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Stars come out in Atlanta to celebrate Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday
Former president Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday is on 1 October. His supporters didn’t want to wait that long to throw a party.A parade of Georgia luminaries on Tuesday lit up the venerable Fox Theater on Peachtree Street. In a city that boasts new, swanky modern glass and steel venues like the Cobb Energy performing arts center or the Eastern befitting the city’s rising prominence, organizers chose Atlanta’s oldest concert hall to celebrate Carter’s centennial.Jimmy Carter is four years older than the Fox Theater.“Not everyone gets 100 years,” said Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson and 2014 nominee for governor of Georgia. “But when someone does and uses that time to good, it’s worth celebrating.”View image in fullscreenThe event was almost entirely devoid of maudlin sentiment. Video testimonials by Jon Stewart, Bob Dylan and others, were splashed across a screen, interspersed by images of famous musicians of the period visiting the White House.Every living president except Trump sent a message of congratulations and well-wishing.Headliners included five-time Grammy award winner Angélique Kidjo of Benin, BeBe Winans and Carlene Carter – no relation to the former president.Carter, a Democrat, was president of the United States from 1977 to 1981, and is the longest-lived US president. He was awarded the 2002 Nobel peace prize for what the committee said was “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.“When my mother, June Carter, and her husband, Johnny Cash, went to visit him at the White House, I was pretty jealous, as I thought so highly of him even back then,” said Carlene Carter, 68. “Both he and June had suggested more than once that we were, in fact, kin, and the fact that both he and mom had that Carter ‘sparkle’ makes me think that they were related. When Jimmy Carter was our president, it was evident to me that he only wanted the best for our country and for all humankind. I look at him as a very special, spiritual soul, so when people ask if we’re related, I always respond, ‘I hope so.’”View image in fullscreenIn his video message, Stewart said: “He has these ideals, and he executes them. Personally.“It’s a lesson in living your life with intention.”Dave Matthews in a happy birthday message played on the screen, said: “You were definitely the first rock’n’roll president.”With the choice of The Road Home in the first refrain by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s choral performance, presenters quietly acknowledged the heartbreak usually avoided in polite conversation around here: that the end of Carter’s life is imminent.View image in fullscreenCarter is in hospice care at home in Plains, Georgia, and has been since February 2023, 578 days ago. A National Institutes of Health analysis noted that the average stay in hospice is about 17 days. Carter’s wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, died last year after a few days in hospice.Last month, he told his grandson Jason Carter, “I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala.”“As I’m sure you know, my grandfather wishes he could be here tonight,” Jason Carter said on Tuesday. Georgia Public Broadcasting plans to play the concert on Jimmy Carter’s birthday in a couple of weeks. “I will guarantee to you that he will be in front of the TV, watching,” the younger Carter said.View image in fullscreenMany of the performing artists, including rock group Drive-By Truckers, Allman Brothers member Chuck Leavell, and The B-52s have Georgia ties.The B-52s formed in Athens, Georgia, while Carter was campaigning for president in 1976. He was 52. Vocalist Fred Schneider was 25. The B-52s held their farewell concert last January at the Fox.View image in fullscreenThe event raised money for the Carter Center in Atlanta, which promotes health and advocates for democracy around the world.Most recently, the Carter Center, in conjunction with other advocacy organizations for international democracy, released a set of models for genuine elections – a set of specific steps that government leaders and democracy advocates can take to help strengthen democracy.Jimmy Carter founded the Carter Center 42 years ago. More
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JD Vance defends pet-eating remarks: ‘The media has a responsibility to fact-check’
