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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Sam Levin (now) and Joan E Greve and Joanna Walters (earlier)

Texas Democrats flee Austin: ‘We are now taking the fight to our nation’s Capitol’ – as it happened

Protesters denounce voter suppression in Austin last month.
Protesters denounce voter suppression in Austin last month. Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma/RexShutterstock

Summary

That’s all for today, thanks for following along. Some key events and links:

An update from the Guardian and AP on the severe heatwave and wildfires impacting the US west:

Firefighters are working in extreme heat to contain a number of wildfires raging across the US west, with the largest burning in California and Oregon, as another heatwave bakes the region and puts strain on power grids.

The Beckwourth Complex, which is the largest wildfire of the year in California, was raging along the Nevada state line and has burned about 140 square miles (362 sq km) as of Monday morning. State regulators have asked consumers to voluntarily “conserve as much electricity as possible” to avoid any outages starting in the afternoon.

In Oregon, the Bootleg Fire exploded to 240 square miles as it raced through heavy timber in the Fremont-Winema national forest, near the Klamath county town of Sprague River. The fire has put pressure on the power grid of neighboring California, disrupting service on three transmission lines providing up to 5,500 megawatts of electricity to the state. Hundreds of residents in the Klamath Falls area are under mandatory evacuation orders.

The Senate has now confirmed more circuit and district court judges before 4 July than during the first year of any presidency in recent history, majority leader Chuck Schumer said today:

We will continue this critical work in the months to come and restore balance – much needed balance – to the federal judiciary.

Later this week, the judiciary committee is voting to advance five additional judges – two circuit court nominees and three for district court. The list includes Eunice Lee, a New York public defender. If confirmed to the second circuit, she would be the first judge on the circuit with experience as a public defender, and she would be the second Black woman in the position.

The Trump administration made judicial appointments at a historic rate, reshaping the federal courts in a way that will likely have lasting impacts on healthcare, voting rights, criminal justice and the climate. From our earlier reporting:

Texas Democratic lawmakers took a plane to Washington DC, leaving their state as part of an all-out effort to block Republicans from passing new restrictions on voting:

The move comes days into a special legislative session in Texas in which Republicans are advancing measures that would impose new identification requirements on mail-in ballots, ban 24-hour and drive-thru voting, and empower partisan poll watchers.

Los Angeles is experiencing an alarming surge in Covid cases, recording more than 1,000 new cases daily for two consecutive days for the first time since March:

The LA Times reported that hospitalizations are on the rise, and the majority of new cases are in young adults:

Of 4.67 million LA county residents who have been fully vaccinated, only 0.06% have subsequently tested positive for Covid, 0.004% have been hospitalized, and 0.0004% have died, according to the LA Times.

Officials estimate that roughly 59% of residents in the county (the most populous in the US) are at least partially vaccinated, which means millions remain vulnerable as the Delta variant rapidly spreads.

The racial disparities of the virus’s impact in LA county remain stark. The Times reported that last month, for every 100,000 Black residents in LA, 65 were positive; for Latinos, the figure was 26; for white residents, 22; and for Asian Americans, 10.

In the winter, LA was one of the worst Covid hotspots in the country.

Why Texas Democrats are fleeing the state

Texas Democratic lawmakers are fleeing their state in a desperate bid to stop the Republican-run legislature from passing laws they say will suppress the vote of people of color.

The extreme move is set to be the latest and wildest escalation in a fight over voting rights in the state. Here are the key things to know:

Why are they fleeing?

Texas Republicans are intent on a radical overhaul of voting laws in the state in ways that many Democrats and civil rights experts say will directly affect voters of color in a state that is becoming more Democratic. The laws include outlawing 24-hour polling places, banning ballot drop boxes and empowering partisan poll watchers.

What is the impact?

With the Democrats gone, Republicans are denied a quorum to pass their electoral reform package and Democrats in the state – riding a wave of praise for their walkout last time – have shown they will go to extremes to defend voting rights. But the move also guarantees a serious political face-off whose endgame is uncertain.

Where will they go?

Dozens of lawmakers were expected to fly to Washington DC, where they are expected to continue to advocate for federal voting rights legislation.

