Evelyn Reynolds

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    Wisconsin Republicans block PFAS cleanup until polluters are granted immunity

    Wisconsin Republicans are withholding $125m designated for cleanup of widespread PFAS contamination in drinking water and have said they will only release the funds in exchange for immunity for polluters.The move is part of a broader effort by Republicans in the state to steal power from the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, the funding’s supporters say, alleging such “political games” are putting residents’ health at risk.“People really feel like they’re being held hostage,” said Lee Donahue, mayor of Campbell, which is part of the La Crosse metropolitan area and has drinking water contaminated with astronomical levels of PFAS. “It’s ridiculous, and some would argue that it’s criminal, that they are withholding money from communities in dire need of clean drinking water.”PFAS are a class of chemicals used across dozens of industries to make products water-, stain- and heat-resistant. They are called “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, and they persist in the environment and accumulate in humans’ and animals’ bodies. The compounds are linked to cancer, decreased immunity, thyroid problems, birth defects, kidney disease, liver problems and a range of other serious illnesses.The Environmental Protection Agency this year established limits for several of the most common PFAS, including levels at four parts per trillion (ppt) for the most dangerous. PFAS are contaminating water for more than 350,000 Wisconsin public water system users, often at levels far exceeding the limits. Many more private wells have contaminated water. In Madison, the state capital, levels in water sources were found as high as 180,000ppt.In Campbell, where more than 500 wells have tested positive for PFAS at levels up to thousands of times above federal limits, many suspect high rates of cancer and other serious ailments that have plagued the town’s residents stem from the dangerous chemicals.In the face of the crisis, bipartisan budget legislation that created the $125m pot of money for cleanup was approved by the GOP-controlled legislature and signed by the governor in mid-2023. The funds are supposed to go to the Wisconsin department of natural resources.Previously, money approved during budgeting processes was released to the state agency. Since Evers ousted the Republican Scott Walker in 2018, the GOP-controlled legislature has claimed the joint finance committee (JFC) it controls can add stipulations to how the money is spent, or refuse to release money approved in the budget.That gives Republican leadership more control over how Evers’s administration spends and governs, and the GOP is using that legal theory to withhold the PFAS-cleanup funding.“It is definitely a power grab,” said Erik Kanter, president of Clean Wisconsin, which is lobbying on PFAS issues.Meanwhile, Republicans separately floated a piece of legislation that provided a framework for how the $125m would be spent on PFAS cleanup, but it included what Kanter called a “poison pill”: it exempted PFAS polluters from the state’s spill laws that are designed to hold industry accountable for the contamination it causes.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEvers vetoed the legislation because of the spill law exemption. The department of natural resources then proposed to GOP legislators that it would spend the $125m as outlined in the Republican legislation, but industry would not be exempt from the spill laws. The legislature has so far rejected that proposal, and it is now on break for the rest of 2024.“At this point in time it looks like the JFC is not going to release those dollars,” Kanter said. “That money has been sitting there for almost a year and nobody has gotten any help because of political games in the legislature.”The Evers administration announced in late May that it would sue the committee for withholding the funds and make a constitutional separation of powers claim. It charges the JFC’s withholding is “an unconstitutional legislative veto”. Republican leadership did not immediately return a request for comment.In the meantime, communities such as La Crosse continue to struggle, Donahue said. The city and county have so far spent nearly $1m trying to determine the feasibility of tapping into a neighboring aquifer and continue to monitor it to ensure the PFAS plume contaminating their drinking water source does not migrate.“What do we do?” Donahue asked. “We can’t afford to wait another year for help.” More

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    How the US supreme court could be a key election issue: ‘They’ve grown too powerful’

