Leaked Audio: GOP Candidate Says 

She Doubts Rape Victims Get Pregnant

Dan Ladden-Hall

Mon, June 27, 2022 

Nathan Howard/Getty

A female Republican congressional candidate claimed on the campaign trail in Virginia last month that rape victims are less likely to become pregnant because “it’s not something that’s happening organically.”

Yesli Vega made the eyebrow-raising comments while being asked for her thoughts on what then promised to be a Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the federal right to abortion.

An audio recording of the remarks, which took place at an event in Stafford County, was published by Axios on Monday. Vega—who is Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s rival for Congress in the Virginia’s liberal-leaning 7th District—said she was drawing on her experience as a Prince William County supervisor and a sheriff’s deputy after affirming her belief for state-level restrictions on abortion.

“The left will say, ‘Well what about in cases of rape or incest?’” Vega can be heard telling an unidentified interlocutor in the clip. “I’m a law-enforcement officer. I became a police officer in 2011. I’ve worked one case where as a result of a rape, the young woman became pregnant.”

Arkansas Guv Brushes Off Rape and Incest Exceptions to Abortion Ban

Vega was also asked at the event if she had heard that it’s “harder for a woman to get pregnant if she’s been raped.”

“Well, maybe because there’s so much going on in the body,” Vega answered. “I don’t know. I haven’t, you know, seen any studies. But if I’m processing what you’re saying, it wouldn’t surprise me. Because it’s not something that’s happening organically. You’re forcing it. The individual, the male, is doing it as quickly—it’s not like, you know—and so I can see why there is truth to that. It’s unfortunate.”

When Axios asked Vega to comment on the remarks, she wrote in a statement: “I’m a mother of two, I’m fully aware of how women get pregnant.” Her campaign didn’t deny the authenticity of the audio.

Vega played up her law-enforcement credentials during her GOP primary race, which she won last week. She has been outspoken in her opposition to Roe and received endorsement from Republican heavyweights, including Sen. Ted Cruz and Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who concurred with the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday.

Vega’s rape comments echo the infamous comments made by former Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, whose 2012 Senate race imploded when he asserted that victims of what he termed “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant. “The female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Akin, who died last year, said in an interview during the race.

According to the CDC, almost three million women in the U.S. have experienced rape-related pregnancy during their lifetime. Cases of abortion from rape are rare, however, accounting for around 1 percent of all abortions in America, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights research group.

AOC recalls thanking God she had the choice to get an abortion when she took a pregnancy test after being raped

Yelena Dzhanova

Sun, June 26, 2022 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a news conference at the US Capitol on December 8.Alex Wong/Getty Images

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she felt grateful she could've had an abortion after being raped.

• The lawmaker told the story of her sexual assault Friday at a protest Friday in New York City.

• "Thank God I have, at least, a choice," she recalled thinking during a pregnancy test.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday shared a personal sexual-assault story during an abortion-rights rally, saying she felt grateful she had the freedom to obtain an abortion if she needed one in that moment.

"I myself, when I was about 22 or 23 years old, was raped while I was living here in New York City," she told a crowd in New York's City Union Square Park. "I was completely alone. I felt completely alone. In fact, I felt so alone that I had to take a pregnancy test in a public bathroom in midtown Manhattan."

"When I sat there waiting for what the result would be, all I could think was thank God I have, at least, a choice," she continued. "Thank God I could, at least, have the freedom to choose my destiny."

She added: "I didn't know then, as I was waiting, that it would come up negative."

"But it doesn't matter," she said. "It doesn't matter and that this is for all of us. This is not a women's rights issue. This is an issue for all of us."

Ocasio-Cortez gave the remarks the same day the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion a constitutional right in the US.

While abortion opponents rejoiced, the decision has sparked protests nationwide, and a slew of prominent people including the musician Jack White as well as lawmakers such as Ocasio-Cortez have blasted the decision. The Justice Department condemned it, saying on Friday that it's a "devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States."

Concern by abortion-rights advocates that the Supreme Court might strike down Roe v. Wade were heightened in May when Politico published a leaked draft majority opinion in which Justice Samuel Alito called the Roe decision "egregiously wrong from the start."

