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      The Guardian view on overturning Roe v Wade: anti-abortionists reign supreme | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on overturning Roe v Wade: anti-abortionists reign supremeEditorialThe removal of women’s constitutional right to abortion will deepen hardship and division in the US The decision, when it came on Friday, was not a surprise. Even before the dramatic leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion last month, it was widely predicted that the US supreme court would grab the opportunity presented by the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case to rescind the decision made in 1973 in Roe v Wade. This, after all, was the purpose of President Trump’s three supreme court selections – and the culmination of a decades-long campaign by anti-abortionists to return to states the authority to ban the procedure. But the announcement still came as a shock. The US’s global influence means that the decision to remove a woman’s constitutional right to abortion there reverberates far beyond its shores.The speed with which multiple US states reacted is disturbing; already, abortion has been outlawed in 10, with 11 more expected to follow shortly. While all women should be entitled to control their own lives and bodies, there are instances when denying this is particularly cruel. Americans who oppose forced pregnancy and birth now face the horror of rape and incest victims, including children, being compelled to become mothers. The US is exceptional in its lack of federal maternity provisions; children as well as parents will suffer the consequences of unwanted additions to their families, with poor and black people the worst affected.Early signs are that the most extreme Republican legislatures could try to block girls and women from travelling out of state for treatment, and impose further restrictions on care delivered remotely including medication sent by mail. The potential for personal data stored online, including on menstrual apps, to be used against women is causing justified alarm. Having relied on Roe v Wade to protect access to abortion for half a century, politicians can no longer do so. Abortion is now set to become a key issue in this autumn’s midterms.How this pans out will depend on public opinion; polling data suggest that 85% of Americans support legal abortion in some circumstances, and Democrats hope that this could work to their advantage. But the anti-abortion right is a formidable force. With hindsight, President Obama’s decision not to codify Roe v Wade into federal law, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s choice not to retire when he could have nominated a replacement, look like disastrous errors.The three liberal justices who dissented said they did so with sorrow for “many millions of American women” and also for the court itself. With this decision, it has chosen to reopen deep wounds. The 14th amendment on which Roe v Wade rested granted rights to former slaves, and is the basis for other crucial decisions including on same-sex marriage. By dismissing Roe v Wade in the way that they did, and against the wishes of Chief Justice John Roberts (who argued to retain it, while allowing Mississippi’s 15-week rule to stand), the court’s hard-right wing has seized control.Unprecedented division, and greatly increased hardship and risk for those denied safe healthcare, will be the outcome. While there is reassurance in noting moves elsewhere towards liberalisation, US anti-abortionists are far from unique, as tightened restrictions in Poland and the situation in Northern Ireland show. It is too soon to say whether Trump’s justices and their backers have overreached from an electoral perspective. If there is an early lesson to be drawn, it is that once gained, women’s rights must be constantly defended.TopicsRoe v WadeOpinionUS supreme courtAbortionLaw (US)WomenHealthRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More

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      Record number of LGBTQ+ candidates run for US Congress in wake of attacks

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      Record number of LGBTQ+ candidates run for US Congress in wake of attacksAt least 101 members stood for elections in 2022 as threats of violence and suspension of rights loom for the community The supreme court’s landmark abortion ruling immediately wiped away abortion rights for millions of Americans, but tucked away in Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion on the case was another threat: to the rights of LGBTQ+ people across the US.In his opinion, written to accompany the Roe v Wade decision, Thomas, part of the controlling cabal of rightwing justices, suggested that the court should “reconsider” the right to same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage, which was legalized nationwide in 2015.Republican-run US states move to immediately ban abortion after court overturns Roe v WadeRead moreBut in the face of fears that the court will now lead a charge against LGBTQ+ rights – and growing far-right violence against LGBTQ+ targets – a record number of LGBTQ+ candidates are running for US Congress in 2022.At least 101 LGBTQ+ people ran for US Congress in 2022, according to LGBTQ Victory Fund, a national organization dedicated to electing openly LGBTQ+ people to all levels of government.Some 57 candidates are still in their races, with advocates hoping greater representation could bring tangible change in Washington, after a year when gay and trans people have been increasingly persecuted by rightwing politicians in the US.Jamie McLeod-Skinner is one of the LGBTQ+ candidates hoping to make a difference in the US House of Representatives. A former mayor, McLeod-Skinner defeated Kurt Schrader, a moderate Democrat who has spent 12 years in the House as congressman, in Oregon’s primary and will face Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer in the November midterm elections.If she can win, McLeod-Skinner would be the first out LGBTQ+ person ever elected to Congress from Oregon.Becca Balint is seeking to break two barriers in Vermont. If she wins the Democratic primary in August, then defeats her opponent in November, she would be the first woman and the first LGBTQ+ person ever elected to Congress from Vermont – which is the only US state to have never sent a woman to Congress.“When I first was sworn in as state senator [in 2015] I served alongside people who voted against my right to marry my spouse,” Balint told the Valley Reporter this week.“I still had to sit down and do budgeting with them, and pass laws because that’s what my constituents sent me there to do. I didn’t let that get in the way of doing the work. I will honestly work with anyone.”Balint, a former leader of the Vermont senate, supports universal healthcare and says she would push for the passage of the Equality Act, which would place a federal ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in public spaces and federal programs.Robert Garcia, who is running in California, would also break new ground: as the first openly gay immigrant elected to Congress. Garcia, who was born in Peru, won the Democratic primary in June, and has a strong chance of being elected in November.The wave of LGBTQ+ candidates comes as Republicans have pushed, and passed, bills targeting gay and transgender people.Those who support equal rights for LGBTQ+ people will have their work cut out if Republicans do aim their fire at same-sex marriage.Despite 71% of Americans supporting same-sex marriage, it is clear that plenty of Republicans do not think the same. This week Texas Republicans unveiled their 2022 party platform, which defines homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle choice” and says the party would “oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity”.It’s a Republican campaign that has amounted to an alarming rise in anti-trans and anti-gay speech over the past year, with three hate-filled incidents occurring just over the past weekend.In March Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is considered a frontrunner for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024, signed a controversial “don’t say gay” bill that prevents teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools. This month DeSantis moved to ban transition care for transgender youth, and this week suggested he may order Florida’s child protective services to investigate parents who take their children to drag shows.Other politicians and rightwing media figures have spread lies and misinformation about gay and trans people attempting to groom schoolchildren.In this climate, the supreme court’s suggestion that the Obergefell case, which enshrined the right to same-sex marriage, be revisited, has advocates for equal rights on edge.“Forcing people to carry pregnancies against their will is just the beginning,” the ACLU said in a statement on Friday.“The same politicians seeking to control the bodies of women and pregnant people will stop at nothing to challenge our right to use birth control, the right to marry whom you love, and even the right to vote. No right or liberty is secure in the face of a supreme court that would reverse Roe.”By electing more LGBTQ+ candidates, Victory Fund hopes to thwart those efforts.Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, won the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s 11th district earlier this year, and would be the first out LGBTQ+ person elected to any federal position from the state.“I can’t stop thinking about how so many of us have relied on the courts to protect our constitutional rights, and how those rights are under threat,” she said after the supreme court decision on Friday.“We cannot go backwards. Every race on the ballot matters more than ever now.”Heather Mizeur, who faces a Democratic primary in July, would become the first out LGBTQ+ member of Congress from Maryland if she is elected to the House.These candidates, if successful, would join nine openly LGBTQ+ members of the House and two senators, all of whom are Democrats, and could bolster gay and trans rights at a time when they are under severe threat.“The 11 LGBTQ+ members of Congress currently serving punch way above their weight and have delivered meaningful results for our community time and time again, despite being woefully outnumbered,” said Albert Fujii, a spokesperson for the LGBTQ Victory Fund.“But with a supreme court hellbent on choosing politics over precedent, our congressional champions desperately need backup to ensure our fundamental human rights are not rolled back to a time when bigotry was the law of the land.“Gaining equitable representation in Congress would not only increase our political power and increase the odds our rights are finally codified into federal law, it would send a crystal-clear message that anti-LGBTQ vitriol will not prevail.”TopicsRoe v WadeUS supreme courtClarence ThomasLGBT rightsUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Democrats hope to tap anger over Roe in November midterms – will it work?

