USA News and Discussions

[caltrek]

House Progressives Cite Clarence Thomas to Argue SCOTUS Should Lose Jurisdiction Over Abortion
by Kenny Stencil
July 15, 2022

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mondaire Jones on Thursday led a group of progressive lawmakers in sending a letter to Democratic leaders urging them to support restricting the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction over statutes codifying abortion and other civil rights imperiled by the court's reactionary majority.

"With our basic rights under threat from a rogue Supreme Court, Congress needs to exercise our legal authority to the fullest extent," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted Thursday. "That's why today we called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to support stripping the Supreme Court's jurisdiction over abortion."

"Congress is granted the authority to remove the Supreme Court's jurisdiction under Article III" of the Constitution, she continued. "To protect marriage equality, contraception, and more, we need to limit the power of the far-right court that's already overturned Roe v. Wade."

Jones (D-N.Y.) argued that "this far-right Supreme Court is on a rampage against the freedoms of the American people."

Prior to last month's 6-3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization—a decision that experts say will have deadly consequences and violates international law—access to legal abortion care had since 1973 been protected by the 14th Amendment's substantive due process clause.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... on-over

Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution reads in part as follows:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

caltrek’s comment: I am not sure what would happen if a pro-life state brought litigation challenging a federal law in which Congress acted to remove the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction. In such a case, wouldn’t the State be a party in the case?

Just asking.

[caltrek]

Americans United for Life CEO gets Called Out for Claiming a 10-year-old Terminating a Pregnancy is 'Not an Abortion'
by Alex Henderson
July 14, 2022

Extract:

(Alternet) Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, during a July 14 hearing, discussed the case with anti-abortion activist Catherine Glenn Foster, president and CEO of Americans United for Life — and Foster denied, much to Swallwell's shock, that the pregnancy's termination qualified as an abortion.

When Foster was asked if a "ten-year-old" would "choose to carry a baby," Foster responded, "I believe it would probably impact her life. And so therefore, it would fall under any exception and would not be an abortion."

…Foster replied, "If a ten-year-old became pregnant as a result of rape and it was threatening her life, then that's not an abortion. So, it would not fall under any abortion restriction in our nation."

Swalwell directed his next question to another witness at the hearing, Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign — asking her, "Miss Warbelow, are you familiar with disinformation?.... Did you just hear some disinformation?"

Warbelow responded, "Yes, I heard some very significant disinformation…. An abortion is a procedure; it's a medical procedure that individuals undergo for a wide range of circumstances, including because they have been sexually assaulted — raped in the case of the ten-year-old. It doesn't matter whether or not there is a statutory exemption; it is still a medical procedure that is understood to be an abortion. Beyond that, I think it's also important to note that there is no exception for the life or the health of the mother in the Ohio law. That's why that ten-year-old had to cross state lines in order to receive an abortion."

Read more here: https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/anti- ... victim/

[caltrek]

Build Back Better May End Up a Health Care Bill, Thanks to Joe Manchin
by Li Zhou
July 18, 2022

Introduction:

(Vox) Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a longtime holdout on the Build Back Better Act, has once again up-ended talks on the bill.

Democrats had hoped to put together a slimmed down version of the original $2 trillion package, narrowly focused on health care, climate, and tax reforms. Manchin, however, has expressed opposition to additional climate and tax policies at this time, and it now seems the party will have to settle for a smaller bill than leaders wanted.

Manchin said Friday that he remains concerned about the impact new climate spending could have on inflation, and worried raising taxes on businesses could stymie their growth.

“Inflation is absolutely killing many, many people,” Manchin said in a recent interview with MetroNews’s Hoppy Kerchaval, noting that he was particularly alarmed by the recent Labor Department report. “Can’t we wait to make sure we do nothing to add to that?”

Manchin remains supportive of Democrats’ prescription drugs package as well as an extension to Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are due to sunset at the end of this year. And he has said he may be willing to negotiate again on taxes and climate in September, when lawmakers have more information about where inflation stands.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/2022/7/6/23197398/ ... -prices

caltrek’s comment: I guess Manchin hasn’t got the memo yet. The memo, that as Senator Sanders put it, says that climate change “is an existential threat to humanity.”

