Charlie Crist, former Republican who switched parties, puts governor on defensive during Florida’s sole gubernatorial debate
In the sole debate of the Florida governor’s race, the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, was put on the defensive by his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, on subjects including abortion and DeSantis’s presidential ambitions.
Crist called Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest, “callous and barbaric”.
Continue reading...Prosecutors urging two aides for more information about how documents were handled at the resort
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The steady drip of details about the investigation into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort continues, with the New York Times reporting yesterday that prosecutors are pressuring two aides to the former president for more information about how documents were handled at the south Florida property. There’s no saying yet what the revelation means, but it makes clear how many avenues investigators are pursuing as they look for answers about sensitive documents Trump took with him when he left the White House.
Here’s what’s happening in politics today:
Joe Biden will speak about America’s fight against Covid-19 at 2.05pm eastern time.
There’s a slew of debates between candidates standing in the 8 November midterm elections, including Pennsylvania’s Senate candidates Mehmet Oz, a Republican, and John Fetterman, a Democrat, who face off at 8pm eastern time.
Progressive Democrats appear to be walking back a letter sent to Biden yesterday urging more diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...GOP courts blue collar voters but most favor anti-union ‘right to work’ laws and reject laws that would protect right to organize
After years of struggle, America’s labor unions enjoy greater public approval than at any time in more than 50 years. Yet even as the Republican party seeks to rebrand itself as the party of the working class, its lawmakers, by and large, remain as hostile as ever toward organized labor. It doesn’t look like that situation is about to change.
With the midterm elections approaching, and many polls indicating that the Republicans will win control of the House, nearly all Republican lawmakers in Congress oppose proposals that would make it easier to unionize. One hundred and eleven Republican House members and 21 senators are co-sponsoring a bill that would weaken unions by letting workers in all 50 states opt out of paying any fees to the unions that represent them. And at a time when many young workers – among them, Starbucks workers, Apple store workers, museum workers, grad students – are flocking into unions, Republican lawmakers often deride unions as woke, leftwing and obsolete.
Continue reading...Republican senator Ted Cruz was a vociferous objector to the 2020 election, but ended up hiding in a supply closet when insurrectionists stormed the Capitol on January 6, as Ramon Antonio Vargas reports:
As a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol during the January 6 attack in a desperate attempt to keep him in the Oval Office, Ted Cruz hid in a closet next to a stack of chairs, but he never thought twice about continuing to sow doubt about the former president’s electoral defeat, the Republican senator from Texas has revealed.
Tight Senate margins and a Democratic president would make it impossible for GOP leaders to deliver on the party’s most hardline fiscal wishes, at least with President Joe Biden still in office. The disappointment would surely prompt blowback from right-leaning Republicans already known as the sharpest thorns in the party’s side.
“Spare me if you’re a Republican who puts on your frigging campaign website, ‘Trust me, I will vote for a balanced budget amendment, and I believe we should balance the budget like every family in America.’ No shit,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the pro-Trump Freedom Caucus, said in an interview.
Continue reading...Voters take advantage of in-person and mail-in voting as more than 5.8 million people already cast their vote by Friday
Early voting in the midterm elections is on track to match records set in 2018, according to researchers, as voters take advantage of both in-person and mail-in voting in states across the country.
More than 5.8 million people had already cast their vote by Friday evening, CNN reported, a similar total to this stage in the 2018 elections, which had the highest turnout of any midterm vote in a generation.
Continue reading...Nevada has an acute shortage of affordable housing – but do Republicans or Democrats have practical answers to curb one of America’s most pressing issues?
Claudia Lopez, 39, is worried for her children.
As her curly haired seven-year-old daughter bounced around a play area inside El Mercado, a shopping center within the Boulevard Mall in Las Vegas where the smell of arepas and tacos hovers over the shops, Lopez soaked in her day off from knocking on doors and talking to residents about the upcoming election.
Continue reading...Unlimited challenges to eligibility and poorly trained poll workers cause frustration in key gubernatorial and US Senate contests
Jennifer Jones, a Morehouse School of Medicine PhD student, showed up to her precinct in Fulton county, Georgia, on the second day of early voting for the midterm elections. She was excited to cast her ballot for her chosen candidates in the gubernatorial and Senate races, Stacey Abrams and Senator Raphael Warnock. However, when she reached the check-in station at the polling site, she was informed that she would be unable to cast a regular ballot because her validity as a voter was challenged.
“When I handed in my ID, the poll worker said I was being challenged,” said Jones. “They said I had to complete a provisional ballot, but I wasn’t really comfortable doing that, so I didn’t get to cast my ballot that day.”
Continue reading...Steve Bannon has just spoken with reporters outside the courthouse in Washington DC, telling them he “respects” the judge’s sentence, and veering off quickly into an attack on Joe Biden’s administration.
In a brief, and chaotic appearance at the microphone, Bannon said of judge Carl Nichol’s four-month sentence:
The sentence he came down with today is his decision. I fully respect it, I’ve been totally respectful this entire process on the legal side.
I testified before the Mueller commission for more hours. I testified in front of [congressman Adam] Schiff in the House intelligence committee more than any other person in the Trump administration. I testified in front of the senate intelligence [committee], I think more than anybody, about the issues related to Russiagate, to all of that. The same process every time.
I had lawyers that were engaged, they worked through the issues of privilege. At that time, I went and testified. And this thing about I’m above the law is an absolute and total lie.
Today was my judgment day by the judge. And we’ll have a very vigorous appeals process. I’ve got a great legal team, and there’ll be multiple areas of appeal.
