Far-right Colorado representative had won the third district by just 546 votes in 2022 and will move to the fourth for a ‘fresh start’
Colorado’s Republican representative Lauren Boebert has announced that she will be changing congressional districts ahead of her 2024 Republican nomination bid for the House.
In a Facebook video on Wednesday, the 36-year old, far-right representative announced that she would be moving from Colorado’s third district to its fourth district.
Continue reading...Critics call decision by Steve Jones a ‘disgrace’ and say recently redrawn maps dilute voting power of minority residents
A federal judge in Georgia on Thursday upheld a Republican-drawn congressional map, a ruling branded “a disgrace” by voting rights advocates who claim that the latest district lines illegally dilute the voting power of minority residents.
The decision from Steve Jones set the stage for next year’s elections, with Republicans now likely to maintain their 9-5 advantage among the swing state’s 14 seats in the US House of Representatives.
Continue reading...Prank call to police claimed a shooting occurred at Scott’s Naples home, prompting a Swat team to deploy before standing down
The Republican Florida senator Rick Scott has said that his home was “swatted” on Wednesday night.
While he was dining with his wife, Ann, local Naples authorities responded to what was revealed to be a prank call intentionally made to lure resources like a Swat team to a location to respond to a false threat of danger, otherwise known as a “swatting call”.
Continue reading...From removing a House speaker and expelling an indicted member, it was not a great year for America’s representatives
Before House Republicans left for their holiday recess this month, they addressed one last matter of business. They did not take up an aid package for Ukraine or pass an appropriations bill to fully fund the government through the fiscal year.
The House chose instead to vote along party lines to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, even though Republicans have failed to uncover any proof that the president financially benefited from his family’s business dealings.
Continue reading...Amid fears of authoritarianism, oldest US president likely to face off against first president to be criminally charged
The 60th US presidential election, which will unfold in 2024, will be quite unlike any that has gone before as the US, and the rest of the world, braces for a contest amid fears of eroding democracy and the looming threat of authoritarianism.
It will be a fight marked by numerous unwanted firsts as the oldest president in the country’s history is likely to face the first former US president to stand trial on criminal charges. A once aspirational nation will continue its plunge into anxiety and divisions about crime, immigration, race, foreign wars and the cost of living.
Continue reading...Republican convicted over false statements about payment from billionaire should not have been tried in Los Angeles, court says
An appellate court on Tuesday reversed a 2022 federal conviction against former Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry, ruling that the Republican should not have been tried in Los Angeles.
Fortenberry was convicted in March 2022 on charges that he lied to federal authorities about an illegal $30,000 contribution to his campaign from a foreign billionaire at a 2016 Los Angeles fundraiser. He resigned his seat days later after pressure from congressional leaders and Nebraska’s Republican governor.
Continue reading...Legalization advocates say reclassifying drug to schedule III from schedule I doesn’t resolve state and federal law conflicts
The US government appears poised to announce next year the most sweeping changes in decades to how it handles marijuana, the psychoactive drug dozens of states allow to be sold from storefronts, but which federal law considers among the most dangerous substances.
Evidence suggests that Joe Biden’s administration, responding to a policy the president announced last year, is working on moving marijuana to schedule III of the Controlled Substance Act (CSA), a change from its current listing on the maximally restrictive schedule I. That would lessen the tax burden on businesses selling the drug in states where it is legal, and potentially change how police agencies view enforcement of marijuana laws.
Continue reading...Congresswoman said hoaxer tried to trigger police response while Colorado justices who ruled against Trump face threats
The political became personal over the Christmas holiday as the homes of politicos and judges were targeted by threats, protests and “swatting” hoaxes by pranksters who call in fake emergencies to authorities in the hopes of prompting a forceful police response.
A swatting hoax targeted the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Authorities said they were investigating threats against the Colorado supreme court justices who ruled that Trump could not appear on the state’s ballots in the 2024 presidential election because he incited an insurrection on the day of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Continue reading...Centrists are taking on progressives in upcoming House races, as some say they’re losing sight of the big picture
A looming clash between the centre and left of the Democratic party could unseat members of the “the Squad” of progressives and hand a gift to Donald Trump’s Republicans in the 2024 elections.
The war in Gaza has divided Democrats like no other issue and is likely to play a key role in party primaries that decide which candidates run for the House of Representatives.
Continue reading...Lawyers argue Trump cannot be prosecuted for actions taken while serving as president in latest battle with special counsel
Donald Trump has asked an appeals court in Washington DC to throw out charges that he sought to subvert the 2020 election, in the latest of a series of high-stakes legal maneuvers between the former president’s lawyers and the US department of justice.
In a filing late on Saturday lawyers for Trump argued to the DC circuit court of appeals that he is legally cloaked from liability for actions he took while serving as president.
