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      Supreme court overturning Roe allows 'open season' on American freedoms, warns Schumer – video

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      The supreme court overturning the landmark Roe v Wade decision that protects women’s rights to abortion in the US would create an open season on Americans’ freedoms, majority leader Chuck Schumer has said.
      Schumer was speaking before a vote in which the US Senate rejected legislation enshrining abortion rights into federal law 51-49.
      On 2 May, a draft decision by the United States supreme court to overturn Roe was published by Politico, which has been verified as genuine by the justices but it ‘does not represent a decision by the court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.’

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      Democrats lose Senate vote to codify abortion rights 49-51 – as it happened

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      Senators have voted 51-49 to reject Democrat-sponsored legislation enshrining abortion rights into federal law.The defeat of the Women’s Health Protection Act, introduced after a leaked supreme court draft ruling last week jeopardized almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections, was expected.The West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin announced this morning he would join Republicans in voting against the measure, leaving it no chance of achieving a majority. The backing of at least 60 senators would have been needed for it to pass. But Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer insisted on pressing ahead with the doomed vote in order to put Republican senators on record.Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to see the supreme court overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, and Democrats see the issue as a vote-winner ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections. In comments before the symbolic vote, Schumer said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party, the Maga Republican party, will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.We’re ending the live US politics blog now, but look out shortly for the Guardian’s full coverage of Wednesday’s historic vote in which Democrats’ efforts to enshrine abortion rights into federal law fell well short in the US Senate.The day was dominated by the vote on the women’s health protection act, which Democrats knew was doomed to failure, but which they hope can now be used against Republicans who went on record to defeat the legislation.Here are the day’s highlights:
      Senators voted 51-49 to reject the women’s health protection act, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans.
      Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to abortion rights but promoting instead more restrictive legislation.
      Arizona ended an eight-year death penalty hiatus when it executed convicted murderer Clarence Dixon by lethal injection.
      A New York district judge said he would lift a civil contempt order against Donald Trump for failing to cooperate with a criminal investigation into his business activities if the former president paid $110,000 and met other obligations.
      Joe Biden hailed American farmers as the “backbone of freedom” during a speech in Illinois and announced measures to support the agriculture industry and reduce food prices.
      A judge in Florida struck down new congressional districts drawn by the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, saying they made it harder for Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.
      A reminder you can follow developments in the Ukraine war in our live 24-hour news blog here.Democrats criticize Republican Senators after doomed vote on abortion After leaving the chamber, the vice president, Kamala Harris, told reporters that the Senate is “not where the majority of Americans are on this issue”. “This vote clearly suggests that the Senate is not where the majority of Americans are on this issue,” ⁦@VP⁩ Harris says after presiding over the failed vote on abortion rights. pic.twitter.com/BrEmO7yqvt— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) May 11, 2022
      A number of Senators from the Democrats also quickly reacted after the expected failure to advance their legislation to protect abortion.Ron Wyden, from Oregon, said the vote was a “punch in the gut” for those who “believe in liberty, privacy and equal rights. Now Americans know which side every Senator stands on.”Angus King, of Maine, said women across the country are worried the Supreme Court “may take away their basic right to make decisions about their own body,” adding “we cannot move backwards”. Senators have voted 51-49 to reject Democrat-sponsored legislation enshrining abortion rights into federal law.The defeat of the Women’s Health Protection Act, introduced after a leaked supreme court draft ruling last week jeopardized almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections, was expected.The West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin announced this morning he would join Republicans in voting against the measure, leaving it no chance of achieving a majority. The backing of at least 60 senators would have been needed for it to pass. But Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer insisted on pressing ahead with the doomed vote in order to put Republican senators on record.Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to see the supreme court overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, and Democrats see the issue as a vote-winner ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections. In comments before the symbolic vote, Schumer said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party, the Maga Republican party, will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.Vice-President Kamala Harris has called the vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act and senators have begun voting. 60 Senate votes are needed for it to pass. Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski has issued a statement insisting that “I strongly support women’s reproductive freedoms, including the right to abortion”.But she says she also “believes in limited government” and won’t be voting for the Women’s Health Protection Act in the imminent US Senate vote.Murkowski’s statement follows an earlier joint release with Maine Republican Susan Collins, in which they promoted their own reproductive rights act as an alternative.In her new statement, Murkowski says:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The legislation before the Senate today goes well beyond the precedent established in Roe and Casey. It does not include the Hyde amendment, which prohibits taxpayer dollars from being spent on abortions – and has been the law almost as long as Roe.