    “Look at me, look at me,” said Martha-Ann Alito. “I’m German, from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you.”It was a bizarre outburst from the wife of a justice on America’s highest court. Secretly recorded by a liberal activist, Martha-Ann Alito complained about a neighbour’s gay pride flag and expressed a desire to fly a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag in protest.This, along with audio clips of Justice Samuel Alito himself and a stream of ethics violations, have deepened public concerns that the supreme court is playing by its own rules. The Democratic representative Jamie Raskin has described a “national clamour over this crisis of legitimacy” at the court.A poll last month for the progressive advocacy organisation Stand Up America suggests that the supreme court will now play a crucial role in voters’ choices in the 2024 election. Nearly three in four voters said the selection and confirmation of justices will be an important consideration for them in voting for both president and senator in November.Reed Galen, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a pro-democracy group, said: “The idea that these guys act as if they are kings ruling from above, to me, should absolutely be an issue. It was always Republicans who said we hate unelected judges legislating from the bench and we hate judicial activism. That’s all this stuff is.”View image in fullscreenPublic trust in the court is at an all-time low amid concerns over bias and corruption. Alito has rejected demands that he recuse himself from a case considering presidential immunity after flags similar to those carried by 6 January 2021 rioters flew over his homes in Virginia and New Jersey. Justice Clarence Thomas has ignored calls to step aside because of the role his wife, Ginni, played in supporting efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in 2020.Ethical standards have been under scrutiny following revelations that some justices failed to report luxury trips, including on private jets, and property deals. Last week Thomas, who has come under criticism for failing to disclose gifts from the businessman and Republican donor Harlan Crow, revised his 2019 form to acknowledge he accepted “food and lodging” at a Bali hotel and at a California club.These controversies have been compounded by historic and hugely divisive decisions. The fall of Roe v Wade, ending the nationwide right to abortion after half a century, was seen by many Democrats as a gamechanger in terms of people making a connection between the court and their everyday lives.There are further signs of the debate moving beyond the Washington bubble. Last week, the editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper argued that, since the court’s own ethics code proved toothless, Congress should enact legislation that holds supreme court justices to higher ethical standards. The paper called for the local senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who is chair of the Senate judiciary committee, to hold a hearing on the issue.Maggie Jo Buchanan, managing director of the pressure group Demand Justice, said: “It’s important to keep in mind that, even though debate among members of Congress would lead you to believe that court reform is a polarising issue, it really isn’t. For years we have seen broad bipartisan support for basic supreme court reforms such as ethics.“A broad bipartisan consensus exists that they’ve grown too powerful, that they have too much power over laws and regulations. That’s shared among nearly three-fourths of Americans, including 80% of independents, so the demand is there and this isn’t something where it’s Democrats versus Republicans in the sense of real people. The American people want change and want to check the judiciary.”Congressional Democrats have introduced various bills including one to create an independent ethics office and internal investigations counsel within the supreme court. Broader progressive ideas include expanding the number of seats on the court or limiting the justices to 18-year terms rather than lifetime appointments.But such efforts have been repeatedly thwarted by Republicans, who over decades impressed on their base the importance of the court, ultimately leading to a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointees.This week Senate Republicans blocked the ​​Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, legislation that would require the court to adopt a binding code of conduct for all justices, establish procedures to investigate complaints of judicial misconduct and adopt rules to disclose gifts, travel and income received by them that are at least as rigorous as congressional disclosure rules.In response, Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, said its “nearly 2 million members are fired up and ready to continue advocating for supreme court reform – in Congress and at the ballot box”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Galen of the Lincoln Project worries that Democrats lack the necessary aggression to capitalise on the issue. “[Senate majority leader Chuck] Schumer and Durbin are not change agents. They consider themselves institutionalists and they continue to call themselves that. They’re in a place where they can’t possibly conceive of something like that. Democrats are just afraid of their own shadow.”That principle might apply to the US president himself. The 81-year-old, who served in the Senate for 36 years, is reluctant to call out justices by name or call for sweeping reforms of the court, although he is making its decision to end the constitutional right to abortion a centrepiece of his campaign.Ed Fallone, an associate law professor at Marquette University Law School said: “I don’t know that Joe Biden is the politician to try and benefit from this issue. Biden has always presented himself as an institutionalist and more of a centrist than many segments of the Democratic party.“There’s a real risk here for Biden because, if he does try to get political advantage from the public’s growing concern about the supreme court, it seems to conflict with his message that we should all respect the court system and the judicial system and the Trump prosecutions and the various legal problems of former Trump advisers. It seems difficult to reconcile telling the public to respect the judicial system with also embracing the idea that the very top of the system is flawed and needs reform.”Fallone added: “You will see other Democrats seize on this issue and start to push it, in particular those who are are going to try to energise the left side of the base, maybe not necessarily for this election, but maybe anticipating Biden might lose and starting already to look ahead to the following election.”Other argue that, competing for voter attention with the cost of living, immigration and other issues, the supreme court will ultimately fade into background noise.Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington DC, said: “The middle of the country, the independents and the swing voters do not care about the supreme court, and I don’t think any effort by Democrats or the media bringing up these things about Alito or Thomas is going to register or motivate those people. It motivates partisans. It doesn’t motivate swing voters on either side.”Read more: The supreme court’s decisions this week
    US supreme court strikes down federal ban on ‘bump stock’ devices for guns
    US supreme court unanimously upholds access to abortion pill mifepristone
    US supreme court sides with Starbucks in union case over fired employees More