If Manchin really cared about inflation that much, he would support paying for climate initiatives with increased taxes on the rich. Perhaps I am just too cynical, but I think that all his “we can talk in September if inflation is moderated” is just another rope a dope tactic on his part.

[weatheriscool]

I'll admit that the gop is too extreme when it comes to its no abortion even when the women is raped and forcing little children to carry a dead baby. I mean wtf? But this is what happens when you push full term abortion and use it as a form of late term birth control. You anger a lot of people and sometimes those people overshoot and do dumb shit.

[Vakanai]

I'll admit that the gop is too extreme when it comes to its no abortion even when the women is raped and forcing little children to carry a dead baby. I mean wtf? But this is what happens when you push full term abortion and use it as a form of late term birth control. You anger a lot of people and sometimes those people overshoot and do dumb shit.

Except for the fact that no one uses it as a form of "late term birth control."

[caltrek]

I'll admit that the gop is too extreme when it comes to its no abortion even when the women is raped and forcing little children to carry a dead baby. I mean wtf? But this is what happens when you push full term abortion and use it as a form of late term birth control. You anger a lot of people and sometimes those people overshoot and do dumb shit.

Except for the fact that no one uses it as a form of "late term birth control."

I agree with Vakanai. If you are going to continue to insist that pro-choice advocates have pushed "full term abortion" for use "as a form of late term birth control" then you need to cite some examples of when and where that has happened. Otherwise, it will become increasingly clear that you are just propping up a straw man argument unconnected with the real world that you can then knock down. Further, you are doing so in a manner which very much comes across as a variation of blaming the victim(s).

What I came here to post:

The Extreme Agenda of Anti-Abortion Politicians Is Already Coming True
by Pema Levy
July 16, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) It was less than a month ago that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Already, anti-abortion politicians across the country are not only seeking to restrict abortion access but even deny care in situations of life-threatening emergency and unimaginable cruelty. And they aren’t even shy about it.

In just the last week, Republican officials have sued to stop abortions even in medical emergencies, said child rape victims should be forced to give birth, and blocked a bill that would guarantee the right to travel to another state for an abortion. Meanwhile, doctors are denying pregnant people possibly life-saving care. It’s no exaggeration to say that the most dire warnings about the end of Roe are already coming true.

On Thursday, Republicans in Congress blocked a law that would allow pregnant people to travel to another state to obtain a legal abortion—a warning that as some states plan to pass laws limiting interstate travel, Congress may not get in the way. In objecting to the bill, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called the bill “radical” and warned about “abortion tourism.” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) also spoke out against it. “There’s a child in this conversation, as well,” Lankford said, referring to an unborn fetus. He accused Democrats of trying “to inflame—to raise the what-ifs.”

Lankford’s word choice was odd given that the country was at that very moment learning that a 10-year-old child, a victim of sexual assault, had been forced to resort to interstate travel to get an abortion. There are indeed children in these conversations, and they are unwillingly pregnant. This child left the state of Ohio and obtained an abortion in Indiana, but the anti-abortion movement argued that she should have been forced to become a mother instead.

The rightwing lawyer Jim Bopp, who has helped Republicans move quickly to ban abortion, argued that even child rape victims should be forced to give birth. The Ohio abortion ban, according to him, had worked as intended.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/ ... nancies/

[caltrek]

A Victim-blaming Narrative is Meant to Quiet the Left
by Jeet Heer
July 7, 2022

Extract:

(Muck Rack) (Libby) Emmons wrote, “If only the pro-choice movement had focused on upholding ‘safe, legal and rare’ instead of advocating for abortion on demand and ‘shout your abortion’ there would have been enough mercy so that a 10-year-old didn’t have to carry a rapist’s baby to term.”

Blaming those who resist patriarchy for bad outcomes is a classic tactic of abusers to control their victims. “Don’t make me hit you,” an abuser might say. More and more, this is what we hear from the political right.

With a Supreme Court dominated by six Republican appointees, the right has an unprecedented stranglehold on power. It is using this dominance of the courts to rewire the legal system on issues ranging from gun control and environmental policy to police power and church/state relations.

But rather than enjoying their judicial triumph, many conservative pundits have adopted victim blaming, arguing that the left has brought their defeats on themselves, and that any bad consequences come from resistance to the right’s agenda.

