previous felony convictions for voting illegally despite complexities around voting eligibility after a conviction.TopicsFloridaRon DeSantisUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Colorado Republican turns Democrat over ‘existential threat’ from GOP

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      Colorado Republican turns Democrat over ‘existential threat’ from GOPIn letter announcing defection, state senator Kevin Priola cites political and environmental threat from his erstwhile party Announcing his switch to the Democrats, a Colorado state senator said Republican attacks on democracy were not the only “existential threat” posed by his former party.Jared Polis becomes first sitting governor to marry in same-sex weddingRead more“I have become increasingly worried about our planet and the climate crisis we are facing,” Kevin Priola said, in a letter posted to social media on Monday.“The Republican party I joined decades ago created national parks, preserved federal lands and protected wildlife. President Nixon signed the legislation that created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Today, my Republican colleagues would rather deny the existence of human-caused climate change than take action.”Priola said such inaction would affect Coloradans already subject to “a near year-round wildfire season” and “a seemingly never-ending drought”.Republican attempts to block “reasonable climate measures”, meant he could not stay silent, he said.Priola was last elected in 2020, when he won a narrow race in the 25th senate district, in the Denver suburbs. He is due to serve until 2025.Once a Republican bastion, Colorado has been trending left. Democrats already control the state senate, by 20-15 before Priola’s switch.In his letter, Priola discussed dissatisfaction with the direction of the Republican party under Donald Trump, the former president who refuses to accept his defeat in 2020 while indicating he will run again in two years’ time.“Like many Coloradans,” Priola wrote, “I watched the events on January 6 [2021] with horror. I felt that clearly this would be the last straw and that my party would now finally distance itself from Donald Trump and the political environment he created.“Week after week and month after month, I waited for that response. It never came.”Priola commended “brave and honorable” Republicans who stood against Trump after the Capitol attack, including the Utah senator Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, the Wyoming congresswoman who last week lost her primary after taking a leading role on the House January 6 committee.“Fear-mongering to raise money or motivate voters is nothing new,” Priola wrote, “but it has been taken to a dangerous and destabilising level.“I cannot continue to be part of a political party that is OK with a violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election and continues to peddle claims that the 2020 election was stolen.”Priola said he became a Republican thanks to the examples of Richard Nixon – the only president to resign in disgrace – and Ronald Reagan, but would now caucus with Democrats despite not sharing many of their positions.“Our affiliations have become too tribal,” he wrote. “I’ve always been an independent thinker and … I don’t plan to change that. I do not believe either party has a monopoly on the truth.“For instance, my pro-life position, school choice [support] and pro-second amendment stance often run counter to the Democratic party platform.”But, he said, looking towards November elections in which Republicans on the national stage will seek to take back Congress, “we are in the midst of an election that will determine which party controls the [Colorado] senate chamber.“Even if there continue to be issues that I disagree with the Democratic party on, there is too much at stake right now for Republicans to be in charge.”Saying he had decided to “align with truth over conspiracy”, Priola concluded: “We need Democrats in charge because our planet and our democracy depend on it.”TopicsColoradoRepublicansDemocratsUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022US domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Florida voters head to primary polls as Democrats look to break losing streak

