The Senate Budget Committee hearing on Thursday will feature Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics and leaders of the Environmental Defense Fund and the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Republicans and Democrats remain at loggerheads over debt ceiling negotiations, just as entrenched as they were before the House passed its GOP debt ceiling and spending cuts package. House Republicans were certain that their starting bid to rollback federal spending in exchange for lifting the debt limit would force President Joe Biden to the negotiating table. But last week’s action on the House GOP package has yet to move the needle much.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that Republicans are “demanding hostage negotiations” while House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told “This Week” that Biden is “running out the clock” on the debt limit.
Now the House is out of town, leaving the Senate to weigh in on the GOP proposal and how Biden should handle it. And Treasury Department officials are expected to update the public soon on the “X date,” before which Congress will need to pass a debt limit lift to avoid default, in the coming days. That will ramp up the pressure, but it’s not yet clear what will get leaders to budge.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said last week that Biden not getting in a room with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to negotiate on the debt limit “signals a deficiency of leadership, and it must change.” The West Virginia Democrat said “we are long past time for our elected leaders to sit down and discuss how to solve this impending debt ceiling crisis” and called on Biden to “negotiate now.”
Most other Democrats aren’t going that far. They are talking about talks, but have so far drawn a distinction between talks on spending and negotiations on the debt limit.
“[Biden] will sit down with Speaker McCarthy to talk about these issues in the framework of the budget and the appropriations process,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told “Fox News Sunday.” But not the president should not negotiate over the debt limit, Van Hollen said.
And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on Sunday that Biden can “start negotiating tomorrow” on possible spending cuts but stressed that those talks can only move forward if Republicans commit to raising the debt limit.
“I’m willing to look at any other proposals. There’s a lot of waste within government. Let’s go after it. But don’t go to war against the working class of this country, lower-income people,” Sanders said.
Republicans maintain that what they view as government overspending and the nation’s growing debt are inextricably linked and that conversations about each cannot be separated.
“As we’re addressing the debt limit, we also have to address the problem that got us here,” Scalise said on “This Week.”
The House majority leader also challenged Senate Democrats to put forth their own legislation.
“If they’ve got a better idea, I want to see that bill and tell them to pass it through the Senate,” Scalise said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Tuttle is only in the early stages of exploring a run. But his interest comes as Republicans have so far struggled to field any serious contenders for the seat. Democrats, meanwhile, have united quickly behind Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a strong fundraiser who ousted an incumbent GOP representative in 2018. Her launch spooked a slew of other prominent Michigan Democrats out of the race, though a handful of other potential candidates are still considering jumping in. The state went for President Joe Biden in 2020 but former President Donald Trump won it in 2016.
With his work based in Manhattan, Tuttle splits his time between New York City and Michigan. He is from Milford, Mich. in Oakland County and maintains deep ties to the state. He was the commencement speaker last year at Eastern Michigan University, his alma mater.
Tuttle, 41, has considered a run for Congress in the past. And he’s been somewhat politically active too. In his role as president of the NYSE Institute, he hosted Speaker Kevin McCarthy in April on Wall Street when he visited the stock exchange to give a speech on the debt limit. Tuttle conducted a brief question-and-answer session with McCarthy afterward.
A timeline for Tuttle’s decision was not clear. But he has spoken with Republicans in D.C. and Michigan about a possible run and the National Republican Senatorial Committee has shown interest in his candidacy.
“John Tuttle is a strong potential recruit in Michigan,” NRSC Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said.
GOP Rep. John James, who won a Michigan House battleground seat last fall, declined to make a third run for Senate in 2024. (He lost to Stabenow in 2018 and Democratic Sen. Gary Peters in 2020.) Former Republican Rep. Peter Meijer is considering a run. Meijer lost his Grand Rapids-based House seat in 2022 after voting to impeach Trump, which could also be a liability in any Senate primary. Another potential GOP candidate is Kevin Rinke, who lost a primary bid to be the Republican nominee against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2022.