      It does not include conscience protections for healthcare providers that refuse to perform abortions based on religious beliefs. It explicitly overrides the religious freedom restoration act for the first time. It also allows late-term abortions without any notable restrictions.
      Instead of taking yet another failed vote on a wholly partisan measure, I urge Democrats and Republicans alike to recognize that what Senator Collins and I have offered is in line with the views of a strong majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose but believe that legal abortion should include reasonable limitations. The Senate is edging ever closer to the abortion rights vote. Members are currently finishing a vote on confirming Joe Biden’s pick Alvaro Bedoya to the federal trade commission, and will turn their attention to the Women’s Health Protection Act next, according to C-Span.Joe Biden has just wrapped up an address to agricultural workers in Kankakee, Illinois, in which he promised support for farmers and new measures to make food prices more affordable.The president hailed farmers as “the backbone of the country” and “the backbone of freedom” as he blamed soaring inflation and high prices on Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You feed America. You got us through a pandemic and you’re literally the backbone of our country. But you’re also feeding the world. And we’re seeing Putin’s war in Ukraine, you’re like the backbone of freedom.
      America’s fighting on two fronts. At home, inflation and rising prices. Abroad, it’s helping Ukrainians defend democracy, and feeding those who are left hungry around the world because Russian atrocities exist.
      American farmers understand Putin’s war has has has cut off critical sources of food.On Tuesday, at the White House, Biden insisted that tackling inflation was “my top priority”. Despite a small lift this morning with news that inflation had slowed for the first time since August, it remains at a near 40-year high and is likely to remain uppermost on voters’ minds as November’s midterm elections approach.Biden laid out measures he was taking to “lower costs on farmers”, including doubling an investment in fertilizer production to $500m, and looking at extending crop insurance protection “to give financial security to farmers”.By protecting farmers, Biden said, food prices could stabilize and fall.“Every little bit matters,” he said as he went back over previous initiatives to tackle high prices, including issuing a summer waiver for ethanol-rich fuel which he said would reduce gas prices.The AAA, however, was reporting on Wednesday a new record high national average for a gallon of unleaded gasoline at $4.40. The White House released a fact sheet setting out Biden’s proposals to “make food more affordable, and lower costs for farmers”.Arizona ended an eight-year hiatus on executions Wednesday when it put to death a man convicted of killing a college student in 1978. The state halted the death penalty in 2014 following an execution critics say was botched, and difficulties in finding lethal injection drugs, Reuters reported.Clarence Dixon, 66, died by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of 21-year-old Arizona state university student Deana Bowdoin, making him the sixth person to be executed in the US in 2022. Dixon’s death was announced late Wednesday morning by Frank Strada, a deputy director with Arizona department of corrections.Dixon’s death appeared to go smoothly, said Troy Hayden, an anchor for the Fox10 TV news program who witnessed the execution.“Once the drugs started flowing, he went to sleep almost immediately,” Hayden said.Dixon’s lawyers asked to postpone his execution, but judges rejected his argument that he wasn’t mentally fit to be executed and didn’t have a rational understanding of why the state wanted to execute him. The US supreme court rejected a last-minute delay of Dixon’s execution less than an hour before the execution began. In another Arizona death penalty case, the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington reported last week that Frank Atwood, convicted for murdering an eight-year-old girl, has two weeks to decide whether to be executed with cyanide gas, the poison known as Zyklon B used by the Nazis to murder millions of people in Auschwitz and other extermination camps, or lethal injection.Atwood’s execution is set for 8 June.Last month, the Texas court of criminal appeals issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, a Mexican-American woman set to be judicially killed for the death of her two-year-old daughter Mariah. A state judge struck down new congressional districts in north Florida on Wednesday, saying that the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who drew the lines, made it harder for Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.