What’s behind the logic? Partially, it’s that Dobbs and other recent court decisions are indefensible. They are already producing vile real-world results. Victim blaming is a way of deflecting responsibility.

Read more here: https://muckrack.com/jeet-heer/articles

[weatheriscool]

Senators expect GOP support to grow for same-sex marriage bill in bid to overcome filibuster

Source: CNN

(CNN)Republican and Democratic senators said Wednesday they expect a bill to codify same-sex marriage to eventually win the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, a sign of growing public acceptance and a sea change over an issue that had once badly divided the two parties. hile most GOP senators are likely to vote against the bill, lawmakers in both parties believe there will be at least 10 Republicans who would join all 50 Democrats and advance the bill to a final up-or-down vote.

Buoyed by the 47 Republicans who voted for similar legislation that passed the House Tuesday, senators expected a similar show of bipartisan support when the measure hits the Senate floor. One key Republican, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, told CNN Wednesday he "probably will" support the bill. And, importantly, Republican Whip John Thune said he expects the legislation will have similarly strong GOP support in the Senate as it got in the House.

"If and when (Democrats) bring a bill to the floor, we'll take a hard look at it," said Thune, a South Dakota Republican who cautioned he had not made a decision on the bill. "As you saw there was pretty good bipartisan support in the House yesterday and I expect there'd probably be the same thing you'd see in the Senate." At this point, four Republicans, including Tillis, have signaled their support for the bill while several have said they will vote against it. A number of Republicans have not committed to how they will vote.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said he wants to bring the bill to the floor soon, but did not announce when he would schedule a vote. He added that he was "impressed by how much bipartisan support the bill got in the House." The Senate leaves for its August recess in two weeks, making it unlikely he will be able to get the floor time before then, especially as senators are already trying to pass a bill to boost production of semiconductor chips and a separate economic package. Taking it up after August moves the debate closer to the midterm elections and will allow Democrats to highlight what they believe are key social issues important to voters.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/20/politics ... -senators/

[caltrek]

Steve Bannon Convicted of Contempt of Congress Charges
by Erin Doherty and Shawna Chen
July 22, 2022

Introduction:

(Axios) Former Trump adviser Steven Bannon was found guilty Friday of two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena issued by the Jan. 6 select committee investigating the attack, the New York Times reports.

Driving the news: The two misdemeanor counts each carry a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a fine of $100 to $100,000. Bannon is the first close Trump aide to be convicted as a result of the committee's probe.

• The Department of Justice in closing arguments of the trial said that Bannon "chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance to the law," CNN reports.

• Bannon's lawyers had argued that the committee's deadlines were flexible and claimed the subpoena and prosecution's case were politically motivated.

The jury deliberated for less than three hours before reaching a unanimous verdict.
What to watch: Bannon's sentencing date is scheduled for Oct. 21.

Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/banno ... ongress

[Time_Traveller]

‘US democracy will not survive for long’: how January 6 hearings plot a roadmap to autocracy

Sun 24 Jul 2022 07.00 BST

They promised the January 6 hearings would “blow the roof off the house”, presenting America with the truth about Donald Trump’s attack on democracy culminating in the US Capitol insurrection. In the end, the roof of the House, where the summer season of hearings reached their finale on Thursday night, remained intact, though mightily shaken.

It will take time for historians to assess whether the eight public sessions were comparable to the 1973 Watergate hearings, as Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the January 6 committee, predicted. Yet it’s already clear that after 19 hours and 11 minutes of testimony, filmed depositions, documentary evidence and raw footage of the Capitol attack the hearings have generated a mountain of words and images that will linger long in the collective memory.

We know now that on the day that the United States suffered the worst assault on the Capitol since the British ravaged it in 1814, Trump tried to grab the steering wheel from a secret service agent to turn his presidential SUV in the direction of the violent mob so he could join them. We know that when he exhorted his followers to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” he was aware that many of them were armed with guns and wearing body armor.

We know from Thursday night that when his close aides pleaded with him to call off the attack, he refused, spending 187 minutes watching events unfold on TV in the White House dining room while swatting away increasingly desperate pleas for him to act until it was clear that his hopes of violently overthrowing the election had faded.

