New Politico survey reveals 21% of independent voters are less likely to vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 election because of his felony conviction last month
Joe Biden spent the weekend fundraising with his former boss, Barack Obama, and the Hollywood stars who have increasingly lined up behind the Democratic president’s re-election effort. Here’s more, from the Associated Press:
Some of Hollywood’s brightest stars headlined a glitzy fundraiser for President Joe Biden, helping raise what his re-election campaign said was a record $30m-plus and hoping to energize would-be supporters for a November election that they argued was among the most important in the nation’s history.
Trump’s visit to the US Capitol – where the Republicans he almost got killed three years ago fawned over him – would be funny if it weren’t pathetic
Anyone can rat, as Winston Churchill once supposedly said. But it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.
Say what you like about Donald Trump, but there’s no shortage of rodent-like ingenuity around his dealings with the sewer life that populates today’s Republican party.
Some feel limiting US-Mexico border crossings will protect the country, while others say ‘it violates American values’
Democratic mayors, governors and members of Congress from the south-west to the north-east stood beside Joe Biden at the White House, when he unveiled an executive order temporarily sealing the US-Mexico border to most asylum seekers – the most restrictive immigration policy of his presidency.
“We must face a simple truth,” the US president said. “To protect America as a land that welcomes immigrants, we must first secure the border and secure it now.”
Gaffe came as 78-year-old Republican presidential candidate sought to bolster his support among Black and Latino voters in Michigan
Donald Trump has made a point in recent months of deriding his rival Joe Biden as being cognitively impaired, mocking the 81-year-old US president for his verbal stumbles and accusing him of falling both up and down stairs.
But people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
The recording, which was provided exclusively to Rolling Stone, captures Windsor approaching Alito at the event and reminding him that they spoke at the same function the year before, when she asked him a question about political polarization. In the intervening year, she tells the justice, her views on the matter had changed. "I don't know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end," Windsor says. "I think that it's a matter of, like, winning."
"I think you're probably right," Alito replies. "On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don't know. I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it's difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can't be compromised. They really can't be compromised. So it's not like you are going to split the difference."
Windsor goes on to tell Alito: "People in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that — to return our country to a place of godliness."
"I agree with you. I agree with you," replies Alito, who authored the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision, which reversed five decades of settled law and ended a constitutional right to abortion.
The unguarded moment added to calls for greater scrutiny by Democrats, many of whom are eager to open official investigations into outside influence at the Supreme Court.
But the core of the idea expressed to Mr. Alito, that the country must fight the decline of Christianity in public life, goes beyond the questions of bias and influence at the nation's highest court. An array of conservatives, including antiabortion activists, church leaders and conservative state legislators, has openly embraced the idea that American democracy needs to be grounded in Christian values and guarded against the rise of secular culture.
They are right-wing Catholics and evangelicals who oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, transgender rights and what they see as the dominance of liberal views in school curriculums. And they've become a crucial segment of former President Donald J. Trump's political coalition, intermingled with the MAGA movement that boosted him to the White House and that hopes to do so once again in November.
The movement's rise has been evident across the country since Mr. Trump lost re-election in 2020. The National Association of Christian Lawmakers formed to advance Christian values and legislation among elected officials. This week in Indianapolis, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, are voting on issues like restricting in vitro fertilization and further limiting women from pastoral positions. [US Southern Baptists effort to enshrine ban on women pastors falls short (earlier: Southern Baptists finalize expulsion of two churches with female pastors), US Southern Baptists condemn IVF procedure]
And in Congress, Mike Johnson, a man with deep roots in this movement and the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group, is now speaker of the House.
Now, Supreme Court justices have become caught up in the debate over whether America is a Christian nation. While Justice Alito is hardly openly championing these views, he is embracing language and symbolism that line up with a much broader movement pushing back against the declining power of Christianity as a majority religion in America.
The country has grown more ethnically diverse and the share of American adults who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated has risen steadily over the past decade. Still, a 2022 report from the Pew Research Center found that more than four in 10 adults believed America should be a "Christian nation."
