U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

First Lady Jill Biden makes unannounced visit to Ukraine



(Reuters) -U.S. first lady Jill Biden made an unannounced trip to Ukraine on Sunday to show support for its people amid Russia's invasion, visiting a school that is serving as a temporary shelter and meeting Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska.

"I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine," Biden said, according to a report by a Washington Post reporter shared with other media organizations.

The school is serving as a shelter for 163 displaced Ukrainians, including 47 children, the report said.

Biden, who had been traveling in neighboring Slovakia, gave flowers to Zelenska, who was making her first public appearance since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, according to a U.S. official. The two women hugged.

Zelenska said Biden was courageous for making the trip.

"We understand what it takes for the U.S. first lady to come here during a war when the military actions are taking place every day, where the air sirens are happening every day even today," she said through an interpreter, according to the report.

"We all feel your support and we all feel the leadership of the U.S. president, but we would like to note that the Mother's Day is a very symbolic day for us because we also feel your love and support during such an important day."

U.S. President Joe Biden has been leading efforts to impose economic sanctions on Russia and pressure President Vladimir Putin to end the war. The U.S. president has not been to Ukraine since the invasion, but other top U.S. officials have: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Kiev in the last two weeks.

Jill Biden returned to Slovakia after her trip across the border.



© Reuters

[Rick Plant]

These 4 liars lied about their real stance on Roe during their confirmation hearing to get on the Supreme Court. If they revealed their true intentions they never would have been confirmed. All 4 lied under oath and they need to be impeached.   

[Rick Plant]

Texas Republicans say if Roe falls, they’ll focus on adoptions and preventing women from seeking abortions elsewhere

State leaders say expanding a social safety net for children and prosecuting abortion funders are among their priorities. “We’ll continue to do our best to make abortion not just outlawed, but unthinkable,” said state Rep. Briscoe Cain.



During their 20 years in control of the Texas Legislature, Republican lawmakers have steadfastly worked to chip away at abortion access.

Bound by the limits of Roe v. Wade, which stopped them from enacting an outright ban on the procedure, lawmakers got creative. They required abortion clinics to have wide hallways and deputized private citizens to sue providers in an effort to shut down facilities that offer the procedure.

Future lawmaking on the topic will likely not require such ingenuity. A leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion, published last week by Politico, suggests the court will reverse the landmark abortion ruling in the coming weeks, allowing states to regulate abortion as they see fit. Texas has a “trigger law” that would make performing an abortion a felony, which would go into effect 30 days after the Supreme Court overturns Roe.

Their decadeslong goal achieved, Republican lawmakers said there’s still work to be done. Texas GOP leaders and members of the Legislature said it is now time to turn their attention to strengthening the social safety net for women and children and investing in foster care and adoption services.

“It only makes sense,” said Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands. “The dog’s caught the car now.”

At least some of the more conservative members of the House said they also want to ensure strict enforcement of the abortion ban and to prevent pregnant Texans from seeking legal abortions in other states.

“I think I can speak for myself and other colleagues that align with my policy beliefs — we’ll continue to do our best to make abortion not just outlawed, but unthinkable,” said Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus.

Texas already has an arsenal of statutes to punish virtually anyone involved in the procurement of an abortion, said University of Texas at Austin law professor Liz Sepper. These include last year’s Senate Bill 8, which empowers private citizens to sue anyone who “abets” an abortion after six weeks of gestational age, as well as unenforced pre-Roe abortion statutes criminalizing a person who gets the procedure, which the Legislature never repealed — some dating to the 1850s.

“If Roe is overturned, there’s already a criminal ban, there’s already an aiding and abetting ban, there’s already a ban on mailing medication abortion,” Sepper said. “In terms of law’s ability to change behavior, they’ve almost filled all the gaps — with the exception of criminalizing the pregnant person involved in an abortion.”

Cain said he has a particular interest in going after abortion funds, which seek contributions from donors to help defray the cost of out-of-state trips for pregnant Texans to receive the procedure, citing a state law that prohibits “furnishing the means for procuring an abortion.”

In a March letter to one such group, the Lilith Fund, Cain threatened to file a bill in the coming legislative session that would empower district attorneys to prosecute abortion-related crimes across the state even when local authorities refuse to do so.

Attempts to prohibit individuals from contributing to abortion funds would likely violate the First Amendment’s protections on free speech, said South Texas College of Law Professor Charles “Rocky” Rhodes.

“Helping people go get abortions is going to be one of these difficult questions that’s going to arise in a post-Roe world if a legislature tries to criminalize the ability of a pregnant person to get an abortion someplace where it’s legal,” Rhodes said.