While Tuttle would have the funds to support a campaign and a major network of potential donors to tap, he is a political neophyte. Senate Republicans have actively been looking to recruit candidates who have fundraising prowess or large personal wealth after being vastly outraised by Democrats in the midterms.
Through his work, Tuttle knows former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, who is CEO of the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Loeffler joined the Senate in 2020 after she was appointed by Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. But she lost to Democrat Raphael Warnock in a runoff election the following year, under attacks that her personal wealth made her disconnected from the needs of the state.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“She is not planning to run for Senate in 2024. She is not planning to primary Gillibrand,” Lauren Hitt, Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesperson, told POLITICO.
Other possible challengers have already opted out of the race. Former New York Rep. Mondaire Jones, a progressive, has decided he won’t run for Gillibrand’s seat next year after privately considering a bid, according to a person familiar with his plans who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal deliberations. Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Ritchie Torres
(D-N.Y.) also told POLITICO they are not interested in the race.
“Sen. Gillibrand has represented our state incredibly well,” said Isaac Goldberg, a Democratic consultant based in New York. “There’s no energy right now to go after someone who spends her time protecting the right to choose, fighting for paid leave, family leave, workers’ rights and a green economy and everything else Democrats in this state value.”
Political calculations can change, of course. Ocasio-Cortez saying she isn’t planning to run is different from her declaring that she won’t. But her comment is the most definitive statement to date that a 2024 Senate campaign is not in the cards. If the congresswoman follows through with her intention to skip a Senate bid, it would go a long way toward smoothing the path to reelection for Gillibrand, whose main concern has been the political challenges she faces from within her party. Previously, there had been talk among Ocasio-Cortez’s former aides that she could run.
Indeed, Gillibrand maintains strong personal relationships that may have deterred some challengers, allies and supporters said. That included having what she called a “lovely lunch” with Ocasio-Cortez and her chief of staff in the Senate Dining Room in January.
Gillibrand is also benefiting from the bruises New York Democrats suffered in 2022. The party saw four House seats flip to Republican during the midterms. And many top state Democratic officials said they want to avoid an acrimonious primary in order to focus on recovering those House seats and protecting battleground members like Rep. Pat Ryan.
“I think it’s divisive. And unless you think you can win, it’s divisive unnecessarily,” said Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York Democratic Party. “It’s using up resources we need to preserve for more coordinated work and the rest.”
Camille Rivera, a New York-based progressive strategist, said competitive primaries often benefit democracy and candidates, but that a Democratic contest at this time in New York “could be pretty bruising and give a Republican a leg up.”
A Democratic strategist close to the Working Families Party, a liberal group founded in New York, said there isn’t any appetite within the organization to challenge Gillibrand.
“2024 will be a big year and [New York] will be vital to taking back Congress,” the person said. “That will be an important focus for the WFP.”
State party officials are already developing a collaborative campaigning and fundraising effort led by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). Gillibrand’s also in “regular” conversation with Jeffries about the coordinated campaign, according to a person close to Gillibrand’s campaign.
In a statement, Gillibrand spokesperson Evan Lukaske said she is “excited to run on her record of delivering for New York families. From making gun trafficking a federal crime to securing health benefits for 9/11 survivors to bringing home hundreds of millions of dollars for projects that will boost the economy, Senator Gillibrand has consistently gotten real results.”
But it wasn’t too long ago when Gillibrand’s future was less certain. She had come off a presidential bid that ended before the first primary contests, faced criticism for her role in former-Sen. Al Franken’s resignation, and accepted donations from crypto-billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. (Gillibrand’s team said she has donated the money to a nonprofit.)
“[Gillibrand] effectively hasn’t been here until it’s been election time,” said Michael Blake, a former Bronx-based assembly member and Democratic National Committee vice chair. “She made a previous run for president. I don’t think her family even goes to school here in New York anymore. I mean, I think there’s a fair question of: Does she truly want to represent?”