More questions answered here:

Vice-president Kamala Harris is in Detroit promoting Covid-19 vaccines as the Delta variant spreads at alarming rates:

From the pool report:

“There are still a whole lot of folks who are not yet vaccinated, and that is certainly true here in Detroit,” Harris said. “We are bringing the facts, not misinformation – the facts,” Harris said.

The vice president said the team was working to “bring the vaccine directly to the people”. They are having people go door-to-door for vaccines. “We shouldn’t require that people knock on our door to find out what’s going on.” They’re also giving vaccines to pediatricians and setting up vaccine clinics.

Harris noted that the “Delta variant is no joke”, adding that virtually every person in the hospital sick with Covid right now is unvaccinated and nearly all recent Covid deaths were unvaccinated people.

Updated

Texas GOP pushes anti-trans bills

In addition to pushing new voter restrictions, Texas Republicans are also pursuing two anti-transgender bills as part of the special session that has prompted Democratic lawmakers to flee in the state in a last-ditch effort to block the bills.

Senate Bill 2 would bar trans students from participating in college sports, and Senate Bill 32 would ban trans students from athletics teams at the K-12 levels. Those legislative efforts, which would prohibit trans students from playing on the teams that match their gender, had failed during the regular session earlier this year, but Republicans revived them as part of this special session that includes the voting restrictions agenda.

More than 100 anti-trans bills were proposed in states across the US this year, and 13 of them were signed into law by Republican governors. A total of 36 states debated proposed sports bans, some seeking to ban trans girls from girls teams (forcing them to play on boys’ teams) and others prohibiting all trans students from playing team sports.

Anti-trans sports bills were passed in Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, Montana and Tennessee. In South Dakota, the governor signed two executive orders banning trans girls from girls sports teams in K-12, and in college.

Here’s a map my colleague, Rashida Kamal, made last month illustrating the sports bans:

Texas Republicans are also pursuing further abortion restrictions in the special session. Today, the Democrats are leaving the state to break quorum in order to once again try to kill the voting legislation that would impose new identification requirements on mail-in ballots, ban 24-hour and drive-thru voting, and empower partisan poll watchers.

Updated

DoJ moves to dismiss Trump's TikTok ban court case

Hi all - Sam Levin here in Los Angeles, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day.

The Biden administration has asked a federal appeals court to dismiss the department of justice’s initial effort to ban new downloads of TikTok, which began under the Trump administration.

Last month, Biden rescinded Trump’s executive orders that had sought to ban new downloads of WeChat and TikTok. Today, the new administration asked the appeals court to dismiss the DoJ’s legal challenge to the court rulings that had barred Trump’s proposed ban from going into effect, Reuters reports.

The government’s challenge is moot now that the executive orders are no longer in place, the DoJ said. More on the Biden position, from last month:

Afternoon summary

It’s been a lively day for US politics watchers and there is plenty more going on so do stay tuned and our west coast colleague, Sam Levin, will take you through the next few hours.

Here’s what been going on so far.

  • Texas state Democratic lawmakers have disappeared from the special session of the legislature in the state capitol Austin, where Republicans are trying to force through legislation to restrict voting rights. The Democrats have broken quorum in order to once again try to kill the legislation.
  • Joe Biden has been meeting with his attorney general and a group of mayors and police chiefs to discuss reducing gun violence at the US. Among the group was Eric Adams, who just won the Democratic primary in the New York mayoral race and is therefore almost certain to become mayor of this “blue” city in the full election later this year.
  • The White House has signaled support for the people of Cuba who are rallying for democracy and civil rights, in some of the most vigorous protests there for years.
  • Federal judge Linda Parker in Detroit this morning blasted Sidney Powell, a former campaign lawyer for Donald Trump, Lin Wood and other attorneys who peddled Trump’s lies that he won the 2020 presidential election, and is considering sanctioning them for bringing frivolous lawsuits to try to overturn Joe Biden’s victory last November.
  • General Scott Miller stood down from his post as the top US commander in Afghanistan, handing over to another four-star general who will oversee operations in the country - but from the US - until America’s troops are all brought out by August 31.

Texas governor responds to Democratic breakaways

The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, who is driving forward legislation to restrict voting, has reacted to the AWOL Democratic state legislators, saying they have “abandoned” Texas and will inflict harm.

It says the usual kinds of things you’d expect about not playing political games and digging at “cushy private planes” but the Democrats, who are in the minority in the Texas legislature, have few options to block the legislation.