JD Vance defended his comments about Haitian immigrants eating pets during a Tuesday rally, saying that “the media has a responsibility to fact-check” stories – not him.The rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, came two days after the Ohio senator told CNN host Dana Bash it was OK “to create stories” to draw attention to issues his constituents care about, regarding inflammatory and unfounded claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten residents’ pets.The comments, in which he appeared to say that politicians can brazenly lie, drew immediate rebuke. But during his rally, Vance defended them and claimed that numerous constituents had told him “they’d seen something in Springfield”.“On top of it, if there are certain people who refuse to listen to them, who refuse to take their concerns seriously,” he said, “that’s when it’s my job as United States senator to listen to my constituents.”Vance took questions from reporters but knocked the press repeatedly, a line of attack that brought the crowd to their feet.“When I said – and the media always does this, they’re very dishonest – when I say that I created a story, I’m talking about the media story, by focusing the press’s intention on what’s going on in Springfield,” said Vance.During his speech to a crowd of several hundred people, Vance spoke at length about immigration, invoking a crime committed by an undocumented person in the town of Prairie du Chien that Republicans in the state have already seized on to bolster Republican claims about immigrants committing violent crimes. In fact, research shows immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than people born in the US.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Every community is a border state,” said Vance. “The problems that Kamala Harris has imported through that American southern border have now gone nationwide.”He also blamed the vice-president for the recent apparent assassination attempt at Mar-a-Lago.“The American media, the Democrats, the Kamala Harris campaign, they’ve gotta cut this crap out or they’re gonna get somebody killed,” said Vance, alleging that Democrats, who have highlighted Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric and attempts to overturn the 2020 election, are to blame for the two apparent assassination attempts that Trump has faced so far during his 2024 campaign.Vance described a chaotic, dark, and violent vision of the US under a Harris presidency.“We are closer, in this moment, to a nuclear war, or a third world war, than at any time in our country’s history and we have the chaos and incompetence of Kamala Harris to thank for it,” the Republican vice-presidential nominee said during a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.Vance’s message, especially on immigration, was well-received by the crowd.“You don’t know who’s coming across that border. You don’t know the violence or the background of those people,” said Victoria Bischel, who owns a farm and a real estate business and appreciated Vance’s comments. “I believe in immigration. I believe in legal immigration […] I don’t hop over the fence to Saudi Arabia and decide that I want to live there.” More
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Harris condemns Senate Republicans for blocking IVF bill; VP calls Ohio attacks a ‘crying shame’ – live
Kamala Harris said that Senate Republicans refusal to vote in favor of protecting IVF “is not an isolated incident”:
Every woman in every state must have reproductive freedom. Yet, Republicans in Congress have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child.Congressional Republicans’ repeated refusal to protect access to IVF is not an isolated incident. Extremist so-called leaders have launched a full-on attack against reproductive freedom across our country. In the more than two years since Roe v Wade was overturned, they have proposed and passed abortion bans that criminalize doctors and make no exception for rape or incest. They have also blocked legislation to protect the right to contraception and proposed four national abortion bans.Their opposition to a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her own body is extreme, dangerous and wrong. Our administration will always fight to protect reproductive freedoms, which must include access to IVF. We stand with the majority of Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – who support protecting access to fertility treatments. And we continue to call on Congress to finally pass a bill that restores reproductive freedom.