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      Florida voters head to primary polls as Democrats look to break losing streakLong considered a swing state, Republicans have a considerable edge heading into this election season Florida voters will head to the polls on Tuesday to determine which candidates will have the chance to face off in this November’s general election. Voters will cast ballots in races for the governorship and Congress, all the way down to circuit courts and local school boards.Democrats are competing to run against the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and US senator Marco Rubio, both of whom are considered potential Republican presidential candidates for 2024. On the House side, a new congressional map drawn by DeSantis is expected to give Republicans a hefty advantage in the November midterms.Although Florida has long been considered a swing state, Republicans have a considerable edge heading into this election season. Republicans last year overtook Democrats in Florida’s voter registration rolls. And Donald Trump carried the state by three points in the 2020 presidential race, although Joe Biden defeated him in the electoral college while also winning the national popular vote by four points.Since then, DeSantis has approved new voting restrictions to limit access to voting by mail and ballot drop boxes in Florida, sparking allegations from the justice department of racial discrimination. Those methods were more likely to be used by Biden supporters in 2020 than voting at a polling place on election day, according to the Pew Research Center.With the new House map in place, Republicans are expected to win 20 of Florida’s 28 congressional seats, up from the party’s current control of 16 of the state’s 27 seats. The state’s additional House seat resulted from the latest round of redistricting.Republicans’ severe gerrymandering, which will severely curtail Black political power in Florida, has made many of the state’s congressional races a foregone conclusion this fall. Not a single one of Florida’s House races is considered a toss-up for the general election, according to the Cook Political Report. That means that the winners of the Tuesday primaries are very likely to be elected to Congress this fall.The anticlimactic forecast for Florida’s House races has many election watchers turning their attention to statewide races. All eyes will be on Florida’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, with Charlie Crist, a Democratic congressman and former governor, running against Nikki Fried, the state’s agriculture commissioner.Crist and Fried have attacked DeSantis over his aggressive approach to culture war issues in Florida, which may preview the governor’s 2024 presidential campaign. Just this month, DeSantis drew a lawsuit from a state prosecutor whom the governor suspended after the attorney said he would not enforce a 15-week abortion ban.DeSantis last week also announced charges against 20 people for illegally voting, a move meant to highlight the work of a new office aimed at uncovering voter fraud. The governor provided few details about the charges, and voting rights advocates have denounced the arrests as voter intimidation.“Quite frankly, he is anti-democracy,” Crist told MSNBC on Sunday. “I am a Democrat running to protect democracy, to protect a woman’s right to choose, and I’m running against an autocrat who wants to be dictator of America.”But DeSantis is not backing away from his far-right agenda, instead choosing to double down on the political strategy. DeSantis has issued endorsements in dozens of non-partisan school board races, and he has campaigned alongside candidates who have backed his calls for more “parents’ rights” in the classroom.DeSantis has made education a central part of his platform after signing multiple laws aimed at limiting what can be taught to Florida children. Earlier this year, DeSantis signed a bill restricting the discussion of race and racism in the classroom and the workplace. DeSantis in March approved a bill forbidding instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for students in kindergarten through third grade, a measure that has been attacked by critics as a “don’t say gay” law. More recently, DeSantis put his signature on a bill requiring students be taught about the “victims of communism” each November.Despite those controversial policies, DeSantis heads into the general election with a clear advantage over his Democratic challengers. DeSantis has amassed a campaign war chest of more than $100m, and he has consistently led his potential opponents in recent polls.Florida’s Senate race has provided Democrats with more optimism, as Rubio – a former and potentially future Republican presidential candidate – seeks a third term in office. Congresswoman Val Demings has led the pack of Democratic candidates seeking to defeat Rubio, and polls indicate she may have an opportunity to do so.A University of North Florida poll taken this month found that Demings had the support of 48% of likely general election voters, compared with 44% for Rubio.But Democrats know to take nothing for granted because they have previously been on the losing end of heartbreakingly close races in Florida. The state proved to be an exception to Democrats’ “wave” of victories in 2018, when the incumbent senator Bill Nelson and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum were both narrowly defeated by their Republican opponents.Tuesday could provide some key clues as to whether Democrats will finally be able to break their Florida losing streak.TopicsFloridaUS midterm elections 2022US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Fauci to step down in December to ‘pursue next chapter’ of career

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      Fauci to step down in December to ‘pursue next chapter’ of careerExpert, 81, who has led National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, clashed with Trump over Covid response Top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci plans to step down from his post in December to “pursue the next chapter” of his career, he announced in a statement on Monday.Fauci, 81, has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid) since 1984. He has advised seven presidents, as far back as Ronald Reagan, on emerging infectious disease outbreaks that have plagued the nation, testifying before Congress and the World Health Organization on the HIV/Aids epidemic to Ebola to, most recently, the coronavirus pandemic.In his statement, Fauci stopped short of saying precisely what his plans are. He pledged to pursue a new professional phase while he still had “energy and passion” for his field.“I want to use what I have learned as Niaid director to continue to advance science and public health and to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders as they help prepare the world to face future infectious disease threats,” he said.In a White House statement, Joe Biden thanked for Fauci for his decades of service. The president also praised Fauci as a “dedicated public servant, and a steady hand with wisdom and insight honed over decades at the forefront of some of our most dangerous and challenging public health crises”.“Because of Dr Fauci’s many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved,” Biden said.Under George W Bush, Fauci worked as one of the principal architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, a global public health initiative launched in 2003 aimed at expanding access to therapies to curtail the HIV/Aids epidemic, long credited as a historic effort that saved millions of lives.He won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 for his “determined and aggressive efforts to help others live longer and healthier lives” in the fight against the HIV/Aids epidemic, even as he clashed with activists early on.As the deadly coronavirus spread throughout the world in March 2020, Fauci – whose calm, measured presence drew admiration – emerged as the face of the US’s response to the pandemic. He notably clashed with former president Donald Trump at the start of the crisis, along with congressional Republicans, over what the US response should be. Fauci advocated for more restrictions to suppress the virus, a stark contrast from the Trump administration’s approach to publicly downplay it in hopes of shielding economic markets from being affected.Memorably, earlier this year, Fauci bluntly said he would quit if Trump managed to take the Oval Office back from Biden in the 2024 election. He previously indicated he would stay through Biden’s first term and leave by January 2025.TopicsAnthony FauciUS politicsCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More