“I am finding the enacted map is unconstitutional because it diminishes African Americans’ ability to elect candidates of their choice,” circuit judge Lane Smith said on Wednesday, according to the Tributary. Lawyers for the state of Florida are expected to immediately appeal the ruling, and the Florida supreme court shaped by DeSantis could ultimately decide the case.The decision dealt specifically with DeSantis’ decision to dismantle Florida’s fifth congressional district, which stretched from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, was 46% Black, and is currently represented by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat. DeSantis’ new district chopped the district up into four districts where Republican candidates would be favored to win.A coalition of civic action groups and Florida voters immediately challenged the map, saying that they violated a provision in Florida’s constitution that says new districts can’t “diminish” the ability of minority voters to elect the candidate of their choosing. Last month, plaintiffs asked the court to block the districts in northern Florida specifically from taking effect for the 2022 election. Smith ordered the state to adopt a map that maintained a 5th congressional district stretching from Jacksonville to Tallahasee, according to the Tributary.The Florida map is one of the most aggressively gerrymandered maps in the US. Republicans currently have a 16-11 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation, but DeSantis’ plan would add an additional four GOP-friendly seats, increasing that advantage to 20-8 (Florida is gaining an additional US House seat because of population growth). It’s an effort that’s seen as a critical part of Republican efforts to retake control of the US House in the midterm elections.In a separate court on Tuesday, DeSantis, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, won the opening legal round of his fight with Disney over the state’s “don’t say gay” bill that bans classroom discussions of sexual preference and gender identity issues.Three central Florida taxpayers alleged state laws were broken when DeSantis signed a new law dissolving Disney’s self-governing status, which critics said was in retaliation for the company attacking the “don’t say gay” law.But district court judge Cecilia Altonaga threw out the lawsuit, partly because the plaintiffs aren’t personally harmed, the Orlando Sentinel reports.The supreme court’s upcoming decision to reverse Roe v Wade (an early draft of which was leaked last week) doesn’t ban abortions. It leaves the issue to the states. As a result, it will put another large brick in the growing wall separating blue and red America.The second American civil war is already occurring, but it is less of a war than a kind of benign separation analogous to unhappily married people who don’t want to go through the trauma of a formal divorce.One America is largely urban, racially and ethnically diverse, and young. The other is largely rural or exurban, white and older.The split is accelerating. Red zip codes are getting redder and blue zip codes bluer. Of 3,143 counties, the number of super landslide counties – where a presidential candidate won at least 80% of the vote – jumped from 6% in 2004 to 22% in 2020.Surveys show Americans find it increasingly important to live around people who share their political values. Animosity toward those in the opposing party is higher than at any time in living memory. Forty-two per cent of registered voters believe Americans in the other party are “downright evil”.Almost 40% would be upset at the prospect of their child marrying someone from the opposite party. Even before the 2020 election, when asked if violence would be justified if the other party won the election, 18.3% of Democrats and 13.8% of Republicans responded in the affirmative.Increasingly, each America is running under different laws.The second American civil war is already happening | Robert ReichRead moreGood news, of a sort, for Donald Trump out of New York, where a judge has said the former president must pay the state attorney general $110,000 and meet other conditions to purge a contempt of court order, but also that the fine will not grow by $10,000 a day, as it had been doing.The New York attorney general, Letitia James, says her civil investigation of the Trump Organization has found evidence of fraudulent behaviour in tax filings. Trump says the investigation is a politically motivated witch hunt.The judge in the contempt case, Arthur Engoron, said the daily fine on Trump stopped accruing on Friday, when the former president filed affidavits about his search for requested information – and his inability to find four phones which investigators would like to look at. Engoron said the contempt order could be restored if certain conditions are not met.Here’s our report on Trump’s phones, from yesterday:Trump tells court he lost phones linked to alleged fraud by his companyRead more More

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      Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans couldn’t pass abortion ban

