Saturday, October 10, 2020

 

Groups focused on abortion rights spend big amid SCOTUS fight

(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Since President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade looms larger. Barrett is not shy about her anti-abortion stance and signed an ad in 2006 that called the 1973 landmark decision “barbaric” and a “raw exercise of judicial power.” 

In fear or excitement, both the pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion groups have funneled money into this year’s elections. While more donations are yet to come, totals haven’t reached 2018 levels, when the confirmations of conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court were front of mind.

Through September, pro-abortion rights groups gave $4.5 million to candidates, party committees and outside groups, six times more than their anti-abortion counterparts. While the 2020 election cycle isn’t over, donation numbers from the 2018 midterm election were higher. Two years ago, pro-abortion rights groups advocates gave a record $8 million to candidates and groups. 

Those who support Roe v. Wade are using their money to help elect Democrats. Pro-abortion rights groups gave primarily to three Democratic nominees: $564,000 to Joe Biden, $77,000 to Maine’s Sara Gideon and $73,000 to Arizona’s Mark Kelly.

Biden has taken a strong pro-abortion rights stance in recent years, though he has swung back and forth on his the issue since 1973, when he entered the Senate and Roe was decided. In a town hall Monday, Biden said if Barrett was confirmed and Roe was overturned, “the only responsible response to that would be to pass legislation making Roe the law of the land.” His running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) echoed that sentiment in Wednesday’s vice presidential debate, saying, “I will always fight for a woman’s right to make a decision about her own body. It should be her decision and not that of Donald Trump and the vice president, Michael Pence.”

The pair are supported by pro-abortion rights committees such as EMILY’s List, which is dedicated to supporting pro-abortion rights women in office. The conduit PAC has spent $58 million so far this cycle and its affiliate group, Women Vote! has spent $24.2 million. Of that, $2.8 million went to supporting Biden, whereas almost $7 million was used against Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). Just last week, the super PAC joined other women-led groups to pledge $10 million in digital ads supporting Harris leading up to Wednesday’s debate. 

National women’s health organization Planned Parenthood has also backed pro-abortion rights candidates. Along with its affiliate super PACs in many states, Planned Parenthood has spent $6.1 million this cycle. In the presidential election, the group has spent $1.3 million against Trump and almost $1 million supporting Biden. 

It’s also released several six-figure digital ad campaigns this summer attacking vulnerable GOP senators. The group’s largest target this election are two women senators from opposite sides of the country. Planned Parenthood has spent $633,000 against Collins and $582,000 against Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.). Collins faces a tight race this year in part because of her views on abortion. Though the incumbent has said she supports abortion rights, Mainers protested her vote to confirm Justice Kavanaugh two years ago. McSally, on the other hand, is staunchly anti-abortion and has repeatedly voted to defund Planned Parenthood. 

The oldest abortion rights advocacy group in the U.S., NARAL Pro-Choice America, has spent $1.7 million thus far, mostly against Republicans. In April, the group launched a six-figure ad campaign titled Pro-Life Hypocrisy with videos saying pro-life Republican congressional members “want to put Americans at risk by ending social distancing.” It has particularly attacked McSally, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Ernst.

All three candidates are anti-abortion and support Barrett’s nomination. In January, Ernst signed an amicus brief petitioning the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade. Just last week, at a debate she said she is “proudly pro-life,” but added that even if Barrett is confirmed, she doesn’t think Roe v. Wade will be overturned. “I don’t see that happening,” she said.

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Anti-abortion groups push for Barrett confirmation

A 2019 study by the Pew Research Center found that 70 percent of U.S. adults oppose completely overturning Roe v. Wade, while 28 percent support overturning it. A CBS News poll this summer returned similar results. 

Those findings haven’t stopped anti-abortion groups, which donated $742,000 to candidates and groups this election. That is actually far less than previous cycles. Political contributions from anti-abortion groups have declined almost every cycle since 2012. 

Most of this year’s money came from the Susan B. Anthony List, which gave $83,000 to Republican candidates. The conservative PAC backed Trump and several incumbents in toss up elections, including Sen. Ernst, Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). 