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      The Storm is Upon Us review: indispensable QAnon history, updated

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      The Storm is Upon Us review: indispensable QAnon history, updated Donald Trump welcomed the conspiracy at the White House. Its followers stormed Congress. Big Tech still seems not to care. Mike Rothschild’s book should sound the alarm for us allWhat is it that has hypnotized so many addled souls who devote themselves to decoding the Delphic clues of the QAnon conspiracy?QAnon’s ‘Q’ re-emerges on far-right message board after two years of silenceRead moreWhat they think they’re getting is “secret knowledge”, from “Q” and a bunch of other military insiders working for Donald Trump, about “the storm … a ringside seat to the final match” in a “secret war between good and evil” that will end with the slaughter of all “enemies of freedom”.In short, an irresistible mix of “biblical retribution and participatory justice”.The bad guys are “Democrats, Hollywood elites, business tycoons, wealthy liberals, the medical establishment, celebrities and the mass media … They’re controlled by Barack Obama” – a Muslim sleeper agent – and Hillary Clinton, “a blood-drinking ghoul who murders everyone in her way … and they’re funded by George Soros and the Rothschild banking family (no relation to the author)”.This updated edition of Mike Rothschild’s exhaustive history of the Q movement is more important than ever. Why? Partly because of the crucial role played by so many QAnon devotees in the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 but mostly because Rothschild documents how much of this insanity has penetrated to the heart of the new Republican party, propelled by many of America’s most loathsome individuals, from Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr to Alex Jones, Michael Flynn and Roseanne Barr.As Rothschild writes of Trump’s first national security adviser, “Flynn’s family even filmed themselves taking the ‘digital soldier oath’… part of what would become a total enmeshment between members of the Flynn family and QAnon.”In the two years before the 2020 presidential election, “nearly 100 Republican candidates declared themselves to be Q Believers” while Trump “retweeted hundreds of Q followers, putting their violent fantasies and bizarre memes into tens of millions of feeds”.Asked about a movement which has repackaged most of the oldest and harshest racist and antisemitic conspiracies for a new age, Trump gave his usual coy endorsement of the behavior of America’s most damaged internet addicts.“I don’t know much about the movement,” he mumbled, “other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.”In winter 2021, as the Omicron variant sent Covid cases skyrocketing, “QAnon promoters were among the most visible anti-vaccine advocates pushing out lies and conspiracy theories” to “dissuade people from getting vaccinated”.As with so many of QAnon adherents’ positions, the message was “both clear and completely contradicted by the available evidence: they believed the pandemic was over and any mandates related to vaccines or masks were totalitarian control mechanisms that were actually killing people”.More than anything else, this is the latest horrific confirmation of what the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt recently described as “the power of social media as a universal solvent, breaking down bonds and weakening institutions everywhere it reached”.Like so many other ghastly conspiracies of recent decades, especially the blood libel that the Sandy Hook massacre was a staged event in which no one was actually killed, QAnon was propelled at warp speed by a combination of the incompetence and greed of all the big-tech big shots: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.Rothschild describes the usual futile internet game of Whac-A-Mole.Reddit “abruptly banned the 70,000-member r/Great Awakening board because members had started harassing other users” and had released the personal information “of at least one person they incorrectly claimed to be a mass shooter”.No matter: Q followers just migrated to Twitter and “closed Facebook groups with tens of thousands of members … Just in 2018, Q believers shared Q YouTube videos over 1.4m times, and drove hundreds of thousands of shares to Fox News, Breitbart and the Gateway Pundit”.By 2019, “Trump was routinely retweeting QAnon-promoting accounts.” By the 2020 election, “Trump had retweeted hundreds … and was regularly sharing memes created by the movement”.When Twitter and Facebook finally started “cracking down on Q iconography in the summer of 2020”, much of the movement just moved on to Instagram. Amazon and Etsy joined in the fun with books and merchandise and there were even “Q apps on the Google Play Store”.‘The lunacy is getting more intense’: how Birds Aren’t Real took on the conspiracy theoristsRead moreQ’s legacy includes what now looks like the permanent deformation of the Republican party. A December 2020 poll by NPR/Ipsos found about a third of Americans believed in a shadowy “deep state” and a robust 23% of Republicans “believed in a pedophilic ring of Satan-worshiping elites”.Rothschild ends by asking behavioral experts if there is anything the rest of us can do to help those who have gone far down this wretched rabbit hole. They say the only effective solution is a complete “unplugging” from the internet.Every time I read another book like this one, I’m increasingly inclined to the idea that this could be the only road back to sanity for all of us.
      The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything is published in paperback in the US by Melville House
      TopicsBooksQAnonThe far rightPolitics booksUS politicsSocial mediaInternetreviewsReuse this content More

