U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to run the Internal Revenue Service, former Rep. Billy Long, didn't serve on the House committee tasked with writing tax policy during his six terms in office, and his lack of relevant experience is likely "exactly what Trump was looking for," according to one economic justice advocate.

Progressive lawmakers joined advocates on Wednesday in denouncing Trump's selection of Long, who since leaving office in 2023 has promoted a tax credit that's been riddled with fraud and who spent his time in the House pushing to abolish the very agency he's been chosen to run.

As a Republican congressman from Missouri, Long repeatedly sponsored legislation to dismantle the IRS, which under President Joe Biden has recovered at least $1 billion from wealthy people who previously evaded taxes.

He also co-sponsored legislation to repeal all estate taxes, which are overwhelmingly paid by the wealthiest households, but "said almost nothing on the floor regarding taxes, the IRS, and taxation during his 12 years in Congress," said John Bresnahan of Punchbowl News.

Long's limited experience with tax policy "ought to set off alarm bells," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who pointed to "vastly improved taxpayer service" under the leadership of IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, who Biden chose to replace Trump's nominee from his first term, Charles Rettig, after Rettig served his full term.

Werfel has "set up a tremendous direct-file system, and begun badly needed crackdowns on ultra-wealthy tax cheats who rip off law-abiding Americans," said Wyden. "If Trump fires Mr. Werfel, it won't be to improve on his work; it'll be to install somebody Trump can control as he meddles with the IRS."

The appointment is likely to commence an "open season for tax cheats," said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative.

Since leaving office, Long has promoted the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC), a pandemic-era credit that was intended to incentivize employers to continue paying workers during the economic shutdown when the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States.

He has worked to help businesses claim the credit from the IRS, but fraudulent and improper claims have so permeated the program that the IRS stopped processing new claims temporarily. The U.S. House passed a bill to entirely halt ERTC claims, but it has been stalled in the Senate.

"These ERTC mills that have popped up over the last few years are essentially fraud on an industrial scale, conning small businesses and ripping off American taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars," said Wyden. "I'm going to have a lot of questions about Mr. Long's role in this business, first and foremost why the American people ought to trust somebody involved with a fraud-ridden industry to run an agency that's tasked with rooting out fraud."

Wyden also pointed out that Long has not been named in a "typical nomination like you'd see after every presidential election." Werfel's term was set to go until November 2027, and the IRS typically operates as a nonpartisan agency.

"Replacing Commissioner Werfel with over three years remaining in his term is a terrible mistake," said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). "He has done an excellent job rebuilding the IRS, boosting customer service, and enhancing enforcement aimed at wealthy tax evaders. Removing him will clearly signal Trump's intention to make the agency less responsive to the American people, while giving a green light to wealthy tax cheats to evade their fair share of the tax burden."

"Trump's nominee has clearly stated that he wants to abolish the IRS," added Beyer. "The change Trump proposes in IRS leadership would be a gift to tax cheats and a blow to anyone who believes it is important to rein in deficits."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) added that Trump's nomination of Long signals "the weaponization of the tax agency."

"If he's confirmed," she said, "taxpayers can expect longer wait times for customer service, a more complicated process to file taxes, and free rein for the rich and powerful to continue rigging the system at the expense of everyone else."

Attorneys who argued against Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming healthcare at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday expressed hope that the court's nine justices will take "the opportunity to affirm the essential freedom and equality of all people before the law," while reports indicated that the right-wing majority is inclined to uphold the ban.

"Every day this law inflicts further pain, injustice, and discrimination on families in Tennessee and prevents them from receiving the medical care they need," said Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, staff attorney at the ACLU of Tennessee, which represented three families and a physician. "We ask the Supreme Court to commit to upholding the promises of the U.S. Constitution for all people by putting an end to Tennessee's state-sanctioned discrimination against trans youth and their families."

The law, S.B. 1, which was passed in March 2023, bars medical providers from prescribing puberty-delaying medications, other hormonal treatment, and surgical procedures to transgender minors and youths with gender dysphoria.

The Supreme Court case, United States v. Skrmetti, applies only to the ban on puberty blockers and hormonal therapy for minors; a lower court found the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to challenge the surgery ban.

The ACLU, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and a law firm were joined by the Biden administration in arguing that Tennessee allows doctors to prescribe puberty blockers and other hormonal treatments for youths with congenital defects, early puberty, diseases, or physical injuries.

As such, said the plaintiffs, Tennessee's ban for transgender and nonbinary youths violates the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal treatment under the law.

"My heart—and the heart of every transgender advocate fighting this fight—is heavy with the weight of what these laws mean for people's everyday lives."

The court's three liberal justices—Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—all indicated they believed Tennessee has tried to classify people according to sex or gender with the law.

"One of the articulated purposes of this law is essentially to encourage gender conformity and to discourage anything other than gender conformity," said Kagan. "Sounds to me like, 'We want boys to be boys and we want girls to be girls,' and that's an important purpose behind the law."

Matthew Rice, the lawyer representing Tennessee in the case, claimed the state simply wants to prevent "regret" among minors, and the court's six conservative justices signaled they were inclined to allow Tennessee to ban the treatments—which are endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other top medical associations.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the nine justices should not overrule the decision made by lawmakers representing Tennessee residents, considering there is debate over the issue, and pointed to changes some European countries have made to their gender-affirming care protocols for minors.

Representing the Biden administration, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar acknowledged that there has been debate about gender-affirming care in the U.S. and abroad, but pointed out that countries including the U.K. and Sweden have not outright banned treatment.

"I think that's because of the recognition that this care can provide critical, sometimes lifesaving benefits for individuals with severe gender dysphoria," she said.

Following the arguments, plaintiff Brian Williams, who has a 16-year-old daughter in need of gender-affirming care, addressed supporters who had assembled outside the Supreme Court.

"Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming medical care is an active threat to the future my daughter deserves," said Williams. "It infringes not only on her freedom to be herself but on our family's love for her. We are not expecting everyone to understand everything about our family or the needs of transgender young people like our daughter. What we are asking for is for her freedom to be herself without fear. We are asking for her to be able to access the care she needs and enter adulthood knowing nothing is holding her back because of who she is."

Sotomayor said there is "very clear" evidence "that there are some children who actually need this treatment."

A 2022 study led by researchers at the University of Washington found that transgender and nonbinary youths aged 13-20 were 60% less likely to experience moderate or severe depression and 73% less likely to be suicidal after receiving gender-affirming care.

Prelogar asked the justices to "think about the real-world consequences of laws like S.B. 1," highlighting the case of a plaintiff identified as Ryan Roe.

Roe had such severe gender dysphoria that "he was throwing up before school every day," said Prelogar. "He thought about going mute because his voice caused him so much distress. And Ryan has told the courts that getting these medications after a careful consultation process with his doctors and his parents, has saved his life."

"But Tennessee has come in and categorically cut off access to Ryan's care," she added. "This law harms Ryan's health and the health of all other transgender adolescents for whom these medications are a necessity."

Tennessee is home to about 3,100 transgender teenagers, and about 110,000 transgender youths between the ages of 13-17 live in the 24 states where gender-affirming care is restricted.

More than 20 states have laws that could be impacted by the court's ruling in United States v. Skrmetti.

"My heart—and the heart of every transgender advocate fighting this fight—is heavy with the weight of what these laws mean for people's everyday lives," said Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Project. "But I also know that every out trans person has embraced the unknown in the name of living free from shame or the limits of other people's expectations."

"My heart aches for the parents who spent years watching their children in distress and eventually found relief in the medical care that Tennessee now overrides their judgment to ban," said Strangio. "Whatever happens today, tomorrow, and in the months and years to come, I trust that we will come together to fight for the realized promise of our Constitution's guarantee of equal protection for all."

A ruling in the case is expected in June.

Emphasizing that the Equal Rights Amendment is the only proposed constitutional amendment that has yet to be certified, 46 U.S. senators have joined the growing national call for President Joe Biden to ensure the proposed statute is part of the Constitution when he leaves office in January.

Reporting on the letter on Tuesday, the Virginia-based publication Style Weekly noted that the state's two Democratic senators—Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine—joined almost the entire Democratic caucus in sending the letter to Biden on November 22. Independent Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont signed the letter, but Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), who also caucuses with the Democrats, did not.

The ERA was passed by Congress in 1972, and was immediately ratified by 35 states. It took nearly five decades for the amendment to be ratified by three-fourths of U.S. state legislatures, with Virginia becoming the 38th state to ratify it in 2020.

Despite the amendment meeting the ratification requirements, Biden has yet to direct the national archivist, Colleen Shogan, to certify the ERA and publish it in the Federal Register, which would formally cement it as part of the U.S. Constitution.

Once published, the amendment would guarantee legal equality between men and women, and reproductive rights advocates have said it could be invoked by judges to overturn anti-abortion rights laws that have been passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country—an urgent issue as President-elect Donald Trump's second term in office with a GOP-controlled Congress draws near.

"As you are keenly aware," wrote the senators, "after nearly 50 years under the protections of Roe, more than half of all Americans have seen their rights come under attack, with access to abortion care and lifesaving healthcare varying from state to state. A federal solution is needed, and the ERA is the strongest tool to ensure equality and protect these rights for everyone. It would establish the premise that sex-based distinctions in access to reproductive care are unconstitutional, and therefore that abortion bans—which single out women for unfair denial of medical treatment based on sex—violate a constitutional right to sex equality."

The senators noted that state-level equal rights amendments have already been used in Connecticut, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Nevada to protect against "legislative infringements on women's reproductive freedom."

The letter was reported ahead of a virtual town hall scheduled for Tuesday at 7:00 pm ET, when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is scheduled to speak about the ERA.

The town hall was organized by the Biden Publish the ERA Alliance, which consists of 20 non-partisan advocacy groups including Doctors for America, Free Speech for People, and the League of Women Voters.

Organizers are also planning rallies in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday and next week.

Kati Hornung, co-founder of Vote Equality U.S. and a leader in the grassroots effort that pushed Virginia to ratify the ERA, told Style Weekly that Biden "campaigned on fixing our constitutional gender equality gap and his campaign even requested to speak at a VAratifyERA event in 2019."

"He is running out of time to tell the national archivist, Colleen Shogan, to do her job," she said. "One hundred seventy million women and girls have been waiting 101 years for this amendment to be added and with the increased threats to our LGBTQIA+ family and friends, there is no excuse for leaving us all unprotected."

Nearly two years after it was first proposed by Republican lawmakers, an Idaho law that, as one rights advocate said, essentially "traps" people in the state to stop them from getting abortion care, was permitted to go into effect on Monday after a federal appeals court ruling.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Idaho can prohibit people from "harboring or transporting" a minor who needs to leave the state to obtain an abortion, which is still legal in the surrounding states of Oregon, Washington, and Montana.

The law, originally proposed as House Bill 242, makes the so-called crime of "abortion trafficking" punishable by two to five years in prison, even if the pregnant person obtains an abortion in a state where the procedure is legal.