Susan B. Anthony List and its partner super PAC, Women Speak Out PAC, are spending $500,000 in Iowa to re-elect Ernst. This week they put out phone, digital and text ads to inform voters of Barrett’s pro-life views and preserve the pro-life Senate majority. Last week, they released a video supporting Barrett, who would “give our pro-life country the court it deserves.” 

Although Women Speak Out said it has a $52 million budget this election cycle, the super PAC has spent only $4.7 million through October 2020. The super PAC heavily targeted candidates in Texas, North Carolina and Michigan. It spent almost $765,000 attacking five house Democrats in Texas: Candace Venezuela, Sri Kulkarni, Lizzie Fletcher, Colin Allred and Wendy Davis. 

The group has also used $1 million to support Trump and almost the same amount to attack Biden. Right before the Democratic National Convention in August, it released a video calling Biden and Harris “pro-abortion fanatics.”

Much like his oppnonent, Trump has also waivered on the issue of abortion rights. In 1999, he said “I am pro-choice in every respect,” a line used against him in attack ads just four years ago. In office, the president has reversed course and is eager to overturn Roe v. Wade. This January, Trump was the first sitting president to attend the March for Life, an annual rally protesting abortions and the Roe v. Wade decision. 

At Wednesday’s vice presidential debate, Pence said, “I couldn’t be more proud to serve as vice president to a president who stands without apology for the sanctity of human life. I’m pro-life, I don’t apologize for it.” 

Another anti-abortion group, Right to Life, has spent $377,000 this election helping Republicans. The group spent $177,000 backing Trump, $41,000 for Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and $35,000 for Michelle Fischbach, the Republican nominee in Minnesota’s 7th District. Over the summer, the group posted several ads on Facebook attacking Democrats in Congress for their pro-abortion rights views. Currently, they’re running an ad primarily targeting voters in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan. 

Whether or not Roe is overturned, state legislatures could pass laws designed to protect abortion rights much like those passed in 2019 in Illinois and New York. Just last Friday, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced a similar law, the Reproductive Freedom Act, which protects abortion rights in the Garden State. States could also pass laws in hopes of banning abortion during the first trimester. Alabama and Georgia legislatures have attempted to pass such laws, but the laws are still working their way through the court system and have been blocked from taking effect.

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365 Brothers Podcast Refutes Pence’s Dismissal of Racially Biased Policing


Black men interviewed from across the United States and from diverse occupations and socio-economic status detail incidents of racial profiling and harassment by law enforcement. The incidents are described in the 365 Brothers podcast, a show dedicated to the stories, wisdom and experiences of Black men.


LOS ANGELES (PRWEB) OCTOBER 10, 2020

The prevalence of racial bias in policing may be difficult to measure, but one podcast provides its audience an opportunity to discover just how widespread the practice of stopping Black men without cause is in the United States. Through interviews with Black men from across the nation and from diverse professions and life experiences, the 365 Brothers podcast paints a broad picture of racial profiling by police.

Las Vegas resident Therman Davis, a retired actuary, described being stopped while crossing in the middle of a street mid- morning with zero traffic in either direction. "An unmarked police car with an unmarked plain clothes policeman in the car...roared up to me like I'd just robbed a bank. He stops and he didn't get of the car. He says 'What the hell are you doing running around the middle of the streets boy?'" The officer harangued him for thirty-five minutes before driving off. No ticket was issued and the officer never exited his car.

From all parts of the nation, the stories of being stopped while Black chronicled on 365 Brothers creates a stark contrast to Vice President Mike Pence’s remark that “This presumption that…law enforcement has an implicit bias against minorities is a great insult to the men and women who serve in law enforcement.” While Mr. Pence denounced the killing of George Floyd in Wednesday’s Vice Presidential Debate, he expressed disbelief in the existence of widespread bias in policing or that it constitutes a type of structural racism.

