Author: Common Dreams

Ex-President Donald Trump said on September 1 that if reelected in 2024, he would “look very, very favorably” at full pardons for the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol last year. In an interview with right-wing radio host Wendy Bell, Trump claimed he is “financially supporting” some of the people who took part in the Capitol attack, adding that “they were in my office actually two days ago, so they’re very much in my mind.” “You get some of these judges who are so nasty and so angry and so mean,” the former president said. “I will tell you:...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas faced fresh calls to step down on September 1 after new reporting revealed that his wife’s involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election was broader than previously known, extending to the battleground state of Wisconsin as well as Arizona. Emails obtained by The Washington Post and the organization Documented show that Ginni Thomas, a longtime far-right activist with close ties to the conservative dark money network, “messaged two Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin: state Sen. Kathy Bernier, then chair of the Senate elections committee, and state Representative Gary Tauchen,” the newspaper reported....

The campaign of Wisconsin Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, who is running to unseat U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, declared on August 16 that the Republican incumbent “is bought and paid for by Big Pharma.” That charge came in response to Johnson’s comments on August 15 about Medicare negotiating the cost of certain prescription drugs, which is included in the Inflation Reduction Act that U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law on August 16. Appearing on “The Brian Kilmeade Show,” Johnson told the Fox News host that “when you start punishing the pharmaceutical industry, you’re gonna have less innovation; you’re gonna...

Firearm companies have raked in over $1 billion from selling AR-15-style rifles over the past decade, a U.S. congressional committee revealed in a report ahead of a July 27 hearing, prompting calls from Democratic lawmakers and gun control advocates for a renewed assault weapons ban. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform held the hearing on gunmakers’ responsibility for a national crisis that costs tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars annually. In the wake of recent massacres in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York, the House panel queried five leading gun manufacturers — Bushmaster,...