Arizona’s top elections official said Tuesday that a newly identified error in the state’s voter registration process needs to be swiftly resolved, as early ballots are scheduled to go out to some voters as soon as this week.Election staff in the Maricopa county recorder’s office identified an issue last week, which concerns voters with old drivers licenses who may never have provided documentary proof of citizenship but were coded as having provided it and therefore were able to vote full ballots. The state has a bifurcated system in which voters who do not provide documentary proof of citizenship cannot vote in local or state elections, only federal ones.Because of the state’s very close elections and status as a swing state, the issue affecting nearly 100,000 voters will likely be the subject of intense scrutiny and litigation in the coming weeks. Arizona has more than 4.1 million registered voters.Governor Katie Hobbs directed the motor vehicles division to fix the coding error, which the secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, said was already resolved going forward.It’s not clear if any of these voters have unlawfully cast a ballot or if they have already provided proof of citizenship. People who register to vote check a box on registration forms, under penalty of perjury, declaring they are citizens.“We have no reason to believe that there are any significant numbers of individuals remaining on this list who are not eligible to vote in Arizona,” Fontes said in a press conference Tuesday. “We cannot confirm that at this moment, but we don’t have any reason to believe that.”The error, reported by Votebeat on Tuesday, relates to several quirks of Arizona governance.Since 1996, Arizona residents have been required to show proof of citizenship to get a regular driver’s license. And since 2004, they have been required to show proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections.State drivers licenses also do not expire until a driver is age 65, meaning for some residents, they will have a valid license for decades before needing renewal. These factors play into the error.The issue has split the Republican recorder in the state’s largest county, Maricopa, and the Democratic secretary of state. Recorder Stephen Richer is arguing that these voters should only be able to cast a federal-only ballot, while Fontes says the state should keep the status quo of allowing them to vote full ballots given how soon the election is. Fontes directed counties to allow these residents to cast full ballots this year.Read more here:Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said that Republicans would do well to help avert a looming government shutdown.The path to preventing a shutdown, as ever, remains shrouded. House leader Mike Johnson’s current proposal – which extends funding while also folding in a Republican measure requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote in national elections – lacks even enough Republican votes to pass.Non-citizen voting is already illegal and voter fraud by non-citizens is virtually non-existent, and the inclusion of the measure, which would add barriers to voting for US citizens, is a nonstarter for Democrats in the Senate.Meanwhile, far-right Republicans say Johnson’s proposal doesn’t go far enough in pushing their agenda, and see the threat of shutdown as an opportunity to push Democrats to compromise on immigration and other issues.Since Kamala Harris launched her presidential bid in July, Democrats have showered her campaign with cash. Last month alone, the vice-president raised $361m, tripling Donald Trump’s fundraising haul of $130m for the month. According to Harris’s campaign, she brought in $540m in the six weeks after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race.Democratic congressional candidates appear to be benefiting from this financial windfall as well, as Republicans sound the alarm about their fundraising deficit in key races that will determine control of the House and Senate in November.But in one crucial area, Republicans maintain a substantial cash advantage over Democrats: state legislative races. In recent years, Republicans have controlled more state legislative chambers than Democrats, giving them more power over those states’ budgets, election laws and abortion policies.The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), which supports the party’s state legislative candidates, has raised $35m between the start of 2023 and the end of this June, the committee told the Guardian. In comparison, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) – which invests in an array of state-level campaigns, such as supreme court races, in addition to legislative campaigns – has raised $62m in the same time period.That resource gap is now rearing its head in key battleground states, the DLCC says. In Pennsylvania, a crucial state for the presidential and congressional maps, Republican state legislative candidates have spent $4.5m on paid advertisements, compared with $1.4m for Democratic candidates.“When we think about the context of what’s at stake, we think about more than 65 million people being covered by our target map this year,” said Heather Williams, president of the DLCC. “And that means that the rights of all those people will be determined by who’s in power the day after the election.”Read more here:A national voter poll from Monmouth has found that there are fewer “double haters” – voters that dislike both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates – since Kamala Harris joined the race.Only 7% of voters polled in this latest round favored neither Donald Trump nor Harris – compared to 16% of disliked both Trump and Joe Biden.