The law was blocked in its entirety in late 2023 by a judge who found it violated First Amendment rights, because it also included a ban on "recruiting" teenagers to obtain abortion care across state lines.

The appeals court on Monday found that the "recruitment" portion of the law did violate the constitutional right to free speech because it could be applied to anything "from encouragement, counseling and emotional support; to education about available medical services and reproductive healthcare; to public advocacy promoting abortion care and abortion access."

"Encouragement, counseling and emotional support are plainly protected speech under Supreme Court precedent," wrote Judge M. Margaret McKeown, an appointee of former Democratic President Bill Clinton, in the majority opinion.

"Republicans want to scare anyone who might help teens access abortion—whether it's a beloved grandmother or a local abortion fund."

Wendy Heipt, an attorney representing the Northwest Abortion Access Fund and the Indigenous Idaho Alliance as well as a lawyer and advocate who sued the state over the law, said the portion of the ruling regarding "recruitment" was a "significant victory for the plaintiffs, as it frees Idahoans to talk with pregnant minors about abortion healthcare."

But Jessica Valenti, a writer and advocate who writes the Substack newsletter Abortion, Every Day, said efforts to establish traveling for abortion care as a crime should be "front page news every single day."

"If legislators were trying to trap men in states where they couldn't get healthcare, we would never hear the end of it," wrote Valenti.

Republicans in Idaho have pushed the law as one that would "stop adults from taking minors across state lines for abortions without parental permission," Valenti added. "In truth, the law criminalizes helping a teenager obtain an abortion in any capacity—anywhere."

She continued that the ban's "sweeping language... could send someone to prison as a 'trafficker' for lending a teen gas money."

"That's the point, of course: Republicans want to scare anyone who might help teens access abortion—whether it's a beloved grandmother or a local abortion fund," wrote Valenti. "They're targeting the helpers."

Tennessee Republicans have also passed an "abortion trafficking" law, but a court blocked it from being enforced in September, with U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger writing that the state had "chosen to outlaw certain communications in furtherance of abortions that are, in fact, entirely legal."

"It is, therefore, a basic constitutional fact—which Tennessee has no choice but to accept—that as long as there are states in which abortion is permissible, then abortion will be potentially available to Tennesseans," added Trauger.

Republicans in Mississippi, Alabama, and Oklahoma have introduced similar legislation, while Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has suggested states can restrict pregnant residents' travel.

Valenti wrote that Monday's ruling "is not just about Idaho" and that laws barring travel for abortion care will not "stop with teenagers."

"Young people are the canaries in the coal mine," she wrote. "What happens to them today comes for us all tomorrow."

The country's largest Muslim civil rights group on Thursday called for added protections for U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar after Florida state Sen. Randy Fine issued an apparent threat against the two Muslim lawmakers.

Fine, who has the endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump in his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives, called himself the "Hebrew Hammer" in a post on X on Tuesday and suggested Reps. Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Omar (D-Minn.) should leave office for their own safety.

"Bombs away," he added.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has spoken out previously about anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim statements by Fine (R-19), called the lawmaker an "unhinged anti-Muslim bigot."

His apparent threat of violence "must be investigated by state and federal law enforcement authorities and condemned by both Democratic and Republican Party leadership," said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy executive director of CAIR. "President-elect Donald Trump, in particular, should denounce Mr. Fine's remarks and the Florida Republican Party should expel him."

"We also call on U.S. Capitol Police to step up protection for Representatives Omar and Tlaib to ensure their safety as they come under increasing threats from anti-Muslim and pro-genocide bigots like Randy Fine," said Mitchell.

Fine was held in contempt of court in Florida earlier this year for making obscene gestures and mouthing curse words at a hearing. He is running in a special election set for April 1, 2025, due to Trump's appointment of Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) to be national security adviser.

In 2021, the Florida chapter of CAIR filed an ethics complaint against Fine after he posted on social media calling Palestinian people "animals" and calling for their annihilation with the hashtag "#BlowThemUp."

Omar and Tlaib—the only Palestinian-American in Congress—have been vehement critics of the United States' support for Israel's assault on Gaza, and defenders of Palestinian rights.

With the stock market surging Monday morning after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of hedge fund manager Scott Bessent to be treasury secretary, some Wall Street executives said they were celebrating a "reasonable" pick who would moderate some of Trump's most extreme proposals.

But economic justice advocates and experts said the jubilation was likely over expectations that Bessent will deliver "trillions in tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy."

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, founder and president of the Yale Chief Executive Institute, toldCNN that the billionaire Key Square Group executive is a "pragmatic" choice who supports only "selective tariffs" and could dial back Trump's plan to introduce across-the-board tariffs of up to 20% on imported goods—a plan that economists say would raise prices for U.S. households.

But Bessent himself told radio host Larry Kudlow on Saturday that tariffs "can't be inflationary."

David Kass, executive director of the economic justice group Americans for Fair Taxation (ATF), said that during Bessent's confirmation process, the organization will work to ensure lawmakers get answers to questions about whether the Wall Street billionaire plans to use tariffs to fund another Trump plan Bessent has endorsed: the renewal of the 2017 tax cuts.

"As income inequality is soaring and Americans are being crushed by the rising costs of living, we have to ask why billionaire Scott Bessent supports renewing the Trump tax bill, which gives trillions in tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy and mega-corporations," Kass said. "Moreover, we also need to know how Mr. Bessent would fund this massive tax giveaway. Will he make working and middle-class Americans foot the bill by enacting wide-ranging cuts to vital government programs like Social Security and Medicare? Will he squeeze Main Street by raising prices on essential goods through tariffs?"

The government watchdog Accountable.US noted that Bessent has defended Trump's tariff plan, which analysts found would raise annual household costs by an average of $3,900, while backing the extension of Trump's tax plan, which overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and corporations.

"For all his talk of looking out for working-class Americans, President-elect Trump's choice of a billionaire hedge fund manager to lead the Treasury Department shows he just wants to keep a rigged system that only works for big corporations and the very wealthy," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk. "If confirmed, Scott Bessent's first order of business will be to push trillions of dollars in more tax giveaways to the very well-off and at the same time essentially enact a $3,900 tax increase for the typical American family."

"This is yet another disastrous cabinet nomination by Donald Trump, and a further indication of the administration's plans for massive giveaways to the superrich and slashing of regulatory safeguards that guarantee the well-being of the American people."

As the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by 500 points on Monday, National Association of Manufacturers CEO Jay Timmons told CNN that Bessent is likely to try to rein in what he called President Joe Biden's "out-of-control government spending." Republican leaders have signaled that with the GOP set to control both chambers of Congress as well as the White House starting in January, the party is likely to try to make cuts to Medicare and Social Security—long derided by the right as too expensive and wasteful.

"Wall Street may be breathing a sigh of relief at Scott Bessent's nomination, but working people see no help coming their way," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is set to be the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said Monday. "Mr. Bessent's expertise is helping rich investors make more money, not cutting costs for families squeezed by corporate profiteering."

Earlier this year, Bessent told his clients at Key Square Group that a second Trump turn would mean an "economic lollapalooza" for them, with the Republican lowering taxes for his wealthy investors and bringing about an era of deregulation.

The Republican megadonor has proposed a "3-3-3" policy approach to Trump, which would include cutting the budget deficit by 3% by 2028, boosting GDP growth by 3%, and urging Big Oil to produce another 3 million barrels of crude oil per day.

Bessent has also expressed support for Trump's embrace of the cryptocurrency industry, which poured more than $110 million into federal election spending this year and spent an all-time high of $24.7 million on anti-regulatory lobbying in 2023.

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of financial tech firm Ripple, said Friday that he expects Bessent to be "the most pro-innovation, pro-crypto treasury secretary we've ever seen." Critics have warned that the unregulated and highly speculative crypto industry has little to offer working people.

"America doesn't need a hedge fund executive to lead its economic policymaking, least of all one under the delusion that tax cuts for the rich, rollbacks of public regulatory protections, and an increase in oil drilling is somehow the way to strengthen the nation's economy," said Robert Weissman, co-president of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. "This is yet another disastrous cabinet nomination by Donald Trump, and a further indication of the administration's plans for massive giveaways to the superrich and slashing of regulatory safeguards that guarantee the well-being of the American people."

Despite some proponents' claims that Bessent is a more mainstream pick than some other names that were floated for treasury secretary, Carrk said the nomination is from "the same old playbook, and it will have the same results of an economy that only works for a select few, not everyone."

The Biden administration on Thursday said it "fundamentally" rejected the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Israel's prime minister and ex-defense minister—but the Dearborn, Michigan mayor who has been an outspoken critic of U.S. support for Israel in recent months said he would join the majority of countries in recognizing the court's jurisdiction, and would carry out the warrants if given the chance.

"Our president may not take action, but city leaders can ensure [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and other war criminals are not welcome to travel freely across these United States," said Mayor Abdullah Hammoud on the social media platform X.

Hammoud said Dearborn authorities would arrest Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant if they set foot within city limits, and called on other cities across the United States to do the same.

The ICC said Thursday that it had found "reasonable grounds" to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant for "crimes against humanity and war crimes," more than 13 months after Israel began its bombardment and near-total blockade on Gaza. The court also issued a warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, who was killed in an airstrike in July. The ICC said it could not confirm Deif's death.

In May, President Joe Biden said ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan's application for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant was "outrageous."

On Thursday, a White House National Security Council spokesperson said the Biden administration was "deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants."

The U.S. is joined by powerful governments including those of China, Russia, Israel, and India in refusing to recognize the ICC's jurisdiction; 124 countries are parties to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC as a court that prosecutes individuals accused of war crimes.

Gaza officials say the death toll in the enclave has passed 44,000 since Israel began its assault, with Gallant saying he had "released all the restraints" on the military. Nearly 70% of deaths verified by the United Nations in Gaza have been among women and children. Israel also faces a case at the International Court of Justice in which South Africa and several other countries have accused it of genocidal acts.

The Irish Foreign Ministry on Thursday called on all governments to respect the ICC's "independence and impartiality, with no attempts made to undermine the court."

Progressive U.S. advocacy group RootsAction urged "people everywhere to perform a citizen's arrest of Netanyahu wherever he can be found, including in Washington D.C."

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a U.S.-based human rights group, noted that "Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute outlines clear criminal liability for aiding and abetting war crimes, which applies to individuals in non-member states like the U.S. when their actions enable violations under ICC jurisdiction."

"By continuing to provide military assistance to Israeli officials," said DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar, "despite credible accusations of war crimes by the ICC, U.S. leaders—including President Biden, Secretary [Antony] Blinken, and Secretary [Lloyd] Austin—are exposing themselves to personal liability under international law."

Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen feigned surprise on Wednesday over President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Wall Street CEO Howard Lutnick to lead the U.S. Department of Commerce.

"Oh look, another billionaire has made his way into Trump's Cabinet," said the group, noting Lutnick is also a promoter of cryptocurrency and a Trump megadonor. "The conflicts of interest are almost too many to count."