Last month, with the Republicans on the verge of passing one of the most restrictive new voting laws in the country, Democrats in the state house of representatives walked out of the legislature, denying Republicans a quorum and killing the legislation.

It was seen by liberals across the country at the time as a gutsy last-ditch move.

Now that re-jigged legislation has come back before the legislature in a special session rushed through by Abbott, which began late last week, Democrats have again dipped into their do-or-die box and taken drastic action.

If the hat fits. Greg Abbott speaks during a border security briefing with sheriffs from border communities at the Texas State Capitol on July 10 in Austin, Texas.
If the hat fits. Greg Abbott speaks during a border security briefing with sheriffs from border communities at the Texas State Capitol on July 10 in Austin, Texas. Photograph: Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images

Former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is out rattling the coin bucket for the state rebels who have fled Texas en route to Washington to break quorum in the special session in the legislature in Austin and press the case for protections against voter suppression legislation from the federal government in Washington, DC.

O’Rourke has been vigorously defending voting rights in Texas, a state that was already infamous as the hardest place to vote in the United States before this year’s legislative session, when state lawmakers capitalized on false narratives about widespread voter fraud to push for new, sweeping voting restrictions.

Here he’s giving a shout-out, quote tweeting state rep Talarico with that great pic of the caucus.

Trey Martinez Fischer, a Texas state representative from the San Antonio-based 116th district, is part of the breakaway group of Democrats who left the state capitol today in a last-ditch effort to stop voter suppression laws being passed by the Republican-majority state legislature.

Trey Martinez Fischer holds a sign as he and other Democratic caucus members joined a rally on the steps of the Texas Capitol in Austin last week to support voting rights.
Trey Martinez Fischer holds a sign as he and other Democratic caucus members joined a rally on the steps of the Texas Capitol in Austin last week to support voting rights. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

He just put out a statement which reads: “Today, Texas House Democrats initiated a quorum break to save Texans’ voting rights. Texas Democrats will be in Washington, D.C., to call on Congress to do whatever it takes to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”

The US Senate stopped the For the People Act in its tracks last month and the less far-reaching John Lewis Voting Rights Act is stuck in the machine of Congress, too.

Martinez Fischer said: “Texas’ generations-long pattern of discrimination is not in the past; it is alive and present today in the anti-voter bills before the Texas State Legislature.

“This is part of a calculated and deliberate Republican plan to chip away at the freedom to vote and to choose our leaders. Our duty as elected officials is clear: to represent the interests of our constituents and defend the Constitution.

“Democracy is in jeopardy, and we must do whatever it takes to save this country. Congress should be just as bold and pass [the stalled legislation]”

A Biden administration plan to force the rapid uptake of renewable energy would swiftly cut planet-heating emissions and save hundreds of thousands of lives from deadly air pollution, a new report has found amid growing pressure on the White House to deliver a major blow against the climate crisis.

Of various climate policy options available to the new administration, a clean energy standard would provide the largest net benefits to the US, according to the report, in terms of costs as well as lives saved.

A clean energy standard would require utilities to ratchet up the amount of clean energy, such as solar and wind, they use, through a system of incentives and penalties. The Biden administration hoped to include the measure in its major infrastructure bill but it was dropped after compromise negotiations with Republicans.

But the new report, conducted by a consortium of researchers from Harvard University, Georgia Institute of Technology and Syracuse University, suggests it would be the most effective tool in reaching a White House goal of 80% renewable energy use by 2030. Joe Biden has said he wants all electricity to be renewable by 2035.

'We are now taking the fight to our nation’s Capitol,' Texas Democrats say after fleeing Austin

The leaders of the Texas House Democratic caucus have released a statement explaining their decision to flee Austin to break quorum for the chamber’s special session.

“Today, Texas House Democrats stand united in our decision to break quorum and refuse to let the Republican-led legislature force through dangerous legislation that would trample on Texans’ freedom to vote,” the legislators said.

“We are now taking the fight to our nation’s Capitol. We are living on borrowed time in Texas. We need Congress to act now to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect Texans – and all Americans – from the Trump Republicans’ nationwide war on democracy.”