“Senate Republicans put politics first and families last again today by blocking the Right to IVF Act for the second time since June,” said Emilia Rowland, national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee.Rowland warned that Donald Trump, who claimed to be a “leader” on IVF during his debate against Kamala Harris last week, would jeopardize access to fertility treatments if he wins in November.“Voters know the difference between words and actions,” she said. “And between now and November, they will turn out against Republicans from the top to bottom of the ballot.”JD Vance is scheduled to speak in an hour at an event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.The last time I was at this event space was for one of Kamala Harris’s inaugural rallies, which was held on the sprawling grounds adjacent to the hall where Vance will speak today.Cathy Weber, a retired farmer and military serviceperson, said she came to see Vance speak to get a better sense of who he is as a politician. When I asked about Vance’s comments about Haitian immigrants, she said she thought “he misspoke,” and chalked it up to being a younger politician – which she viewed as an asset.“He’s 39,” said Weber. “I said to my son: ‘That’s your generation, that’s our future.’”As the Guardian’s Robert Tait reported earlier this month, JD Vance has a history of opposing IVF – in contradiction to the Republican party and Donald Trump’s current stance that they support it:In 2017, months into Trump’s presidency, Vance wrote the foreword to the Index of Culture and Opportunity, a collection of essays by conservative authors for the Heritage Foundation that included ideas for encouraging women to have children earlier and promoting a resurgence of “traditional” family structure.The essays lauded the increase in state laws restricting abortion rights and included arguments that the practice should become “unthinkable” in the US, a hardline posture the Democrats now say is the agenda of Trump and Vance, who they accuse of harbouring the intent to impose a national ban following a 2022 supreme court ruling overturning Roe v Wade and annulling the federal right to abort a pregnancy.The report also includes an essay lamenting the spread of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other fertility treatments, with the author attributing them as reasons for women delaying having children and prioritising higher education rather than starting families.IVF has emerged as an issue in November’s presidential race after Trump said last week that he favoured it being covered by government funding or private health insurance companies – a stance seeming at odds with many Republicans, including Vance, who was one of 47 GOP senators to vote against a bill in June intended to expand access to the treatment.Kamala Harris said that Senate Republicans refusal to vote in favor of protecting IVF “is not an isolated incident”:
Every woman in every state must have reproductive freedom. Yet, Republicans in Congress have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child.Congressional Republicans’ repeated refusal to protect access to IVF is not an isolated incident. Extremist so-called leaders have launched a full-on attack against reproductive freedom across our country. In the more than two years since Roe v Wade was overturned, they have proposed and passed abortion bans that criminalize doctors and make no exception for rape or incest. They have also blocked legislation to protect the right to contraception and proposed four national abortion bans.Their opposition to a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her own body is extreme, dangerous and wrong. Our administration will always fight to protect reproductive freedoms, which must include access to IVF. We stand with the majority of Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – who support protecting access to fertility treatments. And we continue to call on Congress to finally pass a bill that restores reproductive freedom.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, pointed to the failure of the IVF bill today as proof that Republicans’ promise to protect access to in vitro fertilization is hollow:Meanwhile, John Thune, a Republican of South Dakota, called the bill “an attempt by Democrats to try and create a political issue where there isn’t one”.Before its convention this year, the Republican party adopted a policy platform that supports states establishing fetal personhood, while also, contradictorily, encouraging support for IVF. But the platform does not explain how IVF could be legally protected if frozen embryos are given the same rights as people.Senate Republicans voted to block a bill that would have ensured access to in vitro fertilization nationwide.Every Republican, except Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted against the measure. Though a majority of 51 voted in favor, the bill needed 60 votes to pass.Democrats had brought the measure back to the floor after Republicans previously blocked it from advancing in June.Democrats have been pushing the issue this year after the Alabama’s supreme court ruled that frozen embryos could be considered children under state law, leading several clinics in the state to suspend IVF treatment.Republicans, including Donald Trump, have scrambled to counter what could be a deeply unpopular stance against IVF. More - in US Politics
Harris calls Ohio bomb threats ‘crying shame’ in talk with Black journalists
