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    Trump documentary exposes family divisions over Capitol attack

    Trump documentary exposes family divisions over Capitol attackAlex Holder’s Unprecedented shows ex-president perpetuating big lie about voter fraud – but his children are much less forthcoming A documentary film scrutinised by the congressional January 6 committee exposes divisions between the former US president Donald Trump and his children over the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol.Released to the public on Sunday, Unprecedented portrays Trump’s 2020 election campaign as a family affair and features interviews with him and his inner circle before, during and after the vote.Trump lawyers feel heat as legal net tightens on plot to overturn electionRead moreBritish film-maker Alex Holder gives plenty of airtime to the ex-president and his offspring lavishing praise on one another – material that is not likely to interest the committee – but also asks their views on the fateful events of January 6.Trump reverts to his lies about widespread voter fraud: “Well, it was a sad day but it was a day where there was great anger in our country,” he says. “The people went to Washington primarily because they were angry with an election that they think was rigged.“A very small portion, as you know, went down to the Capitol and then a very small portion of them went in. But I will tell you, they were angry from the standpoint of what happened in the election and because they’re smart and they see and they saw what happened. And I believe that was a big part of what happened on January 6.”But when Holder then puts the same question to three of Trump’s children, they are less forthcoming. His son Eric says: “Yeah, let’s skip the 6th.” Son Don Jr and daughter Ivanka also decline to comment on the incendiary subject, as does vice-president Mike Pence.Ivanka’s silence is perhaps the least surprising. The film recalls how, at a campaign rally in Georgia on 4 January, Ivanka swerved past the election fraud conspiracy, allowing Don Jr to seize the opportunity to outflank her and impress his father. The January 6 committee has also heard Ivanka testify that she accepted attorney general William Barr’s assessment that the election was free and fair.Ivanka is less forthright in Unprecedented when she carefully states: “As the president has said, every single vote needs to be counted and needs to be heard. And he campaigned for the voiceless.”Author and journalist Philip Rucker comments in the film: “She was very uncomfortable with the president’s lie after the election but she would never utter anything herself to establish that disagreement.”Holder recently testified to the House of Representatives panel investigating the January 6 attack for around four hours behind closed doors about his approximately 100 hours of footage. He turned over segments of the footage demanded in a subpoena requiring his cooperation.The film-maker has also been subpoenaed to testify in a Georgia investigation into whether Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in the state.Holder conducted three sit-down interviews with Trump, and the film is punctuated by out-takes of the president expressing concern about camera angles, lighting and objects spoiling the shot (“Can we get the orange out please? It’s very orangey”). Trump is also seen proudly watching videos of his children on the campaign trail.The interview with Pence – whom Trump pressured to overturn the election result, even though he had no such power – took place on 12 January.Pence is seen reacting to an email which the documentary says is a congressional draft resolution demanding that he invoke the 25th amendment of the constitution to remove Trump from office. Pence’s office has insisted it was in fact confirmation that his letter had been sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejecting her request to invoke the 25th amendment.During the interview, Pence says: “I’m always hopeful about America. I always believe that America’s best days are yet to come. I still believe that.”Earlier, the vice-president recalls happier times when he and his family were invited to Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to discuss becoming his running mate in 2016. “I did play golf,” he says. “Not the way he does.”By January 6 2021, Trump was assailing Pence via Twitter and, the House committee has heard, raising no objection to the notion of his deputy being hanged by the mob. The documentary features Trump saying: “I think I treat people well, unless they don’t treat me well, in which case you go to war.”It shows the Trump clan inside a bubble where they speak at huge rallies, are told by aides that the president is on course for re-election and come to think that defeat is unthinkable. At one point Ivanka remarks: “I’ve been in four states in the last two days and the energy and excitement for the president surpasses that in 2016.”Speaking to the Guardian earlier this month, Holder said he went into the interviews with Trump and his children with open-ended questions and a deferential approach to avoid the exchanges coming off as confrontational.At one point Holder asks Ivanka: “What’s your first memory of your father?” She replies: “He used to sing to me when I was little, and nobody knew this except me and him until my mom caught him on the baby monitor, which I cannot imagine him doing now.”Holder then asks Trump if he remembers that story. He replies: “I do, sure, I used to sing to all my kids a little bit. When I say sing, not sing with any ideas for myself to go to Carnegie Hall someday. Just, you know, I love my kids. I’ve been, I think, a very good father. It’s been very important to me.”In another segment, Ivanka comments: “Well, arguably, nobody takes more incoming than the president. I mean, most people would be under their desk in a fetal position sucking their thumb crying. And most politicians don’t have the strength or the conviction to withstand that pushback. This president does and I think our whole family does.”Her husband, Jared Kushner, also speaks in glowing terms about his father-in-law.But the three-part documentary, streaming on Discovery+, also contains raw footage of the Capitol attack recorded by Holder’s director of photography, Michael Crommett, and multiple critical voices from academics, authors and journalists.Princeton University’s Eddie Glaude, a professor of African American studies, comments about January 6: “If the kindling is just sitting there and no one throws the match on it, it’s just going to sit there. Trump threw the match so he’s responsible. All of the folks around him are responsible because they threw the damn match.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsMike PenceIvanka TrumpJared KushnernewsReuse this content More

