Good news for the federal government as it mulls plans for a big economic stimulus:
@AOC
has already sketched out a massive jobs program to fight climate change. A year later, she talks about what it would take to implement a Green New Deal
“Exit polls indicate Laxalt was right to worried: Abortion was, by far, the most motivating issue for Democrats who came out to support Cortez Masto: 89 percent reported that it was the most important issue to them.“
Today, a Travis County judge tearfully granted Kate Cox permission to obtain emergency abortion — and Ken Paxton immediately threatened the three hospitals where her doctor has admitting privileges:
I spoke with
@staceyabrams
yesterday about why she would have ordered Georgia to be shut down, why Kelly Loeffler should resign, and how politicians like Brian Kemp are trying to use this crisis to disenfranchise voters:
Reality Winner got her ankle monitor off yesterday. In an interview, she blasted the Intercept's handling of her case and accused First Look of falling behind on legal bills (a claim they deny)
I talked with
@ewarren
about country music, growing up poor, pressure to get married, her republican brothers, working with Obama, battling Joe Biden and more for January’s
@RollingStone
:
"Anyone who thought he’d be a strong candidate clearly just hadn’t seen enough of him. Now we all have. Ron DeSantis comes off as a dangerous, extremist Dwight Schrute."
As GOP lawmakers push increasingly aggressive bans at the state level, internal polling done by ‘24 GOP candidates shows abortion is not even among the TOP FIVE issues to Republican voters…
New from
@swin24
& me
Nowhere in the country has embraced the fetal personhood movement like Alabama, where today women are feeling in the fallout in everything from IVF access to miscarriage management to pregnancy criminalization:
Remember the guy suing his ex's bffs for $1 million for allegedly helping her obtain an abortion? According to a new filing, he allegedly promised to drop the lawsuit if she'd have sex with him:
The guy who bought is the same guy who squatted on in 2016. He sold it to a Trump-affiliated marketer for $15k, after Clinton campaign only offered $2k. (
@jeremypgreen
, who appears to have deactivated.)
Today in Texas, you can't get birth control without your parents' permission. You can't get an abortion after 6 weeks. And 60% of rural Texas hospitals will no longer deliver babies.
would you say it feels like... being pushed from behind into a bedroom by two assailants who locked the door behind them and turned up the music to drown out your cries for help?
"I feel ambushed" -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R), visibly outraged, tells reporters as he ticks through a series of process grievances with Senate Democrats.
Imagine being the NYT photo editor calling a freelancer for this assignment: "Well, he's a sour character who lives atop of a remote ridge, and he just shot someone who drove up his driveway... Anyway, we're going to need a pic of the house."
I personally would much rather live in a world where the cat litter was a nice gesture to furries, rather than the reality, where its there in case kids need to defecate while barricaded inside a classroom for hours because there is an active shooter on campus.
Cat litter was handed out in Columbine's school district for active shooter situations five years ago.
Since then, the "litter boxes in schools" rumor has evolved into a way to mock LGBTQ youth.
It's now being used as a culture war ammo by over 20 GOP politicians nationwide.
An 889-page document details the GOP's plans if they win the White House in 2025:
- revoke FDA approval for mifepristone
- revive DOJ enforcement of the Comstock Act (a de facto federal abortion ban)
- use the CDC for "abortion surveillance"
On the 11th anniversary of her shooting, and one year after January 6th, the former congresswoman reflects on the consequences of letting violent rhetoric go unchecked:
Anti-abortion orgs think women are just going to forget what the GOP is doing. “The last election [was] the high watermark for the side in favor of abortion bc they were angry, and anger is a big motivator… It doesn’t get better for them. They can’t keep up the anger forever.”
Here's a story I wrote about the small team of (mostly) women who crafted the plan to destroy 1,200 tons of Assad's sarin, VX and mustard reserves on a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.
This was the last story I did before going on maternity leave. (I actually went into labor while we were closing it!) It was a treat to write about these women, including two new moms who hammered out some of the particulars in the agency's lactation room.
An account associated with GOP Leader Matt Hall’s personal email appears to have gambled $73,000 in in a span of just 33 days in 2018 before he led the charge to legalize sports betting in Michigan
In 2006, when Biden was still saying he did not believe abortion was "a choice and a right," Tim Walz won a deep red district running as a vocal supporter of abortion rights
Mike Johnson has railed against "abortion as a form of birth control" but it turns out he's not big on *birth control* as a form of birth control, either:
Georgia State’s basketball arena is packed to the rafters for Kamala Harris. Totally at capacity, fire marshal won’t let anyone else in. Ton of folks watching the Jumbotron from the sidewalk.
In the new filing, the woman's lawyers call the lawsuit an effort “to intimidate, harass, control, and traumatize [his ex-wife]—and force her to sleep with him.”
Harris acknowledged Trump’s unhinged
@NABJ
rant in Houston this evening: “We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us — they are an essential source of our strength.”
EXCLUSIVE: A rogue Trump judge is in position to ban an abortion pill. Democrat Ron Wyden says President Biden can, and should, protect access for millions of women — even if that means breaking the law.
The results out of Kansas are a relief but they shouldn't feel like a surprise. 6 in 10 Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Returns in Kansas right now? 66% of voters opposed restricting abortion, 34% support
BREAKING: New
@NRA
President Carolyn Meadows says Rep. Lucy McBath was elected because she's Black. "...it's wrong to say the reason she won was because of her anti-gun stance. ...it had to do with being a minority female."
I wrote about Raphael Warnock, how he became pastor at MLK's church and how he could become the first black Georgian elected to statewide office — despite the explicitly racist design of runoff elections like this one:
Marianne Williamson is still running for president, but last month she quietly launched "The Williamson Institute," asking fans to pay for access to blogposts, podcasts, book recommendations and more:
Delighted that
@TexasGOP
gave me a reason to dig up my old interview with
@BetoORourke
about his band Foss, and the time Feist traded her brother's lockpick for a ticket to their show!
Shortly after we closed this piece for the June issue Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia became the first ICE detainee to die from complications of COVID-19.
After reporting it, I'm worried his will be the first of many unnecessary and avoidable deaths:
there are... a couple other things going on this morning, but I interviewed Nancy Pelosi a few weeks ago! I'll have more to say about it later, but for now, please enjoy this charming story about Appropriations chair Nita Lowey's first concert
That's Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth with his former aide Cole Wagner (on the far right, blue jacket) who was arrested last week on charges of child sex abuse:
I am proud of my staff and their hard work serving the people of Alabama. We survived the legislative session and were happy to welcome Charlsi Lee to our staff this morning. We look forward to getting back to work making our state better and appreciate the opportunity to do so.
One thing that didn't really hit me yesterday is that this New Hampshire law bans abortion at 15 days gestation — that's not just before some women *know* they're pregnant. It's before some have even conceived!
NEW:
@ejdickson
and I wrote about Phexxi, a new non-hormonal birth control that some women have reported getting pregnant on.
As one of them put it: "Like putting lemon juice in your vagina and hoping for the best"
Pete, known for mercilessly ripping apart books that don’t impress him, was so engrossed in
@annamerlan
’s REPUBLIC OF LIES that he ignored me for hours. It’s out April 16, but you can pre-order on Indiebound!
I spoke to dozens of people at Kennedy's rally. Most were ex-Dems, many had voted for Biden. The sole Trump supporter I found said he liked RFK better than some GOP candidates, but “If they threw [Trump] in jail, I’d probably still vote for him.”