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    John Hinckley gains full freedom 41 years after Ronald Reagan assassination attempt

    John Hinckley gains full freedom 41 years after Ronald Reagan assassination attemptHinckley, who shot and wounded the president in 1981 but was acquitted by reason of insanity, had decades of mental health supervision John Hinckley, who shot and wounded US president Ronald Reagan in 1981, has been freed from court oversight, officially concluding decades of supervision by legal and mental health professionals.“After 41 years 2 months and 15 days, FREEDOM AT LAST!!!,” he wrote on Twitter shortly after noon on Wednesday.The lifting of all restrictions had been expected since late September. US district court judge Paul L Friedman in Washington had said he would free Hinckley on 15 June if he continued to remain mentally stable in the community in Virginia where he has lived since 2016.Hinckley, who was acquitted of trying to kill the then US president by reason of insanity, spent the decades before that in a Washington mental hospital.Close calls: when American presidents diced with deathRead more Hinckley has gained nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter and YouTube in recent months as the judge loosened Hinckley’s restrictions before fully lifting all of them.But the greying 67-year-old is far from being the household name that he became after shooting and wounding the 40th US president and several others outside a Washington hotel. Today, historians say Hinckley is at best a question on a quiz show and someone who unintentionally helped build the Reagan legend and inspire a push for stricter gun control.“If Hinckley had succeeded in killing Reagan, then he would have been a pivotal historical figure,” HW Brands, a historian and Reagan biographer, wrote in an email to the Associated Press. “As it is, he is a misguided soul whom history has already forgotten.”Barbara A Perry, a professor and director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, said that Hinckley “would be maybe a Jeopardy question”. But his impact remains tangible in Reagan’s legacy.“For the president himself to have been so seriously wounded, and to come back from that that actually made Ronald Reagan the legend that he became … like the movie hero that he was,” Perry said.Reagan showed grace and humor in the face of death, Perry said. After being shot, the president told emergency room doctors that he hoped they were all Republicans. He later joked to his wife Nancy that he was sorry he “forgot to duck”.When the president first spoke to Congress after the shooting, he looked “just a little bit thinner, but he’s still the robust cowboy that is Ronald Reagan”, Perry said.‘Honey, I forgot to duck’: the attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan, 40 years onRead moreThe assassination attempt paralyzed Reagan press secretary James Brady, who died in 2014.In 1993, president Bill Clinton signed into law the Brady bill, which required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence are named after Brady and his wife Sarah.The shooting also injured Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty.Hinckley was 25 and suffering from acute psychosis at the time of the attack. When jurors found him not guilty by reason of insanity, they said he needed treatment and not a lifetime in confinement. He was ordered to live at St Elizabeths hospital in Washington.In the 2000s, Hinckley began making visits to his parents’ home in a gated community in Williamsburg. A 2016 court order granted him permission to live with his mother full time, albeit under various restrictions, after experts said his mental illness had been in remission for decades.Hinckley’s mother died in July. He signed a lease on a one-bedroom apartment in the area last year and began living there with his cat, Theo, according to court filings.Over the years, the court restricted Hinckley from owning a gun or using drugs or alcohol. He also couldn’t contact the actor Jodie Foster, with whom he was obsessed at the time of the shooting, or any of his victims or their families.TopicsUS newsVirginiaRonald ReaganUS gun controlUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Third panel hearing will show Trump’s pressure on Pence to overturn election

