Roe v Wade

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      in US Politics

      Kavanaugh signals support for curbing abortion rights as supreme court hears arguments on Mississippi case – live

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      Key events

      Show

      3.31pm EST

      15:31

      Stacey Abrams announces that she is running for governor of Georgia

      1.52pm EST

      13:52

      First confirmed case of Omicron Covid variant in US

      1.39pm EST

      13:39

      Biden reiterates support for the right to abortion in US

      11.40am EST

      11:40

      Kavanaugh signals support for curbing abortion rights

      10.01am EST

      10:01

      Republicans threaten government shutdown over vaccine mandate

      9.10am EST

      09:10

      Good morning…

      Live feed

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      Show key events only

      4.48pm EST

      16:48

      While House Republicans aren’t doing much when it comes to admonishing far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert for her Islamophobic comments about congresswoman Ilhan Omar, House progressives will be pushing Democrat leaders for action:

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      House progressives plan to ratchet up calls to strip Lauren Boebert from her committee spots bc of her comments on Ilhan Omar — and will soon go public with a letter to that effect, per two sourcesDem leaders have not made a decision yet on how to proceed.

      December 1, 2021

      4.18pm EST

      16:18

      House Republicans went full high school drama yesterday on Twitter, with Majorie Taylor Greene calling Nancy Mace “trash” and Mace calling Greene “batshit crazy” via emojis.
      This comes because far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert made Islamophobic remarks about Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has since received death threats related to these remarks. Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger called Boebert “trash”, and called out House minority leader Kevin McCarthy for his silence on her remarks.
      It appears McCarthy has finally weighed in – but not directly about the bigoted bullying. Instead, he’s just telling everyone in his party to behave.

      Andrew Solender
      (@AndrewSolender)
      GOP Rep. Don Bacon paraphrases McCarthy’s message on GOP infighting this AM: “Stop it. Quit acting like you’re in high school.”If McCarthy’s private talks w/ MTG don’t work, “at some point, the conference as a whole is gonna be frustrated, speak up… I know that’s bubbling.”

      December 1, 2021

      Andrew Solender
      (@AndrewSolender)
      “I’m not here to be a burden, but at some point you have to defend yourself too” – Bacon on attacks from MTG & co.“We’re not here to get the most clicks, to be TV celebrities. We’re here to govern, and you don’t do that by calling each other names, tearing each other apart.”

      December 1, 2021

      Updated
      at 4.19pm EST

      3.31pm EST

      15:31

      Stacey Abrams announces that she is running for governor of Georgia

      Democrat Stacey Abrams, who many have credited for being among those who helped turn Georgia blue in 2020, has announced that she will be running for governor once again.
      “If our Georgia is going to move to its next and greatest chapter, we are going to need leadership,” Abrams said in her announcement video. “Leadership that knows how to do the job. Leadership that doesn’t take credit without also taking responsibility. Leadership that works hard. Leadership that measures progress not by stats but by our ability for everyone to move up and thrive. Leadership that understands the true pain folks are feeling and has real plans. That’s the job of governor.”

      Stacey Abrams
      (@staceyabrams)
      I’m running for Governor because opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by zip code, background or access to power. #gapolBe a founding donor to my campaign:https://t.co/gk2lmBINfW pic.twitter.com/z14wUlo8ls

      December 1, 2021

      Updated
      at 3.33pm EST

      3.24pm EST

      15:24

      More on government funding, the continuing resolution and a possible government shutdown: House majority leader Steny Hoyer, who told reporters yesterday that he planned to pass a CR in the House today, now doesn’t think it’s possible.

      Chad Pergram
      (@ChadPergram)
      From colleague Jason Donner. Hoyer when asked if they could pass the CR to avoid a gov’t shutdown today: “I don’t think so.”

      December 1, 2021

      Chad Pergram
      (@ChadPergram)
      Hoyer on an interim spending bill to avert a shutdown. Says “Schumer and McConnell are negotiating.” He adds “It’s incomprehensible today that we can’t pass a simple CR.”