Among the conflicts are Lutnick's involvement in the crypto industry and federal and state cases against Cantor Fitzgerald.

In addition to running the Wall Street firm, Lutnick is a banker for the "stablecoin" company Tether; purchasers receive a Tether token for $1, with the proceeds invested in reserves and Treasury bonds managed by Lutnick's Cantor Fitzgerald.

As Public Citizen noted, New York Attorney General Letitia James found in 2021 that Tether and another crypto firm "recklessly and unlawfully covered up massive financial losses to keep their scheme going and protect their bottom lines."

The company is also reportedly under federal investigation over alleged criminal violations of anti-money laundering rules and sanctions.

Public Citizen also said that while co-chairing Trump's transition team, Lutnick "may also have helped arrange a meeting between Trump and Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong," who "helped steer a record amount of political spending from the crypto industry into the 2024 election."

Crypto firms poured over $119 million into directly influencing the 2024 federal elections, Public Citizen found in August, making the industry's spending second only to that of fossil fuel companies.

As Politico reported in October, even other members of Trump's inner circle have accused Lutnick of using his transition team co-chair position to take meetings on Capitol Hill and "talk about matters impacting his investment firm, Cantor Fitzgerald—including high-stakes regulatory matters involving its cryptocurrency business."

Lutnick's nomination, said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, serves as a reminder that "Trump serves the oligarchy, not the people."

"Debris from crypto's political spending tsunami will jam up more halls in Washington than ever before if Lutnick is confirmed as secretary of commerce," said Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate for Public Citizen. "The president-elect, who once correctly called bitcoin a scam, now surrounds himself with even more crypto enablers. Cryptocurrency won't return good jobs to the heartland or reduce food prices; it will only thin the wallets of those vulnerable to a now government-legitimized con."

Government watchdog Accountable.US pointed to more than $19 million in political donations Lutnick has made since 2009, nearly all of which went to GOP candidates and political action committees. He contributed $6 million to Trump's super PAC, Make America Great Again, Inc., in 2024 alone.

"Howard Lutnick's questionable qualifications to lead the Department of Commerce begin and end with his loyalty to the president-elect," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk.

Tether isn't the only Lutnick-linked company that's been investigated for wrongdoing. The Securities and Exchange Commission fined Cantor Fitzgerald $1.4 million in 2023, saying the company repeatedly failed "to identify and report customers who qualified as large traders." The company also agreed to pay $16 million in fines to the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 for using unauthorized communication channels.

Should Lutnick be confirmed as commerce secretary, Accountable.US said a "major regulatory conflict" could arise due to a dispute between the BGC Group, a spin-off brokerage of Cantor Fitzegerald, and futures and commodities exchange CME Group, over a competing trading platform BGC Group is launching.

"Lutnick's company's violations resulting in financial regulator fines and millions in right-wing political donations shows that political devotion takes precedence over actual experience to do the job in Trump's Cabinet," said Carrk.

Trump campaigned as a champion of working people as he railed against high grocery prices. As The New Republicreported on Tuesday, Lutnick has showered Trump's plan for across-the-board tariffs with effusive praise—even as leading economists warn the plan to impose tariffs on foreign imports will pass higher costs onto consumers, not foreign countries.

"In September, Lutnick told CNBC that 'tariffs are an amazing tool for the president to use—we need to protect the American worker,'" wrote Edith Olmsted. "Lutnick also gushed about tariffs at Trump's fascistic rally in Madison Square Garden last month, claiming that America was better off 100 years ago, when it had 'no income tax and all we had was tariffs.' His high praise for tariffs came even as he admitted Americans would face higher prices as a direct result."

Lutnick's nomination, said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), "is a win for the billionaire class at the expense of working people."

"The across-the-board tariff plan," she said, "is a distraction from the MAGA scam to extend tax giveaways for giant corporations and billionaires like Howard Lutnick."

Consumer advocates applauded last month as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule aimed at making it easier for people to switch financial institutions if they're unhappy with a bank's service, without the bank retaining their personal data—but on Thursday, more than a dozen groups warned the CFPB that major Wall Street firms are trying to stop Americans from benefiting from the rule.

Several advocacy groups, led by the Demand Progress Education Fund, wrote to CFPB director Rohit Chopra warning that major banks—including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, TD Bank, and Wells Fargo—sit on the board of the Financial Data Exchange (FDX), which has applied to the bureau for standard-setting body (SSB) status, which would give it authority over what is commonly known as the "open banking rule."

Standard-setting authority for the banks would present a major conflict of interest, said the groups.

The banks are also on the board of the Bank Policy Institute, which promptly filed what the consumer advocates called a "frivolous lawsuit" to block the open banking rule when it was introduced last month, claiming it will keep banks from protecting customer data.

At a panel discussion this week, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan also said the open banking rule, by requiring financial firms to unlock a consumer's financial data and transfer it to another provider for free, would cause "chaos" and amplify concerns over fraud.

The groups wrote on Thursday that big banks want to continue to "maintain their dominance by making it unduly difficult for consumers to switch institutions."

"The presence of these organizations on both the FDX and BPI boards undermines the credibility of FDX and presents various concerns relating to conflict of interest, interlocking directorate, and antitrust law," they wrote.

Upon introducing the finalized rule last month, Chopra said the action would "give people more power to get better rates and service on bank accounts, credit cards, and more" and help those who are "stuck in financial products with lousy rates and service."

The coalition of consumer advocacy groups—including Public Citizen, the American Economic Liberties Project, and Americans for Financial Reform—urged Chopra to reject FDX's application for standard-setting authority so long as the banks remain on its board.

“It would be a flagrant conflict of interest for the same banks who are suing to block the open banking rule because it threatens their market dominance to also be in charge of implementing it," said Demand Progress Education Fund corporate power director Emily Peterson-Cassin. "The American people are fed up with Wall Street controlling every aspect of their lives and the open banking rule is an opportunity to give all of us some financial freedom. The CFPB must stop this ploy by the biggest banks to keep us trapped under their thumbs."

The groups called the open banking rule "a historic step forward for the cause of giving consumers true freedom intheir financial lives."

"For this reason, it is imperative that SSB status not be granted to an organization whose board members are, either directly or through a trade association they are participating in, suing the CFPB to stop the rules from taking effect, particularly when such members may be ethically conflicted from such dual participation," said the groups. "By rejecting SSB status for FDX or any other organization with similar conflicts of interest pertaining to Section 1033, the CFPB will help prevent big banks from sabotaging open banking rules."

The results of last week's U.S. elections were cataclysmic for the Democratic Party, which lost control of the White House and Senate as the Republicans gained a trifecta, but economic justice advocates on Wednesday said that for many working people, the fight for a better standard of living and a political system that places people over Wall Street profits remains the same.

United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain acknowledged in a letter to members that while the election outcome was not one that "our union advocated for, and it's not the outcome a majority of our members voted for, our mission remains the same."

"We must raise the standard of living for our members and the entire working class through unity, solidarity, and working-class power," said Fain. "No matter who is in the White House."

Noting that "in a democracy, the four most important words are: The People Have Spoken," Fain suggested that the Democratic Party did not convince a key constituency—working people, including an estimated 78% of Americans who live paycheck-to-paycheck—that it represents their interests, and as a result handed the presidential victory to President-elect Donald Trump.

While the UAW endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and Fain campaigned with her, he said, "for us, this was never about party or personality. As we have said consistently, both parties share blame for the one-sided class war that corporate America has waged on our union, and on working-class Americans for decades."

Trump ran an openly xenophobic campaign, but won the support of low-income voters from a range of ethnic backgrounds as he demonized undocumented immigrants and made outlandish, racist claims about Ohio residents from Haiti, sticking to his longtime narrative that immigration—not corporate greed—is to blame for the country's housing crisis, economic inequality, and stagnant wages.

"The task for the Democrats is what it should have been all along: remaking the party into the party of the bottom 90%... the party that rejects Elon Musk and the entire American oligarchy."

As numerous progressives have pointed out since the election, the Biden administration has introduced a host of pro-worker policies and Harris unveiled numerous economic justice proposals during her brief campaign—but her decision to campaign with billionaire businessman Mark Cuban and unveil a more Wall Street-friendly tax proposal have been criticized moves that highlighted the Democratic Party's close ties to rich donors and muddied her message to working families.

With the Democratic Party still taking part in the "one-sided class war" referenced by Fain, the UAW leader said that the union "stand[s] today where we stood last week."

"We stand for bringing back American jobs," said Fain. "We stand for taking on corporations that break their promises to American workers. And we stand against the same things we've always stood against. We will never support the destruction of the union movement. We will never support efforts to divide and conquer the working class by nationality, race, and gender. We will never support handouts to the ultra-wealthy or paying for it by cutting crucial federal investments."

"We are unafraid to confront any politician who takes actions that harm the working class, our communities, and our unions," he said.

Fain's comments came as progressive lawmakers including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) spoke at an event titled Delivering for the Working Class.

While the caucus is set to be in the minority in the House and Senate for at least the next two years, the senators used the event to rally Democratic leaders to "learn the right lessons" from Trump's victory.

As Democrats decide who they answer to, Warren asked, "Is it going to be a handful of billionaires? We know what kind of policy they want to set. Or are we going to show voters that Democrats are the ones who are willing to unrig this economy?"

Sanders suggested that Fain's rallying of the UAW's more than 400,000 members will also be a key to fighting Trump's agenda, including Republicans' plans to make cuts to Social Security and Medicare and his likely reversal of Biden's pro-worker policies.

"The antidote to enormous economic and political power on the part of the few is mass organizing at the grassroots level among working people—to stand up and fight for an economy that works for all," said Sanders.

Just after the election last week, Sanders became one of the first members of the Democratic caucus to release a statement on the party's major losses, driving home the same message he has repeated during his decades in public service: "It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."

On MSNBC on Wednesday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the election results in several red states proved that many of Trump's supporters prioritized working class issues.

"Voters actually want the populist, popular ideas that we have been pushing at the Progressive Caucus, certainly, for quite some time," said Jayapal. "They went to the ballot in three states that voted for Donald Trump... and they voted for a higher minimum wage, they voted for paid sick leave."

Voters in Alaska and Missouri approved ballot measures requiring a higher minimum wage and demanding that employers provide paid sick leave; Nebraska voters also supported a measure allowing workers to earn paid sick leave.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Thursday also took a close look at voting figures, writing at his Substack newsletter that the election didn't deliver "a very big mandate" to Trump as the president-elect claimed, or even "a 'red shift' to Trump and the Republicans."

"It was a blue abandonment," he wrote. "We now know that 9 million fewer votes were cast nationwide in 2024 than in 2020. Trump got about a million more votes than he did in 2020 (700,000 of them in the seven battleground states). That's no big deal... The biggest takeaway is that Biden's 9 million votes disappeared... So what happened to the 9 million?"

Reich posited that 9 million potential voters refused to vote for Trump, but also didn't turn out for the Democratic Party because they were left thinking, "They don't give a damn about me."