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      Democrats hope to tap anger over Roe in November midterms – will it work?Analysts say more voters should turn out in the wake of the supreme court ruling – but that could help Republicans too “This fall, Roe is on the ballot,” Joe Biden told American voters in the wake of the US supreme court’s decision to scrap abortion rights.The US president was merely echoing a chorus of Democrats urging voters to elect pro abortion-rights lawmakers in November’s midterm elections in a bid to wrest greater control of Congress and perhaps allow abortion rights to be enshrined in legislation.Contraception, gay marriage: Clarence Thomas signals new targets for supreme courtRead moreBut it is also a tactic to try and inject Democratic voters with a sense of urgency and activism as the midterms approach, as currently the political establishment expect Biden and the Democrats to face a defeat at the hands of a resurgent Republican party.Until Roe fell – triggering a slew of Republican-led states to immediately move to ban abortion – Biden and his party have appeared moribund, and down in many polls. Buffeted by immense trouble passing a domestic agenda and hit by soaring inflation, Biden’s popularity has plummeted.But will the fall of Roe help Democrats reverse course on what looks like their current path to defeat? Or could the decision also help motivate the Republican base as the supreme court’s decision revealed the benefits to them of using power?Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democrat strategist, said it was too soon to know how far the court’s momentous decision to return the abortion issue to individual US states would go toward shaping voter’s priorities in November.“In states that Democrats do well generally, this will motivate turnout. In states where they do not do well, it will also motivate turnout – but not for the Democrats,” he says. “The issue is purple states, like Michigan, Georgia and Nevada, where you have equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans.”Four months out from November, voters are signaling that their priorities are rising crime, and inflation that has seen basic living costs shoot up for money, especially when it comes to gas prices.“If the question is will abortion help swing the election, the answer is probably not, though it could help in states where there’s a reasonable balance between Democrats and Republicans,” Sheinkopf says.“The presumption is that more women will turn out – but that depends on what’s going in those states at the time. People will make their decisions based on what’s most personal to them,” he adds. “Six or seven dollars a gallon of gasoline, a sense that things are out of control as the Democrats run the country, an increase in homicides nationally, may be better motivators for a majority of voters than Roe v Wade.”Sonia Ossorio, the president of Now [National Organization for Women] New York, said: “I don’t see how this cannot energize voters. Women are fed up. Formula shortages, childcare shortages, gas prices, losing their jobs in unprecedented numbers during the pandemic, and now having our reproductive freedom gutted by the supreme court.“The response we’re getting is unprecedented in my two decades in the women’s rights movement.”The court’s decision establishes political battlegrounds for abortion across the 50 states. Already, many with conservative-leaning legislatures are banning or poised to ban many or most abortions. Nearly 400 abortion-related laws have been passed across US states since 2009, with 85% designed to restrict, regulate or oppose access, according to a Bloomberg News analysis.Kelsy Kretschmer, professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and co-author of a study examining women’s voting patterns, says it’s not clear that the decision will be help Democrats in a measurable way.“A significant proportion of white women are conservative and form the backbone of the pro-life movement and this is the thing they often care the most about. For Democrats, if you lose half of white women, you don’t have a winning majority of women,” she said.There are splits, too, over abortion rights even within Democrat-aligned voters, where conservative Democrats may oppose federal funding for abortion.At the same time, Kretschmer says, abortion rights have always been part of the Democratic platform. “It’s a core tenet of the Democratic party and most understand that outlawing abortion completely is a non-starter.”But predicting how Friday’s ruling will affect November’s vote is outside the scope of prior experience. When Roe v Wade was decided in 1971, abortion did not play the public role in plays now.“The research is quite clear that people don’t make voting decisions about abortion rights. People tend to have strong opinions one way or the other, but it doesn’t tend to affect their vote choice,” Kretschmer says.But she points out that this was prior to this moment in which Roe vs Wade may only be among the first of the women’s rights dominos to fall or could open the way to repealing rights around contraception and marriage equality. “The hope is among Democrats and the feminist movement in general, this time will be different and enough to shake people out of complacency about it,” she said.She added: “We’ve never really had a moment like this, where something so woven into basic political and civic life was ripped out all at once. That moment for abortion is now and we’ve just never seen it before. So the hope is just that – that this is a watershed moment.”Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, certainly sees it that way. Voting for Democrats in November, she said, is the only way to try and reverse the fall of Roe – or prevent even worse things happening.“Be aware of this: The Republicans are plotting a nationwide abortion ban. They cannot be allowed to have a majority in the Congress to do that,” Pelosi said. “A woman’s right to choose, reproductive freedom, is on the ballot in November.”TopicsUS newsUS politicsDemocratsUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More

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      Biden warns women’s lives in danger after supreme court overturns Roe v Wade – live

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      President Joe Biden has decried the supreme court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, warning that it risks the health of women nationwide.“The court has done what it has never done done before: expressly take away a constitutional right that is so fundamental to so many Americans,” Biden said in a speech from the White House. “It’s a sad day for the court and for the country.”01:29“Now with Roe gone, let’s be very clear, the health and life of women in this nation are now at risk.”Amanda Gorman, first national youth poet laureate, wrote this in reaction to today’s ruling: We will not be delayed.We will not be masqueradeTo the tale of a handmade.We will not let Roe v. Wade slowly fade.Because when we show up today,We’re already standing upWith the tomorrow we made.Let’s get to work: https://t.co/BNVLVLM6Ji— Amanda Gorman (@TheAmandaGorman) June 24, 2022
      Lisa Murkowski, one of two Senate Republicans who supports abortion rights, said she would “work with a broader group” to restore rights. The Alaska senator said: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I am continuing to work with a broader group to restore women’s freedom to control their own health decisions wherever they live. Legislation to accomplish that must be a priority.But the sentiment is unlikely to get her very far. Encoding abortion protections will require support from all the Senate Democrats and 10 Republicans. Dozens of elected prosecutors across the US have signed a letter pledging not to prosecute abortions, including officials in states with “trigger laws” that are in the process of banning abortion. DAs pledging not to prosecute abortion in states with trigger laws + bans include officials in St Louis, MO; Jefferson Co in Alabama; Dallas, Travis, Bexar, Nueces, Fort Bend counties in Texas; Genesee, Hinds, Washtenaw, Ingham, Marquette counties in Mich; and Hinds County, Miss pic.twitter.com/vGkUKnGJnG— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) June 24, 2022
      A total of 83 district attorneys and state attorneys general agreed to the commitment, saying they were united in their belief that “prosecutors have a responsibility to refrain from using limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions”, adding, “As such, we decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions and commit to exercise our well settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions.”In addition to commitments from officials in blue states that have laws defending abortion rights, the signatories include local district attorneys in Missouri, Texas, Michigan and Mississippi. Even with Roe in effect, prosecutors across the US have brought criminal charges against people for pregnancy loss and other outcomes, and advocates say this kind of criminalization will significantly escalate with the Roe decision overturned. She was jailed for losing a pregnancy. Her nightmare could become more commonRead moreWhere are abortions now banned?In nine states, bans on abortion took effect today, following the ruling. These states include: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin. In other states, bans on abortions in most cases will take effect in 30 days. And in some others, legislatures and legal bodies will determine how to proceed – convening to legislate new restrictions, or provide guidance on previously unenforceable abortion restrictions. Abortion deserts: America’s new geography of access to care – mappedRead moreIn a letter to Democratic colleagues, House speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that Thomas’ concurring opinion was “of special concern”. She also said that when it comes to gun control and abortion access, “It is clear that the path forward will depend on the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.”“The contrast between our parties could not be clearer: while Democrats are the party of freedom and safety, Republicans are the party of punishment and control,” she said. “We must ‘Remember in November’ that the rights of women, and indeed all Americans, are on the ballot.”The repercussions from the supreme court’s ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion continue to be felt across the country. Here is what has happened today so far:
      President Joe Biden condemned the ruling, calling it “a sad day for the court and for the country”.