      December 1, 2021

      3.20pm EST

      15:20

      Whew, a lot happening today. Let’s hop back to Congress, where a handful of Republicans are threatening a government shutdown over the vaccine mandate for the private sector.
      To recap: In September, Joe Biden announced a federal mandate that all companies in the US with 100 employees or more must ensure either that their workers are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or that they test negative for the coronavirus at least once a week. The deadline for this is 4 January.
      Conservatives across the country have taken issue with this, ranging the gamut of being fully anti-vax to arguing that vaccinations are a deeply personal issue, one in which the government should not be involved. There have been several challenges in courts that have sided against the mandate – the White House has since been urging private companies to act on their own to set their own vaccine mandates, as many have already.
      On top of all this, the federal government runs out of funding on 3 December – yep, two days from now. Congress must pass a stopgap funding bill, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), to prevent a government shutdown that would put hundreds of thousands out of work right before the holidays.
      Since early November, some Republican senators have made it clear that they will not vote for any short-term funding of a federal government with a vaccine mandate. Other conservative members of Congress have since joined in.
      Here’s a quick update on the situation:

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      Here’s what Sen. Roger Marshall (one of a handful of conservatives who are threatening a brief government shutdown) want before agreeing to a quick vote on the continuing resolution. He told us he wants language in CR that would prohibit OSHA from enforcing vaccine mandate. BUT

      December 1, 2021

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      Marshall would be OK with a quick final passage vote if there’s an amendment to that effect with a 51-vote threshold. But Ds are likely to insist on a 60-vote threshold. So would he object to a quick vote to pass the funding bill if the amendment were set at a 60-vote threshold?

      December 1, 2021

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      “We’ll see,” he said. “There’s a long time between now and Friday. But at a minimum, I think at a minimum it deserves a 50-person vote.”At GOP lunch, a number of senators told Marshall and Lee that their goal won’t be achieved if there’s brief shutdown. So I asked him about that

      December 1, 2021

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      And he said: “Yeah, I think the folks back home want to know how hard we’re fighting for them, that the jobs back home are as important as keeping the federal government open. That’s the hypocrisy up here. It just seems like we have rules for back home that don’t apply here.”

      December 1, 2021

      Updated
      at 3.31pm EST

      2.59pm EST

      14:59

      The Guardian’s David Smith was out front of the supreme court during the oral arguments in the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
      Anti-abortion supporters waved models of fetuses and held prayer circles, while pro-choice advocates waved signs reading, “abortion is healthcare” and “protect abortion access”.
      Read more here:

      Updated
      at 3.04pm EST

      2.34pm EST

      14:34

      Joanna Walters

      Joe Biden smiled wryly earlier when asked by reporters whether he thought the former president, Donald Trump, put him at risk when Trump had received a positive coronavirus test just three days before the first presidential debate in the 2020 election campaign, according to a new book by former chief of staff Mark Meadows, which was reported exclusively by Guardian US this morning.
      “I don’t think about the former president,” Biden said. That was his only word on the topic.
      Top health official Anthony Fauci said a little later, at the White House briefing, that he had not been aware of that positive test for Trump at that time. Trump subsequently tested negative, according to the Meadows book, but shortly after revealed publicly that he had coronavirus, following which he was admitted to hospital.
      Speaking generally, Fauci said: “If you test positive, you should quarantine yourself.”
      Trump had not done that and had not only stood a few feet from Biden, in person and unmasked, for that first debate, but he continued to travel and hold events in close proximity to people.

      2.16pm EST

      14:16

      Joanna Walters

      Anthony Fauci is continuing to answer media questions at the White House. The top US public health official and chief medical adviser to Joe Biden, said that the molecular profile of the Omicron variant suggests it might be more transmissible than previous strains – and might have a higher risk of evading vaccine protection.
      He emphasized, however, that it is still too early to say what will happen in the pandemic with the emergence of the Omicron variant.
      Fauci urged those who have consistently adopted protection protocols, such as wearing a face mask in indoor settings with crowds, to continue to do so and said those who have stopped such practices should resume.
      Fauci said: “Do the things we have been saying every single day, not just for ourselves but internationally.”
      He said, however, that long term he believes there is “an end game” to the coronavirus pandemic.
      “There is no doubt that this will end, I promise you that, this will end,” he said.
      Fauci has now finished his section of the briefing and left the media room at the White House.