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    Justice department won’t pursue criminal contempt charge against Merrick Garland – as it happened

    The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland.This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.Garland has defended the justice department, saying that officials have done everything they could to provide information to the investigative committees about Hur’s classified documents investigation into Biden.Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
    The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland. This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters. On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
    The supreme court has ruled 6-3 in favor of a challenge to a federal ban on gun ‘bump stock’ devices. The vote was 6-3, with liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.
    In her dissent against the supreme court’s ruling on bump stocks, liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor said: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” She adds that the “majority’s artificially narrow definition hamstrings the government’s efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”
    Joe Biden released a statement in light of the supreme court’s latest decision on bump stocks, saying: “Today’s decision strikes down an important gun safety regulation. Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation.”
    Vice president Kamala Harris has released the following statement in response to the supreme court’s ruling on bump stocks: “Weapons of war have no place on the streets of a civil society… Unfortunately, today’s supreme court ruling strikes down this important, commonsense regulation on devices that convert semiautomatic rifles into weapons that can fire hundreds of bullets per minute.”
    Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has criticized the ruling on bump stocks and called the supreme court “even further to the right of Donald Trump.” Bump stocks have played “a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the ruling.
    The National Association for Gun Rights celebrated the decision on bump stocks and called on the supreme court to issue similar rulings in cases involving “ghost guns” and pistol braces. “The ATF has wandered so far out of its lane for so long, it can’t even find the road any more,” said Dudley Brown, the association’s president.
    March for Our Lives has issued a statement in response to the supreme court’s decision, calling it a “misguided and deadly decision.” It went on to add: “While this ruling rests fundamentally on an interpretation of statutes, not the second amendment, its consequences will be deadly. The supreme court has effectively given mass shooters the easy ability to turn any event or public space into a war zone and mass grave.”
    That’s it as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Louisiana’s Republican representative Garret Graves will not be running for re-election, he announced on Friday.In a statement, Graves, who has represented the state’s 6th district since 2015, said:
    “After much input from constituents, consultation with supporters, consensus from family, and guidance from the Almighty, it is clear that running for Congress this year does not make sense. It is evident that a run in any temporary district will cause actual permanent damage to Louisiana’s great representation in Congress.”
    Democrats are seizing on Donald Trump’s ‘horrible city’ remark about Milwaukee for ads. Robert Tait reports for the Guardian:US Democrats have seized on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Milwaukee as “a horrible city” by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings – a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican national convention, where the former president is set to be the party’s presidential nominee this November.Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021, to try to stop Joe Biden’s victory over him.Republican party figures found themselves scrambling to contain the fallout from a political own goal over a city purposely chosen to host the convention on 15-18 July, because Wisconsin is expected to be key to the outcome of the 2024 election.For the full story, click here:The justice department on Friday told House speaker Mike Johnson that it will not pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against attorney general Merrick Garland.This is according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.On Wednesday, the House voted on Wednesday to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio recordings of Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.Garland has defended the justice department, saying that officials have done everything they could to provide information to the investigative committees about Hur’s classified documents investigation into Biden.March for Our Lives has issued a statement in response to the supreme court’s decision on bump stocks, calling it a “misguided and deadly decision.”It went on to add:
    “While this ruling rests fundamentally on an interpretation of statutes, not the second amendment, its consequences will be deadly. The supreme court has effectively given mass shooters the easy ability to turn any event or public space into a war zone and mass grave…