    Third panel hearing will show Trump’s pressure on Pence to overturn electionEx-president leaned on then vice-president to reject certified electors despite being told scheme was unlawful The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack intends to outline at its third hearing on Thursday how Donald Trump corruptly pressured then vice-president Mike Pence to reject the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election and directly contributed to the insurrection.The panel will first examine the genesis of Trump’s pressure campaign on Pence to adopt an unconstitutional and unlawful plan to reject certified electors from certain states at the congressional certification in an attempt to give Trump a second presidential term.The select committee then intends to show how that theory – advanced by external Trump legal adviser John Eastman – was rejected by Pence, his lawyers and the White House counsel’s office, who universally told the former president that the entire scheme was unlawful.Trump’s raising of $250m for fund that ‘did not exist’ suggests possible fraudRead moreBut Trump deliberately ignored his top White House advisers to go down that path, the panel will show. And, the panel contends, in escalating his campaign to obstruct Biden’s certification through the morning of 6 January 2021, Trump contributed to the violence of the Capitol attack.The select committee will additionally show that Trump’s false public remarks about Pence having the power to refuse to count votes for Biden – Pence had no such power – directly put the vice-president’s life in danger as the mob chanted “hang Mike Pence”.Trump’s involvement in the Pence strategy makes the former president liable for the crimes of obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to defraud the United States, the panel has argued. A federal judge has agreed, calling it “a coup in search of a legal theory”.The select committee previewed details on the third hearing on a call with reporters. The panel said the hearing would be led by congressman Pete Aguilar, with witness questioning done by former US attorney John Wood, who was appointed senior investigative counsel by vice-chairperson Liz Cheney.The select committee will hear from Pence’s former counsel Greg Jacob as well as retired former US appellate court judge J Michael Luttig over the course of the hearing, which is expected to last around two hours, according to a source familiar with its planning.The select committee is likely to focus heavily on the role played by Eastman, who as early as 18 November 2020 was writing memos under the guise of the “Trump legal team” and proposing a brazen plan to send Trump slates of electors to Congress for certification.But Eastman’s plan to have Pence see that there were “duelling” slates of electors and therefore refuse to certify either Biden or Trump slates – which would result in Trump’s receiving more electoral college votes – relied on states certifying the Trump slates.On 13 December 2020, the so-called Trump legal team was circulating a “President of the Senate” strategy that referred to Pence taking such action on 6 January 2021, a clear violation of the law governing the certification, according to emails released in court filings.Crucially, however, the state legislatures had still not met by that date to certify an alternate Trump slate of electors, which Eastman showed in emails that he knew needed to happen in order for his delicate scheme to have any chance of success.Eastman also undermined the scheme when he admitted in emails on 19 December 2020, released in court filings, that “unless those electors get a certification from their State Legislators”, the Trump slates would be “dead on arrival in Congress”.The emails showed Eastman knew the plan rested on states certifying Trump slates. But when he presented a memo to Pence in January 2021 attesting to the existence of Trump slates – that did not actually exist – he revealed corrupt intent to obstruct proceedings on 6 January 2021, the panel believes.No state legislatures ultimately certified an alternate slate of electors for Trump. The Trump White House appears to have participated in a related scheme to send fake Trump slates to Congress, though those were not introduced at the certification on the day of the attack.But the select committee intends to reveal at the hearing that Pence’s counsel, Jacob, and others including Luttig, all informed the then-vice-president that even if the states had transmitted alternate slates of electors, the plan was unlawful from the start.The Trump White House counsel separately told Trump that Eastman’s plan violated the law, Cassidy Hutchinson, a top former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, has also testified to the panel.Yet Trump and Eastman proceeded with the plan anyway. At the Save America rally on 6 January 2021, Trump told his supporters that he hoped Pence would do the “right thing” and just refuse to certify Biden’s election win, knowing full well by then that it was unlawful.The select committee is likely to show, finally, that Eastman himself knew the strategy was unlawful. In an email he sent to Jacob as the Trump mob stormed the Capitol, he admitted the scheme violated the law, but then he said Pence could surely violate the law a little more.Eastman said in the email that because Biden’s certification had been temporarily interrupted by the Capitol attack, Congress had violated the law governing the process. So Pence should have no problem committing “one more minor violation and adjourn for 10 days”, he said.TopicsJan 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpMike PenceTrump administrationUS elections 2020House of RepresentativesReuse this content More

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    Federal Reserve announces biggest interest rate hike since 1994