      Donald Trump, who as president installed three of the justices that voted to strike down Roe v Wade, reportedly doesn’t think the ruling is a good idea.
      States nationwide are scrambling to react to the decision, with many Republican-led governments moving to ban abortion immediately.
      West coast governors pledged their states would be havens for abortion access.
      A Republican senator said she was duped by two of the supreme court justices who she supported while insisting they would respect Roe v Wade.
      Protesters are gathering at the supreme court building in Washington DC.
      Among the conservative justices, there was a slight difference of opinion in how far the abortion ruling should go.
      Congress approved the bipartisan gun control compromise, sending the bill to Biden for his signature.
      The US politics blog is now in the hands of Maanvi Singh on the west coast, who will take you through the final hours of a day with massive consequences for the country.Dubbing it the “West Coast Offense”, the Democratic governors of California, Oregon and Washington have announced a push to preserve abortion access for their residents and people who come from neighboring states to seek the procedure.The Supreme Court has stripped women of their liberty and let red states replace it with mandated birth.This is an attack on American freedom.CA, OR and WA are creating the West Coast offensive. A road map for other states to stand up for women.Time to fight like hell. pic.twitter.com/jBrJcTQVa8— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 24, 2022
      The three governors have been vocal about the issue ever since the leak of the supreme court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade. In 2021, California governor Gavin Newsom signed new laws protecting abortion providers and patients in the country’s most-populous state:Governor vows to make California a ‘reproductive freedom state’Read moreIn the end, there weren’t enough of them to stop the court’s conservative majority from overturning Roe v Wade, but the dissenting opinion from the court’s three liberal justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan acts as a requiem of sorts for the 49-year-old constitutional right to abortion, now overturned:Earlier this Term, this court signaled that Mississippi’s stratagem would succeed. Texas was one of the fistful of states to have recently banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. It added to that “flagrantly unconstitutional” restriction an unprecedented scheme to “evade judicial scrutiny.” And five justices acceded to that cynical maneuver. They let Texas defy this court’s constitutional rulings, nullifying Roe and Casey ahead of schedule in the Nation’s second largest state.And now the other shoe drops, courtesy of that same five-person majority. (We believe that the chief justice’s opinion is wrong too, but no one should think that there is not a large difference between upholding a 15-week ban on the grounds he does and allowing states to prohibit abortion from the time of conception.) Now a new and bare majority of this court – acting at practically the first moment possible – overrules Roe and Casey. It converts a series of dissenting opinions expressing antipathy toward Roe and Casey into a decision greenlighting even total abortion bans. It eliminates a 50-year-old constitutional right that safeguards women’s freedom and equal station. It breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law. In doing all of that, it places in jeopardy other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. And finally, it undermines the court’s legitimacy.‘Fewer rights than their grandmothers’: read three justices’ searing abortion dissent | Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena KaganRead moreKevin McCarthy, leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, has cheered the supreme court’s ruling, calling it “the most important pro-life ruling in American history”..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The people have won a victory. The right to life has been vindicated. The voiceless will finally have a voice. This great nation can now live up to its core principle that all are created equal. Not born equal. Created equal.Republicans are viewed as favorites to take control of the House following this year’s midterm elections, and McCarthy would be a top contender for the job of speaker. In his speech, he alluded to what his priorities might be, should the GOP ascend to the majority. .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As encouraging as today’s decision is, our work is far from done. America remains one of only seven countries on earth that allows elective abortions in the third trimester, including China and North Korea. This is radical – but House Democrats continue to support it against the wishes of the American people. This Congress, every House Democrat has voted for extreme policies like taxpayer-funded abortion, on demand, until the point of birth. But Democrats’ radical agenda does not have Americans’ support.The largest association of African American physicians in the United States has warned that the supreme court’s decision to overturn abortion rights will harm racial minorities, particularly Black women. In a statement, president of the National Medical Association Rachel Villanueva said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This decision is unconstitutional, dangerous and discriminatory. It will not stop abortions from being performed, it will unfortunately only make the procedure more dangerous. Women of color, poor women and other disadvantaged individuals who don’t have the resources to travel to obtain the medical care they need will be disproportionately impacted. At a time when maternal mortality rates are worsening, particularly for Black women, it is deeply disappointing that our institutions are actively harming — not helping — women’s health. Abortion is part of total health care for a woman. Doctors should be able to provide medical care based on scientific fact and evidence-based medicine, and free from any political interference. The entire medical community should be gravely concerned about the precedent this decision sets.According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2019, the most recent year available, Black women have the highest rates of abortion with 23.8 per 1,000 people. Hispanic women had 11.7 abortions per 1,000 people, while for white women, the ratio was 6.6.Will the supreme court’s conservative justices stop with Roe v Wade? As Joan E Greve reports, today’s decision in the Dobbs case contains signs that the Republican-appointed majority would like to go after other rights the court has established, such as same-sex marriage and access to contraception:Many Americans reacted to the supreme court’s decision to reverse Roe v Wade and remove federal abortion rights in the US with shock, but many also asked a terrified question: what might be next?The conservative justice Clarence Thomas appeared to offer a preview of the court’s potential future rulings, suggesting the rightwing-controlled court may return to the issues of contraception access and marriage equality, threatening LGBTQ rights.“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion to the ruling on Roe.Contraception, gay marriage: Clarence Thomas signals new targets for supreme courtRead moreThe House of Representatives has passed the bipartisan gun control measure that the Senate approved yesterday. It now awaits action from President Joe Biden, who said he will sign it.234-193, House sends guns package to Biden’s desk. 14 Rs broke with their leadership: Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Tom Rice, John Katko, Maria Salazar, Chris Jacobs, Brian Fitzpatrick, Peter Meijer and Fred Upton; and Steve Chabot, Mike Turner, David Joyce and Anthony Gonzalez— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 24, 2022
      While the bill tightens gun access for some Americans and funds mental health services, it is being passed just a day after a supreme court ruling that expanded the right to carry a concealed weapon nationwide.US supreme court overturns New York handgun law in bitter blow to gun-control pushRead moreMedical experts have also decried the Dobbs opinion as threatening the health and autonomy of patients nationwide.The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement condemning the supreme court opinion from its president, Iffath A Hoskins, MD, FACOG, reading in part: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Today’s decision is a direct blow to bodily autonomy, reproductive health, patient safety and health equity in the United States.
      Reversing the constitutional protection for safe, legal abortion established by the Supreme Court nearly fifty years ago exposes pregnant people to arbitrary, state-based restrictions, regulations, and bans that will leave many people unable to access needed medical care.
      The restrictions put forth are not based on science nor medicine; they allow unrelated third parties to make decisions that rightfully and ethically should be made only by individuals and their physicians.