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      Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans couldn’t pass abortion banRepublican leader says ‘I think it’s safe to say there aren’t 60 votes’ to pass ban should Republicans take control in midterm elections A day before Democrats staged a vote in the Senate to codify into law the right to abortion, a right under threat from the supreme court, the Republican leader in the chamber said his party would not be able to pass an abortion ban should it take control in midterm elections in November. Pro-choice states rush to pledge legal shield for out-of-state abortionsRead more“Historically, there have been abortion votes on the floor of the Senate. None of them have achieved 60 votes,” Mitch McConnell told reporters.“I think it’s safe to say there aren’t 60 votes there at the federal level, no matter who happens to be in the majority, no matter who happens to be in the White House.”The chamber is split 50-50 and therefore controlled by the tie-breaking vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris. Democrats and progressives have urged the party to seek to scrap the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes for most legislation.Such reform seems unlikely. With key Democrats opposed, Punchbowl News, a Washington outlet, reported on Wednesday that the issue was not even discussed at a party Senate lunch the day before.When Donald Trump was in power McConnell, too, came under pressure to scrap the filibuster to advance the Republican agenda.On Tuesday, the Kentucky senator told reporters there were “no issues that Republicans believe should be exempt from the 60-vote threshold”.The measure before the Senate on Wednesday – for which the Democrats do not even have 50 votes, with opposition from some in their own party as well as pro-choice Republicans – is the Women’s Health Protection Act. It would codify Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court decision that protects the right to abortion.Roe has been under imminent threat since last week, when a draft supreme court ruling overturning it, reportedly supported by five conservative justices, was leaked.On Wednesday, Politico, which published the leak, said the draft ruling by Samuel Alito was still the only one in circulation, with publication expected in June.The Democratic Senate vote is a response to protests that have spread since the draft ruling was published. Many Republican-run states have trigger laws ready to ban abortion at various stages should Roe fall.McConnell said: “If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies – not only at the state level but at the federal level – certainly could legislate in that area.”Total abortion bans would be possible, he said.Polling shows consistent majority support for abortion rights but Republicans say they doubt the issue will damage them at the midterms in November.Divided States of America: Roe v Wade is ‘precursor to larger struggles’Read moreMcConnell’s deputy, John Thune of South Dakota, told the Hill: “Our members are going to continue to hammer away on inflation, the economy, the border, crime.”Democrats hope the vote on Wednesday will prove politically useful.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, told reporters: “Every senator will have to vote, and every, every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party … will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.”Jackie Rosen, of Nevada, said: “We have to take that fear, we have to take that anger that we’re feeling, channel it into action to defend our majority. You have to elect more pro-choice senators. We’re not living in a hypothetical.”TopicsUS SenateAbortionDemocratsUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden calls inflation his ‘top domestic priority’ but blames Covid and Putin – live

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      US politics liveUS politicsJoe Biden calls inflation his ‘top domestic priority’ but blames Covid and Putin – livePresident says he understands American’s frustration with Democrats, who control all three branches of government: ‘I don’t blame them’
      US immigration agency operates vast surveillance dragnet, study finds
      Divided States of America: Roe v Wade is ‘precursor to larger struggles’
      Sign up to receive First Thing – our daily briefing by emailLIVE Updated 48m agoLauren Gambino in WashingtonTue 10 May 2022 17.05 EDTFirst published on Tue 10 May 2022 09.15 EDT0Show key events onlyLive feedShow key events onlyFrom More

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      Gillibrand calls abortion rights ‘fight of generation’ after ‘bone-chilling’ court draft opinion