      Updated
      at 3.10pm EST

      2.06pm EST

      14:06

      Joanna Walters

      Anthony Fauci, the director of the national institute of allergies and infectious diseases and chief medical adviser to the US president, has taken the podium in the White House press briefing room.
      He has confirmed what we all just found out – the first case of the omicron strain of coronavirus has been identified in the US.
      “We knew it was just a matter of time,” Fauci said.
      The case was confirmed moments ago by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the federal health agency, and was identified in California.
      Fauci just said that the case was confirmed by the CDC and the California and the San Francisco health authorities.
      “This is the first case of Covid-19 caused by the omicron variant detected in the US,” said Fauci.
      He said the case involved an individual who returned to the US from South Africa on 22 November and tested positive for coronavirus on 29 November.
      Fauci added that the individual was fully vaccinated but to his knowledge had not received a booster shot. He said the patient has experienced mild symptoms.“We feel good that this patient had only mild symptoms and seems to be improving,” he said.
      He said the patient was isolating and those whom they had come into close contact with had been reached and tested and shown to be negative for coronavirus.
      Fauci reiterated that as many people as possible should get vaccinated and, if they have been vaccinated, get boosted if eligible.
      He told people not to wait to see if there will be a new vaccination designed to deal specifically with variants.
      “Right now I would not be waiting. If you are eligible … get boosted now.”
      It is not yet known for certain if the current vaccines combat omicron, Fauci said. Many experts are optimistic that they provide protection but confirmation of protection or the level of protection are awaited.

      Updated
      at 3.05pm EST

      1.52pm EST

      13:52

      First confirmed case of Omicron Covid variant in US

      Joanna Walters

      The federal authorities have identified the first confirmed case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in the United States.
      We are awaiting a live briefing from the White House from Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to Joe Biden and the top infectious diseases public health official in the US, and press sec Jen Psaki. We’ll bring you that.
      But meanwhile, this news is breaking across various wires services and TV news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have the first confirmed US case of Omicron, identified in California.
      The dominant variant in the US at this point is still the Delta strain, which emerged and spread across the country from the summer.

      Updated
      at 3.08pm EST

      1.39pm EST

      13:39

      Biden reiterates support for the right to abortion in US

      Joanna Walters

      Joe Biden gave a simple endorsement of reproductive rights in America moments ago as he remarked after the high-stakes hearing at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, earlier today. More

