Category Archives: Republicans

DeSantis to meet UK foreign secretary with eye on US presidential bid

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Florida governor lines up four-nation tour in attempt to boost credentials as credible leader on world stage

Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, is to meet the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, in London at the end of the month as he attempts to burnish his credentials as a credible Republican leader capable of operating on a global stage ahead of a widely expected run for US president.

He is to lead a Florida trade delegation on a four-nation tour taking in Japan, South Korea, Israel and the UK.

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Senate asks supreme court chief justice to testify on ethics amid Clarence Thomas revelations – as it happened

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The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee has asked chief justice John Roberts to testify on 2 May about the court’s ethics, following revelations of undisclosed links between a Republican megadonor and conservative justice Clarence Thomas.

In a letter to Roberts, judiciary committee chair Richard Durbin did not mention those reports about Thomas specifically, but noted that since he last addressed the court’s ethics in 2011 “there has been a steady stream of revelations regarding Justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and, indeed, of public servants generally. These problems were already apparent back in 2011, and the Court’s decade-long failure to address them has contributed to a crisis of public confidence. The status quo is no longer tenable.”

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Fox still in legal peril over election lies after settling with Dominion – live

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Media empire still faces defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic as shareholders reportedly considering trip to the courts

A top House Republican has signaled that the party will indeed try to impeach homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the New York Times reports.

Mark Green, the chair of the House homeland security committee, told donors this weekend that the effort would kick off this week when the secretary testifies before his committee, which happened Tuesday. The Times, citing a recording of a House Freedom Caucus fundraiser it obtained, said the case would focus on Mayorkas’s “dereliction of duty and his intentional destruction of our country through the open southern border.”

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Top Republicans visit New York to sound off on debt ceiling and crime – live

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In his speech, Kevin McCarthy raised the specter of Joe Biden causing a debt default by refusing to negotiate.

Such an event would be unprecedented in US history, and could have catastrophic consequences for the global economy. Here’s more of McCarthy’s remarks:

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Republican donor pauses Ron DeSantis funding over abortion and book banning

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Thomas Peterffy says Florida governor ‘seems to have lost some momentum’ in undeclared bid for 2024 presidential nomination

A top Republican donor said he had paused plans to fund Ron DeSantis’s expected presidential run because of the Florida governor’s “stance on abortion and book banning”.

Thomas Peterffy, founder of Interactive Brokers, a digital trading platform, told the Financial Times: “I have put myself on hold. Because of his stance on abortion and book banning … myself, and a bunch of friends, are holding our powder dry.”

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Lindsey Graham calls fellow Republican ‘irresponsible’ for defending Pentagon leaker

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Conspiracy theorist and election denier Marjorie Taylor Greene says national guardsman Jack Teixeira has been treated unfairly

Senator Lindsey Graham condemned his fellow Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene as “terribly irresponsible” on Sunday, after the far-right congresswoman defended the air national guardsman charged with leaking Pentagon intelligence documents.

Speaking on ABC’s This Week show, Graham said the leaks had “done a lot of damage to our standing” and criticized “those who are trying to sugarcoat this on the right”.

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Too many with access, too little vetting. Pentagon leaks were ‘a matter of time’

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Jack Teixeira’s arrest has exposed a system weakened by the legacy of 9/11 and caught off guard by an enemy that is increasingly within

Jack Teixeira, 21 years old, clean-shaven, with buzz-cut hair and proudly uniformed, is the face of America’s newest security threat, one it is struggling to resolve.

The formidable US counter-intelligence infrastructure is adept at finding spies and rooting out whistleblowers. Teixeira, charged on Friday on two counts of the Espionage Act, is neither spy nor whistleblower.

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Mike Pompeo says he will not run for president in 2024 election

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Former secretary of state and Trump ally decides not to challenge ex-boss for the Republican nomination

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said on Friday that he will not run for president in the 2024 election.

The devoted ally and defender of Donald Trump opted out of a contest that would have put him into competition with his former commander in chief.

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‘They created this’: are Republicans willing to lose elections to retain their abortion stance?

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The right has, for decades, relied on abortion to rally their conservative base, but now their unified policy is flagging

Democrats have taken multiple actions in response to what they say is a “draconian” and “dangerous” decision by a federal judge in Texas threatening access to the most commonly used method of abortion in the US.

Several Democratic governors have begun to stockpile doses of the drugs used in medication abortions. Nearly every Democrat in Congress signed onto an amicus brief urging an appeals court to stay the decision, while some called on the Biden administration to simply “ignore” the ruling, should it be allowed to stand. A group of House Democrats introduced a bill that would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) final approval over drugs used in medication abortion.

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Pentagon leaks suspect wins praise from far-right US politicians and media

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Marjorie Taylor Greene calls Jack Teixeira ‘white, male, Christian and anti-war’ as Tucker Carlson says his sin was ‘telling the truth’

Washington lawmakers have written off Jack Teixeira, the 21-year-old air national guardsman accused of being behind the worst US intelligence leak in a decade, as an “alleged criminal” after his arrest yesterday, but that hasn’t stopped him from winning praise from the political right.

“He revealed the crimes, therefore he’s the criminal. That’s how Washington works. Telling the truth is the only real sin,” declared the Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson on Thursday evening in the opening monologue of his show, which is the most watched on cable television. “The news media are celebrating the capture of the kid who told Americans what’s actually happening in Ukraine. They are treating him like Osama bin Laden,” the late al-Qaida terrorist leader.

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Jack Teixeira: suspect in Pentagon leaks charged under Espionage Act – live

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Member of air national guard, 21, accused of leaking sensitive documents pertaining to US intelligence

“This is not just about taking home documents,” US attorney general Merrick Garland said about the Pentagon leaks.