The statement was signed by Democratic caucus chair Chris Turner, Mexican American legislative caucus chair Rafael Anchía, Texas legislative Black caucus chair Nicole Collier, legislative study group caucus chair Garnet Coleman and dean Senfronia Thompson.

The legislators are heading to DC to press Democratic lawmakers to pass national laws to strengthen voting rights, but Senate Republicans have so far been able to block those bills because of the filibuster.

The Texas Democrats’ frantic departure comes one day before Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver a speech on voting rights in Philadelphia tomorrow.

Updated

More details on the Democratic legislators leaving Texas: while law enforcement officials can search for the legislators, they cannot apprehend them outside of Texas, according to CBS News.

Reports indicate the legislators were fleeing to Washington, DC, where Texas officers would not have any jurisdiction.

The legislators also reportedly plan to stay out of the state for the next month to allow the 30-day session to expire without Republicans enacting their voting restrictions or anti-trans bills.

Joe Biden said the purpose of the meeting is to discuss the best strategies that local leaders have deployed to reduce gun violence in their communities.

The president acknowledged there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to ending gun violence, but certain strategies can be deployed more broadly to stem the flow of firearms used to commit violent crimes.

Biden listed some of the actions his administration has taken to address this issue -- including the justice department creating five new strike forces to crack down on illegal gun trafficking and distributing more money to local law enforcement through the American Rescue Plan.

“We know when we utilize trusted community members and encourage more community policing, we can intervene before the violence erupts,” Biden said.

“We recognize that we have to come together to fulfill the first responsibility of the democracy, to keep each other safe.”

Biden meets with local leaders to discuss reducing gun violence

Joe Biden is now meeting with his attorney general and a group of mayors and police chiefs to discuss reducing gun violence at the US.

Speaking to reporters at the start of the meeting, the president reiterated his recent comments about the situation in Haiti and the protests in Cuba.

“The Cuban people are demanding their freedom from an authoritarian regime. And I don’t think we’ve seen anything like these protests in a long, long time if, quite frankly, ever,” Biden said.

“The United States stands firmly with the people of Cuba as they assert their universal rights, and we call on the government, the government of Cuba, to refrain from violence in their attempts to silence the voice of the people of Cuba.”

Biden also said his administration is “closely following” the developments in Haiti after the country’s president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated last week.

“The people of Haiti deserve peace and security, and Haiti’s political leaders need to come together for the good of their country,” Biden said.

“As a close neighbor and friend of the people of both Cuba and Haiti, the United States stands ready to continue to provide assistance, and I’ll have more for you as we move on.”

During her press briefing, Jen Psaki also offered a preview of Joe Biden’s speech on voting rights in Philadelphia tomorrow.

“He will lay out the moral case for why denying the right to vote is a form of suppression and a form of silencing,” the White House press secretary said.

Psaki added that Biden will condemn the “Big Lie” of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election and Republican legislators’ efforts to enact voting restrictions in dozens of states.

Another reporter pressed Psaki on House majority whip Jim Clyburn’s recent comments asking Biden to support amending the Senate filibuster to make it easier to pass voting rights legislation.

Psaki said she did not have any new position to announce regarding Biden’s stance on the filibuster, and she noted Senate Democrats do not currently have the votes to amend the filibuster.

So it seems like Biden will not be making any major announcements on filibuster reform when he speaks in Philadelphia tomorrow.

Jen Psaki was asked about the challenges ahead as lawmakers attempt to pass both the bipartisan infrastructure framework and a second infrastructure bill that Democrats plan to approve via reconciliation, meaning they will not need any Republican support.

“We expect there to be some significant ups and downs, but we are ready for it. We’re bracing for it,” the White House press secretary said.

Congressional leaders still need to translate the bipartisan framework into an actual bill and reach a final deal on the reconciliation bill, so much work remains to be done.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has indicated he hopes to pass the bills by the end of the month, which is an extremely tight deadline to get the proposals to Biden’s desk. Schumer has acknowledged the work may spill over into the scheduled August recess.

The daily White House briefing has now ended, and Joe Biden will soon hold a meeting with local leaders on reducing gun violence. Stay tuned.

The White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Haiti’s request for US military assistance is still under review, so Joe Biden has not yet ruled it out.

The US sent senior FBI and DHS officials to Port-au-Prince yesterday, but the administration has not indicated any plans to send troops to Haiti so far.