Gillibrand’s perceived weaknesses are partly due to the state she represents and the era in which she represents it. Many progressives view New York as a liberal bastion and think its senator should reflect that. And though Gillibrand would be considered very liberal in numerous states around the country — having voted with President Joe Biden 95 percent of the time — many on the left aren’t comfortable with her Wall Street ties and view her as an ideological interloper.
Among those who would be best equipped to challenge Gillibrand would be Ocasio-Cortez, who has national name ID and major cash on hand ($5 million in the bank compared with the senator’s $6 million). But the congresswoman has long been coy about her future ambitions. There was talk that she might challenge Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) last year and the prospect of that happening did — to the delight of progressives — nudge the Senate majority leader to the left. But a campaign against him never materialized.
Bowman, an ally to Ocasio-Cortez, said “weeks ago or months ago maybe, I heard her name” mentioned as a primary contender. But he said he hasn’t heard that “for months or weeks.”
Though most of the chatter about Gillibrand’s vulnerability comes from her left, another Democrat whose name has been floated as a potential opponent is former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo resigned amid accusations that he sexually harassed multiple women. He denies the allegations.
A spokesperson for Cuomo declined to comment for this story. The former governor sits on a war chest of about $10 million, but in a state — not federal — elections account.
“I’ve heard rumors and I’ve heard speculation, but I have not heard from any specific candidate that is giving it serious thought or beginning to raise money or hire staff,” Jacobs said. “So my guess is, unless something emerges soon, it’s going to be just a lot of talk.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
A 2018 Senate investigation that found there was “no evidence” to substantiate any of the claims of sexual assault against the US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh contained serious omissions, according to new information obtained by the Guardian.
The 28-page report was released by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the then chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was “likely” mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts.
The suggestion that Kavanaugh was the victim of mistaken identity was sent to the judiciary committee by a Colorado-based attorney named Joseph C Smith Jr, according to a non-redacted copy of a 2018 email obtained by the Guardian. Smith was a friend and former colleague of the judiciary committee’s then lead counsel, Mike Davis.
Smith was also a member of the Federalist Society, which strongly supported Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination, and appears to have a professional relationship with the Federalist Society’s co-founder, Leonard Leo, whom he thanked in the acknowledgments of his book Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State.
Smith wrote to Davis in the 29 September 2018 email that he was in a class behind Kavanaugh and Ramirez (who graduated in the class of 1987) and believed Ramirez was likely mistaken in identifying Kavanaugh.
Instead, Smith said it was a fellow classmate named Jack Maxey, who was a member of Kavanaugh’s fraternity, who allegedly had a “reputation” for exposing himself, and had once done so at a party. To back his claim, Smith also attached a photograph of Maxey exposing himself in his fraternity’s 1988 yearbook picture.
The allegation that Ramirez was likely mistaken was included in the Senate committee’s final report even though Maxey – who was described but not named – was not attending Yale at the time of the alleged incident.
In an interview with the Guardian, Maxey confirmed that he was still a senior in high school at the time of the alleged incident, and said he had never been contacted by any of the Republican staffers who were conducting the investigation.
“I was not at Yale,” he said. “I was a senior in high school at the time. I was not in New Haven.” He added: “These people can say what they want, and there are no consequences, ever.”
The revelation raises new questions about apparent efforts to downplay and discredit accusations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh and exclude evidence that supported an alleged victim’s claims.
A new documentary – an early version of which premiered at Sundance in January, but is being updated before its release – contains a never-before-heard recording of another Yale graduate, Max Stier, describing a separate alleged incident in which he said he witnessed Kavanaugh expose himself at a party at Yale.
It has previously been reported that Stier wanted to tell the FBI anonymously during the confirmation process that he had allegedly witnessed Kavanaugh’s friends push the future judge’s penis into the hand of a female classmate at a party. While Republicans on the Senate committee were reportedly made aware of his desire to submit information to the FBI, he was not interviewed by the committee’s Republican investigators.
