Georgia man indicted after allegedly threatening Sens. Ted Cruz and Deb Fischer
Robert Davis Forney of Duluth left voicemails in January threatening sexual violence against the two senators, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia alleged. Forney, 25, is also accused of threatening Cruz's family.
Forney's arraignment before a U.S. magistrate judge follows his indictment by a federal grand jury in Georgia last week, prosecutors said.
Spokespeople for Cruz and Fischer did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday night.
U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg for the Northern District of Georgia condemned political violence against elected officials in a statement.
'Threatening our elected officials and their families is an act of violence that undermines our entire democracy,' Hertzberg said. 'Political discourse and disagreements never justify resorting to vile attacks against our nation's leaders.'
FBI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Paul Brown offered a similar sentiment, saying in a statement that there 'is no place for political violence or threats of violence in the United States.'
U.S. Capitol Police, which is also investigating the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday night.
The arraignment follows a growing trend of political violence against elected officials.
A Minnesota man was taken into custody on Sunday night in connection with the fatal shooting of Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, and injuring another Democratic state lawmaker and his wife in what authorities have called 'politically motivated' attacks.
U.S. Capitol Police said in February that threat assessment cases had grown for a second consecutive year in 2024, highlighting its investigation of 9,474 concerning statements and direct threats against the members of Congress, their families and staff last year and 8,008 threats in 2023.
Following Saturday's Minnesota attacks, the Senate is holding an all-members briefing on Tuesday focused on security for lawmakers.
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The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
Democratic socialists think they're on a winning streak – can they build on Zohran Mamdani's victory?
It's an energizing time for democratic socialists across the country, and not only because New York state assembly member Zohran Mamdani's recent win in the New York City mayoral primary moves the United States' most populous city closer than it ever has been to having a member as mayor. For supporters of the leftwing, worker-led political ideology, last weekend's annual democratic socialists of America national convention in Chicago, which welcomed tens of thousands of politically minded individuals from across the country to the unionized McCormick Place convention center, was further recognition of the growing influence of the DSA, the country's largest socialist organization, founded in 1982. Amid the backdrop of a fraught national political stage, one in which traditional Democrats are struggling to connect with voters and a Donald Trump-led GOP continues to push a far-right agenda, a growing cadre of democratic socialist politicians are finding increasing success in local elections by touting platforms of progressive policies, tapping into social media with snappy, engaging content, and connecting face to face with typically forgotten voter blocs. The continued presence of democratic socialists Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York representative; and Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan representative, in Congress has been an inspiration to many of these similarly minded political hopefuls. However, it's Mamdani's recent success that many DSA-endorsed candidates like Jake Ephros, running for Jersey City council; Kelsea Bond, running for Atlanta city council; Jorge Defendini, running for Ithaca common council; and others who attended this convention are hoping to replicate. The goal is to show that the campaign isn't a flash-in-the-pan win, but instead a burgeoning tide shift toward a leftwing political future divorced from capitalism, despite criticism from traditionalist Democrats and Republicans alike. 'Zohran Mamdani's win in New York or Omar Fateh in Minneapolis, also poised to become a socialist mayor of a major city – these are things that come after years of structure that DSA helped build up in a bunch of chapters … This is also why DSA is growing so much and having all this new energy, because we're just really demonstrating what the alternative is,' said Ashik Siddique, the national co-chair of the DSA. 'The Democratic party has not really presented a meaningful alternative.' With the DSA's membership having surged in recent months, and both the 2026 midterm and 2028 presidential elections on the horizon, this weekend's convention was a key opportunity for many to strategize on how to capitalize on expanding influence and recent wins. 'There's so much excitement around our huge victory, Zohran Mamdani winning the primary,' said Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair for the New York City chapter of the DSA. 'People are coming up to us and asking us about the campaign, wanting to learn from our experience as well, and I'll say that the big change that I've seen over the years is that DSA as an organization has matured politically.' While the NYC-DSA continues its work, other chapters will attempt to follow its lead, organizing around their own socialist candidates while the national DSA organization reaffirms its position on Palestine, organizes to end US aid to Israel, supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement – which calls on consumers to stop supporting both Israeli companies and companies that have supported Israel – and stands against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in solidarity with immigrants. That and a clear economic agenda that supports the working class 'over billionaires, the bosses, the corporations that are raising prices, that are keeping our wages low' are what will lead to further success for democratic socialist candidates, in Gordillo's eyes. Persistence can also be helpful. It helped Alex Brower, who won his election for Milwaukee common council district three alderman in an April special election after the death of his predecessor, in his third bid for office as a democratic socialist. 