Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The November election will be plagued by voter suppression, foreign interference, disinformation and a contested supreme court vacancy
It has been dubbed “the election that could break America”. On 3 November voters decide whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden is their next president. But this time the stakes are even higher than the simple question of who resides in the White House.
There is a widespread sense that the fate of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy hangs in the balance. The US has already been shaken in 2020 by the deadly coronavirus pandemic, economic collapse and a society-wide reckoning over racism. Now comes an election in which voter suppression, foreign interference, online disinformation and a bitterly contested supreme court vacancy offer a recipe for chaos.
Donald Trump has nominated appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett to take the place of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US supreme court, saying he expected the appointment to be confirmed before the 3 November presidential election. Barrett is a devout pro-life Catholic and would tip the supreme court 6-3 in favour of conservatives.
Donald Trump’s pick for America’s highest court, Amy Coney Barrett, is an “ideological fanatic” who threatens abortion rights, healthcare and the environment, activists warned on Saturday, before Trump unveiled his third supreme court nominee in the White House Rose Garden.
A quick glance at the guest list for Amy Comey Barrett’s nomination ceremony today makes troubling reading. Among the guests were representatives from Judicial Watch, which has described climate science as a “fraud”; the Heritage Foundation (which has also pushed back against climate science); and the Family Research Council (which has opposed abortion, divorce and LGBT rights).
Attendees at Trump's SCOTUS nomination of Amy Coney Barrett: •Judicial Crisis Network's Carrie Severino Heritage Foundation's Kay Cole James •Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton •Family Research Council's Tony Perkins •Cleta Mitchell—a lawyer tied to many GOP 'dark money' nonprofits https://t.co/q5BzTkPBs9
Now that Amy Coney Barrett has been nominated for the supreme court, the senate hearings are likely to last from 12-15 October. And, as is more than likely, she will be confirmed by the Republican-held Senate by 29 October, well before the 3 November elections.
Donald Trump’s rival for the presidency, Joe Biden, has issued a statement saying the process should be delayed until after the election.
Election Day is just weeks away, and millions of Americans are already voting because the stakes in this election could not be higher. They feel the urgency of this choice – an urgency made all the more acute by what’s at stake at the U.S. Supreme Court.
They are voting because their health care hangs in the balance. They are voting because they worry about losing their right to vote or being expelled from the only country they have ever known. They are voting right now because they fear losing their collective bargaining rights. They are voting to demand that equal justice be guaranteed for all. They are voting because they don’t want Roe v. Wade, which has been the law of the land for nearly half a century, to be overturned.
William Perry Pendley not confirmed by Senate to role as acting Bureau of Land Management director, as required by constitution
A federal judge has ruled that a controversial Trump official who has overseen a vast weakening of public lands protections cannot continue in his position since he has not been approved by the Senate.
Donald Trump made light of fears he will not accept the result of the election if he loses to Joe Biden in November. 'Will we be president in 10 years?' he asked, before claiming he was joking.
'You know, you can't joke,' he told supporters in Atlanta. '[The media] always cut it before the laugh so they think he's serious.'
The crowd then chanted '12 more years!' to laughter from the president.
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows attacked FBI Director Christopher Wray for not backing up Trump’s baseless claims about voter fraid.
With all due respect to Director Wray, he has a hard time finding emails in his own FBI, let alone figuring out whether there's any kind of voter fraud.” — White House Chief of Staff @MarkMeadows on FBI Dir. Christopher Wray saying he's seen no evidence of widespread voter fraud pic.twitter.com/W5PUfpnWCn
To some observers, the attorney general appears to have also laid the groundwork for a further alarming step, one that would answer the question of what action the Trump administration is prepared to take if a contested election in November gives rise to large new protests.
In order for Trump to steal the election and then quell mass demonstrations – for that is the nature of the nightmare scenario now up for open discussion among current and former officials, academics, thinktankers and a lot of other people – Trump must be able to manipulate both the levers of the law and its physical enforcement.
Open seat offers chance for both parties to rally their bases as Democrats see chance to take control of chamber
The shock of a sudden new vacancy on the US supreme court has rippled out to some of the most contentious Senate races in the final weeks before the 3 November elections, throwing the vital issue of who might win control of the body into confusion.
The recent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg while Republicans control the Senate and the White House virtually ensures that her replacement will be conservative, swinging the court into a 6-3 conservative majority.
The family of Breonna Taylor, alongside their lawyers, including attorney Ben Crump, will hold a press conference in Louisville tomorrow morning at 10:30 am, according to the Associated Press.