Continue reading...Former South Carolina governor still trails the ex-president, but has made strides in polling ahead of the New Hampshire primary
The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has pulled within four percentage points of frontrunner Donald Trump in New Hampshire’s 2024 Republican presidential primary, a contest which could prove closer than expected for the ex-president, according to a new poll.
In an American Research Group Inc poll released on Thursday which had asked voters whom they preferred in the New Hampshire primary scheduled for 23 January, Haley earned 29% support to Trump’s 33%. That meant the gap between Haley and Trump was within the survey’s 4% margin of error after the former president had long held dominating polling leads in the race for the 2024 Republican White House nomination.
Continue reading...Recording shows Trump asked canvassers not to sign official document confirming Biden had won, Detroit News says
Donald Trump made a phone call in November 2020 in which he put pressure on two Republican election officers in Michigan not to sign the official document from the state confirming that Joe Biden had won the presidential election there, according to an exclusive report by The Detroit News late on Thursday.
The Detroit News outlet has obtained recordings of the call, made on 17 November 2020, where Trump, who was refusing to accept that he had just lost the White House to Joe Biden, and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel talked to Wayne county election officials Monica Palmer and William Hartmann and told them they would look “terrible” if they signed to endorse Trump’s defeat in the crucial swing state, according to the report.
Continue reading...Rhetoric that was widely seen as echoing Hitler was not enough for some senior Republicans to break ranks with the former president
Donald Trump has the tacit blessing of senior Republican figures as he seeks to put border security front and center of the 2024 election by deploying fascistic language to fire up his support base, political analysts warn.
The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 has called for a sharp crackdown on immigration and asserted at a weekend rally that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.
Continue reading...Mike Johnson’s links to key leaders prompts alarm he might try to erode elements of constitution on separation of church and state
Links between the new Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and key Christian nationalist leaders have sparked fears the devout Louisiana congressman might seek to erode elements of the first amendment, which protects key US civil liberties including freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.
Long before th eevangelical conservative Johnson became speaker, he had forged close ties with Christian nationalists like David Barton, whose writings claiming the country’s founders intended to create a Christian nation have been widely debunked by religion scholars.
Continue reading...Florida congressman Maxwell Frost, who introduced Fight Banned Books Act, says bans are ‘baseless attack on our civil rights’
The growing number of book bans in the US are using a so-called parental rights movement as cover for a wide-ranging attack on civil rights in America, a Democratic congressman has warned.
Earlier this month, a new study by PEN America revealed that there had been at least 5,894 book bans in US public schools from July 2021 to June 2023, with more than 40% of them in Florida, birthplace of a rightwing parents group called Moms for Liberty.
Continue reading...Report finds ‘significant violent rhetoric’ against justices and Democrats online after ruling to exclude Trump from ballot
Justices on the Colorado supreme court are receiving a barrage of death threats after it ruled to exclude Donald Trump from the state’s presidential ballot next year because of his attempts to cause insurrection.
A report compiled by Advance Democracy, a non-partisan non-profit organization, said there was “significant violent rhetoric” against the justices and Democrats on social media, according to NBC News.
Continue reading...Federal 2020 election interference trial is currently set for 4 March, the day before Super Tuesday
Lawyers for Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US supreme court to reject a request from the special counsel to expeditiously decide whether he was immune from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, contending prosecutors lacked standing to bring the petition.
The argument from the ex-president was that prosecutors had no basis to appeal a lower court ruling that was favorable to them, and should instead defer intervening in the case until a federal appeals court issued its own judgment first.
Continue reading...Move aims to protect millions of old-growth trees, which are better at storing carbon, but its outcome depends on 2024 election
Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced a new proposal aimed at banning logging in old-growth forests, a move meant to protect millions of trees that play a key role in fighting the climate crisis.
The proposal comes from an executive order signed by the president on Earth Day in 2022 that directed the US Forest Service and the land management bureau to conduct an inventory of old-growth and mature forest groves as well as to develop policies that protect them.
Continue reading...Former mayor of Pennsylvania town of Braddock has long advocated for rights of US steel workers
The US senator John Fetterman has vowed to block the multibillion-dollar sale of US Steel to the Japanese company Nippon Steel, calling the potential deal “outrageous”.
The former mayor of the south-west Pennsylvania town of Braddock, which is home to a major US Steel plant, Fetterman has long advocated for the rights of American steel workers and positioned himself as a pro-union Democrat.
Continue reading...Democrats call on attorney general to halt state law, while Mexican president and ACLU both say they will challenge it
As a group of Texas and Hispanic Democrats demanded the US attorney general block what they called “the most extreme anti-immigrant state bill in the United States”, signed by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, on Monday, the president of Mexico and the American Civil Liberties Union also vowed to fight the law.
“Texas, we’ll see you in court,” the ACLU said.
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