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      Gillibrand calls abortion rights ‘fight of generation’ after ‘bone-chilling’ court draft opinionNew York Democrat urges her party to stand up to concerted efforts from Republicans seeking to abolish constitutional right Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Sunday called the battle over abortion rights in the US the “biggest fight of a generation”.The New York Democrat urged her party to stand up to Republicans seeking to abolish the constitutional right, and called the draft US supreme court opinion leaked last week, revealing a conservative-leaning super-majority supports overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision, “bone-chilling”.She told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday politics talk show: “This is the biggest fight of a generation … and if America’s women and the men who love them do not fight right now, we will lose the basic right to make decisions, to have bodily autonomy and to decide what our futures look like.”Mississippi Republican governor Tate Reeves praised the draft ruling, which emerged last Monday evening and immediately sparked protests outside the supreme court in Washington DC, with more the next day and huge demonstrations planned across the US.His state has the pivotal case currently before the court that includes the option not just to severely restrict the procedure further but specifically to overturn the Roe v Wade opinion that made abortion a federal right, which was reaffirmed by the supreme court in 1992.“While this is a great victory for the pro-life movement, it is not the end. In fact, it’s just the beginning,” Reeves said of the draft opinion. Mississippi hopes to ban almost all abortion in a state that normally carries out around 3,500 such procedures a year.He talked of providing more education for women, to help them get better jobs to support children.Gillibrand called Reeves “paternalistic” and his and the court’s stance outrageous.“It’s taking away women’s right for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, our right to be a full citizen,” she said, adding that women are “half citizens under this ruling and if this is put into law, it changes the foundation of America”.Reeves said Mississippi plans to improve adoption processes and foster care systems and provide more resources for those expecting. However the state has a poor record on healthcare for low-wealth women, particularly women of color, in a nation frequently called out for high infant mortality rates and poor antenatal health.CNN show host Jake Tapper noted that Mississippi has the highest rate of child mortality in the United States, the highest rate of child poverty, no guaranteed paid maternity leave and that the legislature in Mississippi “just rejected extending postpartum Medicaid coverage”, referring to government health insurance for low-income populations. Tapper also pointed out that Mississippi’s foster care system is the subject of a long-running federal lawsuit over its failure to protect children from abuse.Reeves said: “I was elected not to try to hide our problems but to try to fix our problems.”Jake Tapper to Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves: You say you want to do more to support mothers and children, but you’ve been in state government since 2004… Based on the track record of the state of Mississippi, why should any of these girls or moms believe you?” pic.twitter.com/VLuA6gcS1F— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 8, 2022
      Gillibrand said she was offended by Reeves’s remarks, adding: “I thought he was quite paternalistic towards women. He doesn’t look at women as full citizens.”Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a fellow New York Democrat, said on Sunday that a piece of legislation that has been stalled in Congress would be put to the vote by the Senate again, on Wednesday.The Women’s Health Protection Act, which enshrines the rights afforded by Roe into federal legislation, rather than relying on court decisions, has passed the House of Representatives but was struck down in the senate in March, with one Democrat joining Republicans in opposing it.Abortion deserts: America’s new geography of access to care – mappedRead moreThe final supreme court decision on Roe is due in June. Overturning Roe and instead letting each state set its own law on abortion would leave entire regions of the country without an abortion clinic within a day’s drive, reshaping the geography of abortion access in America in a single seismic shift.Minnesota Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar told ABC’s This Week host Martha Raddatz that there were Democrats in Congress and Democratic candidates who do not support abortion rights.But she said: “You have people who are personally pro-life but believe that that decision should be a woman’s personal choice, even if they might not agree with them. We have people in our party who vote to uphold Roe v Wade who might have different personal opinions, that’s a really important distinction.”“In the wake of the leaked draft, activists on both sides of the debate immediately began mobilizing for a drastic shift in America’s abortion laws.” @MarthaRaddatz sits down with the leaders of two advocacy groups: https://t.co/ECy1oebCRT pic.twitter.com/fU8IVPgdlf— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 8, 2022