"The task for the Democrats is what it should have been all along: remaking the party into the party of the bottom 90%—the party of people who don't live off stocks and bonds, of people who are not CEOs or billionaires like Mark Cuban, the party that rejects Elon Musk and the entire American oligarchy," he wrote. "Instead, the Democratic Party must be the party of average working people whose wages have gone nowhere and whose jobs are less secure."

He continued:

Blue-collar private-sector workers earned more on average in 1972, after adjusting for inflation, than they are earning now in 2024. This means today's blue-collar workers are on average earning less in real dollars than their grandparents earned 52 years ago.

Yet the American economy is far larger than it was 52 years ago. Where did the additional money go? To the top. So what's the Democrats' task? To restructure the economy toward more widely shared prosperity.

In his statement on Wednesday, Fain said the lives and daily struggles of many working class voters are unchanged after the election.

"Today, our members clock in to the same jobs they clocked into last week," said Fain. "You face the same threats—corporate greed, Wall Street predators, and a political system that ignores us. And we are driven by the same force, as outlined in our UAW Constitution generations ago: 'The hope of the worker in advancing society toward the ultimate goal of social and economic justice.'"

Fain urged union members to get involved in "political action on every level of government, in every state, in every sector has an impact on every contract, every organizing drive, and every standard we win as a union," while Sanders implored the Democratic Party to urgently "determine which side it is on in the great economic struggle of our times."

"It needs to provide a clear vision as to what it stands for," wrote Sanders in a Boston Globe op-ed on Tuesday. "Either you stand with the powerful oligarchy of our country, or you stand with the working class. You can't represent both."

NOW READ: It's time for Democrats to declare class warfare

As voters across the United States grappled on Wednesday with the results of the presidential election, progressive organizers expressed disappointment and devastation but said they were "clear-eyed" about the road ahead: one that will require solidarity and a major mobilization to counter the policies and attacks put forward by President-elect Donald Trump.

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of ACLU, did not mince words about the "clear and present danger" Trump poses to U.S. institutions and democratic norms, noting that GOP president-elect is "dead serious" about targeting "the 'enemy within'—which, for Trump, means anyone who disagrees with him."

The ACLU fully expects Trump to seek "retribution against his political opponents and deploying federal law enforcement to shut down protests and muzzle dissent," but Romero emphasized that the 105-year-old organization has a long track record of defending freedom of speech and combating abuses of power, including during Trump's first term.

"We filed 434 legal actions against the first Trump administration, often winning landmark cases before Trump-appointed judges," said Romero. "One week into Trump's presidency, we were the first organization to challenge his Muslim ban. And when the administration sought to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census, the ACLU took that fight to the Supreme Court and won. Our litigation also stopped the inhumane practice of separating immigrant families."

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), one of many groups that have warned a Trump victory would signal a disaster for the planet as scientists warn fossil fuel extraction must end immediately to limit planetary heating as much as possible, said the president-elect can expect to face "unprecedented resistance" from organizers.

"Trump 2.0 is going to get twice the fight from the protectors of our planet, wildlife, and basic human rights," said Kierán Suckling, executive director of CBD. "We've battled Trump from the border wall to the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and in many cases we've won. This country's bedrock environmental laws stand strong. We're more prepared than ever to block the disastrous Trump policies we know are coming."

Romero and Suckling's defiant tones were echoed by reproductive rights organizations that have spent the past two years fighting the nationwide effects of Trump's first term, which resulted in the right-wing supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court that overturnedRoe v. Wade, clearing the way for 21 states to impose abortion bans and extreme restrictions that have had deadly consequences for at least four women.

Despite those bans, said Destiny Lopez, acting co-CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, "more than one million abortions occurred in the United States in 2023."

"The anti-abortion movement, with Trump and [Vice President-elect JD] Vance's support, are poised to ban every single abortion going forward," said Lopez. "We're clear-eyed about what's coming. Guttmacher will meet this moment—alongside our state, national, and global partners—and mobilize all our resources to counter these attacks in pursuit of a strong, vibrant democracy that protects and upholds all of our rights."

On Tuesday, voters in seven of 10 states with abortion rights amendments on the ballot voted to protect reproductive freedom—initiatives that were strongly supported by groups such as the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR).

But with Republican lawmakers in the Senate—which will be controlled by the GOP starting in January—supporting a nationwide abortion ban, CRR president and CEO Nancy Northrup said the group is prepared for the new administration to compound the harms already done "with new, potentially far worse ones."

"The Center for Reproductive Rights is ready for this next fight," said Northrup. "We will vigorously oppose any and all attempts to roll back progress. We will scrutinize every action of the White House and federal agencies, amass the factual and legal record to counter agency actions, and work to stop harmful policies from going into effect. If they do, we will take them to court. We will vehemently fight any effort to pass a national abortion ban, to stop the provision of medication abortion by mail, to block women from crossing state lines to get care, to dismantle [United Nations] protections for reproductive rights and progress made at the national level in countries around the world, and more."

With Trump planning to further gut abortion rights, mobilize a mass deportation operation, and roll back climate regulations while keeping his promise to oil executives to expand fossil fuel drilling, journalist Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo urged all progressive organizers to make "'solidarity'... the most important word in our political vocabulary."

"Yes, a majority of American voters may have cast their votes for an unhinged racist and demagogue who is promising a 'bloody' program of mass deportation and a new and bigger 'Muslim ban,' but the rest of us need to stick together," said Hasan. "We need each other. And so, for the next four years, solidarity is the name of the game."

The term has been the rallying cry of the labor movement for generations, and United Auto Workers organizer Helen Brosnan echoed Hasan's call.

"The only way through is solidarity," said Brosnan. "We can't let what happens next divide us. We have to fight the billionaire class together."

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich did not hide his despair over Trump's victory, writing in his Substack newsletter that he was "heartbroken and scared."

But Reich urged progressives not to lose sight of "our first responsibility... to protect all those who are in harm's way," including women, immigrants, and transgender people.

How will we conduct this resistance?By organizing our communities. By fighting through the courts. By arguing our cause through the media.
We will ask other Americans to join us—left and right, progressive and conservative, white people and people of color. It will be the largest and most powerful resistance since the American revolution.
But it will be peaceful. We will not succumb to violence, which would only give Trump and his regime an excuse to use organized violence against us.
We will keep alive the flames of freedom and the common good, and we will preserve our democracy. We will fight for the same things Americans have fought for since the founding of our nation—rights enshrined in the constitution and Bill of Rights.
The preamble to the Constitution of the United States opens with the phrase "We the people", conveying a sense of shared interest and a desire "to promote the general welfare," as the preamble goes on to say.
We the people will fight for the general welfare.
We the people will resist tyranny. We will preserve the common good. We will protect our democracy.

The National Immigration Law Center, which joined the ACLU in fighting Trump's Muslim bans and other xenophobic policies during his first term, said it "knew Trump could win and that is why we helped lead a movement wide effort to plan for this moment."

"Trump and his allies told us what he plans to do: mass deportations, ending birthright citizenship, ending the right to public education for immigrant children, internment camps, and using the military to hunt down immigrants. We should take him at his word," said Kica Matos, president of the NILC. "One thing is certain: we cannot and will not retreat. For more than 40 years, NILC has been steadfast in our fight to defend the rights of low-income immigrants and their loved ones. We successfully fought Donald Trump before, and we will do it again."

Reich reminded his readers that Americans "supported one another during the Great Depression" and other national crises.

"We were victorious over Hitler's fascism and Soviet communism," he wrote. "We survived Joe McCarthy's witch-hunts, Richard Nixon's crimes, Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam war, the horrors of 9/11, and George W. Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"We will resist Donald Trump's tyranny," he added. "Although peaceful and non-violent, the resistance will nonetheless be committed and determined. It will encompass every community in America. It will endure as long as necessary. We will never give up on America. The resistance starts now."

Government watchdogs on Wednesday said they are "not going anywhere" and will continue pushing for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to face accountability for his 34 felony counts and other alleged crimes, even as the Republican and his allies threatened the special counsel who has been prosecuting him.

"Trump will still be sentenced for the 34 felony counts on which he has been convicted, and other pending legal proceedings must
also move forward," said Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, co-presidents of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, which spent Trump's first term exposing corruption and unethical profiteering in his administration.

The group pledged to "mobilize Americans to resist Trump's agenda of cruelty and corruption" as it was reported that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents and his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was in talks with the DOJ to wind down the federal prosecutions.

Under DOJ policy, a sitting president cannot face prosecution while in office.

Smith filed charges against Trump over the allegations, but the cases were thrown into uncertainty by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in July that held presidents have legal immunity for "official acts" while in office.

In legal filings that were unsealed last month, Smith argued Trump should not be entitled to immunity from prosecution because he "resorted to crimes" when he attempted to overturn the 2020 election results.

Trump said in recent weeks that he would fire Smith "within two seconds" if he won the presidency.

His allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), have also demanded an end to what they call "lawfare" against Trump, with Scalise saying Wednesday that the election results proved American voters want federal and state officials in to "immediately terminate the politically motivated prosecutions of President Donald Trump."

Graham wrote on the social media platform X on Wednesday, addressing Smith and his team, that "it is time to look forward to a new chapter in your legal careers as these politically motivated charges against President Trump hit a wall."

Trump was convicted of 34 state felony counts in New York for falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. He is currently scheduled to be sentenced on November 26, but his lawyers are likely to ask for an indefinite delay. There's also state case in Georgia stemming from Trump's attempts to reverse his 2020 loss.

The work of ensuring Trump is "not about the law," said Weissman and Gilbert, "will continue in earnest [and] will be more important in 2025 than ever before."

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said Trump's victory "is making the urgency of accountability and checks on the presidency clearer than ever before."

"We're going to keep standing up against corruption and authoritarianism," said CREW, "as we have been for years."

Public Citizen was among more than 200 groups that announced a virtual event called "Making Meaning of the Moment," planned for November 7 at 8:00 pm. More than 20,000 people had registered as of Wednesday evening.

"Dr. Davis, what do I do?" asks a man frantically, kneeling near his partner as she writhes in pain on the floor.

"John, she needs an abortion, or she's going to die from the pregnancy," answers the doctor over the phone.

But a Republican congressman suddenly appears and tells the man, "That's not happening," explaining that abortion care is now banned because the GOP is in control of the government.

The scenario plays out in the latest ad from Progress Action Fund, a Democratic political action committee that's produced a number of viral videos focusing on how Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's policies and those outlined in the right-wing agenda Project 2025 would impact both men and women's ability to make private decisions.

In the ad, the Republican lawmaker tells the man, "I won the last election, so it's my decision" whether the woman is able to receive the standard care needed to end her pregnancy.

"Don't worry, you can still have children," he tells the man. "Just not with her."

Watch:

The ad went viral on social media late Saturday, the day after ProPublica reported on Nevaeh Crain, an 18-year-old in Texas who died last year at six months pregnant, when she was diagnosed with sepsis—a fast-moving and potentially deadly condition that can result from an infection.