Justice Alito's agreement isn't the first time he has embraced Christian ways of talking about the law and his vision for the nation.
Shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, a ruling for which Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion, the justice flew to Rome and addressed a private summit on religious liberty hosted by the University of Notre Dame. His overarching concern was the decline of Christianity in public life, and he warned of what he saw as a "growing hostility to religion, or at least the traditional religious beliefs that are contrary to the new moral code that is ascendant."
"We can't lightly assume that the religious liberty enjoyed today in the United States, in Europe and in many other places will always endure," he said, referencing Christians "torn apart by wild beasts" at the Colosseum before the fall of the Roman Empire...
[T]he resonance of the Sacred Heart goes beyond simply an abstract religious concept, just as the Pride flag does. Each is notable for the vision of America that they symbolize, and the different visions of marriage, family and morality that they represent. For one slice of America that celebrates L.G.B.T.Q. rights, June is Pride Month. For another devout, traditional Catholic slice, June is a time to remember the Sacred Heart.
Justice Alito, in secretly recorded audio, apparently agrees nation needs to return to place of 'godliness' - "In the edited clips that were posted to X, Windsor approached Martha-Ann Alito at the event and seemingly expressed sympathy for 'everything that you're going through' and that it 'was not okay.' 'It's okay because if they come back to me, I'll get them,' Martha-Ann Alito said, referring to the news media. 'I'm gonna be liberated, and I'm gonna get them.' ... Windsor then turned the conversation to the stir caused by the 'Appeal to Heaven' flag, to which Martha-Ann Alito said the 'feminazis believe that [Justice Alito] should control me. So, they'll go to hell, he never controls me,' she added."
In Secret Recordings, Alito Endorses Nation of 'Godliness.' Roberts Talks of Pluralism. - "The two justices were surreptitiously recorded at a Supreme Court gala last week by a woman posing as a Catholic conservative."
The justice's comments appeared to be in marked contrast to those of Chief Justice Roberts, who was also secretly recorded at the same event but who pushed back against Ms. Windsor's assertion that the court had an obligation to lead the country on a more "moral path."
"Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path?" the chief justice said. "That's for people we elect. That's not for lawyers."
Ms. Windsor pressed the chief justice about religion, saying, "I believe that the founders were godly, like were Christians, and I think that we live in a Christian nation and that our Supreme Court should be guiding us in that path."
Chief Justice Roberts quickly answered, "I don't know if that's true."
He added: "I don't know that we live in a Christian nation. I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not, and it's not our job to do that."
The chief justice also said he did not think polarization in the country was irreparable, pointing out that the United States had managed crises as severe as the Civil War and the Vietnam War.
When Ms. Windsor pressed him on whether he thought that there was "a role for the court" in "guiding us toward a more moral path," the chief justice's answer was immediate.
"No, I think the role for the court is deciding the cases," he said.
If a certain subsection of Republicans get their way, obtaining a divorce in the US might soon become a lot more difficult
They’ve come after abortion. They’ve come after birth control. They’ve come after IVF. Now it looks suspiciously like far-right Republicans might have a new target: no-fault divorce. If a certain subsection of Republicans get their way, obtaining a divorce in the US might soon become a lot more difficult.
Grassroots Democrats seek to make ‘judicial activism’ a driving voting issue, but swing voters have other priorities
“Look at me, look at me,” said Martha-Ann Alito. “I’m German, from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you.”
It was a bizarre outburst from the wife of a justice on America’s highest court. Secretly recorded by a liberal activist, Martha-Ann Alito complained about a neighbour’s gay pride flag and expressed a desire to fly a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag in protest.
Joe Biden released a statement in light of the supreme court’s latest decision on bump stocks, saying:
“Today’s decision strikes down an important gun safety regulation. Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation.”
“I have used every tool in my administration to stamp out gun violence. I nominated the first Senate-confirmed director of the ATF since 2015. My administration ensured that the ATF has the funding it needs to address emerging firearm technologies like machine-gun conversion devices and ghost guns that pose a unique and acute threat to public safety.