The interim Haitian government has asked the US and the UN to deploy troops to help establish stability in the country after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s elections minister, warned that the country could fall into chaos unless the government receives international assistance.

“We’re not asking for the occupation of the country. We’re asking for small troops to assist and help us,” Pierre told the AP. “As long as we are weak, I think we will need our neighbors.”

Texas Democrats flee state to beat Republican voting rights bill – reports

Extraordinary news from Texas, where a source has told NBC News that 58 Democrats will leave the state, mostly bound for Washington DC on private planes, in an attempt to stall Republican attempts to use a special legislative session to pass a restrictive voting law. The Associated Press has also confirmed the plan.

In late May, Democrats stopped the bill by walking out of the state capitol late at night. Now they reportedly plan to leave the state entirely, a tactic last used in 2003.

The lawmakers will risk arrest – the Texas state constitution says that while a two-thirds quorum is required for legislation to pass, lawmakers absenting themselves deliberately can be apprehended and returned, potentially by the famous Texas Rangers.

The law in question is pushed by a party dominated by former president Donald Trump and his lie about electoral fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden.

When first introduced, repressive proposed measures included making it easier for judges to overturn election results; pushing back the start of Sunday voting, when many Black churchgoers go to the polls; empowering poll-watchers; and eliminating drive-thru voting and 24-hour poll centers.

Last week, as Republicans prepared to advance the bill again, one Texan told the Guardian why she was traveling to Austin to testify against the legislation.

“It shouldn’t be scary to vote,” Hailee Mouch said. “And I worry that this will make it scary to vote.”

Updated

US remains committed to 'empowering the Cuban people,' Psaki says

Another reporter asked Jen Psaki about Joe Biden’s stance on Cuba and why he has not taken additional steps to undo Donald Trump’s policies toward Havana.

The question comes as thousands of Cubans have taken to the streets to protest the country’s current government and food shortages.

Psaki replied that the US has provided “a great deal of assistance” to Cuba over the past several months, including ongoing financial aid that has been provided on an annual basis since 2009.

On the issue of coronavirus vaccines, Psaki said one barrier in getting doses to Cuba is that the country has not joined COVAX, the global vaccine-sharing program.

Addressing the Biden administration’s broader policy on Cuba, Psaki said, “Our approach continues to be governed by two principles, first support for democracy and human rights, which is going to continue to be at the core of our efforts through empowering the Cuban people to determine their own future. Second, Americans, especially Cuban Americans, are the best ambassadors for freedom and prosperity in Cuba.”

The press secretary said she did not have any policy change to announce, but the White House is monitoring the situation to assess how to best support the Cuban people.

Biden released a statement this morning in response to the protests, saying, “We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime.”

The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing with reporters.

An AP reporter kicked off the briefing by asking about Joe Biden’s plans to send additional US aid to Haiti, following the assassination of the country’s president last week.

Psaki said the US delegation who traveled to Haiti yesterday has returned, and those officials briefed Biden on their trip this morning.

In terms of additional aid, Psaki was rather vague, noting that there is a “lack of clarity about the future of political leadership” in Haiti.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over the blog again after a great assist from Joanna Walters.

Reporters just spotted Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams outside the White House, where he will soon attend a meeting with Joe Biden on reducing gun violence.

Adams was declared the winner of the New York Democratic mayoral primary last week, and he is expected to be elected mayor when the general election is held in November.

Two other mayors, Muriel Bowser of Washington, DC, and Sam Liccardo of San Jose, California, will also be present for the meeting.

At the hearing in Detroit into whether former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and others who filed lawsuits arguing baseless claims that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election should be sanctioned, lawyer David Fink is making the case against them for the city.

“What they filed was an embarrassment to the legal profession. This was a sloppy and careless effort,” he said of the Trump-inspired plaintiffs’ lawsuits.

A team of lawyers led by Powell filed a lawsuit in November on behalf of Michigan Republicans alleging rampant voter fraud and seeking to have Trump declared the victor in Michigan voting in the presidential election.

This futile effort was repeated in courts up and down the nation as Donald Trump tried in vain to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.

Earlier today, federal judge Linda Parker asked Powell and her co-counsel why they didn’t discontinue a lawsuit they knew was full of false allegations, at least after December 14, 2020, when the Electoral College formally confirmed Biden’s election victory.

