Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in an interview over the weekend that she will announce charging decisions in her investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election result by September 1.
Continue reading “Fulton County DA Says Charging Decision Will Come By Sept. 1 In Trump 2020 Probe”Schiff Says McCarthy Teased Biden Impeachment To Deal With The ‘Craziest’ Republicans In His Caucus
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said Sunday that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) remarks last week teasing an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is just part of his effort to deal with the “craziest” Republicans in his conference.
Continue reading “Schiff Says McCarthy Teased Biden Impeachment To Deal With The ‘Craziest’ Republicans In His Caucus”Doctors Emerge As Political Force In Battle Over Abortion Laws In Ohio And Elsewhere
This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
In her eight years as a pediatrician, Dr. Lauren Beene had always stayed out of politics. What happened at the Statehouse had little to do with the children she treated in her Cleveland practice. But after the Supreme Court struck down abortion protections, that all changed.
The first Monday after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling was emotional. Beene fielded a call from the mother of a 13-year-old patient. The mother was worried her child might need birth control in case she was the victim of a sexual assault. Beene also talked to a 16-year-old patient unsure about whether to continue her pregnancy. Time wasn’t on her side, Beene told the girl.
“What if it were too late to get her an abortion? What would they do? And I just, I felt sick to my stomach,” Beene said. “Nobody had ever asked me a question like that before.”
Beene felt she had to do something. She drafted a letter to a state lawmaker about the dangers of abortion bans, then another doctor reached out with an idea to get dozens of doctors to sign on. The effort took off. About 1,000 doctors signed that letter, and they later published it as a full-page ad in The Columbus Dispatch.
Beene felt momentum building within the medical community and decided to help use that energy to form the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights coalition. Now, Beene and the coalition are working to pass a citizen-led amendment to enshrine reproductive rights into the state constitution. The state’s six-week ban on abortion was blocked by a judge in October 2022.
The group is a part of an emerging political force: doctors on the front lines of the reproductive rights debate. In many states, the fight to protect reproductive rights is heating up as 14 states have outlawed abortion. Doctors who previously never mixed work with politics are jumping into the abortion debate by lobbying state lawmakers, campaigning, forming political action committees and trying to get reproductive rights protected by state law.
In Texas, at a two-day court hearing earlier this month , women who were denied abortion care testified they were harmed by the state’s abortion ban. Two Texas doctors, who are plaintiffs, took the stand to testify about the chilling effect they say the laws have had on them. Dr. Damla Karsan, a Houston obstetrician, said she had never testified in a court case before but felt compelled to participate in this one to advocate for her patients and colleagues.
“I feel like I’m being handicapped,” Karsan said, referring to the Texas abortion law. “I’m looking for clarity, a promise that I will not be persecuted for providing care with informed consent from patients that someone interprets is not worthy of the medical exception” that would permit a legal abortion.
Although doctors’ groups have formed on both sides of the issue, most of these groups oppose abortion bans, largely because doctors worry that abortion bans could put their patients’ health at risk. Doctors now find themselves risking criminal and civil penalties in some states if they act to help patients who are suffering.
The Ohio coalition, along with its partners, gathered signatures for months in order to put the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot. The group filed more than 700,000 signatures on its petition, nearly twice the minimum number needed. The amendment’s language would protect several aspects of reproductive medical care, not just abortion: misscarriage care, contraception and in vitro fertilization.
“We see all those areas being negatively impacted by the Dobbs decision,” Beene said. “So we felt that by establishing that fundamental right to reproductive freedom, we would be able to protect all of those issues.”
In Nebraska, doctors formed the Campaign for a Healthy Nebraska PAC, which raised money to target key races, according to the Flatwater Free Press. The group also worked to get the Nebraska Medical Association to publicly oppose abortion restrictions, the news organization reported.
The Good Trouble Coalition in Indiana also mobilized medical professionals to work with legislators on abortion laws.
States including Michigan and Vermont have also used citizen-led ballot initiatives to get reproductive protections included in their constitutions, efforts that were supported by voters. In Michigan, doctors created a committee to help campaign for the proposal. Beene said the Ohio coalition modeled its strategy on Michigan’s approach.
In at least one state, doctors have rallied for a measure that would have limited abortion access.
In Kansas, a coalition of 200 physicians, nurses and pharmacists publicly supported an amendment to remove the right to an abortion from the state constitution, according to the Kansas Reflector. Voters ultimately rejected the amendment, with 59% voting against the initiative.
Mary Ziegler, an abortion historian and a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said medical associations have been involved in the abortion debate before, but the organizing efforts are broader this time, with several doctors’ groups throwing their support behind ballot initiatives that protect reproductive rights and draw widespread public support.
“It’s not a trivial thing that it’s a ballot initiative, because one of the other things we’ve seen is that voters are with them,” Ziegler said. “Doctors who are afraid of alienating potential patients or colleagues are realizing that bans are not popular with most people. So the risk may be lower than people thought of taking a stand.”