“In episode after episode, the tales of implicit bias in policing are vividly told,” says host and executive producer, Rahbin Shyne. The listener gets related to each guest before hearing a recount of relevant interactions with law enforcement. “One quarter of the men interviewed report an incident in which a gun was drawn on them by one or more officers during a stop for a minor or non-existent infraction."

The podcast is about their lives, wisdom, loves and experiences, not just their interactions with law enforcement. The interviews are constructed around eleven questions which create an intimate, reflective ark. A favorite question is “If the United States was a woman, what would you say to her?” The message of the podcast is to showcase both the diversity of Black men's lives as well as the unfortunate commonality of having at least one racially-biased incident of intimidation by police.

Four officers approached comedian Papp Johnson as he walked from his car to his home after attending a late night comedy show. They approached him with guns drawn, asking what he was doing walking down the street at 3am. After pointing out that he was walking from where he parked to his home and enduring several minutes of questioning, he was allowed to continue home. Veterinarian Landon Collins summed up the impact of unwarranted police stops this way, "Even if you're not doing the wrong thing, or even if you're doing all the right things, there's still a chance of social injustice and you could be killed...That's the real scary part." When interviewed, Dr. Collins recalled an incident in which he was stopped while walking back from a convenience store during a late night study break while a veterinary school student. They were responding to a report of something stolen from the campus library. Dr. Collins is and was bald. They were looking for a man with dreadlocks. He was interrogated for fifteen minutes though he did not fit the description of the suspect.

To hear more of stories of Black men’s lives, including interactions with law enforcement subscribe to the 365 Brothers podcast. The podcast can be found in all the usual directories including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and at http://www.365brothers.com.
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“The woman in Michigan”: How Gretchen Whitmer became a target of right-wing hate

An alleged plot to kidnap the governor is part of a larger pattern of misogyny.

By Anna North  
Gretchen Whitmer, then a Michigan Democratic gubernatorial nominee, speaks with a reporter after a Democrat Unity Rally at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel August 8, 2018, in Detroit.
 Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Earlier this year, a man named Adam Fox recorded a video in which he called Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer a “tyrant bitch” for closing the state’s gyms.

Now, he and five other men known as the “Wolverine Watchmen” have been arrested on conspiracy charges, accused of plotting to kidnap the governor in retribution for her actions to limit the spread of Covid-19.

It’s an extreme, and frightening, version of the attacks Whitmer has experienced for months. Though leaders from New York City to London have seen protests and pushback against restrictions, Whitmer has been a particular target for right-wing protesters — and for President Trump, who dismissively referred to her as “the woman in Michigan” this spring before introducing the more colorful “Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer.”

Whitmer became a lightning rod for protesters in part because, as the governor of a hard-hit state, she instituted restrictions early. She’s also been highly visible in the media, especially when she was floated as a possible running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Indeed, it’s no accident that Whitmer is being called a tyrant and a bitch. The attacks on her feed into age-old stereotypes about women in power — stereotypes that are especially dangerous now as they undermine some of the very leaders who are trying to stop the spread of Covid and keep Americans safe.

Whitmer has been the subject of right-wing ire for months

The right-wing rage against Whitmer’s Covid restrictions started back in mid-March, when the governor said in a CNN interview that she had sought help from the federal government in obtaining PPE and testing equipment for her state — then the fourth hardest-hit in the country — but had not received it. Trump fired back on Fox News, saying, “I don’t know if she knows what’s going on, but all she does is sit there and blame the federal government.” Then, in a White House briefing on March 27, he claimed that he had instructed Vice President Mike Pence, then in charge of the country’s Covid response, not to call “the woman in Michigan.”

The same day, he called her “Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer” on Twitter.

Then, in April, Whitmer introduced new restrictions to battle the virus, including a requirement that large stores close off sections devoted to gardening supplies and furniture. Conservatives in the state said the restrictions felt arbitrary, and on April 15, some 3,000 protesters demonstrated in the state capital of Lansing in what they called “Operation Gridlock.”