Cain said he is in discussions with fellow Republicans about other abortion-related legislative priorities but that it is premature to discuss them. The next legislative session is scheduled to begin in January.

Texas Democrats, who are vastly outnumbered at the Legislature, characterized the leaked opinion as “bleak” but said they would not stop fighting for access to abortion.

“This will only power our fight to codify the right to abortion at the federal level,” Hannah Roe Beck, the Texas Democratic Party’s co-executive director, said in a news release. “It’s more important than ever that we elect leaders who are ready to put everything on the line to get this through Congress. We cannot tolerate anything less.”

An effort in Congress to do this, however, failed to pass the Senate in February. Another vote scheduled for this week is also expected to fail.

Austin state Rep. Donna Howard spoke of expanding the safety net in terms of pregnant Texans who still will be seeking abortions.

“How do we provide enough health care to those who we are going to be forcing to have pregnancies and carry them to term?” Howard said. “It’s more going to be a focus, I think, on that now, if there’s a way to look at how people can access medication abortion that is a way to get around the law.”

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a staunchly conservative Republican, said in a statement Tuesday that the Legislature would continue to strengthen adoption programs in the state.

"Texas has led the way to protect innocent life in the womb, and we will continue to do so moving forward in the Texas Senate,” Patrick said.

Gov. Greg Abbott did not respond to questions from The Texas Tribune about abortion-related legislative priorities for the coming session in January. House Speaker Dade Phelan said in a statement that he was confident the Legislature would “rise to the occasion and redouble our commitment to maternal health care in our state.”

State Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, the author of SB 8, did not respond. He posted on Twitter on Thursday that Texas would “lead the way in a post-Roe world.”

Republicans have good reason to avoid discussing enforcing Texas’ pre-Roe laws, said Renée Cross of the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston: A full abortion ban is broadly unpopular with voters.

Just 15% of respondents in a University of Texas at Austin poll released this week said they support prohibiting all abortions. More troubling for Abbott’s reelection bid this year, Cross said, is the fact that a majority of independents said they believe abortion should be available in most circumstances.

“The Republican Party has been able to rely often on independent voters, but not on this issue,” Cross said. “We saw some Republican voters, particularly suburban women, not vote for President Trump in 2020. A lot of those women will probably think twice about voting for Gov. Abbott.”

Other Republican lawmakers spoke about pitching nonpunitive measures in the upcoming legislative session. Toth said if abortion is outlawed in the state, Republicans in the statehouse will focus on expanding social programs to help pregnant women and their children.

“Now more than ever, the pro-life community and legislators need to step up and make sure we help out women in a crisis pregnancy,” he said. “It means prenatal care, helping them stay in school. It means making sure that we help women once the baby is born, it means adoption services.”

Toth said the expansion of safety net programs would be a “moral response” to the outlawing of abortion in the state. Such an expansion would require an increase in state funding for adoption services, foster care and welfare programs, which Republicans have been hesitant to support in the past. But Toth, a member of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he believes GOP lawmakers would now support the increased funding.

Joe Pojman, executive director of the anti-abortion group Texas Alliance for Life, said he would also support an increase in funding for the Alternative to Abortions program, which the Legislature funded with $100 million this two-year budget cycle. The program pays a far-flung network of nonprofits — many of them ardently anti-abortion — for counseling, classes on prenatal nutrition and newborn care, and the provision of baby items.

But Pojman says lawmakers need to better promote the program so more pregnant people have access to it.

“We have to now work really hard to help these new moms and these new babies,” Capriglione said. “I’m going to be pushing for it.”

But Republicans are also preparing for a protracted fight with Democrats in Congress who will be reenergized to push for access to abortion at the federal level.

“This is not going to go away,” Toth said. “Nothing really changes.”

Rhodes, the South Texas law professor, said the potential overturning of Roe could also weaken federal protections ensuring access to contraceptives. He said states could consider reclassifying emergency contraception such as Plan B, the pill that prevents pregnancy by the delaying the release of an egg from the ovary, as forms of abortion.

“It’s pretty wide open, with how creative our Legislature has been lately, for creating additional restrictions on our reproductive freedoms,” Rhodes said.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/09/texas-republicans-roe-wade-abortion-adoptions/

[Rick Plant]

Two more major law enforcement groups endorse Biden pick for ATF

The ATF hasn't had a Senate-confirmed director in more than six years.