To those who track anti-democratic movements there is a chilling familiarity to this rich evocation of a president descending into an abyss of fantasy, fury and possible illegality. “The picture that the hearings depict is of a coup leader,” said the Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky. “This is a guy who was unwilling to accept defeat and was prepared to use virtually any means to try to stay illegally in power.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -autocracy

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

24 House Republicans break with leadership, vote with Democrats to pass chip bill
Source: ABC News

Another major legislative win for Democrats came Thursday, when -- over Republican objections of "corporate welfare" -- a bipartisan group in the House passed a bill that funds the nation’s science and technology industries with billions to boost domestic production of crucial semiconductor chips and additional research and development.

The bill cleared the chamber in a 243-187 vote (with one "present" vote) despite late-hour pushes from GOP leadership against the legislation. Twenty-four Republicans joined Democrats in backing the measure, which now heads to the White House for President Joe Biden's signature.

One lawmaker, Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., whose grandfather Irwin Jacobs founded semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm, voted "present."

“If you want to know who hates this bill, who lobbies against it -- the Chinese Communist Party. Why? Because they know it'll help us compete against them," Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a major advocate of the package, told reporters while criticizing fellow Republicans for opposing the bill.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 5953709fed

[weatheriscool]

House passes assault-style weapons ban
Source: CNN

(CNN)The House of Representatives voted Friday evening to ban assault-style weapons, sending the bill to the Senate where it's not expected to advance. The final vote was 217-213. Democrats Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Kurt Schrader of Oregon voted against the ban. Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Chris Jacobs of New York voted for the bill.

While the legislation is not expected to amass the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, many Democrats in the House cited a string of recent mass shootings involving such firearms as a pressing reason to outlaw them. "Today, our Democratic Majority will take up and pass the Assault Weapons Ban legislation: a crucial step in our ongoing fight against the deadly epidemic of gun violence in our nation," Pelosi said in a letter to members of her caucus ahead of the vote.

Friday's vote came as progressives, moderates and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are divided on how to handle the policing funding component of a broader public safety package, which was not included in Friday's series of votes. While negotiations on that proposal are continuing, according to sources, the key negotiators were hoping to settle both issues in hopes of having a vote on both packages as soon as Friday. Moderate and vulnerable Democrats had been pushing for a vote on the policing legislation before they leave town in an effort to rebut GOP attacks over defunding the police, but members of the CBC had concerns and have been pushing for accountability language.

The deal to try to combine both pieces of legislation came together late Thursday night, and was negotiated between Pelosi, Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio, and moderate Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey. But other members of the Congressional Black and Progressive caucuses were frustrated that they were kept out of the loop, which is ultimately why Democratic leadership decided to separate the bills.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/politics ... index.html

[caltrek]

Trump Says Mar-a-Lago Resort Searched by Feds
by Abigail Weinberg
August 8, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones ) In a potentially explosive development in the investigations into the former president, Donald Trump said that the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday.

The investigation appeared to involve classified documents that Trump allegedly took with him from the White House to his personal estate in Palm Beach, Florida, according to a New York Times report that cited two people familiar with the search. Three sources also confirmed the nature of the search to CNN.

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump wrote in a statement. “They even broke into my safe!”


(See article linked below for Twitter feeds on this topic)

As my colleague Inae Oh reported earlier this year, Trump stands accused of improperly taking classified national security records to Mar-a-Lago in 15 boxes of documents. At the time, the Justice Department said that it would investigate possible violations of the Presidential Records Act, which governs how presidents preserve all sorts of documents, including classified information.

Source: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... i-search/

[caltrek]

At Long Last, the Senate Has Passed Sweeping Climate Legislation
by Julie Lurie
August 7, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) After years of stagnant climate policy, months of excruciating political negotiations, and a marathon weekend of back-to-back voting, the Senate passed the Democrats’ sweeping climate and health care bill on Sunday.

The estimated $740 billion package, entitled the Inflation Reduction Act, includes close to $400 billion in climate spending—by far the largest climate investment in the nation’s history. The plan would be largely paid for by new taxes, including a 15 percent minimum tax on the handful of corporations with annual profits about $1 billion.