The language of many protesters, however, went beyond mere opposition to restrictions on big-box stores. The messages took on misogynistic overtones, as demonstrators carried signs comparing Whitmer to “a tyrannical queen and an overbearing mother,” according to MLive. Some chanted “lock her up!” — Trump’s favorite rallying cry against Hillary Clinton.

Trump, meanwhile, cheered the protesters on, tweeting “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” on April 17. Perhaps not surprisingly, protests continued to escalate. On April 30, armed protesters, many not wearing masks, crowded into the state Capitol and tried to get access to the House floor, as Vox’s Katelyn Burns reported. Some chanted “lock her up” and “heil Whitmer.”

In May, the state had to close its Capitol and adjourn its legislative session due to a planned protest grimly titled “Judgment Day” as well as death threats against Whitmer.

And in the summer, according to an FBI affidavit released on Thursday, Fox and his associates began planning to kidnap the governor. In a video streamed to a private Facebook group on June 25, Fox referred to her as “this tyrant bitch” and “complained about the judicial system and the State of Michigan controlling the opening of gyms,” according to the affidavit.

On a July call recorded by the FBI, he discussed a plan to kidnap the governor when she was traveling to or from her vacation house or official summer residence.

“Snatch and grab, man,” Fox said, according to the affidavit. “Grab the fuckin’ Governor. Just grab the bitch.” The repetitive language might resonate uncomfortably for some Americans, who recall Trump’s boast on the Access Hollywood tape that he could grab women “by the pussy.”

After the kidnapping, Fox said he and others would take Whitmer to a secure location in Wisconsin for a “trial.”

Fox and five others were arrested this week, as Vox’s Andrew Prokop reports, before any plan could come to fruition. But the comments recorded in the affidavit were the culmination of a months-long pattern of attacks on Whitmer, fueled in part by the president, that cast her as a tyrannical leader illegitimately wielding power over Michigan citizens.

Trump even added fuel to the fire on Thursday night, saying in a rambling interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity, “I see Whitmer today, she’s complaining, but it was our Justice Department that arrested the people she was complaining about.”

“She goes and does her little political act, and she keeps her state closed,” Trump went on. “What she’s doing is a horrible thing to the people.”

The attacks on Whitmer are part of a longstanding pattern when it comes to women in power

Whitmer isn’t the only governor Trump has criticized — back in April, he also fired off “LIBERATE” tweets about Minnesota and Virginia, other states with Democratic leadership.

She’s also not the only public official to face pushback from lockdown skeptics. Indeed, Fox spoke at one point of the possibility that other states might overthrow their governors as well, according to the affidavit: “Everybody takes their tyrants.”

But Whitmer has received a degree of personal attention, both from the president and from opponents in her state, that her male counterparts haven’t necessarily experienced. That may be because, in addition to opposition to lockdown measures, she’s running up against the still widely held belief that any woman seeking or holding power is treasonous, underhanded, or illegitimate.

“She fucking goddamn loves the power she has right now,” Fox said at one point. “She has no checks and balances at all.”

It was reminiscent of complaints against other female leaders or candidates. For example, Fox News commentator Harlan Hill tweeted during the vice-presidential debate on Wednesday that Sen. Kamala Harris “comes off as such an insufferable lying bitch” (Fox News later said he would no longer appear on the network). Asked to comment on the tweet by Mediaite, he doubled down, saying, “I stand by the statement that she’s an insufferable power-hungry smug bitch.”

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, meanwhile, has received intense criticism for imposing restrictions in the face of Covid, including a lawsuit by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, that named her personally. In an interview earlier this year, Bottoms wondered whether she was singled out in part because she is a Black woman and the mayor of a majority Black city. “There were other cities in our state who instituted mask mandates and he did not push back against them,” Bottoms said. “I don’t know if it’s perhaps because they were led by men or if it’s perhaps because of the demographic in the city of Atlanta.”

Historically, female leaders and candidates around the world have often been portrayed as treacherous, two-faced, corrupt, or power-hungry — “willing to do anything at all costs to win,” as Farida Jalalzai, a political science professor who studies women leaders, put it to Vox in January. Indeed, women seeking any political power at all, even the right to vote, have faced stigma — as Vox’s Li Zhou reports, the use of the word “bitch” in literature began to increase after the passage of the 19th Amendment.