The committee’s final report claimed there was “no verifiable evidence to support” Ramirez’s claim.
It is not clear how the film’s director, Doug Liman, obtained the recording, or whom Stier was speaking to when it was recorded.
Stier, the chief executive of a Washington nonprofit who formerly served in the Clinton administration, declined to comment to the Guardian.
He is married to Florence Pan, a prominent judge on the US court of appeals in Washington. Pan sits in the seat that was vacated by Ketanji Brown Jackson, the US supreme court justice, and is seen as a possible future candidate for the US high court.
Maxey adamantly denied any allegation that he exposed himself to Ramirez at any time. Asked if he had ever visited Yale at the time of the alleged incident, Maxey said he had visited his older brother, Christopher, who was an older student at Yale, on a limited number of occasions when he was a senior in high school, but that they had not attended any freshmen parties.
Maxey, a Republican activist, has gained prominence in conservative circles for his role in sharing a portable hard drive of data from Hunter Biden’s laptop with members of the media, including the Washington Post. When he was reached by the Guardian, Maxey said he was in Europe and claimed he had “just” given the hard drive to Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary.
Maxey has said he obtained the hard drive from Rudy Giuliani. He previously worked as a researcher for Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast but the two have since had a falling out.
While Maxey seemed in his interview with the Guardian to have been annoyed that Smith – whom he said he didn’t know or recall interacting with – named him in an accusatory email, he also separately defended Kavanaugh, who he said had behaved like a “choir boy” while attending Yale.
Smith’s email arrived in Davis’s inbox six days after the New Yorker first published details of Ramirez’s accusation. In the article, Ramirez described how Kavanaugh had allegedly exposed himself drunkenly at a dormitory party, thrusting his penis in her face in a way that caused her to touch it without her consent in order to push him away. Ramirez, who was raised as a devout Catholic, described feeling ashamed, humiliated and embarrassed after the alleged assault, and recalled how Kavanaugh had allegedly laughed as he pulled his pants up.
Kavanaugh has denied the incident took place.
Ramirez, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.
Smith did not respond to several requests for comment.
It is not clear whether Smith, a Denver-based partner at Bartlit Beck, knew or had a relationship with Kavanaugh while or after both attended Yale as undergraduate students, or what prompted him to send Davis the email, which was an apparent attempt to clear Kavanaugh of suspicion.
According to his online biography, Smith attended the University of Chicago’s law school after graduating from Yale and – like Kavanaugh – was part of the legal team that represented George W Bush in the 2000 presidential recount in Florida.
Redacted emails show that Smith also appears to have shared his accusation about Maxey with federal investigators. While the name of the accuser and the accused were redacted, records released by the FBI show that an individual made the exact same claim as Smith made to Davis to the FBI shortly after the email was sent to Davis. In it, the individual wrote: “I submitted this same information to a staff member of the Senate judiciary committee, Mike Davis, because I know him, and he suggested I also submit it to you.”
Davis declined to comment. The Republican staff on the Senate judiciary committee declined to respond to a request for comment.
The FBI was at the time involved in its own review of sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. The investigation, conducted under FBI director Christopher Wray, another Yale graduate, has widely been derided as a “sham” by Democrats led by the Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Senate judiciary committee.
Whitehouse’s office is expected to release a report into the FBI’s handling of the Kavanaugh investigation by the end of this year.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
A later vote extended the deadline to 1982, but a sufficient number of states still did not ratify. The Senate’s resolution would remove the 1982 deadline and recognize the ERA in the Constitution.
The measure was bipartisan, sponsored by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). But all Republicans save for Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins voted against it, arguing it’s not necessary to include in the Constitution. Opponents also said it raises legal questions about Congress’ authority to remove amendment ratification deadlines or whether states can rescind it.
Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) alluded to the uphill climb for Democrats to get the measure over the finish line on Wednesday.
“It only takes 41 to block,” Thune said, implying Democrats didn’t have the votes for passage. “I think it will be a heavy lift.”
Before the vote, Schumer called the deadline to ratify the ERA “arbitrary” and said it must be passed.
“There is no good reason — none — for this chamber, this Congress, and this nation to bind itself to limitations set fifty years ago,” he said on the Senate floor. “The Constitution itself imposes no such barrier; by keeping this barrier in place — this seven year barrier — all we’re doing is needlessly obeying skewed rules set by politicians who are long gone, and whose views ought not rule the day any longer.”
“In 2023, we should move forward to ratify the ERA with all due haste, because if you look at the terrible things happening to women’s rights in this country, it’s clear that we must act,” he added.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Manchin has said he will not decide whether he will run for reelection until the end of the year. He has also left the door open to a presidential bid.
“I am laser focused on doing the job West Virginians elected me to do — lowering healthcare costs, protecting Social Security and Medicare, shoring up American energy security and getting our fiscal house in order,” Manchin said in a statement released Thursday. “But make no mistake, I will win any race I enter.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee played an active role in recruiting Justice. With a 64 percent approval rating, Justice is the fifth-most popular governor in the country, according to a survey conducted last year by Morning Consult.
Before taking on Manchin, Justice must face GOP Rep. Alex Mooney in the Republican primary. The conservative group Club for Growth has vowed to spend at least $10 million on the race, and has already reported spending from its super PAC this week.
The congressman is launching an TV ad on Thursday that bashes Justice as a “liberal.” Justice was previously registered as a Democrat and switched parties in 2017.
Both candidates would benefit greatly from Trump’s endorsement and are angling for that support. Mooney flew down to Florida for a congressional fundraiser on Friday — and also chatted up Trump at the event. Mooney’s campaign wants Trump to at least stay neutral if he won’t endorse the conservative congressman, according to a person briefed on the event.
POLITICO previously reported that Justice planned to launch his campaign on Thursday.
Burgess Everett, Ally Mutnick and Meridith McGraw contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Tillis and his 48 Senate GOP colleagues are nonetheless praying that Speaker Kevin McCarthy can muscle through his opening pitch to give their party a modicum of leverage over the coming weeks. A McCarthy failure would make it much harder for 10 or more Republican senators to extract any concessions at all from the president as a condition for raising the borrowing limit.
Yet basically every Senate Democrat, save West Virginia centrist Joe Manchin, says there’s no negotiation to be had no matter what transpires in the lower chamber this week. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer declared the House’s proposal the “DOA Act” for its grim prospects of becoming law and reiterated that he would only accept a “clean” debt ceiling hike.
The yawning gap between the parties in the Senate highlights the high degree of uncertainty over just how Congress and the White House are going to get out of this particular jam. It’s undoubtedly the most consequential topic of 2023 and perhaps the entire two-year session, with massive economic and political stakes for both parties heading into a presidential election year.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) pointedly argued that the House’s GOP’s eleventh-hour horse-trading alone invalidates their negotiating position: “This very public display of dysfunction is a clear indication of how disastrous a negotiation would be. I mean, these guys can’t negotiate amongst themselves.”
Murphy advised House Republicans to pick a fiscal austerity fight, if they want one, during talks over funding the government in the fall: “They’ll lose that fight with the American public, but at least it’ll do a lot less damage,” he said. “My sense is a lot of Senate Republicans think the House strategy is super dumb and politically toxic.”
A growing number of House Democrats want Biden and McCarthy to sit down and negotiate, but that will likely depend on what can pass the House this week. On the other side of the aisle, moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) advised Biden to “take a good look at” what the speaker can pass, then start haggling.