Because of Texas' six-week abortion ban, which threatens doctors with prison time if they terminate a pregnancy before a fetal heartbeat has stopped, Crain made three emergency room visits and was required to have multiple ultrasounds as she became increasingly ill. By the time doctors confirmed "fetal demise," Crain's organs had begun failing. She died hours later.

The investigative outlet has also reported on the deaths of another woman in Texas—Josseli Barnica—and two women in Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller—from state abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

"This is a healthcare crisis and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis," said Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, after the two Georgia women's deaths came to light in September.

Abortion bans and restrictions like those in Texas now exist in 21 states. Both Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) have expressed support for a nationwide ban on abortion care—a position from which they have both attempted to distance themselves as polls have increasingly shown a majority of voters support access to abortion care.

Other viral ads by Progress Action Fund have been more risqué and have even used absurdist humor to warn voters about Project 2025's proposal to ban pornography and emergency contraception.

With two days to go until Election Day, the "terrifying but important" ad released Saturday shows that "MAGA abortion bans are killing our wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters," said nonprofit progressive advocacy group DemCast.

"They're willing to risk your wife's heartbeat," said Eleven Films, a progressive film production company. "Are you?"

With Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his allies in key swing states already questioning voting processes and claiming Democrats and election officials are "cheating" days before Election Day, one policy strategist said Thursday that election deniers took one lesson away from their attempts to overturn the 2020 results.

"We saw it in 2020 and I think the lesson Trump and his allies have learned since is that they have to sow these ideas early," Kyle Miller of the advocacy group Protect Democracy toldReuters.

Trump wrote on social media Thursday that "we caught them CHEATING BIG" in Miller's home state of Pennsylvania, and calling for criminal prosecutions, but election officials have said there is no evidence of fraud in early voting processes that took place in October.

Trump's campaign took legal action on Wednesday against Bucks County election officials, saying voters wanting to submit early mail-in ballots had been unfairly turned away when authorities told them the early voting deadline had passed. A judge ordered the county to extend voting by one day.

"This week, we are seeing that Donald Trump is clearly worried that he's going to lose the election," said a campaign official for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday. "How do we know that? Well, we know it because he's ramping up baseless claims of election fraud and irregularities."

Election officials discovered potentially fraudulent registrations in Lancaster and York counties, which appeared to have been filled out in the same handwriting. But authorities said the flagged registrations did not raise the risk that ballots would be cast fraudulently and were likely tied to a paid "large-scale canvassing operation."

"This is a sign that the built-in safeguards in our voter registration process are working," Al Schmidt, secretary of the commonwealth, told Reuters.

Nevertheless, Trump and his allies have seized on the incidents as evidence that Democrats are attempting to steal the election.

Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), have both continued spreading the "Big Lie" that Trump did not lose the 2020 election, and both have expressed doubt that they will accept an election loss if Harris is declared the winner.

The former president said he will accept the results only if he finds them to be "fair and legal and good," and told rally attendees in September that "the only way we're gonna lose" would be if Democrats cheat.

Vance said in October that he would accept the results in Pennsylvania, a primary focus of election deniers in 2020, if "only legal American citizens vote," alluding to a push made by Republicans including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) this year to claim voting by noncitizens is rampant in U.S. elections—even though it is prohibited by federal law.

Republicans in the U.S. House passed a bill earlier this year to stop noncitizens from voting—legislation that experts say was designed to spread a false narrative that could then be used to deny the election results.

"This will be one of the primary, but among many, false claims made if Trump loses," David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, toldThe Guardian. "And it will be false, but it still could be dangerous because it could incite his supporters to believing a totally secure election was stolen."

In Michigan on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that a "well-organized network of election denial activists" amplified the news of a small glitch in voting report which made it appear that a single voter's name was used to cast multiple ballots. The error was quickly corrected, but the far-right website Gateway Pundit claimed it had a "bombshell" report about absentee ballots in the state.

The Guardian on Friday also reported on dozens polls being conducted by Republican-aligned groups in the last days before the election, which have shown Trump with a decisive lead—contrasting with highly regarded nonpartisan polls that have consistently shown Trump and Harris in a dead heat.

GOP-aligned groups have released 37 polls in recent days, according to a New York Times study, with all but seven showing Trump in the lead.

One survey by the Trafalgar Group had Trump winning by three points in North Carolina, while a CNN poll showed Harris winning by one point in the battleground state.

Trump told supporters at a New Mexico campaign event on Thursday that he is "leading big in the polls, all of the polls."

With 63% of Republicans reporting earlier this year that they believed Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election, Trump's claims about polling may be enough to garner significant support for another attempt to overturn the election results after November 5, experts say.

"It is vital to Donald Trump's effort if he tries to cheat and overturn the election results, he needs to have data showing that somehow he was winning the election," Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg told The Guardian. "The reason we have to call this out is that Donald Trump needs to go into Election Day with some set of data showing him winning, so if he loses, he can say we cheated."

On Friday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said it is all but certain that Trump will declare victory on November 5 and that he is setting the stage to accuse Democrats of "vote stealing."

At least 35 election officials who have refused to certify elections since 2020 are now serving on election boards, according to a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Pro-democracy advocates say the recent GOP-aligned polls, baseless claims about illegal voting, and laser focus on minor errors in voting processes are all likely to be used by Trump and his allies to stop the certification of a potential Harris victory.

"The effort to try to subvert the outcome," Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center for Justice told The Guardian, "is more thought-out, more strategic, more organized, more coordinated [than] in 2020."

On MSNBC Friday night, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued an unexpected "thank you" to House Speaker Mike Johnson—expressing appreciation for his admission that the GOP will try to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act, which has created more than 115,000 manufacturing jobs, if the party wins control of Congress and the White House.

"What I would like to thank Speaker Johnson for is his honesty and his forthrightness about what they plan to do with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives," said Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). "You heard it straight from the horse's mouth and we'll see exactly what happens if we allow a Republican majority in the House and a Donald Trump presidency."

The congresswoman was referring to an interview by Luke Radel, a student journalist at Syracuse University, who asked Johnson (R-La.) about Trump's recent comments that the CHIPS and Science Act is "so bad."

"You voted against it," said Radel. "If you have a Republican majority in Congress and Trump in the White House, will you guys try to repeal that law?"

"I expect that we probably will, but we haven't developed that part of the agenda yet," said Johnson before attempting to pivot to talking about Rep. Brandon Williams, a Republican who represents New York's 22nd District, where a $100 billion Micron Technology chipmaking facility has benefited from the CHIPS and Science Act.

"The Republican Speaker of the House just told the tens of thousands of construction workers building New York and America's future they want to send them pink slips ASAP," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

The exchange grew increasingly awkward as Radel asked Williams whether he would vote to repeal the legislation, signed by President Joe Biden in 2022, that Micron has said will create 50,000 semiconductor manufacturing jobs in the Syracuse area.

"No, obviously, the CHIPS Act is hugely impactful here, and my job is to keep lobbying on my side," said Williams. "I will remind [Johnson] night and day how important the CHIPS Act is and that we… break ground on Micron."

Speaking with anchor Chris Hayes on MSNBC, Ocasio-Cortez said the CHIPS Act "is not a remote and faraway thing for workers" in Upstate New York, Michigan, Arizona, and other states where jobs have been created by the legislation.

For thousands of workers, the law represents "the jobs and especially the union jobs that result and are created, that people can actually take and will help them put food on the table without having to work triple or double overtime in order to accomplish that," said Ocasio-Cortez. "People in Buffalo, people in Upstate New York, people in Michigan, they hear about the plant that they work at."

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) echoed the congresswoman's sentiment, saying Johnson's plan to repeal the CHIPS Act would impact "tens of thousands of IBEW jobs created by this administration."

"We are NOT going back," said the union.

Johnson's remark got the attention of other politicians whose states have benefited from the law, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Less than two weeks ago, Whitmer announced that through the CHIPS Act, the Biden administration had provided $325 million in direct funding to Michigan manufacturer Hemlock Semiconductor, allowing it to create over 1,000 good-paying construction jobs to build a new facility as well as 180 permanent manufacturing jobs.

"Mike Johnson's asinine admission that he would repeal the CHIPS Act if Republicans and Trump win the election is a complete disaster for thousands of Michigan workers relying on the jobs that this legislation provides," said the Democratic governor. "Make no mistake, a repeal of the CHIPS Act would kill thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs right here in Michigan."

Johnson attempted to do damage control, saying he had "misheard the question," but Radel noted that he was standing close to the House speaker when he asked about the CHIPS Act and others commented that the word "repeal" was said clearly. Williams and Johnson also tried to backtrack during their exchange with the student journalist, saying they aimed only to reform the law—but as Radel noted, the former president has made clear he opposes the CHIPS Act.

Vice President Kamala Harris' Democratic presidential campaign said Johnson's threat to repeal the CHIPS Act is the latest of several recent questionable "promises" made by Trump and his surrogates in the last days before the election.

"Mike Johnson wants to lose Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina jobs," said James Singer, a rapid response adviser to Harris, posting an image showing where the CHIPS Act has created semiconductor manufacturing jobs.

Johnson's comments came as Ocasio-Cortez, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and others were rallying Michigan UAW members at a labor-focused get-out-the-vote event in Detroit.

"I do not see elections as an endpoint," Ocasio-Cortez told UAW members at the rally. "They are a waypoint... Because the larger task that we have today is organizing a mass movement of labor in the United States of America. We have a generational task ahead of us, and electing Kamala Harris is an opening silo to the movement that we are about to embark upon."

Known for its World Press Freedom Index, the global advocacy group Reporters Without Borders on Tuesday turned its attention to four U.S. states that are expected to be crucial in deciding the winner of the presidential election next week—and found that journalism is grappling with numerous crises in states where voters are especially reliant on the media in the last days of the campaign.

The group, also known by its French name, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), focused on Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Nevada in the report, titled Press Freedom in the Swing States: The Climate for U.S. Journalism Ahead of the 2024 Election, and found that journalists they surveyed were concerned about hostility from local and state officials as well as the "economic viability" of local newsrooms and individual reporters.

"There can be no democracy without press freedom, so it's critically important to understand the issues confronting the news media in the places that are most pivotal in American presidential elections," said Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF USA.

Across the swing states, 94% of respondents said they have found that public officials ignore public records requests or stall in providing records, making reporting difficult and robbing news consumers of information. Arizona officials were found to be the most "egregious offenders," and the state had the lowest overall political score in the report.

The report comes days after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said at a rally in Arizona that the press is "the enemy of the people"—recycling comments he frequently made during his presidential term.

Eighty-five percent of journalists in Arizona reported that "leading politicians and political party leaders explicitly insult, threaten, or incite hatred against journalists" and "act in an antagonistic manner towards the media."

"The hostile political environment for the press exacerbates the economic pressures facing media outlets."

But Arizona was one of the swing states surveyed that has made an effort to protect journalistic sources, through a shield law that ensures reporters can protect their sources' identities; the Arizona Media Subpoena Law, which restricts subpoenas against journalists; and a recently strengthened anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) law, which now protects free speech and press freedom.

