Wyoming congresswoman says ‘It’s something I’m thinking about’ after losing to Trump-backed challenger
Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney has announced she is considering her own run for the White House in an all-out effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning another term as US president.
Cheney decisively lost her Republican primary race on Tuesday night and will lose her seat in the US Congress.
Continue reading...The vice-chair of the House January 6 panel faced retribution from state voters for going against the former president
Liz Cheney has paid the price for her staunch opposition to Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy by losing her seat in Congress to a challenger backed by the former president.
The vice-chair of the January 6 committee was beaten by a conservative lawyer, Harriet Hageman – who has echoed Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud – in a Republican primary election to decide Wyoming’s lone member in the House of Representatives.
Continue reading...White House hopes climate and healthcare plan will mark turning point for Biden’s presidency and boost Democrats in the midterms
Meanwhile in Kansas, abortion foes have apparently not given up on the state’s ballot initiative to allow lawmakers to restrict the procedure, which voters resoundingly rejected earlier this month.
The Associated Press reports that an anti-abortion activist and an election conspiracy promoter have teamed up to coordinate a recount of the ballots in nine of the state’s counties, which accounted for more than half of the votes cast on the initiative and all but one of which rejected it. According to the report, the abortion foe, Mark Gietzen put almost all of the $120,000 cost on his credit card to pay for the recount.
Continue reading...Larry Hogan describes comparisons of the FBI to Nazi Germany’s secret police, made by Florida senator Rick Scott, as dangerous
A handful of Republican governors have criticized the “outrageous rhetoric” of their party colleagues in the US Congress, who have accused federal law enforcement officers of a politicized attack on former president Donald Trump after executing a court-approved search warrant on his Florida home this week.
Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican moderate, described attacks by party members as both “absurd” and “dangerous”, after a week in which certain Republicans have compared the FBI to the Gestapo and fundraised off the slogan: “Defund the FBI”.
Continue reading...FBI was seeking evidence about whether the mishandling of documents violated three criminal statutes, search warrant shows
Further evidence that things are looking up for Democrats: Joe Biden’s approval rating is above 40 percent for the first time since early June, per RealClearPolitics’ polling average:
Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned attacks by Donald Trump and other Republicans on the FBI following their search this week of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Continue reading...Democrats select progressive Becca Balint for Vermont House seat while Trump-backed candidate nominated for Wisconsin governor
Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a member of the select progressive group in the House of Representative dubbed the Squad, eked out a closer-than-expected Democratic primary victory on Tuesday night against a centrist challenger who questioned the incumbent’s support for the “defund the police” movement.
The evening went far smoother for another progressive, Becca Balint, who won the Democratic House primary in Vermont – positioning her to become the first woman representing the state in Congress.
Continue reading...Trump and other candidates’ fundraising emails foment outrage and urge donations to stop the ‘Radical Left’
Republican and rightwing groups have swiftly used the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s winter home at Mar-a-Lago in Florida to raise money from their supporters by bombarding them with fundraising emails and appeals for donations.
In public the former US president, his allies and nearly all senior Republicans have expressed deep outrage at the raid, which is linked to Trump apparently keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago from his time in the White House. But the same figures have also seen the moment as a clear opportunity to urge supporters to dig deep into their pockets.
Continue reading...Republican’s phone could be relevant to bid to overturn 2020 election and mishandling of official records
Federal investigators seized the cellphone of the Republican congressman Scott Perry on Tuesday, his office said, suggesting the justice department is examining the communications of a close ally of Donald Trump and person of interest to the House January 6 select committee.
The move by the FBI to take Perry’s phone came a day after federal agents executed a search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and seized boxes of documents, though it was not clear whether the two events were connected.
Continue reading...Bipartisan group calls for new hearing over lack of evidence in case of Richard Glossip, 59, as state rushes to speed up executions
A letter signed by 61 Oklahoma lawmakers – most of them pro-death penalty Republicans – has been sent to the state’s attorney general calling for a new hearing in the case of Richard Glossip, a death row inmate scheduled to be executed next month.
Forty-four Republican and 17 Democratic legislators, amounting to more than a third of the state assembly, have written to John O’Connor pleading for the new hearing.
Continue reading...Bill makes concessions to the fossil fuel industry as frontline community groups call on Biden to declare climate emergency
The landmark climate legislation passed by the Senate after months of wrangling and weakening by fossil-fuel friendly Democrats will lead to more harm than good, according to frontline community groups who are calling on Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency.
If signed into law, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) would allocate $369bn to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions and invest in renewable energy sources – a historic amount that scientists estimate will lead to net reductions of 40% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.