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    Biden’s executive order on abortion is better than nothing. But not much better | Moira Donegan

    Biden’s executive order on abortion is better than nothing. But not much betterMoira DoneganThe president boasted his administration would use ‘every tool available’ to secure abortion access. So why is his order so lacking? Probably the most enthusiastic assessment that an abortion rights advocate can make for President Biden’s executive order that aims to “protect access to reproductive health services” is that it’s better than nothing. That’s because the order, signed by Biden in a brief ceremony at the White House on Friday as vice-president Harris and secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra looked on, has been spoken of by the White House in only the vaguest terms. The order consists of a series of directives aimed at HHS and the justice department, but these directives are imprecisely worded. They create few obligations for these agencies; they appear designed not to ruffle any feathers. It’s unclear what, precisely, the order will mean for abortion access, and specifically what actions those agencies will now be required to take.Joe Biden signs executive order protecting access to abortionRead moreThe executive order calls for expanded access to abortion medication in states where abortion has not been outlawed; it doesn’t say whether this will include eliminating the current, medically unnecessary restrictions on the drugs or making them available over the counter, as abortion rights advocates have called for. It asks HHS to make “updates to current guidelines”, for emergency medical care, in an effort to reduce deaths in pregnant women whose doctors refuse to intervene in medical crises for fear of harming a fetus and incurring liability; it does not call for HHS to solidify these guidelines into a rule that would more forcefully protect women’s lives.It asks the Department of Justice to convene volunteer lawyers to represent people trying to get or provide legal abortions and gestures vaguely at providing women defense for things like crossing state lines or obtaining care in one state that is illegal in the one where they live. But it doesn’t say whether the administration will work to support the attorneys already doing this work, like those at the Texas-based Jane’s Due Process or the legal non-profit If/When/How, and it does not say how it will make sure that this supply of volunteer, pro bono legal assistance doesn’t dry up. The order talks about protecting privacy and combatting disinformation, but it makes no mention of crisis pregnancy centers, the fake clinics that deceive patients, disseminate false information about abortions, and suck up large amount of information about the women they lure through their doors. The order calls for HHS to expand access to contraception, but doesn’t say how.The short version seems to be, that the Biden administration will make no effort to reverse the sadistic and draconian attacks on women’s rights in red states. But it will make some kind of vague, still-undefined effort to stop them from spreading to blue ones.It’s not much of a payoff, considering the massive amount of pressure from abortion rights advocates that it took to elicit this response from the Biden administration. Despite having a six-week heads-up on the coming overturn of Roe after a draft of the majority opinion was leaked in early May, and in spite of having more than a year since the case, whose outcome was never in doubt, was granted cert by the US supreme court, the Biden administration seemed flat-footed and caught off guard by the end of national abortion rights.Reporting from CNN claims that the White House was unique among court watchers in being surprised when the Dobbs decision was released on 24 June. In a sign of how seriously the administration is taking women’s rights, an aide assigned to respond to the Dobbs decision was out getting coffee when she heard about the opinion’s release from a push notification on her phone. For his part, Biden himself is so enthusiastic about abortion rights that he was planning to nominate an anti-choice Republican judge to a lifetime appointment on a federal district court in Kentucky that very same day.Overall, the administration has seemed unwilling to move towards a more robust defense of women’s freedoms, and unwilling to treat the reversal of Roe as the disaster for equal rights and civil liberties that their base sees it as. They issue capacious statements – and, now, a capacious executive order – that are light on specifics, and tend to conspicuously avoid the word “abortion.” When Joe Biden began his signing ceremony for his executive order, he did not immediately turn to the reason why he was there – the rollback of a fundamental civil and human right for half of his constituents. Instead, he took a moment to boast about some promising jobs numbers. When the signing ceremony concluded, the first question the president took was from a male reporter, who asked about the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.Perhaps what’s most noticeable about Biden’s executive order is what it doesn’t say. It does not say that the administration will make federal lands in red states available for abortion services, as some legal experts have urged. It does not say that the DoJ will bring lawsuits against states that ban abortion medication, on the theory that such bans violate the FDA’s supremacy. It does not pledge a repeal of the Hyde amendment.The somewhat lukewarm reception of Biden’s EO from the reproductive rights community may have been tempered by reporting from Bloomberg on Friday that the administration had dismissed the idea of declaring a national health emergency in response to the supreme court ruling, a move that would have empowered the administration to respond proportionately to the massive and ongoing threat to women’s safety and liberty. According to Bloomberg, Biden and his advisers ditched the idea because they didn’t want to get sued over it. In his statements before signing the executive order, Biden said that his administration would “use every tool available” to secure abortion access. Well, apparently not every tool.
    Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
    TopicsRoe v WadeOpinionUS politicsAbortionJoe BidenDemocratscommentReuse this content More