“Why did the plaintiffs not recognize this lawsuit as moot and dismiss it on that date?,” Parker asked.

These are questions to which we are eager to know the answers, along with whether Powell and Wood will be officially reprimanded by the court.

Just a reminder that Rudy Giuliani, who also memorably took some of the dozens and dozens of doomed cases to court, and, separately, is under criminal investigation, has already been suspended from practicing law in Washington, DC, and New York.

Fink today accused Powell and Wood of recklessness. Their lawyers had mad a variety of arguments, such as that reasonable people wouldn’t believe the election lies anyway, that the situation in late 2020 with the election results was “fluid” and that they made factual errors in their filings because they are not statisticians.

Judge blasts ex-Trump lawyers Powell and Wood over false election claims. They and other attorneys face sanctions

A US federal judge has just blasted Sidney Powell, a former campaign lawyer for Donald Trump, Lin Wood and other attorneys who peddled Trump’s lies that he won the 2020 presidential election all the way to court.

Lin Wood holds up a Bible while speaking during a press conference on election results in Alpharetta, Georgia on December 2, 2020.
Lin Wood holds up a Bible while speaking during a press conference on election results in Alpharetta, Georgia on December 2, 2020. Photograph: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

It’s looking more likely that Powell will be formally reprimanded for filing a frivolous lawsuit in Michigan seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in November.

Trump, his most fervent supporters, some Republican lawmakers and an assortment of lackeys have falsely claimed, and many continue to insist, thatJoe Biden lost an election plagued by “widespread fraud”.

In fact, the 2020 election was declared by officials at local, state and national level across the country to have been “the most secure in US history” and GOP figures as prominent as former vice president Mike Pence and former attorney general Bill Barr have concurred with the obvious reality that Trump lost.

Sidney Powell, with Rudy Giuliani at rear, speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, last year.
Sidney Powell, with Rudy Giuliani at rear, speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, last year. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Today, US district judge Linda Parker in Detroit suggested the lawyers should have investigated Trump’s voter fraud claims more carefully before suing.

Reuters reports:

“Should an attorney be sanctioned for his or her failure to withdraw allegations the attorney came to know were untrue?,” Parker said. “Is that sanctionable behavior?”

She said she thought affidavits in the case had been submitted in “bad faith.”

Parker held a hearing to determine whether Powell, Lin Wood and other pro-Trump lawyers should be disciplined for a lawsuit they filed last November that made baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the US presidential election in Michigan.

Parker dismissed the Michigan lawsuit last December, saying in a written decision that Powell’s voter fraud claims were “nothing but speculation and conjecture” and that, in any event, Powell waited too long to file her lawsuit.
Parker did not rule in the hearing’s initial hours whether she would impose judicial sanctions on Powell and her co-counsel, or refer them to a regulatory body for disbarment proceedings.

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and the city of Detroit had requested that Powell, Wood and other attorneys to be sanctioned for suing frivolously.

A court filing by the Michigan attorney general’s office reads: “It was never about winning on the merits of the claims, but rather (the) purpose was to undermine the integrity of the election results and the people’s trust in the electoral process and in government.”

Gretchen Whitmer welcomes Joe Biden to Traverse City, Michigan, on July 3, 2021.
Gretchen Whitmer welcomes Joe Biden to Traverse City, Michigan, on July 3, 2021. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Updated

General Scott Miller passed the flag to his successor today, in Kabul, but General Frank McKenzie will return to the US to supervise the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan from there.

Miller was the longest-service US commander in Afghanistan over the almost 20 years of conflict there, following the US invasion post the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.

The AP addes:

Miller’s departure does not reduce the scope of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, since McKenzie will assume the authorities now held by Miller to conduct airstrikes in defense of Afghan government forces under certain circumstances.

The conditions under which such strikes might be used are not clear, nor is it known for how long McKenzie will keep the strike authority.

A deal the U.S. struck with the Taliban in February 2020 included a promise from the insurgent movement not to attack U.S. and NATO troops, a commitment it appears they have largely kept.

While Washington is not saying how many troops remain in Afghanistan, a CENTCOM statement more than a week ago said the withdrawal was 90 percent complete.