On Tuesday, Kamala Harris was interviewed by a panel of three National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) members, during which the vice-president talked about the anti-immigrant sentiment toward Haitians in Springfield, Ohio; Israel’s war in Gaza; domestic economic issues; gun violence; and reproductive rights. The conversation was one of the few interviews Harris has done since becoming the Democratic nominee, and it served as an opportunity for her to reaffirm policies.When asked about “where [she] sees the line in terms of aggression and defense” in regards to the war, she said that she supported the Biden administration’s one-time pause on the delivery of 2,000lb bombs to Israel as “leverage” that they “have had and used”, but that achieving a deal was the real means to ending the war.“We have to agree that not only must we end this war, but we have to have a goal of a two-state solution because there must be stability and peace in that region,” she said, “inasmuch as our goal must be to ensure that Israelis have security and Palestinians in equal measure have security, self determination, dignity.”When asked what mechanisms the US has to support Palestinian self-determination, and whether or not it was even possible, as Israel’s ally, to support such a goal, Harris responded saying that she believed that it was. She described meetings with Israeli and Arab leaders to “talk about how we can construct a day-after scenario”.View image in fullscreenShe said that her “goals” are that there be no reoccupation of Gaza, no changing of the territorial lines in Gaza and “an ability to have security in the region for all concerned in a way that we create stability”.Harris was also asked about the false and racist tropes that Donald Trump and JD Vance have espoused about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which has resulted in bomb threats and lockdowns in the city.“It’s a crying shame. I mean, my heart breaks for this community,” Harris said. “There were children, elementary school children, [for whom] it was school photo day. Do you remember what that’s like, going to school on picture day? Dressed up in their best, got all ready, knew what they were going to wear the night before. And had to be evacuated. Children. Children.”Harris described “a whole community put in fear”, and harkened back to her career as a prosecutor, during which she said she learned the importance of power.“When you have these positions, when you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to learn how much your words have meaning,” she said. “I learned at a very young stage in my career that the meaning of my words could impact whether someone was free or in prison … When you are bestowed with a microphone that is that big, there is a profound responsibility that comes with that.”Harris said elected officials, particularly the president, have been bestowed with public trust.“I know that people are deeply troubled by what is happening to that community in Springfield, Ohio, and it’s gotta stop,” she said. “We’ve gotta say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country.”The conversation shifted to young Black male voters who, according to polling, are considering voting for Trump as they see him as better for the economy.“What is your message to young Black male voters who feel left out of this economy, and how can your economic policies materially change their lives?” one journalist asked.“I think it’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket,” Harris replied. “Black men are like any other voting group – you gotta earn the vote. So I am working to earn the vote, and not assuming I’m going to have it because I am Black, but because the policies and perspectives I have understand what we must do to recognize the needs for all communities.”In regards to economic opportunity for Black men, Harris acknowledged that many Black male entrepreneurs lack the relationships and capital necessary to see their ideas come to fruition. As vice president, she said, she has worked to increase access to funding for small businesses. In what she called her “opportunity economy”, Harris said she would extend small-business tax deductions to $50,000. She also said that she would work to alleviate the consequences of medical debt for Black voters.“One in four Black families or individuals is more likely to carry medical debt than others, so part of my perspective, and as vice-president, part of the work that we have done, is to say that we’re going to eliminate medical debt from being on your credit score,” she said.On HB40, a bill that would create a commission to examine US slavery, Harris said that she would not make an executive order, and that she would leave such a decision to Congress, but that “we need to speak truth about the generational impact of our history in terms of the generational impact of slavery, the generational impact of redlining, of Jim Crow. These are facts that have had impact.”Harris again highlighted her “opportunity economy”, which she said would help address “explicitly the obstacles that historically and presently exist”, including student loan debt, medical debt, bias in home appraisals and Black maternal mortality. Though she said she didn’t minimize the importance of executive orders, Harris said Congress’s ability to substantially and publicly handle the conversation around US history was vital.Last month during its annual conference, NABJ hosted Trump for a live panel conversation, where the ex-president insulted the organization and its members and made false claims about Harris’s racial identity. More
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Arizona elections error could affect eligibility of nearly 100,000 voters