And now, women like Whitmer who attempt to use their power to get Covid under control may be running up against those stereotypes. That’s especially true since Trump and his supporters have repeatedly sent the message that the correct — and manly — thing to do is to ignore the virus, refuse a mask, and carry on as normal, regardless of whether you infect yourself or anyone else.

When women like Whitmer try to restrict people’s ability to spread a deadly virus, then, according to far-right protesters, they’re infringing on men’s freedom to be men.

Fox and his associates may be under arrest, but that messaging continues with Trump taking off his mask upon his return to the White House earlier this week and telling Whitmer she should be grateful that “our Justice Department” kept her from getting kidnapped.

As long as such rhetoric continues, it’s going to be hard for Whitmer and other female leaders to do their jobs — which may be exactly what Trump wants.


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This Supreme Court Term Will End With Either Catastrophe or 13 Justices (A COVEN)

If Amy Coney Barrett is seated before the election, Democrats will need to act quickly.

By DAHLIA LITHWICK and MARK JOSEPH STERN OCT 05, 2020

  
Fred Schilling/Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States/Getty Images

When Republicans gathered at the White House on Sept. 26 to celebrate the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, they placed themselves at the epicenter of a likely superspreader event. Several senators in attendance—in addition to the president, the first lady, Chris Christie, and multiple GOP operatives—reported COVID-19 infections in the following days. Trump remains hospitalized while key Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are in quarantine. Yet on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that he will move “full steam ahead” with confirmation hearings to install Barrett on the Supreme Court, even if that means endangering themselves and Senate staff. McConnell understands they’ll have to act fast to make it happen.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been slow to catch up. At the first debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Biden refused to say whether he’d expand the Supreme Court if Republicans confirm Barrett, insisting that the issue is a “distraction.” He’s wrong. Broaching the conversation about systemic reform after the election will be too late. And the coming Supreme Court term, which begins Monday, reflects just some of what’s at stake, this week, this month, and in the months ahead. The debate about structural changes to the court can’t wait until a hypothetical future in which everything has settled down. That future has already vanished.

On the docket just in the weeks to come, there is a blockbuster case that seeks to put a stake through the heart of the Affordable Care Act, in the midst of a pandemic—a challenge Barrett would seem to favor. Also on the docket is a case about a Philadelphia foster care agency that refuses to work with same-sex couples and claims that it constitutes religious discrimination if the city refuses to subsidize it with taxpayer dollars. In case that weren’t enough, the court may also hear a case that could strip same-sex couples of equal parenting rights. Moving from religion to guns, the court has been itching to expand the Second Amendment, and Barrett has made plain that she would go further than even most conservative judges to permit guns. The court will also hear a case that could kill off what’s left of the Voting Rights Act. Plus, there are multiple reproductive freedom cases hurtling toward the court, many from states that have already overruled Roe v. Wade in practice: outright abortion bans, sham regulations designed to shutter clinics, medically unnecessary restrictions on medication abortions. All that, plus an election in which the court may pick the next president and further restrict voting rights. And did we mention a census case that could strip congressional representation from states with large immigrant populations?

If a 6–3 conservative majority decides all these cases, they would swiftly transform American life and put millions in danger. By the end of this term, SCOTUS could revoke more than 20 million Americans’ health insurance and legalize odious discrimination against same-sex couples. It could not just greenlight abortion bans but allow states to prosecute women who terminate their pregnancies. It could abolish dozens of states’ gun safety laws, further flooding our communities with weapons of war. And as the cherry on top, the court could throw the election to Trump, then rubber-stamp his plan to manipulate the census to further entrench Republican power in Congress.

In the face of these impending calamities for democracy, Democrats have a binary choice. They can accept the legitimacy of a court whose membership has been yanked far to the right by Republicans’ anti-democratic schemes. Or they could add seats to the court and spare the country from the Sarlacc pit into which it’s poised to tumble.