      ACOG condemns this devastating decision, which will allow state governments to prevent women from living with autonomy over their bodies and their decisions. The American Medical Association also released a statement denouncing the Dobbs opinion, with its president Jack Resneck Jr MD, writing: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The American Medical Association is deeply disturbed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nearly a half century of precedent protecting patients’ right to critical reproductive health care—representing an egregious allowance of government intrusion into the medical examination room, a direct attack on the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship, and a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services.
      States that end legal abortion will not end abortion —they will end safe abortion, risking [devastating] consequences, including patients’ lives. More

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      January 6 hearings: Barr ‘not sure at all’ transition would have happened had DoJ not resisted Trump – live

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      The January 6 committee has concluded its hearing for the day, with the next sessions expected later in July, when House lawmakers return to Washington from a recess.In his closing remarks, committee’s chair Bennie Thompson outlined what the committee had found thus far and what it expected to show in the future..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Up to this point, we’ve shown the inner workings of what was essentially a political coup and attempt to use the powers of the government, from the local level all the way up, to overturn the results of the election. Send fake electors, just say the election was corrupt. Along the way, we saw threats of violence, we saw what some people were willing to do. In a service of the nation, the constitution? No. In service of Donald Trump.
      When the Select Committee continues this series of hearings, we’re going to show how Donald Trump tapped into the threat of violence, how he summoned the mob to Washington, and how after corruption and political pressure failed to keep Donald Trump in office, violence became the last option.The testimony of the justice department officials who gave the bulk of the day’s evidence has concluded, but before they did, Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, told a tale familiar to those who have watched the committee’s hearings closely: he never heard from Trump on the day of the attack.“I spoke to a number of senior White House officials, but not the president,” Rosen said.What Trump was doing during the attack and who he was talking to are both expected to be focuses of later hearings of the committee.The committee has just unveiled evidence of more Republican congressmen requesting pardons from Trump in his final days in office. NEW on PARDONS: Republican congressman Mo Brooks sent an email on 11 January 2021 seeking pardons for “Every Congressman and Senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania.”— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 23, 2022
      Trump WH aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Brooks and Gaetz pushed for pardons for every Republican lawmaker who participated in Jan. 6 planning meeting — and Reps. Perry, Biggs, Gohmert asked for pardons. Jordan asked whether White House would pardon members.— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 23, 2022
      The testimony adds to the list of pardon requests that have emerged as the January 6 committee aired its evidence.Capitol attack pardon revelations could spell doom for Trump and alliesRead moreJeffrey Clark came very close to be the acting attorney general, a position in which he could have used his authority to disrupt the certification of Biden’s election win in several states, according to evidence the committee is airing.On January 3, three days before the attack on the Capitol, the White House had already begun referring to Clark as acting attorney general, according to Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican leading the committee’s questioning today.The committee then turned to exploring a meeting between Trump and the leaders of the justice department that day in the Oval Office, in which Trump repeated specific claims of fraud that had been debunked and expressed his will to see Clark take over the department.Richard Donoghue said he warned of mass resignations to follow if Clark took over the department. “You’re gonna lose your entire department leadership. Every single (assistant attorney general) will walk out. Your entire department of leadership will walk out within hours. And I don’t know what happens after that. I don’t know what the United States attorneys are going to do,” Donoghue said. “My guess would be that many of them would have resigned.”Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general in the final weeks of the Trump administration, is now recounting Trump’s attempt to replace him with Jeffrey Clark, who was playing a major roles in his efforts to have states that voted for Biden overturn their results.In a meeting on a Sunday, Rosen said Clark “told me that he would be replacing me,” and had made the atypical request to ask to meet him alone, “because he thought it would be appropriate in light of what was happening to at least offer me, that I couldn’t stay on his his deputy.”“I thought that was preposterous. I told him that was nonsensical,” Rosen said. “There’s no universe where I was going to do that, to stay on and support someone else doing things that were not consistent with what I thought should be done.”However, Clark also said he would turn down Trump’s offer to replace Rosen if the acting attorney general signed the letter disputing the validity of Georgia’s electors for Biden. Richard Donoghue recounted that Rosen made the decisions to begin informing other department officials about the quandary, and almost all the assistant attorney generals said they would resign if Trump replaced Rosen with Clark.As this hearing has unfolded, the justice department officials testifying have said they investigated many of the claims of fraud in the 2020 election brought forward by Trump and his allies. The decision to look into these claims in the weeks after polls closed may be more significant than it appears at first glance.In video testimony aired earlier in the hearing, William Barr, Trump’s attorney general during the election, said be believes that the department’s ability to debunk the false claims of fraud as Trump was making them were essential to allowing Joe Biden to assume office.“I felt the responsible thing to do was to be… in a position to have a view as to whether or not there was fraud,” Barr told investigators.“I sort of shudder to think what the situation would have been if the position of the department was, we’re not even looking at this until after Biden’s in office. I’m not sure we would have had a transition at all.”The committee has returned, and is now asking Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, about a request from Trump to seize voting machines.“We had seen nothing improper with regard to the voting machines,” Rosen said he replied, noting that investigators had looked into allegations the machines gave fraudulent results and found nothing wrong. “And so that was not something that was appropriate to do … I don’t think there was legal authority either.”Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, is recounting a meeting with Trump, in which he pushed him unsuccessfully to seize voting machines. By the end, “The president again was getting very agitated. And he said, ‘People tell me I should just get rid of both of you. I should just remove you and make a change in the leadership with Jeff Clark, and maybe something will finally get done,’” Donoghue said.Donoghue said he responded: “Mr President, you should have the leadership that you want. But understand the United States justice department functions on facts and evidence, and then those are not going to change. So you can have whatever leadership you want, but the department’s position is not going to change.”The committee is now in recess, but before they finished, Richard Donoghue described his reaction when he first learned of Jeffrey Clark’s proposed letter to the Georgia legislature asking them to convene to declare alternate electoral college voters.“I had to read both the email and the attached letter twice to make sure I really understood what he was proposing because it was so extreme to me I had a hard time getting my head around it initially,” Donoghue said. He responded in writing to Clark’s letter, saying that its allegations were “not based on facts,” and, in his view, “for the department to insert itself into the political process this way, I think, would have had grave consequences for the country. It may very well have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis. And I wanted to make sure that he understood the gravity of the situation because he didn’t seem to really appreciate it.”Clark himself made a brief appearance in video testimony the committee played before it took its break, responding to questions by asserting his fifth amendment rights and executive privilege.The committee will reconvene in a few minutes.One name that’s coming up a lot in this hearing is Scott Perry, the Pennsylvania Republican congressman who the committee said took part in Trump’s plan to pressure the justice department, and in particular install Jeff Clark at its helm.The committee just showed text messages between Perry and Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, which showed the lawmaker encouraging Meadows to work on promoting Clark. Richard Donoghue also detailed a phone call from Perry where the congressman claimed fraud in the results in Pennsylvania from the 2020 election – which the justice department determined unfounded.The committee had sought documents and requested an interview with Perry last year, but the Republican refused to comply. Last month, Perry was among a group of congressmen subpoenaed by the committee.Capitol attack panel subpoenas five Republicans in unprecedented stepRead moreRichard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, is outlining his efforts to convince the president that the justice department could not interfere with a state’s election.“States run their elections. We are not quality control for the states,” he recalled explaining to Trump. “The bottom line was, if a state ran their election in such a way that it was defective, that is to the state or Congress to correct, it is not for the justice department to step in.”But Trump wanted something simpler, Donoghue said.“That’s not what I’m asking you to do,” Donoghue told the committee Trump said after he explained the department’s position. “Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” the president said.Today’s hearing is focusing on the inner workings of the justice department, but as in previous sessions, the committee has tried to make sure the insurrection isn’t far from viewers’ minds.Case in point: lawmakers just aired video from the day of the attack showing marchers chanting “Do your job!” outside the justice department — evidence that Trump’s most ardent supporters were well aware of the president’s attempts to push government lawyers to interfere with Joe Biden’s victory.But as justice department officials tell it, they never believed in Trump’s fraud claims. Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, said Trump lawyer Pat Cipollone described the letter Clark wanted to send for Trump as a “murder-suicide pact. It’s going to damage everyone who touches it.”The committee’s top Republican Liz Cheney is offering more details about the actions of justice department official Jeffrey Clark, who had his house raided today by federal investigators.According to Cheney, Clark and another justice department lawyer drafted a letter addressed to the Georgia state legislature, which would have said the department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia”, and that the legislature should convene and consider approving a new slate of electors. Joe Biden had won Georgia, but Trump made baseless allegations of fraud in the polls, and the new electors would have presumably given him the state’s electoral votes.“In fact, Donald Trump knew this was a lie,” Cheney said. “The Department of Justice had already informed the president of the United States repeatedly that its investigations had found no fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”Cheney said Clark had met with Trump privately and agreed to help him sway these states’ legislatures without telling his bosses at the justice department. But Cheney said Clark’s superiors – who are the witnesses testifying today – refused to sign it. That was when Trump began considering installing Clark at the helm at the justice department – which he never ended up doing. The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has started its fifth hearing, which will focus on Donald Trump’s efforts to get the justice department to go along with his plans to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Testifying in the chamber will be:
      Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general for the final weeks of Trump’s term, including during the attack on the Capitol.
      Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, who appeared in a video aired at the conclusion of Tuesday’s hearing threatening to resign if Trump appointed Jeffrey Clark to head the justice department.
      Steven Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.
      We’re about 10 minutes away from the start of today’s January 6 hearing, which my colleague Lauren Gambino reports will offer new evidence of how Trump pressured the justice department to take part in his plot to overturn the 2020 election:The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection plans to present new evidence on Thursday about Donald Trump’s brazen attempts to pressure the justice department to overturn the 2020 presidential election that he lost, aides said.After exhausting his legal options and being rebuffed by state and local elections officials, the president turned to the justice department to declare the election corrupt despite no evidence of mass voter fraud, the nine-member panel will seek to show in their fifth and final hearing of the month.Testifying from the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill are Jeffrey Rosen, the former acting attorney general; Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general; and Steven Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.Capitol attack panel to show how Trump pressured DoJ to overturn electionRead more More

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      Jan 6 hearings: Raffensperger debunks Trump’s baseless fraud claim: ‘The numbers don’t lie’– as it happened

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      Using Trump’s words from a recorded phone call with Raffensperger, the committee is having the two Georgia officials debunk all of his claims of a stolen election in their state.“The numbers are the numbers and numbers don’t lie,” Raffensperger said, defending his office’s conduct. “Every single allegation, we checked, we ran down the rabbit trail to make sure that our numbers were accurate.”The FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation also investigated the claims and found them to be baseless.Adam Schiff, the California Democrat leading today’s question, said that the committee has learned that around the time of the dispute over Georgia’s vote, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, wanted to send Georgia election investigators “a shitload of Potus stuff,” in the words of one White House aide. These included coins and autographed Maga hats. “White House staff intervened to make sure that didn’t happen,” Schiff said.The fourth hearing of the January 6 committee explored both the official effort to overturn the 2020 election and the impact of personal attacks by Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani against a pair of Georgia poll workers. Meanwhile, Congress is in the midst of a flurry of legislating, with lawmakers days away from taking a two-week break.Here’s what else happened today:
      South Dakota state attorney general Jason Ravnsborg lied to investigators and abused the power of his office after he struck and killed a pedestrian, prosecutors argued earlier today at the opening of an impeachment trial that could remove him from office.
      Documentary film maker Alex Holder is cooperating with a subpoena by the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and related events. He filmed interviews with Trump and family.
      Congress is inching towards votes on a bipartisan gun control compromise reached between Republicans and Democrats, spurred on by the Uvalde school massacre as well as the racist killings at a grocery store in Buffalo.
      The US Supreme Court has struck down a state-funded program in Maine that covers the costs of some private schools — but only those that are nonsectarian.
      The US politics blog will return tomorrow, but for all the developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine as they happen, including news on the visit by US attorney general Merrick Garland, the fate of American citizens fighting on Ukraine’s side, and what’s happening on the ground, do follow our global live blog on the war, here.The testimony by Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss was the emotional climax of the January 6 committee’s fourth hearing, as they detailed how being personally attacked by Trump ruined their lives. Their experience is unfortunately not unique.Alexander Vindman, a prominent witness in Trump’s first impeachment investigation, tweeted his support:Lady Ruby and Shaye,I know what it’s like to have the President of the United States attack me. Stay strong. We are better than him and we will prevail. Much love!— Alexander S. Vindman (@AVindman) June 21, 2022
      Former US attorney and Trump foe Preet Bharara weighed in:If Shaye Moss can come testify, so can Mike Pence— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) June 21, 2022
      A spokesman for Ron Johnson has responded to evidence presented in today’s January 6 hearing that appeared to show the Republican senator cooperated with Trump’s efforts to disrupt the 2020 election results in crucial swing states.The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office. This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office.— alexa henning (@alexahenning) June 21, 2022
      The Vice President’s office said not to give it to him and we did not. There was no further action taken. End of story.— alexa henning (@alexahenning) June 21, 2022
      In its hearing, the committee detailed a plan by Trump supporters to create “fake elector documents,” which would say that states crucial to Joe Biden’s victory such as Georgia and Arizona actually voted for Trump. The idea was to get these into the hands of Mike Pence, who was to certify Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021. The committee showed an aide for Johnson contacted the vice-president’s staff about getting the documents to Pence, but they ultimately rejected the request.The January 6 committee has finished its hearing for the day, and as is its practice, ended with a preview of its next presentation, set for Thursday.Committee chair Bennie Thompson said the House lawmakers will explore Trump’s “attempt to corrupt and the country’s top law enforcement body, the justice department, to support his attempt to overturn the election.” He played a brief excerpt from the testimony of Richard Donoghue, the acting deputy attorney general at the end of Trump’s term.“The president said suppose I do this, suppose I replace Jeff Rosen with him, Jeff Clark, what do you do? And I said, sir, I would resign immediately. There is no way I’m serving one minute under this guy Jeff Clark,” Donoghue is heard saying.Rosen was the acting attorney general for the final weeks of Trump’s time in the White House. Clark was an assistant attorney general who is accused of plotting with Trump to overturn the election, and is now facing disbarment.Pressure mounts on ex-DoJ official Jeff Clark over Trump’s ‘election subversion scheme’Read moreThe committee also showed Trump attacking Freeman as a “vote scammer” in a call with the Georgia secretary of state. Moss and Freeman are ending their testimony with the latter describing how it feels to be personally attacked by the president.“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States to target you? The President of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one. But he targeted me,” Freeman said in recorded testimony played by the committee.Earlier, Moss had described just how intense the attacks from Trump supporters against them became. People would repeatedly make large pizza orders to Freeman’s home, sending delivery drivers to her door. In one instance, Moss said, strangers turned up at Freeman’s home and tried to force their way in to attempt a “citizens arrest” of her. Around January 6, Freeman was advised by the FBI to leave her home for her safety.Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman are detailing how Trump and Giuliani’s promotion of a conspiracy theory that they somehow rigged the vote has disrupted their lives.Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman are passing around USB ports “as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine,” Giuliani said in video testimony to the Georgia senate that the committee just played. In reality, Moss testified, what’s shown being passed in that video was a ginger mint. But that allegation started the campaign of attacks by Trump supporters against the mother and daughter.Moss, who is Black, said people found her Facebook profile and left her “hateful” and “racist” messages, including one saying “Be glad it’s 2020 and 1920.”“I don’t go to the grocery store at all. I haven’t been anywhere. I gained about 60 pounds,” Moss said of the the threats’ effects on her. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I second-guessed everything that I do.”The three Republican officials have now finished their testimony before the committee, and the lawmakers are now hearing from Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, a Georgia poll worker who, along with her mother, was accused of rigging the vote in a number of conspiracies promoted by Trump supporters.Her mother is seated behind her in the hearing room.Moss has been a Fulton county election worker for 10 years, and began by confirming she never received threats before like she did during the 2020 election.Using Trump’s words from a recorded phone call with Raffensperger, the committee is having the two Georgia officials debunk all of his claims of a stolen election in their state.