'That happens to a lot of socialists because … if socialists were 100% successful, we'd have a socialist America right now. So there's a lot of losing, but I think, honestly, I think we learn more by losing than winning,' Brower said. Many DSA-endorsed candidates will also be deep in the throes of fieldwork in the coming months: knocking on doors, attending events, meeting with neighbors and being visible in communities, all key to keeping the DSA's recent momentum going, according to Ephros, who is currently running for the Jersey City council on a platform of affordable social housing, universal rent control, universal childcare, public healthcare and the Green New Deal, among other issues. 'It goes a long way to just demonstrate: 'Oh, this isn't some shadowy, weird, fringe guy who calls himself a socialist and that means scary things to me; it's my neighbor and he's active in the community and he's showing up,'' he said. Over the three days of the convention, the conference's largest in its history, DSA members gathered to deliberate resolutions that will guide chapter actions and concerns over the next two years. Members voted to approve a measure for 'a fighting anti-Zionist DSA', a resolution that prompted much debate and some resistance due to a clause that would expel members for supporting Israel. Arguments both for and against the measure were raised to the crowd of voting members on Sunday afternoon, delayed by calls from DSA leadership to hold applause in favor of the silent American Sign Language motion for clapping, consisting of the waving of both hands. The request was only mildly successful. Members also voted to prioritize efforts to put up a DSA-endorsed socialist candidate for the 2028 presidential election, and elected both new and returning delegates to the DSA's national political committee, the 16-person body that serves as the organization's board of directors. On Friday, members heard from Rashida Tlaib, the keynote speaker for this year's convention. As one of Congress's most outspoken supporters of Palestine, Tlaib largely spoke about the responsibility Congress has to condemn Israel's bombing and starvation of the people in Palestine. She also emphasized the work she believes the DSA still has to do. 'For DSA to live up to our potential, we have to be willing to grow ourselves. We need more members for more diverse communities and leadership roles, y'all. We are failing, and again, I'm telling you as a big sis, we are failing when a room like this only has a handful of our Black neighbors. You need to be intentional,' Tlaib said to Friday's intently listening crowd. 'A lot of working-class folks have strong historical ties to the Democratic party. They know they have been let down, and they're looking for a new home. They want to envision the alternatives, and we have it.' Álvaro López, an electoral coordinator for NYC-DSA who assisted Mamdani's campaign, attended the DSA convention for the first time after being a member since 2017. He's grappling with what to take from the convention's more introspective measures. 'In this convention, unfortunately, Donald Trump was not raised. Zohran's victory was not strategically discussed, and I think that's a product of our larger, big-tent organization that we have. I think there is a lot of work for the left and the DSA to still get to a point where we are really thinking about how do we build power, and how we are not so inward looking and think of ourselves as the protagonist of everything around us,' López said. The NYC-DSA's strategy for creating successful campaigns has previously involved contesting local and state-level positions, before shifting to one that seeks to place democratic socialists in the highest levels of local politics. With many DSA chapters strategizing what that looks like for them back home, taking similar steps may help, Gordillo believes. 'Many working-class people, for example, don't really know what the state assembly is,' he said. 'It's harder to get traction or to do mass communications that way, so we decided to run a socialist for mayor,' he said of reaching voters in local elections. 'We need to do that, not just in New York City. We need to do it in Minneapolis. We need to do it in Los Angeles and in Detroit and Michigan, eventually in 2028. I hope that we take that to the federal stage in the presidential run.' A resolution brought up at this year's DSA convention would create a strategy to build socialism in each of the 50 states and help the DSA build more statewide organizations. The DSA has also previously expanded an electoral program to provide more support to chapters that want to learn how they can run their own candidates and develop class-struggle elections. It's political actions like these that can be the key to winning races, even by the smallest of margins, Tlaib said on Friday, reminding DSA members of her win in 2018 by only 900 votes. 'We are standing at a crossroads in American history,' Tlaib said. 'We are going to take this country back for our working families and defeat these pathetic, cowardly, hateful fascists. We're going to win because we don't have any other options, and yes, we are going to free Palestine. They don't have any other choice. Our movement isn't going anywhere, and we're just getting started.'