    While this decision is egregious, dangerous, and out of touch, we can’t say we’re surprised. The NRA spent $2 million to help place ideological extremists on the bench that have done nothing but bend over backward to serve the gun lobby. The recent audio recordings of the Justices depict exactly what we already knew – that they are extreme, ultra-conservative, partisan, and rely on their own personal beliefs to make decisions rather than settled constitutional jurisprudence.”
    Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator of Massachusetts, has called on Congress to ban bump stocks following the supreme court decision, which she said “enables mass shooters to inflict carnage”.Kamala Harris, who earlier released a statement criticizing the ruling on bump stocks, said the court was “rolling back” on “important progress” to prevent gun violence in America.Republicans and Democrats alike have targeted Wisconsin as a must-win state in November’s poll.Joe Biden won it by a margin of about 21,000 votes in the 2020 election, although Donald Trump challenged some vote tallies in his drive to prove that the election had been “stolen”.Trump scored a narrow win in the state in the 2016 election, a result that played a crucial role in his victory over Hillary Clinton.Milwaukee is on the western shore of Lake Michigan, north of Chicago and east of the state capital of Madison, and is a minority white, largely industrial city that votes Democratic, with a long history of racial segregation laws against Black residents. African Americans make up almost 39% of the population, with about 20% Hispanic or Latino.In a tacit admission of the potential self-harm inflicted, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, described the reporting of the comment as “total bullshit”.“He never said it like how it’s been falsely characterized as,” Cheung posted on X, insisting that Trump had been referring to crime and election issues.Democrats have seized on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Milwaukee as “a horrible city” by trumpeting the unflattering description on advertising hoardings, a month before the city in the swing state of Wisconsin hosts the Republican National Convention.Trump reportedly made the comment in a meeting with congressional Republicans in Washington on Thursday, his first return to Capitol Hill since extremist supporters broke into Congress on 6 January 2021.Republican party figures found themselves scrambling to contain the fallout from a political own goal over a city purposely chosen to host the convention on 15-18 July, because Wisconsin is expected to be key to the outcome of the 2024 election.Trump and Biden are running neck and neck in the state, according to numerous polls.The remark calling Milwaukee horrible drew immediate condemnation from Democrats. Republicans – recognising the extent of the possible damage – initially denied the comment had been made, before trying to soften the blow by putting it in various contexts.In a graphic sign of the high stakes, the Democratic election machine swiftly commissioned several billboards to be erected in Milwaukee, the local newspaper the Journal Sentinel reported.One featured picture of Trump next to an image of the X post that broke the story. “TRUMP TO HOUSE REPUBLICANS: ‘Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city’.” it read.The other had the incriminating quote next to a picture of the former president against a red background.Ten billboards are planned to be placed throughout the city in the run-up to the convention to maximise the words’ effect.Here’s how the justices voted in the supreme court’s decision to strike down a federal ban on bump stocks:The ruling was 6-3, with the court’s liberal justices dissenting from the conservative majority’s decision.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has criticized the ruling on bump stocks and called the supreme court “even further to the right of Donald Trump”.Bump stocks have played “a devastating role in many of the horrific mass shootings in our country,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the ruling.
    The far-right Supreme Court continues their unprecedented assault on public safety by reversing the commonsense guidance issued in 2018 by the ATF … Sadly it’s no surprise to see the Supreme Court roll back this necessary public safety rule as they push their out of touch extreme agenda.
    He added that he warned the Trump administration at the time that “the only way to permanently close this loophole is through legislation.” Schumer added:
    Senate Democrats are ready to pass legislation to ban bump stocks but we will need votes from Senate Republicans.
    The National Association for Gun Rights celebrated the decision on bump stocks and called on the supreme court to issue similar rulings in cases involving “ghost guns” and pistol braces.“The ATF has wandered so far out of its lane for so long, it can’t even find the road any more, ” said Dudley Brown, the association’s president.
    The ATF has gone rogue in assuming lawmaking authority that it does not have with pistol brace rules, homemade firearms, who a gun dealer is, etc, and they must be reined in. More