While Taylor’s family has been outspoken against police brutality, they have not spoken out publicly since the grand jury’s decision was announced Wednesday. Members of her family instead posted on social media about their frustration over the announcement. Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother, posted an illustration of Taylor with the caption “It’s still Breonna for me #thesystemfailedBreonna”
Open Technology Fund, which helped activists evade state surveillance and sidestep web censorship, sees $20m grant pulled
The Trump administration has stopped vital technical assistance to pro-democracy groups in Belarus, Hong Kong and Iran, which had helped activists evade state surveillance and sidestep internet censorship.
Mitch McConnell insists ‘there will be an orderly transition’ while Trump ally Lindsey Graham says ‘I assure you it will be peaceful’
Leading Republicans have sought to quell fears that Donald Trump could stoke violence in an attempt to cling to power if he loses the US presidential election – though they stopped short of rebuking Trump directly.
The president sparked fresh anger and disbelief on Thursday after he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday evening, before renewing a baseless complaint about mail-in ballots.
Donald Trump was loudly booed by crowds as he visited the supreme court to pay his respects to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late justice and liberal icon who died last week aged 87.
As the president and the first lady paused at Ginsburg’s casket, the crowd yelled: 'Vote him out!' Ginsburg is the first woman in history to lie in state in the US Capitol
The US president has declined to say he will transfer power peacefully in the event he loses the 3 November election to Democratic rival, Joe Biden.
When asked the question by a reporter during a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Trump replied: 'We’re going to have to see what happens, you know that. I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.'
Trump refused to commit when asked again: 'Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful – there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation. The ballots are out of control. You know it. And you know who knows it better than anybody else? The Democrats know it better than anybody else'
David Smith’s sketch: President takes us through the looking glass amid the kneecapping of American democracy
Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law, told journalist Bob Woodward that one of the best ways to understand Donald Trump is to study Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Kushner paraphrased the Cheshire Cat’s philosophy: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will get you there.”
Wednesday was one of those days when to have a seat in the White House briefing room felts like stepping through the looking-glass into Blunderland, where the mad hatter has an authoritarian streak a mile wide.
A few moments ago, a driver drove into a group of protestors. There were no serious injuries, Denver police have confirmed, and a man has been detained.
#DPD Officers are at Colfax & Broadway in response to a vehicle that drove into a protest occurring at that location. No injuries are reported. One male has been detained. #Denver. pic.twitter.com/Ge8zDLZTju
JUST IN: Video from a @denverpost reporter shows the moment a driver ran their car over a protester outside the Colorado State Capitol.
The protester, Kate, told @ShellyBradbury she was not badly hurt.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family of Breonna Taylor, has told CNN the indictment is, “like killing Breonna all over again.”
He called her death, “Legalized genocide of people of color, because no matter how much evidence we have, they always find a way to try to legally justify it.”
‘You could almost feel the spittle coming off the paper,’ he writes
Donald Trump’s original draft statement justifying his firing of the former FBI director James Comey was “tinfoil helmet material”, according to a top prosecutor who worked for the special counsel Robert Mueller, and who in a new book calls the draft “excruciatingly juvenile, disorganized and brimming with spite, incoherent and narcissistic”.
McCain was motivated in part by Trump’s recent comments on the military, where he called war heroes ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’
Cindy McCain has endorsed Joe Biden for president, a stunning rebuke of Donald Trump by the widow of the Republican party’s 2008 nominee.
Cindy McCain tweeted on Tuesday: “My husband John lived by a code: country first. We are Republicans, yes, but Americans foremost. There’s only one candidate in this race who stands up for our values as a nation, and that is Joe Biden.”
Donald Trump received a major boost on Tuesday when Republican senator Mitt Romney announced his support for considering the US president’s supreme court nominee.
Democrats’ hopes of keeping seat empty fade as two key Republican senators signal support for moving quickly
Donald Trump has raced to cement a conservative majority on the US supreme court before the presidential election on 3 November, and Democrats’ hopes of keeping the seat empty have faded as two Republican senators signalled their support for moving quickly.
The president said on Monday he would name his third supreme court nominee on Friday or Saturday, following memorials for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal justice who died aged 87 on Friday.
The worst parts of UN events will be on display, the endless speechifying first among them, but none of what normally makes the general assembly indispensable
It has been billed as the world’s worst Zoom meeting, but the United Nations’ 75th general assembly could be even worse than that.
It is called the “general debate” but, unlike a Zoom meeting, there will be no discussion – just a week-long procession of pre-recorded video messages from the world’s leaders, stating their positions, very much with their domestic audience in mind. They were supposed to have sent their videos at the end of last week. As of Monday, only half had been turned in.