“The numbers are the numbers and numbers don’t lie,” Raffensperger said, defending his office’s conduct. “Every single allegation, we checked, we ran down the rabbit trail to make sure that our numbers were accurate.”The FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation also investigated the claims and found them to be baseless.Adam Schiff, the California Democrat leading today’s question, said that the committee has learned that around the time of the dispute over Georgia’s vote, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, wanted to send Georgia election investigators “a shitload of Potus stuff,” in the words of one White House aide. These included coins and autographed Maga hats. “White House staff intervened to make sure that didn’t happen,” Schiff said.Sterling is detailing some of the conspiracy theories that followed Biden’s election victory in Georgia, and debunking them. But despite the evidence he outlined that the theories weren’t true, he said it was hard to get people to believe him.“It was kind of like a shovel trying to empty the ocean,” Sterling said. “It was frustrating. I even have family members who I had to argue with about some of these things, and I would show them things, and the problem you have is you’re getting to people’s hearts.”“Once you get past the heart, the facts don’t matter as much. And our job, from our point of view, is to get the facts out,” Sterling added.The January 6 committee has resumed its hearing, with the focus turning to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. As with Bowers before him, Raffensperger begins by confirming his bonafides as a conservative Republican who wanted Trump to win.Also answering questions is Gabriel Sterling, Raffensperger’s deputy, who went viral for his speech following the election in which he strongly denounced Trump’s baseless insistence that the 2020 election was stolen in Georgia.Sterling is addressing that speech before the committee, saying it was prompted by direct threats to staff members in his office. “I lost my temper,” Sterling said. “But it seemed necessary at the time, because it was just getting worse.” He also noted that he’s not aware of any request from Trump to his supporters not to use violence.The committee is now taking a recess, but before they concluded, Bowers, a Republican who said he voted for Trump in the 2020 election, detailed the costs of his refusal to go along with the former president’s plot to swing Arizona’s electoral votes in his favor.“We received, my secretaries would say, in excess of 20,000 emails, tens of 1000s of voicemails and texts which saturated our offices and we are unable to work,” Bowers said. Every Saturday, Bowers said organizations that he did not name would stage protests near his house. “We have various groups combined. They have had video panel trucks with videos of me, proclaiming me to be a pedophile and a pervert and a corrupt politician and blaring loudspeakers in my neighborhood, and leaving literature, both on my property and arguing and threatening with neighbors, and with myself,” Bowers said. More

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      A Way Out of No Way review: Raphael Warnock, symbol of hope for America

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      A Way Out of No Way review: Raphael Warnock, symbol of hope for America The Democratic Georgia senator has delivered an inspiring memoir, well-timed as the US tears itself apart We live in an age of miracles but we spend very little time noticing that. After four years of Donald Trump, two years of Covid and four months of vicious war in Ukraine, it’s hardly surprising many feel overwhelmed by seemingly relentless bad news.Seen and Unseen review: George Floyd, Black Twitter and the fight for racial justiceRead moreRaphael Warnock’s inspiring memoir arrives just in time to remind us that even in our darkest days, America offers at least as much hope as despair.Warnock was at the center of the most recent set of miracles, which came about in large part because of the registration and activism of Black voters in key states in 2020. In Georgia it began when a former state house minority leader, Stacey Abrams, identified 800,000 eligible but unregistered voters and formed the New Georgia Project to get as many on the rolls as possible.Warnock joined Abrams’ campaign. Despite the outrageous efforts of then secretary of state (now governor) Brian Kemp, who falsely accused them of voter fraud, by 2019 they had registered 500,000 voters. That made three miracles possible: Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Georgia in 28 years and Warnock and Jon Ossoff became the first Black and Jewish senators elected from the state, miraculously giving Democrats (tenuous) control of the Senate.Nothing is more filled with hope than the trajectory of Warnock’s life. He was the 11th of 12 children. His father made his living collecting scrap metal and preaching while his mother was a homemaker until she became the preacher in the family.Warnock’s life is proof that the federal government has done important things to level the playing field in crucial ways. Warnock got his first leg-up through Head Start, one of the greatest legacies of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Then he got enrolled in Upward Bound, a federally financed summer college preparatory program that strengthened his confidence “and provided the path for the pursuit of my dreams”. For a kid growing up in a neighborhood where no one had a bachelor’s degree, this “demystified the idea of college and gave me a clear vision of what was possible”.But the advantages he started with were even more important, especially a mom who is “a preacher with a God-given sense of spiritual discernment”, who “could read people and situations better than anyone I’ve ever known”. Warnock grew up in a housing project devastated by crack and Aids, “but in a place where there were too many missing fathers, I had two devoted parents at home, and they kept church at the center of our lives”.His parents never let him forget that while we live in a nation “in need of moral surgery”, with “hope, hard work, and the people by our side anything is possible”.The college he chose was Morehouse, a vital Black institution with alumni justly famous for “world-changing accomplishments” including the former Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson, civil rights leader Julian Bond, Spike Lee, theologian Howard Thurman and of course Martin Luther King Jr.Although Warnock was born a year after King’s assassination, “more than anybody or anything else” it was King who “recruited” him to Morehouse.Warnock is particularly proud that he can trace his own development directly to the greatest American civil rights leader of the 20th century. During college he interned at Sixth Avenue Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was mentored by the Rev John Thomas Porter, who had been a pulpit assistant to Martin Luther King Jr and his father.The civil rights pioneer Jesse Jackson was another role model, one of many “courageous souls” who laid “the groundwork for candidates of color and women to run and win high political offices presumed out of reach”. These pioneers showed Warnock “that to be effective, you have to be willing to put your body in the game – show up, give what you have (your time, your money, your skills), and do what you’re asking of others”.Morehouse was the beginning of Warnock’s introduction to the elite Black establishment nourished by historically Black colleges and universities and Black churches. While greedy, racist born-again Christians get most of our attention, this book reminds us there is another religious network which has been hugely important to America’s progress, strengthening and nurturing the Black community.A brilliant natural preacher who gave his first sermon at 11, a sincere servant of God, Warlock had a meteoritic rise, going from Morehouse to Union theological seminary in New York and then to Manhattan’s most famous Black house of worship, the Abyssinian Baptist church, where he quickly became an intern minister. There he had another crucial mentor, the Rev Dr Calvin O Butts III, an alumnus of both schools Warnock attended.Race at the Top: white and Asian Americans and the push for equity in educationRead moreAt 31, Warnock became senior pastor at Douglas Memorial Community church in Baltimore, where he demonstrated remarkable courage by starting with an attack on church homophobia. He built his installation ceremony around activities designed to heighten HIV/Aids awareness, “to signal to my church … the kind of ministry we would build together”.Just a couple of years later, in 2005, he got the greatest honor of all when King’s Ebenezer Baptist church elected him senior pastor, by the vote of 90% of the congregation. Sixteen years later, he was a United States senator.May Warnock’s unlikely success and irrepressible optimism be enough to remind all of us that the only thing needed to rescue our beleaguered democracy is a genuine willingness by the enlightened citizens who are still a majority to put our bodies back in the game. If the rest of us can be half as courageous as Warnock is, he reminds us, we can still “build a future that honors the sacrifices of those who came before us and is worthy of the promise that lives in all our children”.