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    Justice department declines to pursue Merrick Garland contempt charges

    The US Department of Justice on Friday told the Republican House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson, that it would decline to pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against the attorney general, Merrick Garland, according to a letter seen by Reuters.The Republican-controlled House had voted on Wednesday to hold Garland, in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of Joe Biden’s interview with the special counsel investigating his retention of classified documents after he was Barack Obama’s vice-president.It was Republicans’ latest and strongest rebuke of the justice department as partisan conflict over the rule of law animates the 2024 presidential campaign.The 216-207 vote fell along party lines, with Republicans coalescing behind the contempt effort despite reservations among some of the party’s more centrist members.It was immediately predicted that the justice department would not pursue a prosecution.“This contempt resolution will do very little, other than smear the reputation of Merrick Garland, who will remain a good and decent public servant no matter what Republicans say about him today,” Jerry Nadler, a New York congressman and the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said during floor debate.Garland has defended the justice department, saying officials have gone to extraordinary lengths to provide information to the committees about the special counsel, Robert Hur, and the classified-documents investigation, including a transcript of Biden’s interview with him.Hur did not recommend charges against Biden, but when he issued his report in early 2024 described the president as an elderly man with a poor memory, creating a storm in Washington.The role of the justice department in American political life has become a huge issue in the 2024 election with Republicans making unfounded statements that it has been “weaponized” by Biden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn fact, the department has successfully prosecuted Biden’s own son, Hunter Biden, on gun charges and it is the Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who has made repeated threats to come after his political enemies should he win November’s presidential election.Before Garland, the last attorney general held in contempt was Republican Bill Barr in 2019. That was when the Democratically controlled House voted to issue a referral against Barr after he refused to turn over documents related to a special counsel investigation into Trump.Years before that under Barack Obama, the then attorney general Eric Holder was held in contempt related to the gun-running operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. In each of those instances, the justice department took no action against the attorney general. More

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    Trump tells Logan Paul he used AI to ‘so beautifully’ rewrite a speech

    Donald Trump has said he used a speech generated by artificial intelligence (AI) after being impressed by the content.The former US president, whose oratory is noted for its rambling, off-the-cuff style but also for its demagoguery, made the claim in an interview with Logan Paul’s podcast in which he lauded AI as “a superpower” but also warned of its potential dangers.He said the rewritten speech came during a meeting with one of the industry’s “top people”, whom he did not identify.“I had a speech rewritten by AI out there, one of the top people,” Trump said. “He said, ‘Oh, you’re gonna make a speech? Yeah?’ He goes, click, click, click, and like, 15 seconds later, he shows me my speech that’s written that’s great, so beautifully. I said, ‘I’m gonna use this.’ I’ve never seen anything like it.” Trump did not say at what event he had used the AI-generated speech.He predicted that AI’s oratorical gifts could sound the death knell for speech writers, long a part of Washington’s political landscape.“One industry I think that will be gone are these wonderful speechwriters,” he said. I’ve never seen anything like it, and so quickly, a matter of literally minutes, it’s done. It’s a little bit scary.”Asked what he said to his speech writer, Trump jokingly responded, “You’re fired,” a line associated with The Apprentice, the TV reality show that helped propel his political rise.Trump, the Republican presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, also acknowledged that AI had dangers, especially in regard to deepfakes. He warned of an imaginary situation where a faked voice warned a foreign power that a US nuclear attack was being launched, possibly triggering a retaliatory strike.“If you’re the president of the United States, and you announced that 13 missiles have been sent to, let’s not use the name of a country,” he said. “We have just sent 13 nuclear missiles heading to somewhere, and they will hit their targets in 12 minutes and 59 seconds, and you’re that country.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe said he had asked the entrepreneur Elon Musk – referring to him by his first name – if Russia or China would be able to identify that the attack warning was fake and was told that they would have to use a code to check its veracity.“Who the hell’s going to check. You got, like, 12 minutes – let’s check the code,” he said. “So what do they do when they see this? They have maybe a counterattack. It’s so dangerous in that way.” More