The same cannot be said for Florida, which does not have a shield law and has only a "vaguely worded" anti-SLAPP measure.

Under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida's government has become increasingly hostile to journalists, with DeSantis championing bills to make it easier to sue media outlets.

"The state is withholding public records about the governor's travel," said an anonymous news director interviewed by RSF. "Violent threats to journalists from the public is a weekly regularity."

The report points to attacks on the media by a number of Florida agencies under DeSantis, including a letter from the state health department to a Tampa TV station that threatened the general manager with jail time if the station aired an ad promoting an abortion rights-focused ballot initiative.

"The hostile political environment for the press exacerbates the economic pressures facing media outlets," said RSF. "It likely also contributes to Florida's serious news desert problem. Over 300,000 Floridians have no local news source, the third highest figure of any U.S. state."

Annual wage data for Florida was not available to RSF, but reporters in Pennsylvania told the group that their biggest concerns are economic and center on whether journalists in the state will be able to continue providing their audiences with news that could affect their lives.

Eight-one percent of respondents in Pennsylvania said that "the average media outlet struggles economically and that journalists are generally unable to earn a living wage." The median wage for journalists in the state is barely half Pennsylvania's living wage, according to the report.

Ninety-four percent of journalists and media experts in the Keystone State also said they were concerned about animosity from politicians and the public, with reporters facing "persistent online harassment" and some reporting a bomb threat that targeted a newsroom, "being followed by unknown agitators," and one incident in which journalists were "in the sights" of a rooftop militiaman with a rifle.

"County commissioners and much of the GOP establishment will not speak with us because they believe we are biased against them, mainly because we reported on local [January 6 rioters], on our congressman voting against certifying Pennsylvania electoral votes in 2020, and our continued reporting on religious and right-wing groups inciting hate against LGBTQ people and all the associated campaigns, such as banning books from school libraries and changing school curricula," one editor told RSF.

Nevada had the highest overall press freedom score, with strong anti-SLAPP laws, widespread news distribution and few news deserts, and a median reporter salary slightly exceeding the state's living wage.

But 80% of respondents in the state said officials stall or ignore public records requests all or most of the time.

Several of RSF's recommendations for legislators centered on increasing government transparency to better allow journalists to do their jobs and to serve the public interest. The group called on legislators to:

• Ensure adequate funding and staffing levels in the offices tasked with responding to public records requests;
• Establish simple, coherent processes with clearly articulated timelines;
• Improve training for officials tasked with processing and responding to these requests; and
• Lead by example at the political level to encourage a culture of transparency.

To help newsrooms cope with volatile economic conditions and dwindling resources, RSF said state legislatures should "innovate new models" including increased public funding, tax rebates for news subscriptions, and policies requiring social media companies to compensate the news media for using their content.

"RSF," said Weimers, "hopes that this report will provide a starting point for all Americans to demand improvements in their states' media ecosystems: greater transparency, better access to information, and a marketplace that enables journalism to thrive."

A new analysis out Tuesday shows that 150 of the nation's wealthiest families have poured nearly $2 billion into this year's U.S. election—the latest evidence bolstering calls for new taxes on the super rich and an end to unlimited campaign spending.

The new report from Americans for Tax Fairness, published Tuesday, shows how spending by 150 of the richest families in the U.S. has smashed campaign spending records, with $700 million more spent than the $1.2 billion that wealthy donors poured into the 2020 campaign.

Republicans, including GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, have been the biggest beneficiary of spending by these billionaire families, including those of Miriam Adelson, widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk; and far-right activists Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein.

Trump "benefited from over $450 million of billionaire donations—more than three times as much as Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, who was the beneficiary of $143 million of billionaire contributions," reported ATF. "That's a 75%-25% split in Trump's favor."

Of the $1.9 billion that was spent on all federal campaigns by the richest families in the country, 72% or $1.36 billion went to Republican candidates, and 22% or $413 million went to Democrats.

The analysis was released weeks after The Associated Press and OpenSecretsreported Trump's small-dollar donations—those smaller than $200—made up fewer than a third of his contributions this election cycle, down from nearly half of his donations in 2020.

"Billionaire campaign spending on this scale drowns out the voices and concerns of ordinary Americans. It is one of the most obvious and disturbing consequences of the growth of billionaire fortunes, as well as being a prime indicator that the system regulating campaign finance has collapsed," said David Kass, executive director of ATF. "We need to rein in the political power of billionaire families by better taxing them and by effectively limiting their campaign donations. Until we do both, we can only expect the influence of the super-rich over our politics and government to escalate."

Trump has made clear that he would push for policies that enrich corporations and the ultra-wealthy if he wins on November 5, promising to extend the tax cuts he signed into law in 2017, which disproportionately benefited the rich. An alleged quid pro quo offer from Trump to oil executives, promising deregulation and expanded drilling if they donated $1 billion to his campaign, is being investigated by the U.S. Senate.

Harris has endorsed President Joe Biden's proposal to tax unrealized stock gains for people whose net worth is at least $100 million, and has proposed a minimum income tax for billionaires and a rollback of Trump's tax cuts.

ATF pointed out that the billionaire families in the report have managed to spend billions of dollars on the election while spending just 0.07% of their wealth.

"The median American household is worth about $200,000, making an equivalent political donation for them just $140," said ATF. "This means that a handful of billionaires have the financial political influence of more than 13.5 million ordinary families."

The group emphasized that the $1.9 billion included in the analysis "is almost certainly an undercount," both because it doesn't account for "typical flurries of last-minute fundraising" and "because there are ways of financially supporting campaigns that are anonymous or at least hard to trace back to the original donor."

"These methods include donations to so-called 'dark money' groups that spend the money on outside efforts or in turn donate it to campaign committees; and contributions to super PACs that contribute to each other in long chains," said ATF.

"It's time we end Citizens United and start taxing billionaires on their enormous, untaxed wealth gains," said ATF, referring to the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that reversed decades of campaign finance restrictions and allowed unlimited spending through super PACs.

"Our democracy and the voices of working families depend on it," said the group.

For the second time in 24 hours, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney struck down a Georgia election rule proposed by allies of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, with pro-democracy advocates applauding the decision for blocking the "administrative chaos" that, as one critic said, was "exactly the point" of the rule.

The judge temporarily blocked a rule passed by the Georgia Election Board late last month that would have required poll workers to conduct a hand count of all votes to ensure the tally matched that of electronic voting machines.

McBurney said the hand-count rule was "too much, too late" to add to the 2024 election process but said he would still weigh the merits of the proposal for future elections.

"The election season is fraught; memories of January 6 have not faded away," said McBurney, referring to the riot at the U.S. Capitol that Trump urged his supporters to take part in to stop the certification of the 2020 election, after the then-president spent weeks baselessly claiming he was the legitimate winner of the contest.

"Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process disserves the public," added the judge on Tuesday.

The hand-count rule was set to go into effect on October 22, a week after early voting had already started in Georgia. County election boards were joined by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr—both Republicans—in opposing the rule, with Carr's office warning the Election Board had overstepped its authority by introducing the change weeks before the election.

"A rule that introduces a new and substantive role on the eve of election for more than 7,500 poll workers who will not have received any formal, cohesive, or consistent training and that allows for our paper ballots—the only tangible proof of who voted for whom—to be handled multiple times by multiple people following an exhausting Election Day all before they are securely transported to the official tabulation center does not contribute to lessening the tension or boosting the confidence of the public for this election," said McBurney.

At NOTUS, an online news outlet affiliated with the Allbritton Journalism Institute, Ben T.N. Mause wrote last week that the onerous hand-count requirement was already making it harder for election officials to ensure there would be enough poll workers on Election Day.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, applauded McBurney's ruling on Tuesday, saying the hand-count rule "was an effort to delay election results to sow doubt in the outcome.

"Our democracy is stronger thanks to this decision to block it," said the Harris campaign. "We will continue fighting to ensure that voters can cast their ballot knowing it will count."

Amanda Carpenter of nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy said demands for hand counts—like the ones that came from Trump and his allies after the 2020 election, which found no evidence of so-called "voter fraud" that would have swung the election—are "typically based on baseless conspiracies about voting machines, are intended to disrupt the voting process."

"Administrative chaos is exactly the point," said Carpenter. "Good ruling."

Georgia state Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes (D-7) called the rule "chaotic" and denounced Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for failing to investigate the MAGA-aligned Election Board members who pushed for the ordinance.

The ruling was handed down hours after McBurney ruled that local election officials must certify election results regardless of their beliefs that "voter fraud" has taken place—a defeat for Fulton County Board of Elections member Julie Adams, who refused to certify two primary elections earlier this year and has ties to groups that have denied Trump lost the 2020 election.

A progressive policy group in North Carolina was among those expressing alarm on Sunday as news spread that federal emergency workers were forced to evacuate an area hit hard by Hurricane Helene late last month after officials warned that "armed militias" were "hunting" hurricane response teams.

But the news didn't come as a shock to Carolina Forward, an independent think tank, considering that it came after weeks of lies from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump about the Biden administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) response to the hurricane.

"This is what MAGA does," said Carolina Forward on social media. "Eventually, their lies have real world consequences."

As The Washington Postreported Sunday evening, a U.S. Forest Service official sent an urgent message to other federal agencies involved in the recovery on Saturday afternoon, saying FEMA had advised all federal responders in Rutherford County, North Carolina "to stand down and evacuate the county immediately."

National Guard troops in the area, said the official, "had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA."

The message was verified by two federal officials.

"It's terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about FEMA and the government... And it's sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most."

Emergency responders moved to a "safe area" and paused their work in Rutherford County, where they had been delivering supplies and clearing trees from roads in order to help search-and-rescue crews.

"Let's be clear: Armed militia are terrorizing FEMA rescue workers and causing important work to stop because Donald Trump spread lies and disinformation about the hurricane. This is on the Republican candidate for president with help from Elon Musk," said media critic Jennifer Schulze, referring to the billionaire owner of X who has used the social media platform to amplify Trump's lies. "Shameful and disqualifying."

The forced pause in the work is just the latest example of the measurable impact of statements made by Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), about FEMA in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned last Thursday that federal employees, thousands of whom have been deployed to states including North Carolina and Florida to help with the response to the devastating storms, have received threats in recent days. Meteorologists have received angry messages from people convinced that weather experts and government officials "are creating and directing hurricanes," The Guardianreported last week.

"I have had a bunch of people saying I created and steered the hurricane, there are people assuming we control the weather," Katie Nickolaou, a meteorologist in Michigan, toldThe Guardian. "I have had to point out that a hurricane has the energy of 10,000 nuclear bombs and we can't hope to control that. But it's taken a turn to more violent rhetoric, especially with people saying those who created Milton should be killed."

President Joe Biden was driven to address Trump's lies about the hurricane response last week, saying the disinformation was "undermining confidence in the incredible rescue and recovery work that has already been taken and will continue to be taken."