      A Way Out of No Way: A Memoir of Truth, Transformation and the New American Story is published in the US by Penguin
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksUS politicsDemocratsUS CongressUS SenateUS midterm elections 2022reviewsReuse this content More

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      Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro pleads not guilty to contempt charges in January 6 case – as it happened

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      Then there are those who refuse to cooperate with the January 6 committee, such as Peter Navarro, a former top adviser on trade to Trump. He’s just pleaded not guilty to two charges of contempt of Congress over his refusal to provide documents or testify to the House panel, Reuters reports.Navarro was indicted and taken into custody earlier this month on the charges, despite his insistence that executive privilege protected him from cooperating with the probe.As The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has reported:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Navarro was referred to the justice department for criminal contempt of Congress by the full House of Representatives in April after he entirely ignored a subpoena issued to him in February demanding that he produce documents and appear for a deposition.
      The top White House trade adviser to Trump was deeply involved in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election from the very start, the Guardian has previously reported, deputizing his aides to help produce reports on largely debunked claims of election fraud.
      Navarro was also in touch with Trump’s legal team led by Rudy Giuliani and operatives working from a Trump “war room” at the Willard hotel in Washington to stop Biden’s election certification from taking place on January 6 – a plan he christened the “Green Bay Sweep”.Trump aide Peter Navarro ordered to testify before grand jury over January 6Read moreThanks for joining the US politics blog for another day of news from Washington and across the United States. The ongoing January 6 hearings were a major story this week as were the Senate negotiations over gun control, both of which will continue next week.Here’s a recap of what happened today:
      Ex-Trump advisor Peter Navarro pled not guilty to two charges of contempt of Congress in relation to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of the former president who were trying, in vain, to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
      Trump told his own version of his interactions with vice-president Mike Pence in the run-up to January 6, denying that he’d insulted his running mate or pressured him to overturn the 2020 election.
      Speaking of Pence, he gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal and hinted he was considering a run for president in 2024 — which Trump has said he’s thinking of doing as well.
      John Cornyn, the Republican senator trying to reach a gun control compromise with Democrats, was booed when he went back home to Texas to speak at a state party convention. Many in the state are apparently not a fan of his negotiations on firearms legislation.
      The Food and Drug administration approved Covid-19 vaccines for the youngest Americans, a development Biden cheered.
      Monday is the Juneteenth federal holiday and thus, the blog will return on Tuesday, with the supreme court set to release another batch of decisions at 10 am eastern time, and the January 6 committee meeting later in the day.Legendary journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reunited today to mark the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, the event that came to define their careers and resulted in President Richard Nixon’s eventual resignation.But much of today’s discussion at the DC headquarters of The Washington Post, the newspaper that published Woodward and Bernstein’s history-making scoops 50 years ago, focused on more recent events.Bernstein drew a direct comparison between Nixon and Donald Trump, who he described as “a seditious, criminal president”.Pointing to the January 6 insurrection, Bernstein said Trump “staged an attempted coup, such as you would see in a junta [or] in a banana republic”.“But one of the things that’s developing that’s very different than in Watergate is that the wife of a supreme court justice is now part of the story,” Bernstein said, referring to Ginni Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Justice Clarence Thomas.The January 6 committee has obtained messages showing Thomas communicated with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and conservative lawyer John Eastman about efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.“It looks very much like — and certainly is the opinion of a number of people on that committee — that she is caught up in the conspiracy and very likely is a co-conspirator,” Bernstein said.Noting that Thomas has indicated she will cooperate with the committee’s requests for information, Woodward said of the committee members, “They’re treading very carefully, and I think wisely.”Texas senator John Cornyn has the attention of Democrats in Washington for being willing to negotiate over a gun control compromise, but those efforts have apparently earned him the ire of some of his fellow Republicans back home.Here’s a clip of how his speech went at the state party’s convention:US Sen John Cornyn gets viciously booed during much of his speech here at the Republican Party of Texas Convention. Here’s his closing remarks and the cascade of boos. pic.twitter.com/m2Hua9WdrV— Jeremy Wallace (@JeremySWallace) June 17, 2022
      Cornyn is the lead Republican negotiator on the gun control compromise, which Democrats have acknowledged is nowhere near as strong as they would like it to be, but better than nothing when it comes to responding to the mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo New York.The Houston Chronicle has a look at the stakes for Cornyn back home, where his detractors accuse him of violating their “God given rights.”In the telling of the January 6 committee’s witnesses, Trump reasoned with, pressured and finally berated Mike Pence in the lead-up to the certification of the 2020 election, all in a failed effort to stop Joe Biden from taking the White House.Speaking in Nashville, the former president has offered his take on what happened between him and Pence in the closing weeks of their term:Trump: “I never called Mike Pence a wimp. I never called him a wimp. Mike Pence had a chance to be great. He had a chance to be frankly historic… But Mike did not have the courage to act… Mike was afraid of whatever he was afraid of.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      Trump: They said I told Pence to decide the election. “I never said that. It’s not true. I wanted him to send it up to the legislatures, so it goes back to Pennsylvania, state legislatures.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      Trump has long insisted, with no evidence, that he won the electoral college in 2020, but here he is now claiming that he also won the popular vote. In reality, he was defeated by an even bigger margin than in 2016.Trump: “We did much better in the second election than the first. Millions and millions more votes… They say we lost. Don’t believe it.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      The committee aired testimony yesterday that on the morning of January 6, Trump called Pence and used harsh language — including what one witness said was the “p word” — to get him to go along with his plot to prevent the certification of the 2020 vote. Trump has a different take:Trump: “I said to Mike, ‘If you do this, you could be Thomas Jefferson’. And after all it went down I looked at him one day and said, ‘Mike, you’re not Thomas Jefferson’.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      On stage now at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s event in Nashville, Trump has condemned the January 6 committee in language that’s familiar to anyone who remembers his time in the White House.The Guardian’s David Smith is there:Trump on investigations: “It’s the same people with the same words. If you just insert the same words with ‘January 6’ instead of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      Trump on January 6 committee: “Every one of them is a radical left hater. Hates all of you. Hates me even more but I’m just trying to help you out.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      Trump: “They’re knowingly spinning a fake and phony narrative in a chilling attempt” to hurt opponents. “Video that’s been deceptively edited.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      Trump: “What you’re seeing is a complete and total lie. It’s a complete and total fraud.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      Trump: “They have their narrative and they know we’re leading in every single poll.. Crazy Liz Cheney.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      Republican Cheney’s opposition to Trump has particularly high stakes for her continued career as the lone House representative for Wyoming. She faces a primary challenger endorsed by the former president who appears to be beating her in opinion polls.The Wall Street Journal has secured an interview with Trump’s vice-president Mike Pence, the star of yesterday’s January 6 hearing, though he himself didn’t attend.The interview contains a bit of news: Pence is thinking about running for the Republican nomination in 2024 — which would likely put him up against Trump, whom he hasn’t spoken to in “about a year”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mr. Pence said his own decision on whether to mount another campaign, likely to come in early 2023, will be based on prayer with his wife and conversations with friends, not on whether Mr. Trump decides to run.