    Federal Reserve announces biggest interest rate hike since 1994Fed confirms 0.75 percentage-point increase as Americans across country hit hard by rising prices and shortages of key items With soaring inflation and the shadow of recession hanging over the United States, the Federal Reserve announced a 0.75 percentage-point increase in interest rates on Wednesday – the largest hike since 1994.Until this week the Fed had been expected to announce a smaller increase. At a press conference, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, said the central bank decided that a larger hike was needed after recent economic news, including last week’s announcement that inflation had risen to a 40-year high.He made clear that a similarly outsized rate rise should be expected at its next meeting in July unless price rises softened. “We at the Fed understand the hardship inflation is causing,” he said. “Inflation can’t go down until it flattens out. That’s what we’re looking to see.”The hike will increase the Fed’s benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 1.5% and 1.75% and officials said they expected rates to rise to at least 3% this year.Powell acknowledged that the Fed’s attempt to cool spending is likely to lead to job losses. The Fed expects unemployment to rise to 4.1% from the current rate of 3.6% as it attempts to bring inflation back down to its target rate of 2%.“We never seek to put people out of work,” Powell said. But, he added: “You really cannot have the kind of labor market we want without price stability.”The rate rise came after more bad news on inflation late last week sent US stock markets into a tailspin, presenting the Fed and the Biden administration with an escalating crisis amid fears that runaway inflation has now spread through the economy.Over a third of US population urged to stay indoors amid record-breaking heatRead moreThe Fed cut rates to near zero at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, as the US and global economies effectively shut down. It increased rates for the first time since 2018 in March this year, but the increase did nothing to tamp down rising prices.Powell initially described rising prices as “transitory”, but has changed his view and says the Fed intends to aggressively increase rates in order to bring prices back under control. There are already signs that consumers are cutting back in the face of rising inflation. Retail spending fell for the first time this year in May, the commerce department said on Wednesday. Home sales have fallen for three consecutive months and consumer confidence hit a record low between May and June.Last week the labor department announced consumer prices were 8.6% higher in May than they were a year ago. The increase was broad-based, with food and fuel prices rising alongside rent, airfares and car prices.Across the country, consumers are being confronted by rising prices and shortages. Nationally, gas now costs an average of $5 per gallon, close to $2 higher than a year ago. In California, a gallon of gas now costs more than $6, up from just over $4 a year ago.Supply chain disruptions and other issues have led to shortages of basic necessities including tampons and baby formula.On Wednesday, Joe Biden summoned top oil executives to the White House to discuss ways they can “work with my administration to bring forward concrete, near-term solutions that address the crisis”.Biden’s handling of the inflation issue has battered his poll numbers. With crucial midterm elections, and control of Congress, coming up in November, Biden’s approval rating is 33%, according to Quinnipiac University’s national poll, equal to the lowest rating for his administration.Many parts of the economy remain strong and the Fed is aiming for a “soft landing” – hoping it can tame inflation by raising rates without sharply increasing the unemployment rate – but Powell acknowledged some risks, including the war in Ukraine, were beyond the influence of the Fed.Nearly 70% of the academic economists polled by the Financial Times and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business now believe the US economy will tip into a recession next year.TopicsFederal ReserveUS interest ratesUS economyInflationUS politicsBiden administrationEconomicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Elon Musk suggests he may vote for Republican Ron DeSantis in 2024

    Elon Musk suggests he may vote for Republican Ron DeSantis in 2024World’s richest man says in tweet he is leaning towards Florida governor after voting Republican in Texas special election The tech billionaire Elon Musk said on Wednesday that he would possibly vote for Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, if he were to run in the 2024 US presidential election.The billionaire tech mogul’s expression of support for DeSantis, albeit vague, was among several tweets in which he discussed some of his political leanings after he recently declared himself a Republican.Musk claimed to back the successful Republican congressional candidate Mayra Flores during a special election in Texas on Tuesday.“I voted for Mayra Flores – first time I ever voted Republican. Massive red wave in 2022,” Musk said.Mayra Flores wins special election to turn Texas House seat RepublicanRead more“I assume republican for president 2?” an account called Tesla Owners Silicon Valley asked.Musk replied, “tbd,” prompting the follow-up: “What are you leaning towards?”“DeSantis,” Musk said.Musk’s seeming support of DeSantis comes as the high-profile Republican – who is both a staunch ally to Donald Trump as well as a potential rival – appears to be a strong contender in the party’s presidential primary.The rising star has bested Trump in recent polls of Republican activists, as some conservative diehards seem to be tiring of the ex-president’s insistence that he won the 2020 election.Trump’s “big lie” claim has repeatedly been proven wrong. Joe Biden won the presidency and there is no evidence that he did so unlawfully.DeSantis has been ramping up his efforts to position himself as a true conservative. He has signed into law legislation that strips Black voters’ power through gerrymandering congressional districts to benefit Republicans, for example. DeSantis also curtailed the discussion of race and diversity in schools and businesses. He has also signed off on bills that ban discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in some Florida classrooms with his “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.His attack on what he called “wokeism” has come to include bans on math textbooks that supposedly include “prohibited” subjects, such as critical race theory. He has also tried banning medical care for transgender youths and engaged in a sparring match with Disney.Disney publicly opposed DeSantis’s attack on LBGTQ+ rights. DeSantis’s dogged rhetoric on social issues has built a strong brand, with political science professor Michael Binder previously telling the Guardian: “He’s nicknamed Governor Grievance.”TopicsRepublicansElon MuskUS politicsRon DeSantisnewsReuse this content More