President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has received the endorsement of two more major law enforcement groups, according to two letters obtained by ABC News.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the world's largest group for police leaders, and the Women in Federal Law Enforcement Foundation (WIFLE), offered their support of Biden's nominee, former U.S. attorney Steve Dettelbach, in letters to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

"Dettelbach's years of experience as a United States Attorney have provided him the opportunity to work closely with law enforcement agencies and gain a unique understanding of the challenges and complexities agencies face in combating firearms violence, gang-related crime, and other threats to our communities," IACP President Chief Dwight Henninger said in the association's letter.

"We believe that Mr. Dettelbach’s experience, expertise, and record of success are evidence of his outstanding qualifications to serve as the next Director of the ATF."

WIFLE's President Catherine Sanz similarly praised Dettelbach's previous experience as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, where he served for seven years under the Obama Administration.

"He has used innovative anti-violence approaches and partnerships focusing on crime prevention as well as data driven approaches to target criminal organizations and violent offenders," Sanz said. "He also engages with the communities to create a more coordinated and inclusive approach to law enforcement."

In recent weeks, an increasing number of national law enforcement groups have thrown their support behind Dettelbach, who the White House hopes will become ATF's first Senate-confirmed director in more than six years.

David Chipman, who served 25 years as an ATF agent before later becoming a vocal gun control advocate and senior policy advisor for the Giffords Foundation, was forced to withdraw his nomination last September following a major campaign opposing his nomination from gun groups like the National Rifle Association.

In addition to unanimous opposition from Republicans in the Senate, several moderate Democrats, in addition to independent Sen. Angus King, withheld announcing their support for Chipman's nomination.

While WIFLE endorsed both Dettelbach's nomination as well as Chipman's, IACP was among several law enforcement groups that had notably withheld announcing their support for Chipman.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/major-law-enforcement-groups-endorse-biden-pick-atf/story?id=84552536

[Rick Plant]

'Pass the damn bill:’ Biden demands chips legislation to counter China tech rise

President Biden urged Congress to swiftly pass the Bipartisan Innovation Act, a multibillion dollar investment in the U.S. semiconductor industry.

“Pass the damn bill and send it to me,” Biden said. “If we do, it’s going to help bring down prices, bring home jobs and power America’s manufacturing comeback.”

The president stressed the bill appeals to American lawmakers because it seeks to bolster U.S. technology and innovation and keep pace with China.



President Joe Biden on Friday demanded Congress swiftly pass the Bipartisan Innovation Act, a multibillion-dollar investment in the U.S. semiconductor industry that both Republican and Democrat say will help insulate the country from future supply chain disruptions in Asia.

Biden spoke at United Performance Metals, a metal manufacturer near Cincinnati. Sens. Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman, a Democrat and Republican, respectively, from Ohio, joined the president.

Biden applauded the two men for their collaboration on the legislation as part of the broader bipartisan effort to bulk up domestic manufacturing.

“This is a bipartisan bill,” Biden told workers at the plant. “Senators Brown and Portman are working hard to get it done.”

“Pass the damn bill and send it to me,” the president continued. “If we do, it’s going to help bring down prices, bring home jobs and power America’s manufacturing comeback.”

While the Bipartisan Innovation Act is popular with members of both parties, House and Senate lawmakers are about to begin work on rectifying differences in their two legislative versions. Negotiators for both chambers, including Brown, will hold their first formal meeting on the bill on Thursday, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Among its many provisions, the Bipartisan Innovation Act includes $52 billion in government subsidies to ramp up U.S. semiconductor production.

Biden said Friday that the sum will encourage semiconductor companies to build facilities in the U.S. and help prevent the types of chip shortages that currently undermine the automotive and electronics industries.

But the president stressed the thrust of the bill appeals to American lawmakers because it seeks to bolster U.S. technology and innovation and keep pace with China, a key geopolitical rival.

It’s going to help “strengthen our economic and national security,” Biden said. “It’s no wonder the Chinese Communist Party is literally lobbying — paying lobbyists — against this bill passing.”

In his remarks, Biden highlighted the Labor Department’s April employment report, which showed U.S. employers added 428,000 jobs last month.

The April report was the 12th straight month of gains over 400,000.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/06/biden-demands-congress-pass-chips-innovation-bill-to-counter-china.html

[Rick Plant]

Psaki delivers strong warning on Republicans working to enact total ban on abortion and contraception



White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki delivered a lengthy and detailed statement when asked about the impending Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade and Republicans’ war on both abortion and contraception.

“I think we’re at serious risk,” Psaki told a reporter asking about Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s threat to enact a nationwide ban on abortion.