Joe Biden has reiterated that the U.S. will remain engaged in Afghanistan with humanitarian assistance. The U.S. also is committed to spending $4.4 billion annually to fund Afghanistan’s security forces until 2024.

Top US commander in Afghanistan steps down in Kabul ceremony

General Scott Miller has stood down from his post as the top US commander in Afghanistan, handing over to another four-star general who will oversee operations in the country - but from the US - until America’s troops are all brought out by August 31.

The sense of impending crisis for the Afghan government and the 38 million ordinary people of Afghanistan is only growing, as the extremist Taliban advances and a diplomatic vacuum opens in the troubled nation.

Even as he bade farewell, Miller said: “We can all see the violence that’s taking place across the country. We know that with that violence, what’s very difficult to achieve is a political settlement.”

He added: “What I tell the Taliban is that they are responsible, too, the violence that’s going on is against the will of the Afghan people and it’s got to stop.”

Here’s that audio:

Well that should do the trick.

The Associated Press further reports that Miller:

Handed over command of what has become known as America’s “forever war” in its waning days to Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command. McKenzie will operate from Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

The handover took place in the heavily fortified Resolute Support headquarters in the heart of Kabul at a time of rapid territorial gains by Taliban insurgents across Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces, mostly funded by the United States and NATO, have put up resistance in some parts of the country, but overwhelmingly Afghan government troops appear to have abandoned the fight.

In recent weeks, the Taliban have gained several strategic districts, particularly along the borders with Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib, who attended the handover, said the U.S. and NATO withdrawal has left a vacuum that resulted in Afghanistan’s national security forces stranded on the battlefield without resupplies, sometimes running out of food and ammunition.

In comments after the ceremony, Mohib said the greatest impact of the withdrawal is a lack of aircraft to resupply troops. Currently, the government is regrouping to retake strategic areas and defend its cities against Taliban advances.

The Taliban control more than one-third of Afghanistan’s 421 districts and district centers. A Taliban claim that they control 85% of the districts is widely seen as exaggerated.

After Miller’s departure, a two-star admiral based at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul will oversee the U.S. military’s role in securing the American diplomatic presence in Kabul, including defending the Kabul airport.

Here’s my colleague Julian Borger on America’s longest war.

And here are our Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul and Akhtar Mohammad Makoii in Herat recently, on the Taliban advances:

Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, has also expressed support for the Cuban people who are protesting their country’s government and economic crisis.

“Florida supports the people of Cuba as they take to the streets against the tyrannical regime in Havana,” DeSantis said on Twitter yesterday.

“The Cuban dictatorship has repressed the people of Cuba for decades & is now trying to silence those who have the courage to speak out against its disastrous policies.”

Florida, particularly the Miami area, has a large Cuban-American community, and thousands of people took to the streets in Little Havana last night to express their support for those protesting in Cuba.

Ed Augustin and Daniel Montero in Havana report:

The biggest mass demonstrations for three decades have rippled through Cuba, as thousands took to the streets in cities throughout the island, demonstrating against food shortages, high prices and communist rule.

The protests began in the morning, in the town of San Antonio de los Baños in the west of the island, and in the city of Palma Soriano in the east. In both cases protesters numbered in the hundreds.

With millions of Cubans now with mobile internet on their phones, news of the protests quickly swept to Havana. By early afternoon, thousands marched through central Havana, chanting “homeland and life” and “freedom”.

“I’m here because of hunger, because there’s no medicine, because of power cuts – because there’s a lack of everything,” said a man in his 40s who didn’t want to give his name for fear of reprisals.

“I want a total change: a change of government, multiparty elections, and the end of communism.”

The protesters were met by uniformed and plainclothes police officers, who bundled hundreds of demonstrators – many of them violent – into police cars. Youths tore up paving slabs and hurled them at police; police used pepper spray and beat protesters with truncheons.

One policeman, hit on the head with a cobblestone, was sped away in a car that nearly ran over a protester.

'We stand with the Cuban people,' Biden says amid protests over food shortages

Joe Biden has released a statement expressing support for the Cuban people who are protesting their country’s current economic crisis, which has resulted in widespread food shortages.

“We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime,” the US president said in a new statement.

“The Cuban people are bravely asserting fundamental and universal rights. Those rights, including the right of peaceful protest and the right to freely determine their own future, must be respected. The United States calls on the Cuban regime to hear their people and serve their needs at this vital moment rather than enriching themselves.”