But as that sign says right there, vote. On November 8, there’s gonna have [sic] judgment on the illegitimate Biden regime and, quite frankly, Nancy Pelosi and the entire [January 6] committee. And we know which way that’s going.
Continue reading...Former Trump strategist also fined $6,500 for refusing to comply with subpoena issued by Capitol attack committee
Donald Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon was sentenced Friday to four months in federal prison and $6,500 in fines after he was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply last year with a subpoena issued by the House January 6 select committee.
The punishment – suspended pending appeal – makes Bannon the first person to be incarcerated for contempt of Congress in more than half a century and sets a stringent standard for future contempt cases referred to the justice department by the select committee investigating the Capitol attack.
Continue reading...Appeal to contend ex-Trump strategist should’ve been allowed to argue he defied Capitol attack subpoena on advice of lawyers
Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon is expected to ask a federal appeals court to overturn his contempt of Congress conviction, contending that he should have been allowed at trial to argue he defied a subpoena from the House January 6 select committee on the advice of his lawyers.
The appeal will seek the DC circuit court to quash the conviction for which he is set on Friday to face a potential six month prison sentence and $200,000 in fines as recommended by the justice department, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Continue reading...‘Relatively small number’ of troops helping Russian forces, says John Kirby, national security council spokesperson
Joe Biden described Liz Truss as a “good partner on Russia and Ukraine,” after the British prime minister announced she would step down after just 45 days in office.
Speaking to reporters at the White House before leaving for Pennsylvania, Biden added, “The British are going to solve their problems.”
Continue reading...Complaints detail ballot drop box monitors filming, following and calling voters ‘mules’ in reference to conspiracy film
A voter in Maricopa county, Arizona, claims a group of people watching a ballot drop box photographed and followed the voter and their wife after they deposited their ballots at the box, accusing them of being “mules”.
The voter filed a complaint with the Arizona secretary of state, who forwarded it to the US Department of Justice and the Arizona attorney general’s office for investigation, according to Sophia Solis, a spokesperson with the secretary of state’s office.
Continue reading...Document was part of lawsuit challenging results of 2020 election in Georgia
Donald Trump signed a legal statement alleging voter fraud in the 2020 election despite being told the numbers underpinning the case were false, a federal judge said on Wednesday.
The disclosure was made by the US district judge David Carter, who ordered John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer, to provide more emails to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Continue reading...Move is president’s attempt to mitigate concerns over the economy as midterms approach
Donald Trump in 2021 asked a group of people whether a Jewish documentary filmmaker was “a good Jewish character”, according to a video of the former president that was released as part of footage that was subpoenaed by the House special committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, the New York Times reports.
The interaction was recorded by documentary filmmaker Alex Holder at an event at Trump’s New Jersey golf club in May 2021. Trump, speaking to several people, was responding to a woman’s comment about “Jews who didn’t vote for you”.
Continue reading...President announces release of 15m barrels of oil from strategic reserve as he fights to keep gas prices in check before midterms
Joe Biden has called on oil companies to pass on their massive profits to consumers as he announced the release of 15m barrels of oil from the US strategic petroleum reserve.
Biden is fighting to keep gas prices in check ahead of November’s midterms. He blamed Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for the global spike in oil prices and said his administration was doing all it could to keep prices in check.
Continue reading...This was the third case brought by special counsel John Durham in FBI’s own investigation into Russian collusion claims
A jury on Tuesday acquitted a thinktank analyst accused of lying to the FBI about his role in the creation of a discredited dossier about Donald Trump.
The case against Igor Danchenko was the third and possibly final case brought by special counsel John Durham as part of his investigation into how the FBI conducted its own investigation into allegations of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Continue reading...Republican politics centering on opposition to Cuba’s late dictator Fidel Castro continue to resonate in Florida, even as they have faded in the rest of the US
It was a rainy Tuesday morning in South Florida, and two men in their 80s were deep into conversation and cafecito at the iconic Versailles Cuban Bakery in Miami.
Born in Cuba and now retired, the pair – who would only give their first names Manuel and Juan – have lived in the area for more than 60 and 20 years, respectively. And when asked about their political stance, they shy away from the Republican label many of their neighbors proudly embrace and instead simply describe themselves as deeply anti-communist.
Continue reading...Major retailers will begin selling hearing aids over the counter without a prescription and at a much lower cost, as part of a new Biden administration rule that take effect today.
“Starting today, hearings aids are now on store shelves across the country — for thousands of dollars less than they previously cost,” the White House said in a fact sheet on Monday.
Continue reading...Former Trump strategist found guilty of criminal contempt of Congress for ignoring subpoena from Capitol attack committee
Steve Bannon should be sentenced to six months in prison and a $200,000 fine for “his sustained, bad-faith contempt of Congress”, the justice department said in a legal filing on Monday.
Bannon, the former Donald Trump White House strategist, was found guilty on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress in July for ignoring a subpoena from the US House committee investigating the January 6 attack.
Continue reading...Kari Lake, who has echoed Trump’s claims the 2020 election was stolen, refuses three times to answer when pressed on CNN
The Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arizona, Kari Lake, refused to say whether she would accept the results of the election if she loses in November.
Lake, a former Phoenix-area news anchor, has made denying the 2020 election results that her preferred candidate Donald Trump lost a pillar of her campaign. She has said she wouldn’t have certified the 2020 vote that the former president lost – and which the Democratic victor Joe Biden won in Arizona by just over 10,000 votes, saying the election was “corrupt, rotten”.
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