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    Mayra Flores wins special election to turn Texas House seat Republican

    Mayra Flores wins special election to turn Texas House seat RepublicanSouth Texas congressional district goes Republican for first time as party continues to make inroads among Latino voters A south Texas congressional district will be represented by a Republican for the first time following a special election on Tuesday. The election of Mayra Flores, who bested her Democrat competitor in a 51%-43% vote, comes as Republicans continue to make inroads among Latino voters in south Texas.Bernie Sanders skewers Republican critic of ‘full-on socialism’ in Fox debateRead moreFlores, reportedly the first Latina Republican to serve Texas in Congress, is expected to face a more challenging race in November, however. Her victory was to replace Democrat Filemon Vela, who retired before his term ended – meaning she was elected to serve out the remainder.During November’s general election, voters will determine who will serve as the district’s permanent congressional representative starting in 2022. Flores, who is running for this seat in the general election, will face off against Democratic nominee Vicente Gonzalez.Gonzalez now serves as the representative for a neighboring congressional district. He is reportedly expected to beat Flores in the election.Flores’s victory comes as Republicans ramp up efforts to court Latino voters and amid a slew of polls and elections showing a broader shift among Latino voters away from the Democrats.“If you look at things like the Texas local elections, the New Jersey elections, Nassau County elections, the Virginia elections, they all point to Hispanics not just not snapping back but continuing to get more Republican in relative terms than they were before,” David Shor, a political data analyst of the left, told Yahoo News.Indeed, Flores touted her conservative bona fides on the campaign trail. She invoked elements of Trump’s rhetoric, and leaned heavily on law-and-order motifs in describing her background.Flores, a respiratory care worker, was born in Mexico. On her website, Flores boasts that her parents and grandparents “raised her with strong conservative values and to always put God and family first”.She has made clear that her immigration to the US at age six was done “legally” and “with the help of her father … gave her family the biggest gift, the gift of becoming a proud, naturalized American citizen”.Flores has also voiced alignment with “America First”, an exceptionalist rightwing clarion call to those who feel neglected by politicians. She has claimed her district has long had “to beg for scraps from Nancy Pelosi” and said “for over 100 years, the Democratic party has taken for granted the loyalty and support south Texas has given them for decades”.“They do nothing to earn our vote or our support,” Flores also said on her campaign site. She also faulted President Joe Biden by claiming that he signed “a record number of executive orders to kill Texas jobs, weaken border security, and remove protection for the unborn”.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Trump’s raising of $250m for fund that ‘did not exist’ suggests possible fraud