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    ‘It’s a crisis’: US summer pools closed or cut back amid lifeguard shortage

    ‘It’s a crisis’: US summer pools closed or cut back amid lifeguard shortageOfficials say not enough lifeguards to open pools safely but critics say decision to cut services during Covid has had knock-on effect A nationwide shortage of lifeguards is forcing local pools across the US to close for the summer, according to reports.In major cities such as New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and elsewhere, public pools are reducing their hours of operation, or shutting down entirely amid an apparent shortage of lifeguards.A third of pools in the US will be affected by staff shortages, according to the American Lifeguard Association, the BBC reported. Experts estimate that the number of affected pools could increase to half by September.“The shortage is real,” lifeguard Motti Eliyahu said to BBC.“It is a crisis,” the director of health and safety at the American Lifeguard Association, Bernard Fisher, added.With shortages are already inhibiting summer swimming, cities are managing in different ways.Weekend warriors: why exercise doesn’t have to be regular to be good for youRead moreNew Orleans city officials said last month that the municipal government would only open five of its 15 season pools, with plans to open up three additional pools if the city managed to recruit more lifeguards, the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate reported.Even as temperatures in Chicago reached 100F (38C) last month, the city kept its pools shut down past the usual 24 June opening date, because it said it was not able to recruit sufficient lifeguards.City officials reassigned lifeguards from local beaches to open up some of the pools on 5 July, NBC Chicago reported.Some have also blamed the lifeguard shortage in Chicago on the mishandling of sexual assault and harassment complaints within the city’s lifeguard program, which led to an investigation and the resignation of several park district employees last year, according to Block Club City Chicago.New York officials announced on Wednesday that they would be increasing the starting pay for lifeguards and developing a training program to staff the city’s pools, which have been largely empty amid the staffing shortages, reported NBC New York. New York has roughly half the number of lifeguards than prior to the pandemic.Experts say that although concerns about a shortage of lifeguards have persisted for years, the Covid pandemic and issues in the labor market are exacerbating the existing problem.YMCA water safety expert Lindsay Mondick said a lack of available US student visas has worsened the shortage, because many lifeguards in the country are foreign students. The slow release of more visas is having only limited effect on the staffing shortages.“We have been concerned about this potential lifeguard shortage for a number of years now,” Mondick said to BBC. “But I would say that Covid and the current tight labor market has really exacerbated this issue.”Fisher, of the lifeguard association, also said simply increasing wages may not solve staffing issues because not enough people are training to be lifeguards.Fisher said he fears that if cities cannot find ways to recruit more trained lifeguards and open up local pools, people may seek out unmonitored and possibly more dangerous swimming options in order to taste relief from the summer heat.“It’s such a crisis that if we don’t start resolving it this year, it’s going to be even worse next year, which I just can’t imagine,” Fisher said to BBC.TopicsUS newsSwimmingFitnessUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Native American elders recall abuse at US government boarding schools