      She accused the supreme court, which achieved a right-leaning controlling majority after Donald Trump nominated three justices – now having six conservatives and only three liberal-leaning judges on the nine-member bench, of wanting to take America back into ancient history.The draft opinion was written by conservative justice Samuel Alito.“The court is looking at reversing 50 years of women’s rights, and the fall will be swift. Over 20 states have laws [to ban] in place already. Who should make this decision, should it be a woman and her doctor, or a politician? Should it be [conservative Republican Senator] Ted Cruz…or a woman and her family? Justice Alito is literally not just taking us back to the 1950s, he’s taking us back to the 1850s,” Klobuchar said.Pro-abortion rights groups NARAL pro-choice America, Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List plan between the three of them to put more than $150m into campaigns to support abortion rights advocates as political candidates in elections this year.Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL, told ABC: “As a movement, this has been probably the most devastating year since pre-1973.”TopicsDemocratsKirsten GillibrandUS politicsAbortionUS supreme courtMississippiRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Texas attorney general says state bar suing him over bid to overturn 2020 election – as it happened

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      US politics liveUS politicsTexas attorney general says state bar suing him over bid to overturn 2020 election – as it happened
      Full story: Ken Paxton says state bar plans to sue him over election lies
      No-exception abortion laws gain traction across US
      Russia-Ukraine war – latest updates
      Sign up to receive First Thing – our daily briefing by email
       Updated 1h agoGloria OladipoFri 6 May 2022 16.22 EDTFirst published on Fri 6 May 2022 09.06 EDT Show key events onlyLive feedShow key events onlyFrom More

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      How overturning Roe v Wade could supercharge the 2022 midterm campaigns

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      How overturning Roe v Wade could supercharge the 2022 midterm campaignsSwing state Democrats are calling for a defense of abortion rights and Republicans doubling down on ending them As the US waits to see whether the supreme court will follow through on its provisional decision to end the federal right to abortion, Democrats and Republicans are already preparing for how a reversal of Roe v Wade would affect the 2022 midterm elections.Republicans have been heavily favored to retake control of the House and probably the Senate as well, but the court’s forthcoming final opinion in the crucial Mississippi case now before it, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, could alter those predictions.Since the court’s draft opinion leaked on Monday night, vulnerable Democrats have made a point to portray themselves as champions of abortion rights.“My opponent says that overturning Roe v Wade and ending protections for a woman’s right to choose is a ‘historic victory’,” Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democratic senator who is up for re-election in the swing state of Nevada, said on Tuesday. “I trust women and their doctors to make the healthcare decisions that are best for them – not politicians.”My opponent says that overturning Roe v. Wade and ending protections for a woman’s right to choose is a “historic victory.”I trust women and their doctors to make the health care decisions that are best for them — not politicians. https://t.co/4SxpKdKEBC— Catherine Cortez Masto (@CortezMasto) May 3, 2022
      Speaking to reporters on a Thursday press call, Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, argued that abortion rights will become a critical issue in the November midterms if the 1973 landmark decision in the Roe case is overturned.“The Republican attacks on abortion access, their attacks on birth control and women’s healthcare – these things have dramatically escalated the stakes of the 2022 election,” Harrison said. “In November, we must elect Democrats who will serve as the last lines of defense against the GOP’s assault on our established and fundamental freedoms.”But Republicans have insisted that issues such as record-high inflation and Joe Biden’s handling of the US-Mexican border will weigh far more heavily on voters’ minds in November.“Could be wrong, but I’d predict that all those issues that have 60% of Americans [feeling] we are on the wrong track (high inflation, rising crime, the border, etc.) will play a bigger role in the elections [than] a Supreme Court decision on Roe,” Republican strategist Doug Heye said on Twitter.Rather than celebrating the news of Roe’s likely demise, Republican leaders have mostly tried to focus on the leak itself, saying it represents a break in court decorum and blaming the incident on Democrats. (It is not known who leaked the draft opinion.)Asked about the court’s provisional decision on Tuesday, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, told reporters: “You need, it seems to me, a lecture to concentrate on what the news is today. Not a leaked draft, but the fact that the draft was leaked.”Even the de facto leader of the Republican party, Donald Trump, has been hesitant to address the content of the court’s decision. The normally verbose former president has not yet released a statement about the draft opinion, although he has commented on the leak when asked by reporters.