Whenever that phase starts — if it does at all — all eyes will be on the Senate and its track record of getting Washington out of jams with bipartisan solutions. Yet right now there’s very little cooking in the chamber’s dealmaking kitchen.
“We should be able to sit down and talk like grown-ups,” said Manchin, who has met with McCarthy and faces a difficult reelection campaign. “Everybody should be involved.”
The current standoff is inextricably linked to the precedent its resolution might set for the next debt limit fight. Republicans think they can’t fold on this debt crisis without inciting a rebellion by their base, while Democrats believe opening the door to negotiation creates an endless loop of face-offs with the GOP.
Senate GOP leaders bent twice in 2021 to avoid a debt limit breach, and Democrats envision that ultimately that will happen once again. But the Republican-controlled House’s actions thus far have made even that result hard to imagine, as McCarthy digs in on a matter that could determine the future of his speakership.
This explains why Senate Republican leaders are continuing to squash any possibility that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell might be ready to step in and cut a deal amid the staring contest between McCarthy and Biden, who have not met on the topic in nearly three months.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said her party is “gonna continue to support what the House has done,” adding that Schumer might step in after the House votes “but I think it’s still going to be McCarthy and Biden” agreeing on a debt solution.
While Republicans worry about allowing another clean debt ceiling increase and sparking another internal fight, Democrats fear a damaging redux of 2011 — when the tea party-influenced House GOP played hardball with then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden. The two parties eventually cut a deal to extend the debt ceiling which culminated in significant spending caps.
In retrospect, Democrats view that episode as a mistake that cannot be repeated. Rather than entertaining dealmaking with McCarthy, centrist Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said simply: “The solution is to not default on the debt.” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) was just as succinct: “I don’t think there’ll be negotiations on a budget.”
“It’s difficult to understand what the House is going to do. They can’t pass a signable bill unless they bring Democrats into the process. So I think on our side, we’ll try to work with Republicans to see what we can do,” Cardin said, adding that McConnell “understands the seriousness of this.”
McConnell, however, once again aligned with McCarthy this week and suggested Biden join the speaker at “the grown-ups table.” The Senate GOP leader has taken great pains to show little daylight with the California Republican after a number of splits last year raised questions about how the two men would govern their party together.
So despite Democrats’ hopes, there’s little sign McConnell or his lieutenants are ready to lift a finger at this point.
The House bill “forces the administration to come to the table,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said. “The pressure really ought to be on the White House.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
John Roberts, the US supreme court chief justice, has declined to testify at a forthcoming hearing before the Senate judiciary committee that is expected to focus on judicial ethics.
The committee’s Democratic chairman, Dick Durbin, had asked the chief justice to appear before the panel to address potential reforms to ethical rules governing the justices. The senator cited “a steady stream of revelations regarding justices falling short of the ethical standards”.
Roberts’ brief response, issued by a supreme court spokesperson, said he would “respectfully decline” the invitation. In a letter to Durbin, Roberts said such appearances by chief justices were exceedingly rare given concerns about the separation of powers between the branches of US government and the “importance of preserving judicial independence”.
Durbin had earlier asked Roberts to investigate ties between Justice Clarence Thomas and a wealthy Republican donor.
Thomas, the longest-serving of the court’s nine justices, has been under pressure after published reports by the news outlet ProPublica detailing his relationship with Harlan Crow, including real estate purchases and luxury travel paid for by the billionaire Dallas businessman.
In a statement on Tuesday, Durbin said: “I am surprised that the chief justice’s recounting of existing legal standards of ethics suggests current law is adequate and ignores the obvious. The actions of one justice, including trips on yachts and private jets, were not reported to the public. That same justice failed to disclose the sale of properties he partly owned to a party with interests before the supreme court.”
The Senate judiciary committee would proceed with a 2 May hearing as planned, according to Durbin.
“It is time for Congress to accept its responsibility to establish an enforceable code of ethics for the supreme court, the only agency of our government without it,” Durbin said.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