Continue reading...Dan Newhouse, one of 10 members of Congress to vote for impeachment, set to beat Trump-backed Loren Culp in Washington state
Dan Newhouse, one of the few Republican House members to vote in January in favor of the impeachment of Donald Trump, is poised to move forward to the general election in Washington state, according to a projection by the Associated Press.
Newhouse was one of 10 Republicans who voted in January to have Trump impeached, even ahead of explosive revelations about the former president’s support and endorsement of the January 6 riots just a year prior.
Continue reading...Following her visit to Taiwan and China’s furious response, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reiterated her commitment to standing up for the country and said it’s shared by lawmakers across the US Congress.
“Our Congressional delegation’s visit should be seen as a strong statement that America stands with Taiwan. We came to Taiwan to listen to, learn from and show our support for the people of Taiwan, who have built a thriving Democracy that stands as one of the freest and most open in the world,” Pelosi said in a statement after the trip.
Continue reading...Antony Blinken, secretary of state, said at global nonproliferation discussions at the United Nations today that a return to the 2015 nuclear deal remains the best outcome for the United States, Iran and the world.
Reuters is reporting that Blinken made a point to repeat a warning from the US that North Korea is preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test.
Continue reading...Vermont senator opposed ‘corporate welfare’ to firms paying huge salaries to executives – but Chips and Science Act passed Congress
When it comes to alliances in Washington, few are as unlikely as the common ground the democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders briefly found with the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, two architects of conservative policies across the United States.
Yet that is what happened this week when Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, made a lonely and unsuccessful stand against a $280bn bill funding scientific research and, controversially, giving computer chip manufacturers financial incentives to build more production in the United States – one that rightwing groups also encouraged lawmakers to make.
Continue reading...In forthcoming memoir, obtained by the Guardian, former adviser claims to have made hugely consequential intervention
In a forthcoming memoir, Jared Kushner says he personally intervened to stop Donald Trump attacking Rupert Murdoch in response to the media mogul’s criticism, at the outset of Trump’s move into politics in 2015.
In the book, Breaking History, Kushner writes: “Trump called me. He’d clearly had enough. ‘This guy’s no good. And I’m going to tweet it.’
Continue reading...Bill would require support from at least 10 Senate Republicans, and it isn’t certain that all 50 Democratic senators are onboard
The assault weapons ban in America passed by the House appears set to be doomed in the Senate amid implacable Republican opposition to gun reform, even in the wake of a series of mass shootings in the US.
The legislation in the House, which would ban assault weapons for the first time since 2004, is interpreted as a sign that Democrats plan more aggressive gun violence prevention after a series of mass shootings using the military-derived weapons, including in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.
Continue reading...The rightwing group is planning a future more authoritarian, more extreme and more ruthless – with or without the former president
He spoke in lurid detail of cities overrun by violent crime. He railed against the media, deep state and liberal elites. And he touted his wall with a dire warning: “Millions of illegal aliens are stampeding across our wide open borders, pouring into our country. It’s an invasion.”
Donald Trump’s return to Washington this week was deja vu all over again. The former US president’s 90-minute speech at a luxury hotel was eerily reminiscent of the nativist-populist campaign that won him the White House in 2016. But while Trump himself never evolves, his audience this time around was different.
Continue reading...In a memoir obtained by the Guardian, former campaign manager risks embarrassing powerful rivals with description of apology
Donald Trump made an uncharacteristic apology to Ted Cruz after insulting his wife and father during the 2016 campaign – only for the Texas senator still to refuse to endorse Trump at the Republican convention.
In a new memoir, Trump’s then campaign manager, Paul Manafort, writes: “On his own initiative, Trump did apologise for saying some of the things he said about Cruz, which was unusual for Trump.”
Continue reading...Prosectors expect former president to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his ex-officials from speaking
An impassioned plea from a 12-year-old girl has gone viral after she spoke to West Virginia Republican lawmakers during a public hearing for an abortion bill that would prohibit the procedure in nearly all cases.
On Wednesday, Addison Gardner of Buffalo middle school in Kenova, West Virginia, was among several people who spoke out against a bill that would not only ban abortions in most cases but also allow for physicians who perform abortions to be prosecuted.
Continue reading...Joe Biden “was not involved” in negotiations over the newly announced Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Manchin has said, claiming credit instead for himself and his own aides.
In a press call Thursday morning that shed a little more light, but not very much, on how the bill came to be, the Democratic West Virginia senator said:
It was me and my staff. And then we worked with [Senate majority leader Chuck] Schumer’s staff. My staff was driving it. We wrote the bill. Schumer’s staff would look at it and we would negotiate, and we worked that through them.
President Biden was not involved.
Continue reading...