“Nobody knows what exactly it represents, if that’s going to be it,” Trump told Politico on Wednesday. “I think the one thing that really is so horrible is the leaking … for the court and for the country.”Trump’s reluctance to address the draft opinion is even more notable considering his three supreme court nominees – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – all initially voted to overturn Roe, according to the leaked provisional opinion published on Monday night.US supreme court justices on abortion – what they’ve said and how they’ve votedRead moreThe former president also promised during his 2016 campaign to select supreme court nominees who would help reverse the landmark 1973 case.Now Republicans stand on the precipice of achieving their decades-long goal, and many of them seem hesitant to declare victory. However, some Republican primary candidates are using the draft opinion to draw a contrast between themselves and their opponents.David Perdue, the Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, condemned Governor Brian Kemp’s “bureaucratic response” to the news of Roe’s likely reversal.I’m calling on Brian Kemp to join me in calling for an immediate special session of the legislature to ban abortion in Georgia after Roe v. Wade is overturned. You are either going to fight for the sanctity of life or you’re not. (2/2)— David Perdue (@DavidPerdueGA) May 5, 2022
      “I’m calling on Brian Kemp to join me in calling for an immediate special session of the legislature to ban abortion in Georgia after Roe v Wade is overturned,” Perdue said on Thursday. “You are either going to fight for the sanctity of life or you’re not.”Perdue and Kemp will face off in the Georgia gubernatorial primary later this month, providing an early test of how Republican voters feel about the looming end of Roe. But other Americans’ thoughts about the matter will not be fully known until November.Meanwhile, new metal barriers went up in front of the marble steps and columns of the majestic supreme court building in Washington DC, close to the US Capitol, this week, a stark symbol of the sudden politicization of the court that has always preferred to keep itself above the partisan fray.This came after fierce protests erupted there within minutes of the leak on Monday, with police separating protesters in rival camps the following day.Tears and tension as protesters swarm outside US supreme courtRead moreNow law enforcement officials in many places across the US are braced for potential civil unrest and women’s rights groups are planning massive protests in several cities for next weekend to demand the protection of the right to choose in reproductive healthcare.TopicsRoe v WadeAbortionUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden isn’t serious about forgiving student debt. ‘Means-testing’ is a con | David Sirota

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      Biden isn’t serious about forgiving student debt. ‘Means-testing’ is a conDavid Sirota and Andrew PerezThe Biden administration’s proposal is cynicism masquerading as populism – and it will enrage everyone and hurt the Democrats’ electoral chances During the 2020 Democratic primary, Pete Buttigieg’s personal ambition led him to poison the conversation about education in America. Desperate for a contrast point with his rivals, the son of a private university professor aired ads blasting the idea of tuition-free college because he said it would make higher education “free even for the kids of millionaires.”The attack line, borrowed from former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, was cynicism masquerading as populism. It was an attempt to limit the financial and political benefits of a proposal to make college free. Worse, it was disguised as a brave stand against the oligarchs bankrolling Buttigieg’s campaign, even though it actually wasn’t – almost no rich scions would benefit from free college.Buttigieg and copycats like Amy Klobuchar were pushing a larger lie. Call it the means-testing con – the idea that social programs should not be universal, and should instead only be available to those who fall below a certain income level. It is a concept eroding national unity and being carried forward by wealthy pundits and a Democratic party that has discarded the lessons of its own universalist triumphs like social security, Medicare and the GI Bill.This week the Biden administration tore a page from Buttigieg’s book. The White House leaked that it is considering finally following through on Joe Biden’s promise to cancel some student debt – but not the $50,000 pushed by congressional Democrats, and only for those below an income threshold.In trial-ballooning the college debt relief proposal, the president is boosting the media-manufactured fiction that real, universal college debt relief would mostly help rich Ivy League kids – even though data from the Roosevelt Institute conclusively proves that