“As you noted Mitch McConnell and other Republicans in Congress are talking about a national ban on a woman’s right to choose,” she continued, noting “dozens and dozens of Republicans in Congress signed on to the Mississippi court case and advocating for severe restrictions on a woman’s right to choose, and a woman’s right to make choices about her own body.

“And we’ve seen in other places in the country,” she added, pointing to the Governor of Mississippi’s refusal to state “whether they would directly go after the right to use contraception.”

“So as the President has said, over the course of the last nearly week, his concern is about yes, a woman’s right to make choices about her own health care, about what this final [Supreme Court] opinion could be. It’s also about what choices could be made that go beyond that. I’d also note that Louisiana legislators advanced a bill to classify abortion as homicide which would allow women to terminate their pregnancies to be charged with murder and potentially criminalized in vitro fertilization and forms of birth control. So in some ways, yes, you’re seeing an outcry by the nearly two thirds of the public and many of them peacefully protesting, who are concerned about what this opinion will say, but you’re also seeing a number of Republicans in states and some in Congress double down on this potential to overturn a law that has been the law of the land for 50 years.”

Responding to a different question Psaki warned, “when we’re talking about Roe, Roe has been the precedent for a number of other laws passed by the Supreme Court that impacts people’s fundamental lives, their basic rights, their freedoms, their privacy and their protections, including if you look back Griswold v. Connecticut, Eisenstaedt v. Baird, which ensured the right to use contraception was protected. That is law now, but we are clear-eyed about this being a precedent for that and what could come next. Obergefell v. Hodges, which protects the right to marry. Lawrence v. Texas, which stops government from preventing sexual relationships between consenting adults. For 50 years Roe has been the basis for a number of these decisions that have have impacted and change people’s lives, in our view for the better.”

CSPAN @CSPAN

Q: "How at risk does the administration believe the U.S. is to completely outlawing abortion?"

@PressSec Jen Psaki: "I think we're at serious risk."

https://twitter.com/i/status/1523755086421372928

[Rick Plant]

Republicans admit they're trying to destroy Madison Cawthorn: 'Get this guy out'



Democrats hoping to see Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R) ousted from his seat representing North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives after just one term are getting an able assist from some unlikely allies -- Republicans and former friends of the controversial lawmaker back in his home state.

According to a report from the Daily Beast's Sam Brodey and Roger Sollenberger, Republicans and conservatives in North Carolina -- with the support of outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) -- are openly boasting that they want him gone and are connected to leaks of embarrassing photos and videos of Cawthorn that have reportedly even disgusted former president Donald Trump, who has nonetheless endorsed him.

As the report notes, Republicans tolerated Cawthorn's antics -- much like they have turned a blind eye to Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) -- until he stated in a podcast that conservatives in Washington D.C. engage in drug-fueled orgies and, since that time, he has been on the receiving end of embarrassing disclosures.

Some of the disclosures, the report notes, have reportedly come from former friends and allies in North Carolina who have soured on him.

Labeling the flood of embarrassing disclosures an "ever-worsening public relations trainwreck," as the May 17th primary approaches, the Beast report argues that "the sources of the coordinated stories seem clear: the attacks are coming from inside the house."

One longtime GOP operative in the state admitted, "It’s definitely a hit job that I’m happy to be a party to. Most of the GOP universe has come around to align against this guy. You’re seeing a full-court, state-based, establishment pushback against him. Get this guy out. Take him out. We’re gonna see if we can pull it off in eight days.”

According to the Beast, "... the reality is Cawthorn has spent the last year making enemies, from Capitol Hill to the corner of North Carolina that he represents. The congressman’s string of unforced errors -- from the coke-and-orgy comments to disparaging Ukraine’s president as a 'thug' -- merely helped to consolidate a powerful coalition of longtime foes and former friends."

David Wheeler, a North Carolina Democrat who runs the Fire Madison PAC, stated he and his partner have been happy to be the conduit for the attacks by Republicans on Cawthorn.

“Obviously, we have a target, we’re not afraid to take him on and put out the information his opponents wouldn’t—or the Democrats wouldn’t," he said with the Beast report adding, "That included a video last week, released with many disclaimers and caveats, showing a naked Cawthorn mounting another man in bed... seemingly as a joke, but bizarre nonetheless. Cawthorn did not deny the video was authentic, but he dismissed it as horseplay, and said his foes were trying to 'blackmail' him by publishing it."

"People think we’re under Kevin McCarthy’s finger, and that he’s telling us what to do because he wants to get back at Madison,” Wheeler claimed. "It’s not folks out of Washington that are sending this stuff. It’s folks who used to work with him, who were his supporters.”

You can read more here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-relentless-campaign-to-ruin-madison-cawthorn?ref=home