      “We’ll go where we’re called,” Mr. Pence said. “But I won’t let anybody else make that decision for me.”The article shows Pence is otherwise returning to his mainstream Republican roots, stumping for candidates such as Ohio governor Mike DeWine, Georgia governor Brian Kemp and Arizona governor Doug Ducey — all of whom clashed with Trump. On Monday, Pence will be in Chicago for a speech on economic policy, a potent attack line against president Joe Biden, given how high inflation is in the United States.As we await Trump’s speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s event in Nashville, take a look at this report from Hugo Lowell on tension between the January 6 committee and federal prosecutors, who would like to take a look at what the congressional probe has found:Tensions between the US justice department and the House of Representatives January 6 select committee have escalated after federal prosecutors complained that their inability to access witness transcripts was hampering criminal investigations into rioters who stormed the Capitol.The complaint that came from the heads of the justice department’s national security and criminal divisions and the US attorney for Washington Matthew Graves showed a likely collision course for the parallel congressional and criminal probes into the Capitol attack.“The interviews the select committee conducted are not just potentially relevant to our overall criminal investigations, but are likely relevant to specific prosecutions,” Graves wrote, alongside assistant attorneys general Kenneth Polite and Matthew Olsen.“The select committee’s failure to grant the department access to these transcripts complicates the department’s ability to investigate and prosecute those who engaged in criminal conduct in relation to the January 6 attack on the Capitol.”Capitol attack prosecutors press January 6 committee for transcripts Read moreIt looks like the gun control negotiations aren’t going as smoothly as expected in the Senate.GOP source familiar with gun talks says “it’s going to be a “long time before bill text is released.” Source blames D staff “for trying to relitigate and reopen issues in the bill text that have already been agreed to in principle at the member level.” Dem source disputes that— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 17, 2022
      Dems believe they are still making progress, and the Dem source they are still going through the back-and-forth of translating principles they agreed upon into detailed legislative text. Talks between members and at the staff level are expected to continue over the weekend,— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 17, 2022
      But even if negotiators reach an agreement on bill text over the weekend, the Senate has very little time to process a guns package by the end of the week. The chamber is not in session until Tuesday and the Senate is expected to begin a two-week recess at week’s end.— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 17, 2022
      Senators want a bill passed before the July 4th recess because they are worried that allowing it to hang over two weeks while members are back home will halt any momentum the talks have enjoyed.Boyfriend loophole and funding for states on red flag laws need to be resolved— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 17, 2022
      Recall that the week began with news of a compromise reached between Democrats and Republicans to pass legislation in response to the mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York.It appeared to have momentum. The Senate’s Democratic leader said he would put the legislation up for a vote as soon as it was written, while the chamber’s top Republican Mitch McConnell said he would support it, boosting its chances of passage since it will need the support of at least 10 of his party’s lawmakers to pass. But now it’s Friday, and here we are.The January 6 committee has announced it will hold its fourth hearing next Tuesday at 1 pm eastern time.New: Jan. 6 committee formally announces fourth hearing will take place on June 21 at 1p ET— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 17, 2022
      At the third hearing held on Thursday, committee members detailed the efforts by Trump to pressure his vice-president Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election at the joint sitting of Congress set for January 6, 2021.‘System nearly failed’: US democracy was left hanging by the thread of Pence’s defianceRead moreAs communities across the state grapple with a historic bout of flooding that has imperiled the water supply of its largest city, many in Montana are wondering: where is the governor?State officials have only said that Greg Gianforte was on a planned trip abroad, but wouldn’t mention the location. The answer appears to be Italy’s Tuscany region, according to Newsy: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Newsy obtained a photo of Gianforte and the first lady at a restaurant in Casole d’Elsa, which is a small village in the Tuscany region of Italy. The photo is time-stamped at 9:31 p.m. local time Wednesday.
      A source that wishes to remain anonymous sent us a photo of the couple dining with multiple other people. The governor’s office confirmed Gianforte was out of the country when it was noticed his lieutenant governor signed a statewide emergency declaration as acting governor.
      A spokesperson said he and the first lady left late last week on a long-planned personal trip, but details about the timeline and the destination were left out.The Montana Free Press reports on how cagey the state has been about the whereabouts of Gianforte, a Republican elected in 2020:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} A spokesperson for the governor’s office has said only that Gianforte left the country last week, before the Yellowstone River rose to take out massive chunks of infrastructure and isolate entire communities in Park, Carbon and Stillwater counties, on a “long-scheduled personal trip” with his wife, Susan Gianforte. But the office has declined to say what country Gianforte is visiting and specifically when the governor will be back in Montana.
      “The governor is returning early and as quickly as possible,” gubernatorial spokesperson Brooke Strokye said in a statement Wednesday afternoon in response to repeated questions from the media.
      The governor’s whereabouts have been an increasing topic of speculation on social media after Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras signed a declaration of disaster Tuesday in response to the flooding in southern Montana.
      “The fact that [the flooding] is so extreme and his office has just been pretty recalcitrant about where he is and what’s going on is not great,” said Eric Austin, a public administration professor at Montana State University who teaches a class on government leadership and ethics.
      There are legitimate reasons why a public official would not share their location during international travel, Austin said, but during a natural disaster, “perceptually, that doesn’t really help.”According to NBC Montana, Gianforte was supposed to return to the state on Thursday.Our David Smith is at the Faith and Freedom Road to Majority conference in Nashville, Tennessee, a fascinating gathering of parts of the Republican party.Donald Trump is speaking there a day after he was accused on Capitol Hill of endangering his own vice president’s life, calling Mike Pence the p-word (about which Stephen Colbert cogitates) and “setting the mob” on him, per the House select committee.Senator Rick Scott, formerly Florida governor, is there and speaking. here’s Smith on the spot reporting via Twitter. He’ll have a dispatch later.Scott: “The American people are going to give a complete butt kicking to the Democrats this November. But after we win, then what?”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      That’s mild.Scott: The Biden administration has done something new. “They’ve figured out how to merge radical leftwing policies with gross incompetence… We want our freedom back. It’s time to rescue America… It’s time to take this country back.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      At Faith & Freedom Road to Majority conference in Nashville. Senator Rick Scott: The woke left have an agenda to end the American experiment. “They want to replace freedom with control… They’re the modern day version of book burners.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) June 17, 2022
      Rick Scott earlier this week.Smith on Pence:Pence the ‘hero’ who foiled Trump’s plot – could it lead to a 2024 run?Read moreAnd Colbert:Ivanka’s former chief of staff revealed that T**** called his VP Mike Pence “the P word.” pic.twitter.com/6IZ1r0m4EG— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) June 17, 2022
      It’s been a busy morning in US political news, though not as frenzied as some. There’s more to come and Donald Trump is due to speak at the top of the hour at the extraordinarily-named Faith & Freedom Road to Majority conference in Nashville, Tennessee. A day after he was repeatedly accused of breaking the law from both right and left at the third January 6 hearing into the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.Here’s where things stand:
      Joe Biden has cheered the Food and Drug Administration’s decision today to authorize Covid-19 vaccines for children younger than five years old, the last group of Americans that didn’t have access to the jabs.
      The Iowa supreme court issued a ruling that would make it easier for the state to curtail or ban abortion procedures outright, days before the US Supreme Court is set to rule in a pivotal abortion case out of Mississippi that includes a request to overturn Roe v Wade.
      Ex-Trump advisor Peter Navarro pleads not guilty to two charges of contempt of Congress in relation to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump trying, in vain, to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
      The US president gives a rare one-on-one interview, to the Associated Press and talks about the climate crisis, Americans’ low morale in a sea of coronavirus and division, says a recession is not inevitable and, essentially, stakes his presidency on continued support for Ukraine’s against-the-odds resistance to the Russian invasion, warning: “If we let Russia roll and Putin roll, he wouldn’t stop.” More