Arizona’s top elections official said Tuesday that a newly identified error in the state’s voter registration process needs to be swiftly resolved, as early ballots are set to go out to some voters as soon as this week.Election staff in the Maricopa county recorder’s office identified an issue last week, which concerns voters with old drivers licenses who may never have provided documentary proof of citizenship but were coded as having provided it and therefore were able to vote full ballots. The state has a bifurcated system in which voters who do not provide documentary proof of citizenship cannot vote in local or state elections, only federal ones.Because of the state’s very close elections and status as a swing state, the issue affecting nearly 100,000 voters will likely be the subject of intense scrutiny and litigation in the coming weeks. Arizona has more than 4.1 million registered voters.Governor Katie Hobbs directed the motor vehicles division to fix the coding error, which the secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, said was already resolved going forward.It’s not clear if any of these voters have unlawfully cast a ballot or if they have already provided proof of citizenship. People who register to vote check a box on registration forms, under penalty of perjury, declaring they are citizens.“We have no reason to believe that there are any significant numbers of individuals remaining on this list who are not eligible to vote in Arizona,” Fontes said in a press conference Tuesday. “We cannot confirm that at this moment, but we don’t have any reason to believe that.”The error, reported by Votebeat on Tuesday, relates to several quirks of Arizona governance.Since 1996, Arizona residents have been required to show proof of citizenship to get a regular driver’s license. And since 2004, they have been required to show proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections.State drivers licenses also do not expire until a driver is age 65, meaning for some residents, they will have a valid license for decades before needing renewal. These factors play into the error.The issue has split the Republican recorder in the state’s largest county, Maricopa, and the Democratic secretary of state. Recorder Stephen Richer is arguing that these voters should only be able to cast a federal-only ballot, while Fontes says the state should keep the status quo of allowing them to vote full ballots given how soon the election is. Fontes directed counties to allow these residents to cast full ballots this year.Arizona is home to a strong election denial movement, and the issue is likely to play into these narratives. Republicans have for months been stoking fears about non-citizens voting in the November election in Arizona and nationwide, despite a lack of evidence that non-citizens are voting in any meaningful numbers.Richer wrote on X that his office would be suing Fontes’s office over this, saying because they disagree, the courts will provide “a clear answer”. Richer’s office identified the issue, which affects all counties in the state. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday afternoon, and in it, the recorder’s office said it had discovered the issue by identifying a non-citizen who was erroneously registered to vote, though the person had not cast a ballot in the past.“All of these people have attested under penalty of law that they are U.S. citizens. And, in all likelihood, they [are] almost all U.S. Citizens,” Richer wrote on X, adding that they had not provided proof.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe group in question contains approximately 98,000 voters. Fontes said the “plurality” of these residents are Republican and between ages 45 and 60, receiving driver’s licenses before 1996.“If you are on this list, rest assured you will be contacted soon by Arizona elections officials,” Fontes said Tuesday. But, he added, elections offices first want the courts to weigh in before reaching out to voters “willy-nilly”.As described by Votebeat, the problem relates to people who “first obtained their Arizona driver’s license before October 1996 and then were issued a duplicate replacement before registering to vote sometime after 2004”.Elections officials would look at voter registration forms to see when licenses were updated to see if the dates meant people had submitted the required proof of citizenship. For dates after October 1996, officials assumed paperwork was in order. But, unbeknownst to elections officials, the motor vehicles division’s system would update the license issuance date when people replaced or updated their licenses, making it look like the license was newer and would have included proof of citizenship.The error has occurred, seemingly unnoticed, since 2005, the lawsuit says. More
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Senate Republicans block bill to ensure IVF access for second time
Senate Republicans voted on Tuesday afternoon to block a bill that would have ensured access to in vitro fertilization nationwide.Every Republican, except Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted against the measure. Though a majority of 51 voted in favor, the bill needed 60 votes to pass. Democrats had brought the measure back to the floor after Republicans previously blocked it from advancing in June.Democrats have been pushing the issue this year after Alabama’s supreme court ruled that frozen embryos could be considered children under state law, leading several clinics in the state to suspend IVF treatment.Republicans, including Donald Trump, have scrambled to counter what could be a deeply unpopular stance against IVF.“Senate Republicans put politics first and families last again today by blocking the Right to IVF Act for the second time since June,” said Emilia Rowland, national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee.The vote marked Democrats’ latest election-year attempt to force Republicans into a defensive stance on women’s health issues.The bill had little chance of passing, but Democrats are hoping to use the do-over vote to put pressure on Republican congressional candidates and lay out a contrast between Kamala Harris and Trump in the presidential race, especially as the former president has called himself a “leader on IVF”.Rowland warned that Donald Trump would jeopardize access to fertility treatments if he wins in November.