    Native American elders recall abuse at US government boarding schoolsElders testify in Oklahoma about beatings, whippings and sexual abuse at institutions that sought to assimilate Native children Native American tribal elders who were once students at government-backed Indian boarding schools testified Saturday in Oklahoma about the hardships they endured, including beatings, whippings, sexual assaults, forced haircuts and hurtful nicknames.They came from different states and different tribes, but they shared the common experience of having attended the schools that were designed to strip Indigenous people of their cultural identities.Trump considers waiving Bannon’s executive privilege claim, reports sayRead more“I still feel that pain,“ said 84-year-old Donald Neconie, a former US Marine and member of the Kiowa Tribe who once attended the Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, about 80 miles south-west of Oklahoma City. “I will never, ever forgive this school for what they did to me.“It may be good now. But it wasn’t back then.’As the elders spoke, US secretary of the interior Deb Haaland, herself a Laguna Pueblo from New Mexico and the first Native American cabinet secretary in US history, listened quietly. The event at the Riverside Indian school, which still operates today but with a vastly different mission, was the first stop on a year-long nationwide tour to hear about the painful experiences of Native Americans who were sent to the government-backed boarding schools.“Federal Indian boarding school policies have touched every Indigenous person I know,“ Haaland said at the start of the event, which attracted Native Americans from throughout the region. “Some are survivors. Some are descendants. But we all carry the trauma in our hearts.“My ancestors endured the horrors of the Indian boarding school assimilation policies carried out by the same department that I now lead. This is the first time in history that a cabinet secretary comes to the table with this shared trauma.”Haaland’s agency recently released a report that identified more than 400 of the schools, which sought to assimilate Native children into white society during a period that stretched from the late 18th century until the late 1960s. Although most closed their doors long ago and none still exist to strip students of their identities, some still function as schools, albeit with drastically different missions that celebrate the cultural backgrounds of their Native students.Among them is Riverside, which is one of the oldest.Riverside, which opened in 1871, serves students from grades four through 12 these days, offering them specialized academic programs as well as courses on cultural topics such as bead-working, shawl-making and an introduction to tribal art, foods and games.Currently operated by the Bureau of Indian Education, it has nearly 800 students from more than 75 tribes across the country, and the school’s administration, staff and faculty are mostly Native American.It is one of 183 elementary and secondary schools across the country funded by the Bureau of Indian Education that seek to provide education aligned with a tribe’s needs for cultural and economic wellbeing, according to the bureau’s website.But Riverside also has a dark history of mistreating the thousands of Native American students who were forced from their homes to attend it.Neconie, who still lives in Anadarko, recalled being beaten if he cried or spoke his native Kiowa language when he attended Riverside in the late 1940s and early 1950s.“Every time I tried to talk Kiowa, they put lye in my mouth,“ he said. “It was 12 years of hell.“Brought Plenty, a Standing Rock Sioux who lives in Dallas, recalled the years she spent at Indian boarding schools in South Dakota, where she was forced to cut her hair and told not to speak her Native language. She recalled being forced to whip other girls with wet towels and being punished when she didn’t.“What they did to us makes you feel so inferior,“ she said. “You never get past this. You never forget it.“Until recently, the federal government hadn’t been open to examining its role in the troubled history of Native American boarding schools. But this has changed because people who know about the trauma that was inflicted hold prominent positions in government.At least 500 children died at such schools, but that number is expected to reach into the thousands or tens of thousands as more research is done.The interior department’s report includes a list of the boarding schools in what were states or territories that operated between 1819 and 1969 that had a housing component and received support from the federal government.Oklahoma had the most, 76, followed by Arizona with 47 and New Mexico with 43. All three states still have significant Native American populations.Former students might be hesitant to recount the painful past and trust a government whose policies were to eradicate tribes and, later, assimilate them under the veil of education. But some welcome the opportunity to share their stories for the first time.Not all the memories from those who attended the schools were painful ones.Dorothy WhiteHorse, 89, a Kiowa who attended Riverside in the 1940s, said she recalled learning to dance the jitterbug in the school’s gymnasium and being taught to speak English for the first time. She also recalled older Kiowa women who served as house mothers in the dormitories who let her speak her Native language and treated her with kindness.“I was helped,“ WhiteHorse said. “I’m one of the happy ones.“But WhiteHorse also had some troubling memories, including the time she said three young boys ran away from the home and got caught in a snowstorm. She said all three froze to death.“I think we need a memorial for those boys,“ she said.TopicsUS newsUS politicsOklahomaDeb HaalandIndigenous peoplesReuse this content More