Notwithstanding this decision, my administration will continue to take action. I took on the NRA and signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act – the most significant gun violence reduction legislation to pass Congress in nearly 30 years. My administration established the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, made historic investments in mental health to support people in times of crisis, and expanded background checks to keep firearms out of the wrong hands.”
“Weapons of war have no place on the streets of a civil society. That is why Democrats and Republicans alike supported the federal government banning bump stocks after they were used to fire over 1,000 rounds into a crowded music festival in Las Vegas, killing 60 people in the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
Unfortunately, today’s supreme court ruling strikes down this important, commonsense regulation on devices that convert semiautomatic rifles into weapons that can fire hundreds of bullets per minute.
While the supreme court has once again rolled back progress, we will not allow the victims and survivors of 1 October to be forgotten. President Biden and I fought to pass the most significant gun safety legislation in nearly 30 years, but our work is not done. We are calling on Congress to immediately ban bump stocks. We do not have a moment to spare nor a life to spare.”
On Tuesday, Hunter Biden was found guilty on all three criminal charges relating to buying a handgun while being a user of crack cocaine. His father – the president – was firm in his support for his son, but also in his belief in the justice system.
After Donald Trump was convicted in a New York court last month, rightwing pundits and Republican politicians were lining up to accuse the Biden administration of rigging the justice system for political advantage. Yet now the courts have convicted Biden’s own son.
Jonathan Freedland is joined by Susan Glasser of the New Yorker to look at how the right has decided to spin this latest historical conviction.
Archive: ABC News, CBS Chicago, CNN, C-SPAN, NBC, Reuters
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker, mounted a forceful denunciation of Thursday’s first visit to the US Capitol by Donald Trump since he incited a mob to attack it on January 6 2021, accusing him of returning with “the same mission of dismantling our democracy”.
In remarks that triggered a fresh war of words between the pair, Pelosi said the former president’s visit to discuss strategy with congressional Republicans in advance of the election amounted to a symbolic return to the scene of a crime that he deliberately initiated.
Right to IVF act was not expected to pass, but Democrats forced vote to get GOP on record opposing treatment
Senate Republicans have defeated a bill that would have established a federal right to in vitro fertilization, a piece of legislation that Democrats forced to the floor on Thursday as part of an election-year effort to contrast their approach to reproductive rights with that of the party across the aisle.
The bill, the Right to IVF act, would have overwritten any state efforts to restrict the right to IVF as well as seeking to make the treatment more affordable and accessible, including for US military service members and veterans.
Anti-Trump and pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside Capitol Hill Club, where ex-president will meet Republicans
Donald Trump will go to the US Capitol to rally congressional Republicans today in his first visit since 6 January 2021, when his supporters descended on the building in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in Trump’s favour.
The high-profile meeting will set out Trump’s priorities for a second presidency, but is also expected to see him demand that the GOP further intensify efforts to overturn a recent conviction by a New York court on felony charges.
Project 2025 blueprint for second Trump term envisages replacing thousands of career staff with political loyalists
America’s career diplomats are braced for the threat of a mass purge if Donald Trump wins the November election and for the potential flooding of the state department with loyalty-tested political appointees.
Rather than leading to a seamless change of course in a rightward Trumpist direction, the diplomats’ union and former ambassadors argue, such an attempted takeover would be much more likely to end in legal challenges, gridlock and chaos.
Two of five ‘sister senators’ who blocked legislation to ban abortion from conception lost to far-right challengers
The right to legal abortion in South Carolina is in a “dire” condition, said the state senator Penry Gustafson, who lost her seat Tuesday to a primary challenger prepared to vote to ban abortion at conception.
Gustafson is one of five female lawmakers dubbed the “sister senators” who blocked legislation to outlaw abortion from the point of conception in the state. The three Republicans among them – Gustafson, Sandy Senn and Katrina Shealy – each drew male primary challengers who competed for conservative primary voters seeking more restrictive abortion access.