Biden’s statement comes as thousands of Cubans have taken to the streets to demand answers from their government, marking the country’s largest mass demonstrations in three decades.

Biden to hold meeting with mayors on reducing gun crimes

Joe Biden will hold a meeting this afternoon with the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and several leaders of major cities to discuss reducing gun crimes.

The White House has said that DC mayor Muriel Bowser, San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo and Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams will attend the meeting.

Adams was declared the winner of the New York Democratic mayoral primary last week, and he is expected to win the general election in November.

Several police chiefs will also join the White House meeting, including chief CJ Davis of the Memphis police department and superintendent David Brown of the Chicago police department.

The White House meeting comes as statistics indicate that US homicides increased by 25% in 2020, marking the biggest single-year increase since crime statistics were first compiled in the 1960’s.

However, homicides are still much less frequent than they were a few decades ago, as the Guardian’s Lois Beckett and Abené Clayton explain in this great story from late last month:

The rise in homicides likely translated into an additional 4,000 to 5,000 people killed across the country compared with the year before, according to early estimates. ...

And yet, even after an estimated 25% single-year increase in homicides, Americans overall are much less likely to be killed today than they were in the 1990s, and the homicide rate across big cities is still close to half what it was a quarter century ago. ...

The homicide increase appears to be primarily driven by rising gun violence, with the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive reporting nearly 4,000 additional gun killings nationwide in 2020 compared with the year before.

But what’s happening with homicides is not part of some broader ‘crime wave.’ In fact, many crimes, from larcenies to robberies to rape, dropped during the pandemic, and continued to fall during the first few months of 2021. ‘Crime’ is not surging.

Updated

Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger offered a rather pessimistic opinion of the situation in Afghanistan, describing the US military’s departure amid Taliban territorial gains as a “crushing defeat”.

Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, told NBC News yesterday, “The Taliban have outlasted the will of the United States.”

The Illinois congressman also warned that the US may need to return to Afghanistan if the situation in the country continues to deteriorate.

“It was basically a peacekeeping operation, and we may have to go back now,” Kinzinger said. “It is a crushing defeat, and I’m really sad about it honestly.”

Sixteen members of an Afghan family who fled Taliban death threats have been trapped in Istanbul airport for the past two weeks, and thousands more refugees are making their way overland seeking safety in Turkey, as the security situation in Afghanistan rapidly deteriorates after the withdrawal of US and Nato forces.

The family, from Herat city, decided to leave the country in June after a relative was shot and killed on the street by Taliban forces. Several of them work with international aid organisations on issues such as women’s rights, and have continued to face threats.

They decided to bypass stringent visa rules for Afghans in most countries by spending their savings on Euro 2020 fan passes for football matches being held in the Russian city of St Petersburg, hoping to claim asylum on arrival.

However, the family were turned away from their connecting flight in Istanbul on 22 June, and attempts to apply for asylum and international protection in Turkey since then have been repeatedly denied, one member of the family told the Guardian.

“We were stuck in the international transit area for 16 days,” said Farzad, 28, who asked for the family’s last name to be withheld to protect their safety. “Everyone we asked to help us said it’s not their job, and we need to be on Turkish soil to apply for refugee status.”

Top US commander in Afghanistan to step down amid troop withdrawal - reports

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

General Scott Miller, the top US commander in Afghanistan, will step down today, according to multiple reports. The news comes as the US military continues its withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan, which Joe Biden has said will conclude by the end of next month.

The AP reports:

Gen. Scott Miller was poised to transfer authority to Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm the developments.

McKenzie, also a four-star general, will operate from Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida. He will assume authority to conduct possible airstrikes in defense of Afghan government forces, at least until the U.S. withdrawal concludes by Aug. 31.

As Miller prepares to leave his post, Taliban insurgents continue to make territorial gains across Afghanistan, intensifying some experts’ fears that Kabul will fall to the insurgents after the US military departs.

Speaking to NBC News yesterday, senator Jack Reed, the Democratic chairman of the Senate armed services committee, said he believed Biden had made the “best of many poor choices” on Afghanistan.

“I think Kabul will hold,” Reed added. “The question is, can it hold long enough to create a political solution between the sides?”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

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