The bill represents a fraction of the climate investment that Democrats dreamed of when Joe Biden took office, but it includes policies that are expected to help America cut its climate pollution by 40 percent by 2030. (As Vox notes, that’s a bit less dramatic than it sounds: The baseline for the reduction is 2005, when emissions peaked, and the nation was on track to reduce its emissions by 20 percent by 2030 without the legislation.) If enacted, the policy will fund tax credits and rebates for renewable energy, energy efficiency technology, and electric cars. It will also fund climate resilience and pollution monitoring projects in vulnerable communities, and penalize fossil fuel companies for excess methane emissions.

Though the package has made news for its climate measures, it also includes important healthcare reforms, including policies that would enable Medicare to negotiate certain prescription drug prices for the first time, extend expiring subsidies that help millions of people afford health insurance, and cap out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors on Medicare to $2,000 a year.

After overcoming initial opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin and last-minute pushback from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Democrats were united in the 51-50 vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. The legislation now heads to the House.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... s-senate/

caltrek’s comment: Apparently, not a single Republican voted for the measure. Can somebody please explain to me again about how there is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats on the climate issue?

From where I sit, there appears to be at least $400 billion worth of difference. (Although in another article in Mother Jones the number was given as $370 billion). Will it be enough?

Maybe not, but $400 billion (or $370 billion) is still better than nothing. If it is not enough, it is because of the collective foot dragging that has paralyzed this nation prior to this action (and other recent actions taken by Biden and the Democrats). Foot dragging that was particularly acute under the Republicans, though Democrats should share some blame on that score.

[caltrek]

More on the legislation just passed by the Senate:

(Courthouse News)

• (It will include) a cap on monthly insulin prices for people who use Medicare and an extension of subsidies under the Affordable Care Act for people purchasing their own insurance. The aid program was set to expire this year, but will now be funded through 2025.

• (Concessions to Manchin include) mandates for oil and gas leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico that appear in conflict with the incentives for offshore wind, electric vehicles and other clean energy infrastructure.

Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/sweeping ... erm-boost/

[caltrek]

The GOP Suddenly Wants to Defund Law Enforcement After Feds Raid Mar-a-Lago
by Kay Bouza
August 9, 2022

Introduction:

(Rolling Stone) After years defending the continued militarization of law enforcement agencies across the United States, Republican lawmakers appeared to have a change of heart Monday after learning the FBI executed a search at the Florida estate of former President Donald Trump. Faced with the possibility that the “good guys” aren’t necessarily on their side, prominent members of the party that made backing the blue a central tenet of its political platform began spouting rhetoric that belied their professed allegiance to the “rule of law.”

“The GOP majority must defund all forms of tyranny throughout Biden’s government,” prominent right-wing figurehead Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) wrote on Twitter, tagging the official FBI account. She later added: “Weaponizing the FBI to raid President Trump’s home makes Watergate look like nothing.” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), meanwhile, embraced the GOP’s favored doomsday approach. “We must destroy the FBI,” he tweeted. “We must save America.”

As the primary law enforcement agency of the United States government whose self-described mission is “to uphold the rule of law,” the Department of Justice and its associated agencies are essentially America’s police force. Any efforts to defund or dismantle these agencies would is akin to liberal activists’ calls to reduce or restructure funding for local police forces — a concept Trump regularly used as a scare tactic to push voters away from Democrats. Yet, as is to be expected, irony is an art that remains lost on the most fervent of right-wing Republicans.

Read more here: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ ... i-1394486/

caltrek’s comment: Proving the old adage, as modified by yours truly, that a conservative is a liberal who has gotten mugged, while a liberal is a conservative who has gotten arrested.

[wjfox]

[andmar74]

The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek.

Down with the orange bandit.

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-info ... re-1732283

[wjfox]

Trump is now under criminal investigation for potential violation of the Espionage Act. Possibly relating to classified nuclear documents. 

He's now doing his usual what-aboutism, accusing Obama of something similar and typing in BLOCK CAPS!!1. 

Trump says he declassified every document seized by the FBI. But the fact is, the President does not have this ability for documents that are classified by statute (like nuclear secrets and identification of intelligence operatives).

This is going to be very interesting. Could they FINALLY nail him? The violations carry up to 10 years in prison per document.