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      in US Politics

      How America’s broken democracy led to our abortion crisis | Meaghan Winter

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      OpinionUS politicsHow America’s broken democracy led to our abortion crisis Meaghan WinterThe majority of Americans support legal abortion. Redistricting has allowed extremism to flourish without fear of repercussion Mon 25 Oct 2021 06.29 EDTLast modified on Mon 25 Oct 2021 14.28 EDTAmerica is at a crossroads when it comes to abortion. In 2021, state legislatures have passed an unprecedented 106 anti-abortion bills. State lawmakers in five states are preparing legislation similar to Texas’s SB 8, an effective total abortion ban that enshrines a new kind of vigilantism directed at medical providers and private citizens.In this dangerous moment, supporters of legal abortion must understand that raising our voices is not going to change anything unless we also push for major, immediate democratic reforms including ending the filibuster, enshrining federal voting rights, expanding the supreme court and establishing fair redistricting.I understand why those goals may simultaneously seem too wonky to follow and too ambitious to achieve. But we cannot fight for abortion rights without first repairing our democracy, because we will continue to lose.The conservative movement and its ideological and corporate patrons have locked in structural power at nearly every level of government, and our lawmakers don’t need to be responsive to public opinion or even long-enshrined civil and human rights. If we’re going to have any chance of protecting ourselves and each other, on numerous urgent fronts, we need to agitate for immediate, ambitious democratic reforms that will ensure that our courts uphold our rights, and our elected officials are responsive to the will of the people. Otherwise, our rallies are collective screams into the void.Many abortion rights supporters have moved away from calling themselves “pro-choice” and instead have embraced the reproductive justice model, which defines itself as a movement to ensure the human right to bodily autonomy and to parent or not parent in a safe and sustainable community. Current threats to our democracy make crystal clear that the struggles for reproductive freedom, voting rights and economic, racial and climate justice are inextricably linked.When I first began reporting on abortion, in 2013, when I’d ask abortion rights advocates why extreme anti-abortion state lawmakers seemed unafraid of running afoul of the majority of the American public, which supports legal abortion, they would answer, “gerrymandering”.As I soon learned, because Republicans have gerrymandered districts in states across the nation, it no longer matters whether their policies defy most voters’ beliefs and needs, because incumbents’ seats are safe almost no matter what.What we’re seeing now accelerated after the 2010 election, which had existential ramifications for our democracy only now becoming visible. Ahead of that election, during an all-important redistricting year, the Republican party and conservative and corporate donors heavily invested in state-level elections so that they could gerrymander and give themselves a competitive advantage for a decade. It worked. They flipped legislative chambers across the country, and states started ramping up their envelope-pushing anti-abortion bills, as well as voting restrictions designed to make it more difficult for voters to throw them out of office.In 2020, Democrats failed to flip a single state-level chamber. Republicans now control 30 legislatures during yet another redistricting year, jeopardizing any chance of a progressive agenda in many states as well as Democratic control of Congress next year.As states begin passing ever more extreme abortion restrictions and even bans, there’s little reason to believe that the courts will stop them unless Congress gets serious about reforming the court system.During the Trump administration, Republicans installed an unprecedented number of federal judges, many of them open ideologues with little experience on the bench, reshaping the judiciary for a generation. And, in case you’ve forgotten, McConnell blocked Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, changed the Senate rules for confirming justices to push through Neil Gorsuch, ushered through the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh despite credible accusations of sexual assault against him, and rushed through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett while voting in the 2020 election had already begun.The radical takeover of the courts was not a random fluke but the result of careful plotting and hundreds of millions of dollars investment by rightwing ideologues and billionaires – the same kind of long-term strategizing to change the rules of the game their allies used to gerrymander states and congressional districts.In other words, the same movement of extreme, partisan donors and strategists behind the ever-more radical state laws has also installed federal judges and supreme court justices who are poised to uphold those laws. The issue isn’t whether expanding the supreme court will throw into doubt the court’s legitimacy. The supreme court is already partisan and ideological and therefore illegitimate. What’s needed now is a major and swift corrective.That brings us to Congress. What about a federal law enshrining abortion rights? To achieve that – and so much more, including expanding the supreme court – Congress needs to end the filibuster, the rule that requires 60 members of the Senate to pass legislation instead of 50. Our current Senate delivers nothing close to fair representation, which, as I write this, is on painful display as Republicans have filibustered yet another urgently needed voting rights bill, while two Democratic senators representing small states have killed provisions in the Build Back Better package that are “pro-life” in the most literal sense – in support of healthcare and a viable planet. To have any chance of achieving reproductive justice in this country, we need to agitate for our members of Congress to end the filibuster now.It’s time to re-examine what we consider pragmatic. Sticking with the status quo means surrendering to the profound irony that a movement that branded itself as “pro-life” has helped usher in a ruling class committed not only to stripping away the social safety net but also doubling down on fossil fuels and imperiling the very existence of life on Earth.Trying to advocate for reproductive justice without also demanding that our lawmakers immediately reform our voting laws, Congress and the courts that have been rigged by corporate and authoritarian interest groups isn’t practical or hopeful – it’s misguided if not delusional. Instead, supporters of abortion rights must join the chorus calling to end the filibuster and expand the supreme court.
      Meaghan Winter is a freelance magazine writer and author of the book All Politics is Local: Why Progressives Must Fight for the States
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionAbortionRoe v WadecommentReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Jen Psaki mocks Texas governor's pledge to 'eliminate' rape amid criticism of abortion ban – video

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      White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked for her response to Texas governor Greg Abbott’s latest defense of the six-week abortion ban in his state. Abbott pledged to ‘eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas’ when he was asked why rape and incest victims should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. Psaki said in response: ‘If governor Abbott has a means of eliminating all rapists or all rape from the US then there’d be bipartisan support for that’. She went on to say that no leader in the history of the world has been able to eliminate rape and that is one of the many reasons that women in Texas should have access to safe abortions through their healthcare. 

      White House derides Abbott’s vow to ‘eliminate’ rape amid criticism of Texas abortion ban – live
      AOC on Texas governor’s ‘disgusting’ abortion remarks: ‘He is not familiar with a female body’ More

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      in Elections

      Most extreme abortion law in US takes effect in Texas – video

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      The US state of Texas has enacted the strictest anti-abortion law in the country, banning all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy – before most women know they are pregnant. The law gives private citizens the power to sue abortion providers and anyone who ‘aids or abets’ an abortion after six weeks. Citizens who win such lawsuits would be entitled to at least $10,000. There is concern this will spur abortion ‘bounty hunters’

      Biden condemns Texas abortion law that ‘blatantly violates’ constitution – live
      Democrats condemn supreme court for failing to block Texas abortion law
      Most extreme abortion law in US takes effect in Texas More