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    Senate Republicans block bill that establishes right to IVF across the US

    Senate Republicans have defeated a bill that would have established a federal right to in vitro fertilization, a piece of legislation that Democrats forced to the floor on Thursday as part of an election-year effort to contrast their approach to reproductive rights with that of the party across the aisle.The bill, the Right to IVF act, would have overwritten any state efforts to restrict the right to IVF as well as seeking to make the treatment more affordable and accessible, including for US military service members and veterans.The legislation was introduced by Senators Patty Murray of Washington state, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, and the bill was not expected to pass, given that most legislation needs at least 60 votes to advance in the Senate.Instead, Democrats hoped to get Republicans on the record opposing an infertility treatment that is widely popular among Americans. They deployed a similar strategy last week, when Democrats held a vote on a bill that would have guaranteed a nationwide right to contraception – which, like IVF, is very popular. That bill, the Right to Contraception act, also failed.“Last week, every senator was put on the record as to whether they will defend the right to contraception. And despite Republicans’ words about supporting birth control, their actions – voting against the Right to Contraception act – spoke louder,” Murray said in a speech from the Senate floor on Thursday. “Today, we are putting Republicans on the record on another issue families across the country are deeply concerned about: the right to IVF.”The Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican, denounced the bill, which he said was motivated by “political purposes”.“This is not serious legislation,” Cassidy said. “It was not brought through the committee process. It is a political process.”Because IVF typically involves creating embryos that may not be implanted in a woman’s uterus or may go unused after genetic testing, some anti-abortion campaigners have long opposed IVF. However, the US abortion wars have rarely focused on IVF.Then, in February, the Alabama state supreme court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF are legally “extrauterine children” – a decision that endorsed the tenets of so-called fetal personhood, promoted by a US movement that seeks to endow embryos and fetuses with full legal rights and protections. The ruling led many IVF providers in Alabama to temporarily pause their operations, which created chaos and triggered backlash across the country.Still, anti-abortion activists have continued to gain ground in their battle on IVF. On Wednesday, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant group in the US, voted at its annual meeting to condemn IVF. With its nearly 13 million members and enormous political influence, the Southern Baptist Convention’s rejection of IVF signaled a turning point in the debate over IVF. Although evangelical Protestants have largely supported IVF, the vote suggests that the anti-abortion movement is successfully making the case that opposition to abortion necessitates opposition to IVF.“This is not the end of our fight for family building for all. We will continue until everyone in this country has access to the family building options they need and the availability of IVF is guaranteed in all 50 states,” Barbara Collura, president and CEO of Resolve: The National Infertility Association, said in a statement Thursday, after the failed Senate vote. “Introducing this bill was already a big win for advocates of increasing access to fertility treatments. Our work led to this comprehensive legislation, and we are not giving up.” More

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    Clarence Thomas took additional trips funded by Harlan Crow, senator reveals