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    Negotiate With Russia and Let Ukraine Have Peace

    The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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    Trump considers waiving Bannon’s executive privilege claim, reports say

    Trump considers waiving Bannon’s executive privilege claim, reports sayDecision from former president would clear way for one-time adviser to testify before committee investigating Capitol attack Donald Trump is considering waiving executive privilege for his longtime political adviser Steve Bannon, which would clear the way for a key ally of the former president to testify before the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol.Trump is reportedly considering sending a letter to Bannon, his former White House strategist, acknowledging that he granted Bannon executive privilege on 21 September but is now willing to give up the claim if Bannon reaches an agreement to testify before the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, the Washington Post first reported, citing sources familiar with the situation.According to the Post, some of Trump’s advisers have warned him not to send the letter, but the ex-president may be bullish on getting a witness who is ostensibly friendlier to him to appear at one of the committee’s televised hearings.Bannon was charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress in November after defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Capitol riots. Bannon has pleaded not guilty.If convicted, Bannon could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. His trial is expected to start later this month, reported CNN.Bannon has claimed that discussions between Trump and him are protected under the dictum of executive privilege. But prosecutors say Bannon is not protected because he was not working at the White House on the day of the Capitol attack.The committee has also said that Bannon’s executive privilege claims do not mean he can simply ignore the subpoena outright, but he could cite the privilege in response to certain questions.“Even if your client had been a senior aide to [Trump] during the time period covered by the contemplated testimony, which he was most assuredly not, he is not permitted by law to the type of immunity you suggest that Mr. Trump has requested he assert,” committee chair Bennie Thompson wrote to Bannon’s attorney in October.Federal prosecutors have not brought contempt charges against other Trump aides who ignored subpoenas while citing executive privilege, including former White house chief of staff Mark Meadows.Even after leaving his position in the White House, Bannon remained an outspoken proponent of the falsehood that electoral fraudsters stole the 2020 presidential race against Joe Biden from Trump.The committee has staged numerous public hearings airing evidence that the lie helped inspire the attack on the Capitol, to which a bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths.TopicsSteve BannonUS politicsDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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    US army general suspended for mocking Jill Biden’s support of abortion rights

    US army general suspended for mocking Jill Biden’s support of abortion rights Gary Volesky, three-star general who took on lucrative consulting role, suspended over Twitter post that appeared under his name The US army has suspended a retired three-star general from a lucrative consultant’s role after a social media post appearing under his name taunted first lady Jill Biden’s support of abortion rights.Former top army spokesperson Gary Volesky, who retired as a lieutenant general and earned a silver star for gallantry while serving in Iraq, was making $92 an hour advising military officers, staff and students who were taking part in war games and other similar activities.Biden in crisis mode as specter of one-term Carter haunts White HouseRead moreBut then a Twitter account under his name replied to a statement from Biden that condemned the supreme court’s decision on 24 June to reverse its landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v Wade which had established federal abortion rights.“For nearly 50 years, women have had the right to make our own decisions about our bodies,” the Democratic first lady’s statement said about the ruling, which in effect outlawed abortions in more than half the country. “Today, that right was stolen from us.”An account under Volesky’s name replied: “Glad to see you finally know what a woman is.” Some on the platform interpreted the remark as a verbal potshot at the Biden White House’s support for the transgender community.On Saturday, an army spokesperson said the commander of the military branch’s combined arms center, Lt Gen Theodore Martin, had suspended Volesky from his consultancy pending an investigation into whether the tweet in question violated decorum rules for retired officers.USA Today was the first to report on Volesky’s suspension, which marked the latest disciplinary action against a relatively prominent military figure to make the news. Some observers – including the liberal news outlet Axios – regarded the suspension as unusual because the nation’s military officials try to avoid wading into partisan political disputes.Before retiring in 2020, Volesky was in charge of US ground forces in Iraq and headed the army’s famed 101st Airborne Division, which is perhaps best known for being at the tip of the spear during the invasion of Normandy in the second world war.He earned the silver star – the US military’s third-highest honor for valor – for his actions in 2004 after his battalion came under attack in an area of greater Baghdad. The ensuing 80-day battle left eight soldiers killed and 50 others wounded.Volesky, who served in Afghanistan as well, was also the army’s public affairs chief during his 36-year career with the military branch.The tweet under Volesky’s name to Biden was not the only one aimed at a woman in politics. When the Wyoming Republican representative Liz Cheney announced that she would serve on the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, a tweet in Volesky’s name disputed her claim that the panel’s work would “be above partisan politics”.“This is all about partisan politics,” said a reply in Volesky’s name.TopicsJill BidenUS militaryUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Texas woman given traffic ticket says unborn child counts as second passenger