canceling student debt “would provide more benefits to those with fewer economic resources and could play a critical role in addressing the racial wealth gap and building the Black middle class”.As the report points out: “People from wealthy backgrounds (and their parents) rarely use student loans to pay for college.”But setting aside how the media-driven discourse omits those inconvenient facts, what’s noteworthy here is the underlying principle.This latest discussion of means-testing follows Biden and congressional Democrats pushing to substantially limit eligibility for Covid-19 survival checks and the expanded child tax credit. Taken together, it suggests that Democrats’ zeal for means-testing is no anomaly – it is a deeply held ideology that is both dangerous for the party’s electoral prospects and for the country’s fraying social contract.The superficial appeal of means-testing is obvious: it promises to prevent giving even more public money to rich people who don’t need it.But in practice, means-testing is a way to take simple universal programs and make them complicated and inaccessible. Calculating exact income levels and then proving them for eligibility means reams of red tape for both the potential beneficiary and a government bureaucracy that must be created to process that paperwork.Data from the food stamp and Medicaid programs illustrate how means-testing creates brutal time and administrative barriers to benefits, which reduce payouts to eligible populations. In the case of means-testing student debt relief, those barriers may end up wholly excluding large swaths of working-class debtors.This is a feature, not a bug – it is means-testers’ unstated objective. They want to limit benefits for the working class, but not admit that’s their goal.Universal programs like social security and Medicare were what we once defined as “society” or “civilization”. They may be derided as “entitlements”, but the reason they have (so far) survived for so long is because their universality makes them wildly successful in their missions and more difficult to demonize. Their universality also precludes austerians from otherizing and disparaging the programs’ recipients.Means-testing destroys that potential unity. It may initially poll well, but it turns “entitlements” into complicated “welfare” programs only for certain groups, which then makes those programs less popular and makes the beneficiaries easy scapegoats for political opportunists. Think of Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” trope vilifying recipients of means-tested food stamps.Now sure, billionaires are eligible for social security and Medicare, and their kids are eligible for free K-12 education – and that aristocracy doesn’t need that help. But when those programs were created, we accepted that rich people being granted access to those programs along with everyone else was the relatively small price to pay for simplicity, universalism and the attendant national unity that comes with it.Not surprisingly, Democrats’ creation of popular universalist programs coincided with the most electorally successful era in the party’s history.Equally unsurprising: the shift to fake means-test populism has coincided with rising popular hatred of liberal technocrats and the Democratic party they control.What is surprising is that Republicans may be starting to understand all this better than Democrats.For instance, Donald Trump’s signature spending legislation offered direct, non-means-tested aid to small businesses during the pandemic. The former president touted a plan to just pay hospital bills for Covid patients who didn’t have coverage. The programs were hardly perfect, but they were straightforward, universal, relatively successful and extremely popular because they embodied a powerful principle: keep it simple, stupid.When it comes to student debt relief, there’s a rare chance for Democrats to also embrace simplicity – and prevent Republicans from outflanking them.More specifically, they can use the student debt crisis to finally return to their universalist roots – and they don’t have to skimp and provide merely $10,000 worth of relief.Biden could simply send out a one-page letter to every student borrower telling them that their federal student debt is now $0.Yes, Republican lawmakers would try to block it and affluent pundits would tweet-cry about it to each other.But amid all that elite whining and couch-fainting, Democrats would be launching a battle against an immoral system of education debt – and directly helping 40 million voters ahead of a midterm election.It’s so easy and simple – which is probably why they won’t do it.
      David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor-at-large at Jacobin, and the founder of the Lever. He served as Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign speechwriter
      Andrew Perez is a senior editor at The Lever and a co-founder of the Democratic Policy Center
      A version of this piece was first published in the Lever, a reader-supported investigative news outlet
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