Since Helene swept through a number of states late last month, catching communities in western North Carolina off-guard with devastating flooding, Trump has baselessly claimed that:

• Biden ignored a call for help from Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who denied Trump's claim;
• He received unspecified "reports" that North Carolina officials were "going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas";
• Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, spent "all her FEMA money" on housing for undocumented immigrants; and
• FEMA is providing only $750 to people who lost their homes.

"It's terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about FEMA and the government," Duncan told the newspaper. "And it's sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most."

In the town of Chimney Rock in Rutherford County, FEMA has shifted to working in secure areas in fixed locations instead of going door to door to assess community needs, the Post reported, "out of an abundance of caution."

Matt Ortega, a web developer in Oakland, California, said the impact of Trump's baseless claims about the hurricane response mirror that of his earlier lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, where schools and government business ground to a halt in recent weeks due to bomb threats stemming from claims that Haitian people were stealing neighbors' pets and eating them.

"Trump and Republicans' FEMA lies [incur] a debt, just as they did in Springfield," said Ortega. "The people who pay it are children whose schools are closed due to bomb threats in Springfield and recovery aid workers when militias are 'out hunting FEMA.'"

With Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies attempting to sow doubt over the 2024 election results if he loses, more than four dozen watchdogs and advocacy groups on Monday wrote to every member of Congress, demanding lawmakers' commitment to ensuring the peaceful transfer of power in January 2025.

Organized by the group Courage for America, which advocates against "an extremist agenda that puts money and power over the freedoms of our families and communities," the letter notes that there are less than 100 days until January 6, 2025, the day Congress is scheduled to certify the 2024 election results.

That date will also mark the fourth anniversary of the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol, with supporters of Trump descending on the building with the aim of stopping lawmakers from certifying the 2020 election results after the then-president told them to "take back our country" and demand that Congress "only count the electors" who he viewed as "lawfully slated."

On January 6, 2025, said the groups on Monday, "if Congress disregards its patriotic and constitutional duties to the American people, our most fundamental rights and freedoms will be jeopardized once again."

The signatories, including Public Citizen, People's Action, and Friends of the Earth, urged lawmakers to "denounce any attempt to intimidate, harass, threaten, or incite political violence; reject attempts to spread misinformation about the integrity of the United States' elections; and agree to accept the ultimate outcome of the election, promptly certify the result, and support the peaceful transfer of power."

The letter was sent days after U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters that he would support certifying the election results—"if we have a free, fair, and safe election."

Johnson's implied suggestion that the election won't be fair, four years after the top Republican promoted Trump's meritless claims that the 2020 election had been rigged, was called "disturbing" by journalist Chris Geidner.

Johnson has also led the charge against noncitizen voting, which he has admitted is already against federal law but has nevertheless introduced a bill to prevent.

U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the top-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on House Administration, which oversees issues related to elections, responded to Johnson's remarks and proposed legislation in an op-ed at MSNBC, noting that his committee "has held numerous hearings that demonstrate state and local election officials are prepared for November's elections and protections against potential fraud and election tampering remain strong and highly effective."

"The lies being spread by Trump, Speaker Johnson, House Republicans and extreme right-wing conspiracy theorists about noncitizen voting have been repeatedly debunked. Yet they have persisted in a clear attempt to generate anxiety in the minds of voters, and to serve, come November, as the foundation for false claims of election fraud," wrote Morelle. "Congress' duty to uphold the will of the people is embedded in the Constitution and federal law... Congress must, in no uncertain terms, ensure January 6, 2025, will not be a repeat of January 6, 2021, as we certify the results of the Electoral College."

Trump has also suggested without evidence that fraudulent voting—instances of which were found just 31 times out of more than 1 billion votes cast between 2000-14 in one comprehensive study—will be rampant in the election, saying in one social media post recently, "If you vote illegally you're going to jail."

The last time members of Congress joined a Trump-led effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power, reads the letter sent Monday, "lives were lost and a violent mob took over the United States Capitol in an attempt to subvert the will of the American people."

"That must never happen again," the groups wrote. "Ensuring the peaceful certification of the next presidential election is a critical responsibility. You have the responsibility to uplift our democratic institutions in the face of rising political violence and threats. A failure to do so would not only be a dangerous dereliction of your oath of office but a stain on our democracy."

A ruling by the Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday sets the stage for two separate abortion rights initiatives being on the state ballot this November.

The court ruled that two competing questions focused on abortion care can appear on voters' ballots: one that would enshrine the state's current 12-week ban and another that would affirm Nebraskans have the right to obtain abortion care until "fetal viability," around 24 weeks.

Campaigns for each of the ballot initiatives gathered more than 200,000 signatures in favor of the questions remaining on the ballot.

The Supreme Court decided that a constitutional amendment proposed by the reproductive rights group Protect Our Rights, allowing "all persons the fundamental right to an abortion without interference from the state" until fetal viability, did not violate the state's single-subject rule.

"The first right in our state constitution is for the people to engage in initiatives."

Opponents of the measure had claimed the wording was too vague and that it should not be permitted on ballots because it addressed abortion rights before and after viability as well as how the state should regulate abortion care.

The court said the question "has a singleness of subject" and noted that its ruling aligns with a decision made by the Florida Supreme Court this year.

Lawsuits were brought by an Omaha resident and an neonatologist, both of whom oppose abortion rights.

The state's 12-week abortion ban was passed by the Nebraska Legislature in 2023.

A recent poll by Pew Research found that 50% of adults in Nebraska believe abortion care should be legal in all or most cases, while 46% said it should be illegal.

State Sen. Megan Hunt (I-8) said she was "eager to see the outcome in November, when we will protect the right to abortion in Nebraska."

"All power to the people," said Hunt. "The first right in our state constitution is for the people to engage in initiatives."

Allie Berry, campaign manager for Protect Our Rights, told the Associated Press that "anti-abortion politicians forced an abortion ban into law and then coordinated with activists to launch desperate lawsuits to silence over 200,000 Nebraskans by preventing them from voting on what happens to their bodies."

"They know Nebraskans want to end the harmful abortion ban and stop government overreach in their personal and private healthcare decisions," said Berry. "Today, their plans failed."

One journalist said that "devastating levels of impunity" were on display in the West Bank on Friday as Israeli forces reportedly shot a 26-year-old American human rights advocate, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, in the head, killing her as she protested the expansion of illegal settlements.

AJ+, Al Jazeera's digitial platform, reported that according to eyewitness accounts, Eygi was killed by a "deliberate shot to the head."

Eygi, who had dual citizenship in the U.S. and Turkey, was taking part in a campaign to protect Palestinian farmers from violence by Israeli settlers, 700,000 of whom live in illegal settlements erected over the last five decades in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Israel rejects the position of the United Nations' highest court that the settlements violate international law, and the U.S. has continued to be the largest funder of the Israeli military despite thousands of deadly attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and settlers on Palestinians—and activists trying to protect them—in the West Bank.

The protest where Eygi was killed was in the town of Beita, near the settlement of Evyatar, which was authorized by Israel last year.

"Just as the prayers were finishing, the Israeli military started firing tear gas and stun grenades towards the protestors," Hisham Dweikat, a resident of Beita, toldCNN. "As people were running away, live fire was shot and a soldier fired directly at the protestors, hitting the American activist in the head from behind and falling to the ground."

Suhauna Hussain, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, said on X that Eygi lived in the Seattle area and had recently graduated from the University of Washington.

Israel has intensified attacks on the West Bank in recent months, despite the government's claim that it is targeting Hamas, which operates in Gaza, in the current conflict that began last October.

On Friday, Israeli forces withdrew from the city of Jenin and its refugee camp after a 10-day operation that killed at least 36 Palestinians, including children. The U.N. warned Israel was using "lethal war-like tactics" this week as the IDF destroyed civilian infrastructure and carried out drone strikes in Jenin.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the Biden administration was "aware of the tragic death of an American citizen" in the West Bank and that officials were "urgently gathering more information."

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, demanded that the State Department clarify how eyewitnesses and Palestinian media have characterized Eygi's death.

Given a chance on Wednesday to speak directly to a voter about how his policies would materially help working families to afford housing and other essentials, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump instead repeated some of his favorite evidence-free attack lines—leaving the voter mainly with promises to "drill, baby, drill" and to get China "to behave properly."

Featured in a "Fox & Friends" segment on Fox News in which the former president called in, the voter explained at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota that he has regularly been helping five of his eight children financially, as they are "struggling" to afford necessities.

"How are you going to make the economy—not just the food and electricity—but bring down the rent prices, the housing prices, so that these kids can survive without their parents' help?"asked the voter.

The former president didn't address the voter directly, instead telling a Fox correspondent that he likely had the support of "at least 99, perhaps 100%" of the people at the motorcycle event, before launching into a meandering reply to the question.

"We're going to drill, baby, drill, we're gonna bring down the cost of energy," he said. "Energy's what caused the worst inflation, I think, in the history of our country. Food prices are up 50%, sometimes more. You look at bacon. Bacon has quadrupled. You can't order bacon, you can't order anything. We're living horribly."

In the last year of Trump's presidency, a pound of bacon cost $5.83; the price is now $6.77 and has gone down over the last two years.

Trump's next claim, that "we have the worst inflation we've probably ever had in our country," was also baseless, with inflation down to 3% in June, following a surge in 2022 that resulted from the coronavirus pandemic.

After telling the voter that he would ensure China and other countries were "treating us good"—and saying nothing about introducing programs to bring down rent prices, the subject of the man's question—the former president said the voter had been "in great shape" during his presidency and exaggerated the current price of gasoline, which has also trended downward since 2021.

"Answering with 'drill baby drill' to a concerned supporter asking about rising rent prices is about as asinine as it gets," said Derek Marshall, an organizer and progressive congressional candidate in California's 3rd District. "Americans deserve better!"

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, assistant director of the Yale Center for Public Theology & Public Policy, said Trump's response illustrated how the former president and his allies "exploit the pain of white poverty, but they have no coherent answer when asked what they will do to fix it."

Wilson-Hartgrove contrasted Trump's rambling reply with a similar question that was asked of then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2020 at the Poor People's Campaign Presidential Forum.

"I am proposing what I call the Rent Relief Act, so for renters who are paying more than 30% of their income in rent plus utilities, they will receive a tax credit, so that they can be able to get through the month paying rent," said Harris at the time. "I also connect it to the issue of what we need to do around equal pay, I connect it to the issue of what we need to do to raise the minimum wage."

Voters, said Wilson-Hartgrove, should "hear the contrast between these two visions of the economy."

On Tuesday in Atlanta, Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee following President Joe Biden's decision to step aside in the 2024 race, told a crowd of supporters that she plans to "take on corporate landlords and cap unfair rent increases."

The Biden administration has also proposed limiting rent increases to 5% nationwide for landlords who own more than 50 units, covering over 20 million units across the country, and exempting yet-to-be-built units in order to encourage the construction of new housing.