    The US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas took at least three additional trips funded by the billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow that the conservative justice failed to disclose, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee said on Thursday.Crow, a Texas businessman and Republican donor, disclosed details about the justice’s travel between 2017 and 2021 in response to a judiciary committee vote last November to authorize subpoenas to Crow and another influential conservative, according to the committee chair, Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat representing Illinois.“The Senate judiciary committee’s investigation into the supreme court’s ethical crisis is producing new information – like what we’ve revealed [on Thursday] – and makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment,” Durbin said.A supreme court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a lawyer for Crow.Thomas has previously come under criticism for failing to disclose gifts from Crow. Most recently, Thomas last week belatedly revised his 2019 financial disclosure form to acknowledge that Crow had paid for his “food and lodging” at a hotel in Bali, Indonesia, and at a California club.But the recent filing by Thomas failed to disclose that Crow had paid for his travel by private jet related to the Bali and California trips, and an eight-day excursion on a yacht in Indonesia, omissions that were revealed on Thursday in a redacted document that Durbin’s office said contained travel itineraries where Crow had provided the justice with transportation.The document shows private jet travel in May 2017 between St Louis in Missouri, the state of Montana, and Dallas. It also shows private jet travel in March 2019 between Washington DC and Savannah, Georgia, and private jet travel in June 2021 between Washington DC and San Jose, California.Under pressure from criticism over ethics, following a series of rows focusing mainly on Thomas and Samuel Alito, the most conservative justices, the nine justices of the supreme court last November adopted their first code of conduct.However, critics and some congressional Democrats have said the code does not go far enough to promote transparency, continuing to leave decisions to recuse from cases to the justices themselves and providing no mechanism of enforcement.Earlier this week, the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, said he would block Democrats’ attempts to pass an ethics bill to rein in the US supreme court.And the Democratic congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the court had been “captured and corrupted by money and extremism”, provoking a “crisis of legitimacy” that threatens the stability of US democracy.Reuters contributed reporting More

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    Pelosi condemns Trump’s Capitol visit: ‘Returning to the scene of the crime’

    Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic former House speaker, mounted a forceful denunciation of Thursday’s first visit to the US Capitol by Donald Trump since he incited a mob to attack it on January 6 2021, accusing him of returning with “the same mission of dismantling our democracy”.In remarks that triggered a fresh war of words between the pair, Pelosi said the former president’s visit to discuss strategy with congressional Republicans in advance of the election amounted to a symbolic return to the scene of a crime that he deliberately initiated.“Today, the instigator of an insurrection is returning to the scene of the crime,” Pelosi said in a statement. “January 6 was a crime against the Capitol, that saw Nazi and Confederate flags flying under the dome that Lincoln built.”She added: “It was a crime against the constitution and its peaceful transfer of power, in a desperate attempt to cling to power. And it was a crime against members, heroic police officers and staff, that resulted in death, injury and trauma that endure to this day.”Pelosi, whose office was overrun and defiled by invading Trump supporters in the assault, as rioters ran through the halls of Congress calling her name, added: “With his pledges to be a dictator on day one and seek revenge against his political opponents, Donald Trump comes to Capitol Hill today with the same mission of dismantling our democracy. But make no mistake – Trump has already cemented his legacy of shame in our hallowed halls.”Her furious broadside may have provided the fuel for outlandish comments attributed to Trump in his Thursday morning meeting with House Republicans.Jake Sherman, a reporter for the website Punchbowl, posted on X that Trump had digressed to talk about an imagined romantic relationship between Pelosi and himself, which he said had been suggested by one of the former speaker’s daughters, whom he did not identify by name.“Nancy Pelosi’s daughter is a wacko … her daughter told me if things were different Nancy and I would be perfect together. There’s an age difference, though,” Sherman quoted Trump as saying, adding that his words were “close to an exact quote”.The reported comments provoked an angry response from one Pelosi daughter, Christine Pelosi, also on X.“Speaking for all 4 Pelosi daughters – this is a LIE,” she wrote. “His deceitful, deranged obsession with our mother is yet another reason Donald Trump is unwell, unhinged and unfit to step foot anywhere near her – or the White House.”The Hill quoted a spokesman for Pelosi as saying: “That guy has clearly lost his marbles. Not that he had many to begin with.” More