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Drama explodes over controversial ranking of prominent politicians' podcasts: 'Thanks for playing'
Out of all the politicians who have journeyed into the world of podcasting, there is one heavyweight who is the clear number one. And he's not accepting the award with humility. Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz 's podcast 'Verdict with Ted Cruz' boasted nearly 1.5 million estimated downloads in July, according to a recent analysis by political media analyst Kyle Tharp. According to the report, Cruz's strategists disclosed that the podcast hit 2 million downloads in March of this year. The show is so popular that the money generated from its ad revenue prompted a complaint from a watchdog group alleging Cruz wrongly directed nearly $1 million in payment related to the podcast, the Texas Tribune reported. The complaint was later dismissed. With 440,000 estimated downloads, the second most popular show was 'This is Gavin Newsom,' a talk show with the 57-year-old Democratic California governor. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, another Texas Republican, was in third place with his show 'Hold These Truths,' which pulled in 365,000 estimated downloads last month. The audience of the pair of Texas Republicans far overshadowed that of Newsom and the other Democrats. 'Thanks for playing, @GavinNewsom,' Cruz wrote on X alongside a picture of his podcast downloads and a link to his show, adding 'Tune in.' Texas Republicans Ted Cruz and Dan Crenshaw had two of the top downloaded podcasts among politicians in July Social media erupted after seeing how many tuned in to hear the politicians address the news of the day. 'I can't figure out who would ever suffer listening to Ted Cruz blather,' another X user, Andrea Gail posted. Eric Strobel wrote on X: 'A Newsom pod?? Sounds like cruel & unusual punishment to me.' The California governor has hosted several episodes of his podcast featuring prominent MAGA figures, including Charlie Kirk and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. As of Friday, Cruz's podcast was ranked #36 in the U.S., and Newsom's was ranked #58 on Apple's top podcast charts. The quick ascent of Newsom's show is significant considering how long it has taken the Republican senator to climb the charts. Unlike Newsom, who began podcasting in March of this year, Cruz has been hosting his show since 2020. Ben Ferguson, a political commentator and Cruz's co-host, has helped the senator with the program for over five years. The senator regularly dissects the news and pertinent political debates from a conservative perspective alongside his co-host. There are over 600 episodes of 'Verdict,' and it's often produced three times a week. iHeartMedia picked up Cruz's podcast and now syndicates it to its vast audience. The group has also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to pro-Cruz political efforts. Other politicians' attempts to break into the podcasting mainstream have remained stalled, to say the least. Outside of Cruz, Newsom and Crenshaw, the remaining most downloaded shows hosted by other politicos receive a measly 11,000 downloads combined, according to the analysis. Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, 47, has a show that garnered 7,300 estimated downloads in July, the analysis reveals. Kentucky Republican Rep. Tim Burchett has the next most popular podcast, with just under 1,100 monthly downloads. The remaining group of politicians-turned-podcasters have too pitiful of audience sized to be mentioned, ranging from a few hundred to a paltry 68 downloads for Rep. Troy Carter's 'What Makes America Tick?'
The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
Republicans look to make a U-turn on federal commitment to electric vehicles for the Postal Service
A year after being lauded for its plan to replace thousands of aging, gas-powered mail trucks with a mostly electric fleet, the U.S. Postal Service is facing congressional attempts to strip billions in federal EV funding. In June, the Senate parliamentarian blocked a Republican proposal in a major tax-and-spending bill to sell off the agency's new electric vehicles and infrastructure and revoke remaining federal money. But efforts to halt the fleet's shift to clean energy continue in the name of cost savings. Donald Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, said canceling the program now would have the opposite effect, squandering millions of dollars. 'I think it would be shortsighted for Congress to now suddenly decide they're going to try to go backwards and take the money away for the EVs or stop that process because that's just going to be a bunch of money on infrastructure that's been wasted," he said. Beyond that, many in the scientific community fear the government could pass on an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming when urgent action is needed. Electrified vehicles reduce emissions A 2022 University of Michigan study found the new electric postal vehicles could cut total greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 million tons over the predicted, cumulative 20-year lifetime of the trucks. That's a fraction of the more than 6,000 million metric tons emitted annually in the United States, said professor Gregory A. Keoleian, co-director of the university's Center for Sustainable Systems. But he said the push toward electric vehicles is critical and needs to accelerate, given the intensifying impacts of climate change. 'We're already falling short of goals for reducing emissions,' Keoleian said. 