    Trump’s raising of $250m for fund that ‘did not exist’ suggests possible fraud‘The big lie was also the big rip-off,’ says Democrat Zoe Lofgren after January 6 panel appears to make case for fundraising fraud The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack appeared to make the case at its second hearing that Donald Trump and his campaign engaged in potential fundraising fraud, raising $250m for a Trump “election defense fund” that did not actually exist.Like Napoleon at Elba, Donald Trump plots his revenge and return | Lloyd GreenRead moreThe hearing, led by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, also showed that Trump and the campaign raised millions for thefund and then funneled the money to, among other destinations, the Trump business properties as well as Trump’s own Save America political action committee.In showing that Trump deceived donors into contributing money to the election defense fund – based on claims about a stolen election that his top advisers told him were nonsense – the panel suggested Trump engaged in potential fraud as well as other violations of federal law.The select committee said through filings and other evidence, it found the Trump campaign raised $100m in the first week after the election and overall raised about $250m as it asked donors to help fundraise legal challenges to the results.But the “Official Election Defense Fund”, as it was billed on fundraising emails that were repeatedly sent up until 30 minutes before the Capitol attack, did not formally exist, according to Trump campaign aides Hannah Allred and Gary Coby, who testified to the panel.“The big lie was also a big ripoff,” Lofgren said of the deception at the hearing, later telling CNN: “He intentionally misled his donors, asked them to donate to a fund that didn’t exist and used the money raised for something other than what it said.”The Trump campaign was able to fundraise through to January 6 since Trump continued frivolous election litigation past the so-called safe harbor deadline, which is generally accepted as the date by which state-level election challenges – like recounts – must be completed.The select committee doubled down on establishing Trump’s criminal or corrupt intent in seeking to overturn the 2020 election results by showing he could not have reasonably believed he had defeated Biden when some of his most senior advisers told him otherwise.Trump was told by every credible adviser, from former attorney general Bill Barr to former Trump campaign chair Bill Stepien to former Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann to former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt, that the election was not stolen.The admissions by Trump’s top officials are significant as they could put federal prosecutors one step closer to being able to charge Trump with obstructing an official proceeding or defrauding the United States on the basis of election fraud claims he knew were false.The select committee in short made the case that if Trump is ever charged, he could not use the defense that he acted in potential criminal ways because he earnestly believed there was election fraud because he was told otherwise – the doctrine of “wilful blindness”.At the second hearing, the select committee also revealed a new piece of information: that Trump falsely declared victory on election night at the White House at the insistence of his attorney Rudy Giuliani, and against the advice of every other presidential adviser.The former president had infamously claimed on election night that “frankly, we did win this election” even though no winner had yet been announced, as a number of the most closely contested states were still counting millions of mail-in ballots.How Trump came to falsely declare victory on election night was not exactly clear, until the select committee on Tuesday played a video of the top Trump White House aide Jason Miller testifying that Giuliani recommended to Trump they just pretend that they had won.“They’re stealing it from us,” Giuliani told the then president when he found him at the White House, according to Miller, who also testified that the former New York mayor seemed drunk. “Where do all the votes come from? We need to go say that we won.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsJan 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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    More than 100 Republican primary winners support Trump’s baseless election claim

    More than 100 Republican primary winners support Trump’s baseless election claimAt least 108 primary victors in races across several states have won after repeating false claims originated by the former president More than 100 Republican primary winners support Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.At least 108 primary victors in races across several states have won after repeating claims originated by Trump that electoral fraudsters denied his winning the 2020 election after rigging the race in favor of Joe Biden, according to new analysis from the Washington Post.Those who questioned the 2020 election results won primary races for seats in the House of Representatives, US Senate seats, state gubernatorial mansions, and other high-profile positions.A large amount of primary winners also campaigned on improving electoral security, but they offered no evidence that current practices in that sector are compromised.“These officeholders are so important,” said Joanna Lydgate, founder and CEO of States United Democracy Center, a nonprofit promoting free and fair elections, to the Post. “They are going to be the ones on whose backs our democracy survives or doesn’t.”Excluding primaries from 7 June, eight US Senate candidates, 86 candidates for the House of Representatives, five gubernatorial candidates, four candidates for state attorney general and one for secretary of state have all won while promoting Trump’s 2020 election denialism.Among primary winners who have publicly questioned the results of the 2020 election, many either participated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol or have attempted to reframe that day’s events.JR Majewski, the GOP primary winner for the Ohio congressional district, attended the US Capitol riots and is a proponent of the QAnon baseless internet conspiracy theory, which outlandishly posits that Trump is secretly locked in combat with a cabal of leftist pedophiles.He has also claimed that the 2020 election was fraudulent and has called for Republican states to secede from the US.In Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, primary winner Doug Mastriano was also at the US Capitol on January 6 and helped bus in supporters. Mastriano has suggested that state legislators should appoint their own electors – ignoring the results of a democratic vote – and hired 2020 election denier Jenna Ellis as apart of his campaign.Besides newcomers, incumbents who previously voted to overturn the 2020 election results also won their primaries, Politico reported.In California, Representative Doug LaMalfa of California’s first district and minority leader Kevin McCarthy both finished atop their primary races.Similarly, Representative Trent Kelly of Mississippi and Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana, who both voted to overturn the 2020 electoral results, had successful primaries, winning with an overwhelming majority of the vote.The primary results demonstrate a startling trend of mainstream Republican voters embracing election denialism and other ideals once thought to be on the fringes of political discourse.Propagation of the false 2020 election fraud claims comes as the House continues investigating the Capitol insurrection, with evidence emerging that Trump was informed via top aides that the election fraud theories were “baseless”.TopicsUS politicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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    The International Community cannot allow Mariupol to be the next Aleppo

    The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More