“This is about … both the unlawful retention and transmission of the documents … There are very serious penalties associated with that. People who sign agreements to be able to receive classified documents acknowledge the importance to national security of not disclosing those documents and we intend to send that message to our national security,” he added.

“The first public reporting regarding the Government Information appeared on or around April 6, 2023. Accordingly, there is reason to believe that Texeira was searching for classified reporting regarding the US Intelligence Community’s assessment of the identity of the individual who transmitted classified national defense information to include the Government Document,” it added.

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Ron DeSantis signs bill approving six-week abortion ban in Florida

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Bill gives governor key political victory ahead of expected presidential campaign

The Republican-dominated Florida legislature on Thursday approved a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a proposal supported by the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, as he prepares for an expected presidential run.

DeSantis, a Republican, later signed the bill into law. “We are proud to support life and family in the state of Florida,” he said in a statement. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks.

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DeSantis pleads with Florida Congress members to stop endorsing Trump

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Governor phones representatives, dismayed that four members of delegation have backed former president for 2024 nomination

The soft launch of Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign appears to be stuttering further after a report emerged claiming Florida’s Republican governor was calling members of the state’s congressional delegation to persuade them to stop endorsing Donald Trump.

DeSantis has yet to formally declare his pursuit of his party’s 2024 nomination, but has seen an erosion in recent weeks of his formerly strong support, with Trump pulling further ahead in polling.

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‘You can’t expel our fight’: ousted Democrat returns to Tennessee house

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Memphis officials voted to reinstate Justin Pearson, the second of two lawmakers expelled from legislature by Republicans

Hundreds of supporters marched Justin Pearson through Memphis to the Shelby county board of commissioners meeting on Wednesday, chanting and cheering before entering the commission chambers, where officials quickly voted 7-0 to restore him to his position.

“The message for all the people in Nashville who decided to expel us: You can’t expel hope. You can’t expel justice,” Pearson said at the meeting, his voice rising as he spoke. “You can’t expel our voice. And you sure can’t expel our fight.”

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Donald Trump reportedly sues former lawyer Michael Cohen for $500m – as it happened

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Lawsuit claims former fixer breached attorney-client privilege and unjustly enriched himself, among other allegations

Tennessee’s neighbor Kentucky is having its own reckoning with gun violence after a mass shooting in Louisville on Monday left five people dead.

But as the Washington Post reports, the partisan divide over what to do about these repeated acts of violence is as wide as ever in the solidly Republican state. The Post tuned into public events held by two freshman House representatives from the state, one the sole Democrat in its delegation, the other a Republican.

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Nashville council votes to reinstate expelled Democrat Justin Jones

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Republican majority had ousted Jones and fellow house member Justin Pearson over protests they led demanding gun control

The city of Nashville’s governing council on Monday afternoon voted unanimously to return expelled Black lawmaker Justin Jones to the Tennessee state legislature.

The body’s Republican majority state lawmakers had expelled Jones and fellow house member Justin Pearson late last week because they led protests in the chamber demanding gun control after yet another mass shooting in an American school, this one at an elementary school in the city days before.

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Senate Democrats urge supreme court investigation of Clarence Thomas

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Chief justice John Roberts pressed to open inquiry into conduct deemed inconsistent with ethical standards

The US Senate judiciary committee’s Democratic members on Monday unanimously urged the supreme court chief justice, John Roberts, to investigate luxury trips taken by associate justice Clarence Thomas that were paid for by a hugely wealthy Republican party donor.

The senators deemed the justice’s conduct inconsistent with ethical standards for “any person in a position of public trust”, they said.

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Senate calls on supreme court chief justice to investigate Clarence Thomas’s ‘gift’ trips – as it happened

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Judiciary committee will review supreme court justice’s undeclared luxury travel with Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow

Donald Trump is trying to prevent his former vice-president, Mike Pence, from testifying to the grand jury investigating the January 6 insurrection, NBC News reports:

Earlier this month, Pence decided to drop his legal challenge to the subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating the insurrection at the Capitol in addition to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago.

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Kamala Harris meets with Nashville lawmakers after Democrats expelled over anti-gun protests – as it happened

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Vice-president visiting lawmakers at Fisk University as Republican-controlled house’s move condemned as racist

It’s lunchtime on Friday, and we’re waiting to hear from Democrats in Tennessee how they intend to respond to the vote by Republicans to expel two young Black Democrats from the state’s House after they led a protest calling for gun reforms.

A wave of outrage followed Thursday’s move. Joe Biden blasted the move “undemocratic” while the ACLU of Tennessee, and Martin Luther King III, son of the civil rights pioneer, suggested racism was behind the action.

Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has been defending himself after reports he accepted decades or undeclared hospitality from a Republican mega-donor. Thomas, a staunch conservative, says he didn’t believe he was required to disclose it.

The Biden administration released a proposal that would forbid schools and colleges across the US from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes competing in sports.

US officials say they suspect Russia is behind the leaking and posting on social media of top secret documents, including an assessment of the country’s progress in its war in Ukraine.

Republicans in Kansas voted to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, but the bill is likely to be vetoed by Democratic governor Laura Kelly.

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Trump reportedly seeks 2024 campaign role for far-right activist Laura Loomer

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Ex-president has told aides to hire failed congressional candidate and anti-Muslim campaigner, New York Times reports

Donald Trump has told aides to hire the far-right anti-Muslim activist and failed congressional candidate Laura Loomer for a role in his campaign to return to the White House in 2024, the New York Times has reported.

Citing four anonymous sources, the Times noted that Loomer, 29, attended Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Tuesday night, an angry rant delivered hours after the former president pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges in New York over hush money payments, including to the porn star Stormy Daniels.

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