    Texas woman given traffic ticket says unborn child counts as second passengerBrandy Bottone, who is 34 weeks pregnant, pulled over by police for driving in high-occupancy vehicle lane for two or more people A pregnant woman in Texas told police that her unborn child counted as an additional passenger after being cited for driving alone in a high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane, offering up a potentially clever defense for motorists navigating the legal landscape following the supreme court’s striking down of nationwide abortion rights last month.Joe Biden signs executive order protecting access to abortionRead moreBrandy Bottone of Plano, Texas, tried to fight a ticket for driving with only one passenger in an HOV lane – which requires at least two people in the car – by arguing that her unborn baby should count as her second passenger.“[The officer] starts peeking around. He’s like, ‘Is it just you?’ And I said, ‘No there’s two of us?’” Bottone recounted to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. “And he said, ‘Well where’s the other person?’ And I went, ‘Right here,’” pointing to her stomach.On 29 June, Bottone, who is 34 weeks pregnant, was driving on US Highway 75 to go pick up her son.To avoid being late to get him, Bottone took an HOV lane, but a patrol officer pulled her over while trying to exit the expressway, the Dallas Morning News first reported.An officer approached Bottone’s car, asking where her second required passenger was. When Bottone tried to argue that her unborn baby should count as the additional rider given Texas’s abortion ban after the overturning of federal abortion protections, officers did not agree.“One officer kind of brushed me off when I mentioned this is a living child, according to everything that’s going on with the overturning of Roe v Wade,” Bottone told the officer, referring to the landmark 1973 supreme court case that granted federal abortion rights. “‘So I don’t know why you’re not seeing that,’ I said.”The officer told Bottone that to drive in the HOV lane, she needed her additional passenger to be outside her body.The officer ultimately gave Bottone a $275 ticket, telling her that if she fought the citation in court, it would probably be dropped.“This has my blood boiling. How could this be fair? According to the new law, this is a life,” Bottone said to the Morning News. “I know this may fall on deaf ears, but as a woman, this was shocking.”Bottone was pulled over by a deputy with the Dallas county sheriff’s department, who is employed by the Texas department of transportation to enforce HOV rules on the US 75, the Morning News reported.While the Texas penal code recognizes an unborn baby as a person, current transportation law in the state does not.Legal experts have argued that Bottone’s argument brings up a unique, legal gray area that the courts are getting acquainted with following the rollback of Roe v wade.“Different judges might treat this differently,” Dallas appellate lawyer Chad Ruback told the local NBC affiliate. “This is uncharted territory we’re in now.“There is no Texas statute that says what to do in this situation. The Texas transportation code has not been amended recently to address this particular situation. Who knows? Maybe the legislature will in the next session.”But Bottone said that the state should not be able to have it both ways.“I really don’t think it’s right because one law is saying it one way but another law is saying it another way,” Bottone said to the NBC station.TopicsTexasUS politicsRoe v WadeAbortionnewsReuse this content More