Analysts say guilty verdict undermines Trump’s claim that a weaponised justice department is unfairly pursuing him
Hunter Biden’s conviction on gun-ownership charges may have handed his father, Joe, a boost in the forthcoming presidential election, analysts say, because it undermines the image of a president weaponising the US justice system to pursue Donald Trump.
Trump, the former president and presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has pushed that line relentlessly to explain his conviction last month on charges related to the concealment of hush-money payments to a porn star to help him win the 2016 election.
The president has ruled out pardoning his son, but White House press secretary said it was unclear whether Biden would intervene to lessen a sentence length
The White House has not ruled out a possible commutation for Hunter Biden after a jury found him guilty on three federal gun crimes.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking to reporters on Wednesday on Air Force One, said:
As we all know, the sentencing hasn’t even been scheduled yet.
Of course he respects that, and we all do, and we’ve all talked about it ad nauseam.
JD Vance reveals he was asked whether he had committed a crime or had lied, prompting amusement on social media
JD Vance, a rightwing senator vying to be Donald Trump’s running mate, has inadvertently revealed that as part of his vetting for the role, he was asked questions that might disqualify Trump himself.
Talking to Fox & Friends, the Republican senator for Ohio told co-host Steve Doocy that his team had been asked “for a number of things” as part of a traditional background check for the vice-president role, adding that “a number of people have been asked to submit this and that”.
Reception and dinner with Donald Trump Jr will be hosted by actor Holly Valance and attended by Nigel Farage
A Donald Trump fundraiser in London, where his eldest son will be the star guest, has already clocked up $2m (£1.57m) in donations before it takes place on Tuesday, according to organisers.
The event is being hosted by the actor and singer Holly Valance, who has become an increasingly influential figure on Britain’s radical right since meeting the former president in the US in the company of Nigel Farage.
US supreme court justice heard on recording saying ‘one side or the other is going to win’, referring to political left and right
Former Republican New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, who backed Samuel Alito during his confirmation hearing in 2006, said she “absolutely, without question” regrets supporting the supreme court justice.
Whitman, in an interview with CNN, said she supported Alito at the time because she believed his record showed that he was “able to judge cases based on the facts presented” and “put aside personal convictions”. She added:
Unfortunately, since he’s gone to the supreme court that’s just seemed to have gone by the wayside.
I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.
I’m putting it up and I’m going to send them a message every day, maybe every week. I’ll be changing the flags.
More than a third of Harvard’s graduating seniors are heading into finance or management consulting – two professions notable for how quickly their practitioners “make a bag”, or make money, reports the New York Times.
Similar percentages show up in other prestigious universities.
Ex-prosecutors and historians warn that Republicans’ parroting of ex-president’s wild allegations of political bias could erode trust and lead to violence
Donald Trump is posing new threats to prosecutors, judges and the rule of law in the US by ratcheting up vitriolic attacks on the American legal system, which many Republican allies and far-right media are loudly echoing, ex-prosecutors and historians said.
Fears are growing that Trump’s conspiratorial screeds on his Truth Social site and interviews on rightwing media falsely charging that his conviction in the New York hush-money case was “rigged” and a “scam”, are eroding trust in the US justice system and could precipitate violence, pre- or post-election.
Democrats only need to flip a handful of seats to get back control of the lower chamber – here’s what to keep an eye on
Much attention has been paid to the rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in November, but the results of down-ballot elections will determine whether the victor in the presidential race will actually be able to implement his legislative agenda next year.
With Republicans defending a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, Democrats only need to flip a handful of seats to wrest back control of the lower chamber, and both parties are going all out to secure a majority.
The federal trial of the president’s son undermines Trump’s claim of a weaponized DoJ, but the right aims to make hay regardless
The picture of criminal behavior and a dissolute lifestyle was painted in sometimes painfully frank testimony in a Delaware court room last week and would have been difficult to hear for the family of any defendant.
But Hunter Biden, the man in the dock in Wilmington, is no ordinary plaintiff; he is the son of the president of the United States.
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