Beene prepared for backlash when she and other Ohio physicians came out against abortion bans. But she didn’t expect that lawmakers would try to change the rules needed to pass a citizen-led amendment just months after the coalition started to collect signatures.
Lawmakers in May passed a controversial resolution to raise the threshold needed for an amendment to pass from a simple majority to 60%. Voters will decide whether to adopt the proposal, known as Issue 1, in an Aug. 8 special election.
The Republican-controlled Ohio legislature passed a law last year banning special elections, citing their low turnout and high costs, but state lawmakers scheduled this August’s election despite the ban. Republicans have signaled that this vote on Issue 1 was aimed at blocking the reproductive rights amendment.
Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, a nonpartisan voting rights organization, said the group is against Issue 1 because it would overturn more than 100 years of precedent in the state for how citizen-initiated amendments are passed.
“What they’re trying to do is to trick voters into voting our own rights away in a low-turnout August election,” Miller said. “Even voters who never miss an election are unaware that there is an August special election.”
It’s possible that only a single-digit sliver of the population will vote — records from the Ohio secretary of state’s office show the 2022 August primary election had 8% voter turnout.
If Issue 1 is adopted, the reproductive-rights amendment would require approval from 60% of voters to pass in November, which Beene said she believes is what lawmakers want.
“They’ve sunk to tremendous lows and they’re doing everything they can to try to stop us,” Beene said.
A Recommendation
I want to recommend you listen to this interview Josh Kovensky did with Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar. It’s very interesting stuff. We’re going to be doing more podcast interviews in addition to the weekly episode Kate Riga and I do. That weekly episode will continue with the same format. So I want to encourage you to check out all of these new episodes. But this is a recommendation especially about this episode. It gave me a lot of new insight into Vladimir Putin’s obsession both with the U.S. and with Ukraine and how the two intersect, long before the triangular relationship between these three countries became such a central feature of U.S. politics. Much of it I knew in a very general outline. But many details were knew to me, as was the discussion of Putin’s relationship with George W. Bush and how the collapse of Bush’s domestic support and eventual departure from the White House was a prelude to what came after. Really fascinating stuff.
If you subscribe to the podcast through whatever service you use it will be in your feed. If you don’t subscribe, please subscribe. And if podcasts aren’t your thing you can listen to it on the site right here.
Tuberville’s Blockade Of US Military Promotions Takes A Historic Tradition To A Radical New Level
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
As Congress prepares to head into its August 2023 break, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alabama, shows no signs of ending his five-month-long hold on military promotions for several hundred senior officers, namely generals and admirals.
Tuberville is blocking the Senate from considering their nominations because he opposes a Defense Department policy to reimburse travel expenses for military personnel who have to leave their states to get abortions or other reproductive care.
Continue reading “Tuberville’s Blockade Of US Military Promotions Takes A Historic Tradition To A Radical New Level”How The Soviets Stole Nuclear Secrets And Targeted Oppenheimer, The ‘Father Of The Atomic Bomb’
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
“Oppenheimer,” the epic new movie directed by Christopher Nolan, takes audiences into the mind and moral decisions of J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the team of brilliant scientists in Los Alamos, New Mexico, who built the world’s first atomic bomb. It’s not a documentary, but it gets the big historical moments and subjects right.
Continue reading “How The Soviets Stole Nuclear Secrets And Targeted Oppenheimer, The ‘Father Of The Atomic Bomb’”Alito Gets Softball WSJ Interview With Attorney On Key Tax Case Before SCOTUS
Justice Samuel Alito gave a softball interview published Friday to two WSJ writers, including one who is an attorney representing plaintiffs in a key case before the Supreme Court.
Continue reading “Alito Gets Softball WSJ Interview With Attorney On Key Tax Case Before SCOTUS”Age, the Blue Sky and That Enduring Question of ‘Is Joe Biden Too Old?’
We hear a lot about Joe Biden’s age. And it’s not just Republicans endlessly going to town with out of context videos or clips of Biden looking down momentarily. When I talk to civilians — by which I mean people not immersed in the daily scrum of news and politics and all the commitments that go with it — they often tell me something like, “I like Biden. But I am concerned about his age.”
So it’s an issue. It’s certainly an issue at the level of perception. And there’s simply zero question that Biden is a much older man that he was when he was Vice President. That’s true in the obvious chronological sense, as it is for all of us. But it’s true in a more specific one as well. Nancy Pelosi is two years older than Biden. You can see some signs of age in her face. Her skin is a bit more drawn. But overall she doesn’t seem much different to me than she did a decade ago. Age affects everyone differently. That’s literally life.
But you know what? Get over it.
Continue reading “Age, the Blue Sky and That Enduring Question of ‘Is Joe Biden Too Old?’”Tim Scott Condemns DeSantis’ New Black History Curriculum That Focuses On ‘Benefits’ Of Slavery
2024 presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) slammed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — who is also running for the White House — on Thursday over his state’s new Black history curriculum requiring students to be instructed on the “benefits” of slavery.