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      Trump set to ask court for ‘special master’ to review Mar-a-Lago evidence

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      Trump set to ask court for ‘special master’ to review Mar-a-Lago evidenceLegal motion would seek appointment of official to decide what materials can be used in investigation, attorney and sources say Donald Trump is expected to seek the appointment of a special court official to determine whether materials that the FBI seized from his Florida resort can be used in a criminal investigation, according to his lead attorney Jim Trusty and two sources familiar with the matter.US political violence is surging, but talk of a civil war is exaggerated – isn’t it?Read moreThe motion would be the first formal legal action by the former president after federal agents last week confiscated about 30 boxes of highly-sensitive documents from his Mar-a-Lago resort in connection with an investigation into the unauthorized retention of government secrets.Trump would argue that the court should appoint a special master – usually a retired lawyer or judge – because the FBI potentially seized privileged materials in the search, and the justice department should not itself decide what it can use in its investigation, the sources said.The ex-president’s lead attorney, Trusty, said on the Mark Levin Show on Friday evening that he was anticipating a motion that would force the justice department to disclose what “pre-raid” instructions were given to the FBI agents who executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.Trusty, a former chief of the organized crime section at the justice department, also said on the radio show that a court filing could come that evening, saying: “It’s probably going to be more like hours” – though there was no entry on the docket as of early Saturday afternoon.Why Trump is filing a motion now, nearly two weeks after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, was not clear. The former president and his allies have previously moved quickly to request special masters, including when the offices of his former lawyer Michael Cohen were searched in 2018.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsFBIMar-a-LagonewsReuse this content More

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      US supreme court backs Black voters challenging Georgia election rules

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      US supreme court backs Black voters challenging Georgia election rulesRuling comes as plaintiffs say current Georgia public service commission election system discriminates against Black voters Black voters challenging Georgia’s method of electing members to the state’s public service commission scored a preliminary US supreme court order in their favor late Friday.The decision came after conflicting rulings from lower courts earlier this month, offering up a rare example of the supreme court’s 6-3 conservative majority’s siding with voters over state officials.Louisiana woman faces ‘horrifically cruel’ abortion choice over fetus missing skullRead moreEarlier this month, a federal district judge found that the current system gave Black residents’ votes less weight. Each of the commission’s five seats hold jurisdiction over a specific district, but each seatholder is elected in a statewide race that dilutes Black voters’ power, said that ruling, which came from Trump White House-appointed judge Steven Grimberg.Grimberg ordered the postponement of a November election for two commissioners’ seats to allow the state legislature the time to create a new system for electing commissioners, granting a request from a group of voters challenging the system.However, last week, the federal 11th circuit court of appeals temporarily halted Grimberg’s ruling, citing the “Purcell principle”, which discourages courts from changing election rules immediately before an election.The supreme court on Friday reinstated the Grimberg ruling, with the plaintiffs citing testimony from numerous experts who found the current Georgia public service commission election system to be discriminatory against Black voters.Political data analyst Bernard Fraga, who focuses on the behavior of voting within communities, testified that statewide voting lets Georgia’s majority white population drown out votes coming from districts with mostly Black residents.“And, because elections are staggered, a minority group has less of an opportunity to concentrate its voting strength behind a candidate of choice,” Fraga said, according to the ruling.The ruling also cited the testimony of a former employee at the US justice department’s civil rights division, Stephen Popick.He said his study on voting behavior in Georgia between 2012 and 2020 showed “voter polarization” between Black and white voters, and the latter’s candidate always won even though Black voters all got behind the same leader as a group.Plaintiffs attorney Nico Martinez on Saturday told the Guardian he is “confident the district court’s well-reasoned decision will ultimately be upheld” as the case continues playing out in the 11th circuit, which could still block Grimberg’s ruling on other grounds, paving the way again for the November election date.“We are pleased that the supreme court took this important step to ensure that this November’s [public service commission] elections are not held using a method that unlawfully dilutes the votes of millions of Black citizens in Georgia,” said Martinez, a partner at the law firm Bartlit Beck.TopicsGeorgiaUS politicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      Why Do Women Support Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

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