Trump's response to the frustrated voter's question about housing costs, said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, was to lie "about the economy he inherited from the Obama/Biden administration, then ran into the ground before his response to Covid made things even worse."

"'Drill, baby, drill' doesn't help people with housing needs," said Barber. "We need living wages and investment in affordable housing."

New polling out on Tuesday suggests that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's best hope for Project 2025, the far-right policy agenda that at least 140 of his former administration officials helped craft, was that most Americans would remain unfamiliar with it.

Over the past month, though, a growing number of voters have learned more about the 900-page plan spearheaded by the right-wing Heritage Foundation—and public opinion of the agenda has plummeted as it's become more widely known.

Progressive polling firm Navigator Research found in a survey conducted between July 11-14 that 54% of Americans were familiar with Project 2025, which calls for the weakening and eradication of federal agencies and the consolidation of power with the president, the elimination of job protections of thousands of federal employees, and the withdrawal of mifepristone—a pill used in a majority of abortions in the U.S.—from the market.

That's an increase of 25 percentage points from Navigator's poll on Project 2025 just one month ago, said the firm.

Just 11% of people polled viewed the agenda favorably, while 43% had unfavorable views—a 24-point increase since June.

Project 2025 appears to especially be galvanizing Democratic voters, 71% of whom said they were aware of the document. Nearly two-thirds of Democrats said they had unfavorable views of Project 2025, and 62% said their opinion was "very unfavorable."

Nearly two-thirds of independent voters said they still didn't know enough about the project to have an opinion, but 28% of independent respondents said they had an unfavorable view of the agenda.

Overall, said Navigator, "the recent upsurge in conversations and news coverage about the plan" since June has resulted in a greater number of Americans having negative views of Project 2025.

Following President Joe Biden's announcement on Sunday that he was ending his campaign for reelection and instead endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, the vice president took direct aim at Project 2025 in her speech officially announcing her intention to seek the Democratic Party's nomination.

"I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda," said Harris.

The vice president linked Trump to Project 2025 despite his attempts to distance himself from the agenda. As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, another poll by Navigator Research showed that 63% of Americans believed Project 2025 described Trump's vision and plans even as he claimed he "knew nothing" about the agenda and didn't know who was behind it.

Former Trump administration officials Russ Vought, who led the Office of Management and Budget, and John McEntee, who served as the White House personnel director, are among the co-authors of Project 2025.

The poll released on Tuesday found that 45% of respondents said Project 2025 describes Trump's agenda, while only 16% said it does not describe his plans for the country.

Along with the focus Biden, Harris, and other Democratic politicians have increasingly placed on Project 2025 in recent weeks, the movement against the plan has gotten a boost from the BET Awards on June 30, when host Taraji P. Henson urged viewers to vote in the election and warned the audience about the Republican agenda.

"Pay attention, it's not a secret, look it up," the actress said. "They are attacking our most vulnerable citizens. The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!"

Stephen Colbert also explained the agenda on "The Late Show" earlier this month.

Eric Michael Garcia of The Independent shared on social media Tuesday that Project 2025 has "genuinely permeated the culture," judging from people who have mentioned it to him, unprovoked, during his reporting.

Journalist David Roberts said Democratic politicians "have been discovering somewhat to their surprise that Project 2025 is 'sticky.'"

"Make this election about it. Make it famous," he advised. "One of the biggest and most persistent problems in recent U.S. politics is that the right's agenda is so malign that most disengaged voters just flat don't believe it. Describing it sounds like partisan attack. Well, they wrote it down. All of it. Make it famous!"

As federal law enforcement officials launched a full investigation into the shooting at presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, journalists and political observers expressed fear that the act of violence would ramp up political division and turmoil in the United States ahead of the November elections.

Boston Globe reporter James Pindell was among the journalists at the rally who shared that Trump supporters "turned on the media"—a frequent target of Trump during his presidency—after the shooting.

"The crowd was angry," he wrote. "Middle fingers were everywhere. They asked the press if they were happy and blamed the media. 'You did this,' they said to reporters."

Allies of Trump including Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), and former White House adviser Stephen Miller immediately placed blame with President Joe Biden, claiming the attack was the result of warnings that electing the former president to a second term would threaten democracy.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) denounced Collins' claim that Biden "sent the orders," calling it "a continuation of the bullshit rhetoric that drives political violence."

"A likely assassination attempt and gun violence on Trump is awful on many levels," said Pocan. "Adding jet fuel to the political climate is unbecoming of a member of Congress."

Trump, who spread baseless lies that the 2020 election was rigged against him and urged his supporters to riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 as Congress was certifying the results, has said he would act as a dictator on "day one" of his potential presidency.

Dozens of people who worked in his administration helped to write Project 2025, a far-right political agenda aimed at consolidating power with the president and dismantling parts of the federal government, and he has named political opponents he aims to prosecute and pledged to deploy the military to stop political protests.

"One response to Trump's attempted shooting (apparently by a registered Republican) we must NOT take is to stop framing the existential nature of this election," said political organizer Aaron Regunberg. "The problem isn't Democrats saying Trump is attacking our democracy—the problem is that he's attacking our democracy."

One audience member was killed and two were seriously injured after the gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, fired several shots from a rooftop near Butler Farm Show, where the rally was held.

Trump was escorted off the stage after a bullet "pierced the upper part of his right ear," The New York Timesreported. The Secret Service reported that Crooks had been killed after firing his weapon, and that officials found an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle near his body.

Authorities did not identify a motive for the shooting.

Crooks was registered as a Republican in his hometown; records also showed that someone named Thomas Crooks donated $15 to a liberal voter turnout campaign called the Progressive Turnout Project in January 2021.

"This remains an active and ongoing investigation," said the FBI in a statement Sunday, as law enforcement agents closed down all roads leading to the home of the suspect's family in Bethel Park in the Pittsburgh area.

David Hogg, who survived the 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting and co-founded March for Our Lives, said the gunman's ability to fire at the president and kill an audience member while in the presence of Secret Service agents and police is the latest proof that people across the U.S. are vulnerable to gun violence due to a lack of strict gun control laws, which Republican lawmakers have long refused to pass.

"What happened today is unacceptable and what happens every day to kids who aren't the president and don't survive isn't either," said Hogg. "It's insane we have such a major problem with gun violence in America that no one—not even a presidential candidate—is safe."

One election law expert warned this week that the right-wing Heritage Foundation is already baselessly claiming that President Joe Biden is likely to respond to the voting results as his predecessor, presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, did in 2020: by refusing to accept the will of American voters.

"This is gaslighting and it is dangerous in fanning flames that could lead to potential violence," Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told HuffPost Friday.

The Heritage Foundation, the think tank that has spearheaded the drafting of Project 2025—a policy agenda threatening mass deportation and immigrant detention, the dismantling of federal agencies, and the consolidation of power with the president should Trump win a second term—said in a report released Thursday that Biden may try to continue his presidency "by force" even if he loses in November.

The claim has no basis in statements made by Biden, who has said he will accept the election results.

In May, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated that Biden "will accept the will of the American people." Trump has not made the same commitment.

Nevertheless, the Heritage Foundation report went on to say that "the lawlessness of the Biden administration—at the border, in staffing considerations, and in routine defiance of court rulings—makes clear that the current president and his administration not only possesses the means, but perhaps also the intent, to circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president."

Mike Howell, executive director of the group's Oversight Project, said at a press conference that "as things stand right now, there is a 0% chance of a free and fair election in the United States of America... I'm formally accusing the Biden administration of creating the conditions that most reasonable policymakers and officials cannot in good conscience certify an election."

"This is gaslighting and it is dangerous in fanning flames that could lead to potential violence."

Such comments show, saidNew York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, that "these people are the insurrectionists. Or election terrorists."

Howell's comments echoed Trump's baseless warnings ahead of the 2020 election that voting would be "rigged" by widespread use of mail-in ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump relentlessly attacked voting by mail despite admitting that he had used mail-in ballots to vote in numerous elections.

The Heritage Foundation has conducted "role-playing exercises" that it says show "left-wing efforts to interfere with the election" are possible in 2024, HuffPost reported.

The report said voters should "reflexively disbelieve and challenge the intelligence community's allegations regarding Trump, foreign interference, and Republican efforts to legally win the White House."

Hasen told HuffPost that the group appeared to be trying to create doubt among the electorate about institutions that "give voters truthful information they need to evaluate evidence before them."

Journalist Jane Mayer said the group was "stoking irresponsible inflammatory fear of election fraud."

As supporters of Donald Trump flood right-wing platforms with threats against the jurors and judge following guilty verdicts Thursday in his criminal case regarding hush money payments, fears are growing that the influence the Republican presumptive presidential nominee has over his supporters will soon lead to violence.

"Until and unless he accepts the process, the extremist reaction to his legal troubles will be militant," Jacob Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Reuters.

The former president gave no sign of accepting the legal process Friday as he held a press conference at Trump Tower, repeating claims that the case had been "rigged."

Shortly after a New York jury announced its verdict in the case regarding documents that were falsified to cover up payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniel just before the 2016 election to keep her from publicizing an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump, right-wing websites like Gateway Pundit, Truth Social, and Patriots.Win saw an uptick in violent posts from users.

READ: The GOP has chosen hell over America — and there should be no coming back from it

One commenter called for "someone in NY with nothing to lose" to "take care of" New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, while another on Gateway Pundit directed a threat at any and all opponents of Trump.

"Time to start capping some leftys," said the user. "This cannot be fixed by voting."

The reaction is a direct result, said Ware, of Trump's "insistence that he is being mistreated."

Trump responded to the verdict on Thursday by telling reporters he is "a very innocent man" and calling the trial—one of four criminal cases against him—"a disgrace." He is expected to appeal the verdict. On Friday morning, the Trump campaign announced a $35 million fundraising haul following the guilty verdict.

Some Trump supporters signaled they are waiting for instructions from the former president, who is the presumptive Republican nominee for president in the November general election and is set to be formally nominated days after his scheduled sentencing in July.

On Patiots.win, one commenter called for 1 million armed Trump supporters to "go to Washington and hang everyone," while another said the former president "should already know he has an army willing to fight and die for him if he says the words...I'll take up arms if he asks."

While Republican lawmakers have not explicitly endorsed a violent reaction to the verdict that found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts, many have joined Trump in making clear that they don't accept the trial's outcome.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has said she would not endorse Trump in the 2024 election, said Manhattan District Attorney charged Trump for politically motivated reasons and falsely claimed that he campaigned on prosecuting the former president.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the "charges never should have been brought in the first place," while House Speaker Mike Johnson accused the Biden administration of the "weaponization of our justice system."

Progressives agreed with Trump on one point Friday, after he pledged that the hush money case is "long from over" and said that "the real verdict is going to be November 5" when U.S. voters go to the polls in the general election.

While celebrating that a jury of "everyday people" held the former president accountable and proved that "despite his worst efforts, Trump is not above the law," People's Action executive director Sulma Arias said Democrats "must beat him at the ballot box" to keep him from further eroding U.S. democracy, climate action, and other progressive values.