Continue reading “Tim Scott Condemns DeSantis’ New Black History Curriculum That Focuses On ‘Benefits’ Of Slavery”Disney’s Fight With DeSantis Is Great Entertainment, But The Company Is A Complicated Ally For Progressives
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
The battle between The Walt Disney Co. and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over LGBTQ rights and whether those rights should be acknowledged — let alone taught — in schools has spurred an unlikely alliance between progressives and one of the world’s biggest entertainment companies.
Progressive groups such as The Human Rights Campaign have welcomed Disney to their cause, while progressive columnists at The Daily Beast and MSNBC have cheered Disney’s recent lawsuit against DeSantis. The suit, filed in April 2023, alleges that DeSantis violated the company’s free speech rights by retaliating against Disney for opposing a Florida education law that would prevent teachers from instructing early grades on LGBTQ issues.
DeSantis has decried Disney as a “woke” company and sought to punish the media conglomerate by stripping the company of its powers to control development in and around Disney World in Orlando.
While joining forces with corporations to achieve political ends can be advantageous, given their tremendous resources, it also poses risks for progressives, who may suffer setbacks when their principles no longer align with corporate profits. Just look at how quickly Bud Light backed away from a transgender social media influencer promoting the beer when conservatives threatened boycotts and sales slipped. Before the backlash, a top marketing executive had said the brand needed to become more inclusive; afterward Bud Light said it would focus marketing on sports and music.
I am a professor of political science who studies corporate political rights and the role corporations play in the public square. Disney v. DeSantis raises questions of how advocates of free speech and democracy should approach a situation when a corporation joins their side.
Power to persuade
Business interests have long tried to influence public policy, even before the landmark Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC lifted restrictions on corporate spending on elections. Corporations spend billions of dollars each year to lobby Congress and billions more lobbying state legislators. They finance think tanks and foundations that promote their views and interests. They place “advertorials” in local newspapers’ op-ed pages.
Citizens United, decided in 2010, cemented corporations’ right to participate in politics. The high court ruled that political spending amounts to protected speech, and governments cannot infringe on corporations’ right to free speech by limiting the money companies can spend to influence voters through advertising and other means.
Progressives have blasted the decision for unleashing torrents of corporate cash that they say is corrupting the political system.
Ironically — at least for progressives — Disney’s lawsuit against DeSantis is based in part on Citizens United and the free speech rights it established for corporations. In the statement that caused trouble with DeSantis, Disney showed itself a reasonable partner for advocates of LGBTQ rights.
The statement went beyond just criticizing the legislation. Disney vowed to help overturn the law, which critics derided as “Don’t say gay.”
“Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts,” the company said in the statement. “We remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.”
Disney has since demonstrated its willingness to use its resources and power to take on DeSantis over the issue of LGBTQ rights, including filing the lawsuit, which centers on Disney’s advocacy against the Florida law. In May, Disney canceled a $1 billion office project in Orlando that would have brought an estimated 2,000 jobs to Florida.
These actions show the extraordinary resources that corporations can bring to bear in support of political causes, and progressives have welcomed these resources in advancing their issues. For example, many progressives supported Major League Baseball when it moved its 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta to protest Georgia’s restrictive voting laws and lauded two Atlanta-based companies, Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines, for their support of MLB.
Politics and profits
But progressives’ efforts to harness the powers of global companies come with risks.
Corporations’ loyalties tend to lie with profits and shareholders, and the political principles that companies embrace may get quickly discarded when profits are threatened. The Vanguard Group’s retreat from the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative to reduce carbon emissions when it felt pressure from investors reveals this vulnerability.
Political alliances, of course, can shift as circumstances change. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, branded candidate Donald Trump as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” in 2015 but became one of the former president’s staunchest supporters following Trump’s election in 2016.
Corporations are not unlike other players in the political sphere. As the previous examples show, most groups or people — whether businesses, advocates or political leaders — will pursue their own interests and adjust their positions to achieve them.
But because corporations are market-oriented, they can be even more inconsistent allies than is usually the case with politicians, parties and interest groups.
Target Corp., for example, altered some displays and merchandise promoting Pride month — the annual celebration of the LGBTQ community — after a backlash from some customers.
The graver danger comes if corporations take actions or positions inimical to those of their allies and turn corporate power and resources to positions contrary to the groups with which they are momentarily aligned. Thus, conservatives were staggered to learn that Chick-fil-A, a reliable supporter of conservative causes, hired a vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion. They even threatened to boycott the fast-food restaurant chain.
Progressives would be naive to reject the power and influence of corporations when their interests intersect, as they have in Disney v. DeSantis. They would be just as naive to assume that corporations would consistently support a cause or treat employees, customers or the communities in which they operate with fairness because of laudable positions on public policies.
Corporate interests — including profits, share prices, customer bases and employee relations — are the primary drivers of business decisions, not a commitment to the range of progressive issues from racial diversity to LGBTQ rights to climate change that critics deride as “wokeness.” So, while DeSantis and other conservatives may sound alarms about Disney and the rise of the “woke” corporation, in reality there may be no such thing.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