“Voters know the difference between words and actions,” she said. “And between now and November, they will turn out against Republicans from the top to bottom of the ballot.”The push started earlier this year after the Alabama supreme court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. Several clinics in the state suspended IVF treatments until the Republican-led legislature rushed to enact a law to provide legal protections for the clinics.Democrats quickly capitalized, holding a vote in June on the congressional bill from the Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth and warning that the US supreme court could go after the procedure next after it overturned the right to an abortion in 2022. The legislation would also increase access to the procedure and lower costs.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on the floor on Tuesday morning that the vote was a “second chance” for Republicans.“Americans are watching, families back home are watching, and couples who want to become parents are watching, too,” Schumer said.Meanwhile, Republicans have scrambled to counter Democrats on the issue, with many making clear that they support IVF treatments. Trump last month announced plans, without additional details, to require health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for the fertility treatment.In his debate with Harris earlier this month, Trump said he was a “leader” on the issue and talked about the “very negative” decision by the Alabama court that was later reversed by the legislature.But the issue has threatened to become a vulnerability for Republicans as some state laws passed by their party grant legal personhood not only to fetuses but to any embryos that are destroyed in the IVF process. Before its convention this summer, the Republican party adopted a policy platform that supports states establishing fetal personhood through the constitution’s 14th amendment, which grants equal protection under the law to all US citizens. The platform also encourages supporting IVF but does not explain how the party plans to do so.Democrats say that if Trump wants to improve access to the procedure, then Republicans should vote for their legislation.Duckworth, a military veteran who has used the fertility treatment to have her two children, has led the Senate effort on the legislation. “How dare you,” she said in comments directed toward her Republican colleagues after the first vote blocking the bill.Republicans have tried to push alternatives on the issue, including legislation that would discourage states from enacting explicit bans on the treatment, but those bills have been blocked by Democrats who say they are not enough.The Associated Press contributed reporting More
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Trump launches new cryptocurrency venture but declines to share details
Donald Trump launched his family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, on a livestreamed interview on the social media platform X on Monday. The Republican presidential nominee gave few details about the venture but did offer his first public comments on the apparent assassination attempt against him a day earlier.Trump did not discuss specifics about World Liberty Financial on Monday or how it would work, pivoting from questions about cryptocurrency to talking about artificial intelligence and other topics. Instead, he recounted his experience on Sunday, saying he and a friend playing golf “heard shots being fired in the air, and I guess probably four or five.“I would have loved to have sank that last putt,” Trump continued. He credited the Secret Service agent who spotted the barrel of a rifle and began firing toward it as well as law enforcement and a civilian who he said helped track down the suspect.World Liberty Financial is expected to be a borrowing and lending service used to trade cryptocurrencies, which are forms of digital money that can be traded over the internet without relying on the global banking system. Exchanges often charge fees for withdrawals of bitcoin and other currencies.Other speakers after Trump, including his eldest son, Don Jr, talked about embracing cryptocurrency as an alternative to what they allege is a banking system tilted against conservatives.Experts have said a presidential candidate launching a business venture in the midst of a campaign could create ethical conflicts.“Taking a pro-crypto stance is not necessarily troubling, the troubling aspect is doing it while starting a way to personally benefit from it,” Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said earlier this month.During his time in the White House, Trump said he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrency and tweeted in 2019: “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.” However, during this election cycle, he has reversed himself and taken on a favorable view of cryptocurrencies.He announced in May that his campaign would begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency as part of an effort to build what it calls a “crypto army” leading up to election day. He attended a bitcoin conference in Nashville this year, promising to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a bitcoin “strategic reserve” using the currency that the government currently holds.Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University who has done research on cryptocurrencies, said she was skeptical of Trump’s change of heart on crypto.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I think it’s fair to say that that reversal has been motivated in part by financial interests,” she said.Crypto enthusiasts welcomed the shift, viewing the launch as a positive sign for investors if Trump retakes the White House.Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’s campaign has not offered policy proposals on how it would regulate digital assets like cryptocurrencies.In an effort to appeal to crypto investors, a group of Democrats, including New York senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, participated in an online Crypto 4 Harris event in August. Neither Harris nor members of her campaign staff attended the event. More