Democrats are hesitant to talk about expanding the Supreme Court, preferring to focus on the fight against Amy Coney Barrett. But her confirmation now seems all but inevitable, and progressives are urging Democrats to start considering their counterattack. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that “nothing is off the table next year” if Republicans ram Barrett through the Senate, a vague gesture toward at least the possibility of court expansion. Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat, has disavowed it altogether. Joe Biden has tried to split the difference: He generally refuses to talk about court expansion but has implied that he opposes it—for now. “We need to deescalate, not escalate,” Biden said on Sept. 20. “That’s why I appeal to those few Senate Republicans, the handful who really will decide what happens.”


Because court expansion remains relatively unpopular among the American public, a cautious approach makes sense in this political moment. But in the longer term, it is a recipe for disaster. Say Democrats decide against expanding the court after Barrett’s confirmation, instead choosing to pass their progressive agenda and then wait a few years to see whether the new 6–3 conservative majority strikes it down. Due to the slow pace of litigation, the Supreme Court might not consider the constitutionality of Democratic measures until Republicans have retaken the Senate.

Consider the Affordable Care Act saga. The Supreme Court first ruled on the ACA’s constitutionality 27 months after it was signed into law. It came one vote away from invalidating the entire law. And while the justices let most of the law survive, they kneecapped its most crucial component, Medicaid expansion, by making it optional, a compromise that has cost thousands of lives. More than 10 years after the law’s passage, a dozen states still haven’t expanded Medicaid. Then, in 2016—six years after the ACA’s passage—the Supreme Court came two votes away from sending the law into a death spiral. Today, the court may yet again be on the brink of eradicating the entire act. Judicial time is glacial, yes, but it also means that—like light from a faraway star—what happens in the courts can take years to travel to Earth. But this isn’t starlight, it’s a meteor.


That means that even if Democrats win Congress and the White House, then pass ambitious laws, this cycle will play out over the next few years. Essentially all of their priorities are extremely vulnerable to invalidation at the hands of an ultra-conservative 6–3 court. The Democrats’ bill on ethics, voting rights, and redistricting reform would probably be strangled by this judiciary. Their attempt to grant statehood to the District of Columbia could founder on the shoals of a ridiculous constitutional theory. Any effort to expand the ACA would be suspect, as would efforts to limit carbon emissions. The leading plans to protect abortion rights if SCOTUS overturns Roe v. Wade would get eviscerated by the courts. After years of health care litigation, it is painfully clear that conservative justices will embrace frivolous legal arguments that the vast majority of lawyers find meritless to reach their preferred policy outcomes. This coming term, we will see the beginning of that, with a few strategic defections in a handful of cases, but a steady and marked trend toward clawing back Democrats’ efforts to protect the vote, protect the planet, and expand protections for workers and vulnerable communities. We will see a systematic effort to deregulate big businesses, constrain federal agencies, undo gun control, and loosen protections for women’s health. That is coming and it is coming sooner than you may think.

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If Democrats plan to expand the court, then, they have to do it quickly. They must strike before the conservative supermajority has a chance to undermine them. If they wait for sufficient provocation, give this a few years to play out in the judicial branch, they will simply see their agenda torn to shreds by the court two years later, after Republicans have wrestled back the Senate. Court expansion is not a hypothetical response to some future SCOTUS outrage. It is a proportional response to Republicans’ constitutional hardball—and a necessary precursor to any meaningful Democratic reform.

Is there a political cost to announcing that Democrats plan to play constitutional hardball, effective immediately, whether it be scaring off moderate voters or emboldening Mitch McConnell to implement these selfsame ideas if he still controls the Senate come January? Sure there is. But the cost of hanging around for a few years, hoping that statesmanship and comity rise like a phoenix from the ash heap of the Senate is far greater, the equivalent of bringing a sparkly pony to a knife fight. The court is already lost for a generation. Retaking the White House and the Senate in November will do nothing to solve that problem. Bold and big action on court reform on Day One of a new administration isn’t a fanciful hope. It may be the only lifeline that remains.


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