'We've been making progress, but the actions being taken or proposed will really reverse decarbonization progress that has been made to date.' Many GOP lawmakers share President Donald Trump's criticism of the Biden-era green energy push and say the Postal Service should stick to delivering mail. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said 'it didn't make sense for the Postal Service to invest so heavily in an all-electric force." She said she will pursue legislation to rescind what is left of the $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act allocated to help cover the $10 billion cost of new postal vehicles. Ernst has called the EV initiative a 'boondoggle' and "a textbook example of waste,' citing delays, high costs and concerns over cold-weather performance. 'You always evaluate the programs, see if they are working. But the rate at which the company that's providing those vehicles is able to produce them, they are so far behind schedule, they will never be able to fulfill that contract," Ernst said during a recent appearance at the Iowa State Fair, referring to Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense. 'For now,' she added, "gas-powered vehicles — use some ethanol in them — I think is wonderful.' Corn-based ethanol is a boon to Iowa's farmers, but the effort to reverse course has other Republican support. Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of the rollback effort, has said the EV order should be canceled because the project "has delivered nothing but delays, defective trucks, and skyrocketing costs.' The Postal Service maintains that the production delay of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicles, or NGDVs, was 'very modest" and not unexpected. 'The production quantity ramp-up was planned for and intended to be very gradual in the early months to allow time for potential modest production or supplier issues to be successfully resolved,' spokesperson Kim Frum said. EVs help in modernization effort The independent, self-funded federal agency, which is paid for mostly by postage and product sales, is in the middle of a $40 billion, 10-year modernization and financial stabilization plan. The EV effort had the full backing of Democratic President Joe Biden, who pledged to move toward an all-electric federal fleet of car and trucks. The 'Deliver for America' plan calls for modernizing the ground fleet, notably the Grumman Long Life Vehicle, which dates back to 1987 and is fuel-inefficient at 9 mpg. The vehicles are well past their projected 24-year lifespan and are prone to breakdowns and even fires. 'Our mechanics are miracle workers,' said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. 'The parts are not available. They fabricate them. They do the best they can.' The Postal Service announced in 2022 it would deploy at least 66,000 electric vehicles by 2028, including commercial off-the-shelf models, after years of deliberation and criticism it was moving too slowly to reduce emissions. By 2024, the agency was awarded a Presidential Sustainability Award for its efforts to electrify the largest fleet in the federal government. Building new postal trucks In 2021, Oshkosh Defense was awarded a contract for up to 165,000 battery electric and internal combustion engine Next Generation vehicles over 10 years. The first of the odd-looking trucks, with hoods resembling a duck's bill, began service in Georgia last year. Designed for greater package capacity, the trucks are equipped with airbags, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors, 360-degree cameras and antilock brakes. There's also a new creature comfort: air conditioning. Douglas Lape, special assistant to the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers and a former carrier, is among numerous postal employees who have had a say in the new design. He marvels at how Oshkosh designed and built a new vehicle, transforming an old North Carolina warehouse into a factory along the way. 'I was in that building when it was nothing but shelving,' he said. 'And now, being a completely functioning plant where everything is built in-house — they press the bodies in there, they do all of the assembly — it's really amazing in my opinion.' Where things stand now The agency has so far ordered 51,500 NGDVs, including 35,000 battery-powered vehicles. To date, it has received 300 battery vehicles and 1,000 gas-powered ones. Former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in 2022 the agency expected to purchase chiefly zero-emissions delivery vehicles by 2026. It still needs some internal combustion engine vehicles that travel longer distances. Frum, the Postal Service spokesperson, said the planned NGDV purchases were "carefully considered from a business perspective' and are being deployed to routes and facilities where they will save money. The agency has also received more than 8,200 of 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vehicles it has ordered, she said. Ernst said it's fine for the Postal Service to use EVs already purchased. 'But you know what? We need to be smart about the way we are providing services through the federal government,' she said. 'And that was not a smart move.' Maxwell Woody, lead author of the University of Michigan study, made the opposite case. Postal vehicles, he said, have low average speeds and a high number of stops and starts that enable regenerative braking. Routes average under 30 miles and are known in advance, making planning easier. 'It's the perfect application for an electric vehicle," he said, 'and it's a particularly inefficient application for an internal combustion engine vehicle.' ____