Now, by overturning Roe, the Supreme Court has put the question of the legality of abortion in the hands of state legislatures and has essentially made it illegal in at least 22 states to obtain an abortion. There are expected to be added restrictions in several others.

"We must start right now to be relentless to restore and guarantee all of our rights here in the United States of America," Ocasio-Cortez urged the crowd during her Friday speech.

Abortion, women's rights grow as priorities: USA -AP-NORC poll

HANNAH FINGERHUT
Thu, June 30, 2022 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new poll finds a growing percentage of Americans calling out abortion or women’s rights as priorities for the government in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, especially among Democrats and those who support abortion access.

With midterm elections looming, President Joe Biden and Democrats will seek to capitalize on that shift.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in remarks immediately after the decision that “reproductive freedom is on the ballot in November.” But with pervasive pessimism and a myriad of crises facing the nation, it’s not clear whether the ruling will break through to motivate those voters — or just disappoint them.

“It does feel like a major setback,” said 26-year-old Lauren Nelson of San Diego, who has been worrying about the environment her young niece will grow up in. She doesn’t think the midterms will change the course that states are on. “You can’t help but feel kind of helpless, as though there’s not much that can be done.”

Twenty-two percent of U.S. adults name abortion or women’s rights in an open-ended question as one of up to five problems they want the government to work on, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s more than doubled since December, when an AP-NORC poll found a notable uptick in mentions of abortion from years before, likely in anticipation of the Dobbs ruling on abortion.

The new poll, which included interviews conducted before and after the Supreme Court’s ruling, finds prioritization of the issues grew sharply following the decision.

The Dobbs ruling kicks decision-making on abortion back to states, and in the last week, Republican governors and legislatures have moved to introduce or advance legislation that bans or curtails abortions.

Polling conducted before the decision showed it was unpopular with a majority of Americans, who wanted to see the court leave Roe as is. A majority of Americans support abortion access in general, though many say there should be restrictions. About a third say abortion should be legal in all cases, roughly another third legal in most cases, about a quarter illegal in most cases. About 1 in 10 say it should be illegal in all cases.

Mentions of abortion specifically are not limited to Americans who support abortion rights; instead, the poll shows abortion is named as a priority by roughly a quarter of adults with hardline opinions on both sides of the issue — those who think abortion should be legal in all cases and those who think abortion should be illegal in all cases.

Earnestine Smith, a 68-year-old resident of Waukegan, Illinois, said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe represents progress. The issue is one of her highest priorities right now.

“We want abortion abolished and done away with,” she said. “We got to stand up and say no.”

Still, it’s significant that those with the most liberal views on abortion and those with the most conservative views are about equally likely to prioritize the issue; historically, research has shown opponents of abortion have been more likely to consider the issue important to them than those supporting abortion access.

And the new poll finds mentions of women’s rights are almost exclusively by those who think abortion should be legal.

According to the poll, the percentage of women prioritizing abortion or women's rights was already higher in interviews conducted before the ruling than six months ago, 21% vs. 9% in December; it swelled to 37% in the days after. Mentions grew sharply among men, too, but the growth was concentrated in the wake of the ruling, from 6% in interviews conducted before to 21% after.

Lyle Gist said he wouldn’t have thought of abortion as a top priority a few years ago. The court decision to overturn Roe, though unsurprising, makes it a major issue.

“I think the ramifications of this are substantial,” said 36-year-old Gist of Los Angeles. Gist thinks that there will be ripple effects, including a “mass exodus” of people moving out of states with abortion bans.

In a small town in Louisiana in 1968, when abortion was illegal, Anne Jones carried a pregnancy to term and gave her daughter up for adoption. Jones, now 74 in Plano, Texas, worries about what the Republican Party might go after next -- like birth control -- and thinks it’s hypocritical that lawmakers like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott want to “hold the woman accountable for the child that she may not be able to afford to keep” even as they limit health and social services for women and children.

“Politics in Texas has taken a wrong turn,” she said. She wants to see abortion access made national law but remains skeptical that Biden and Democrats can do so.

The poll shows these issues have been increasingly important to Democrats, growing from just 3% in 2020 to 13% in 2021 and now 33%. In interviews before the ruling, 18% of Democrats mentioned abortion or women’s rights; that was 42% after.

Among Republicans, 11% identify abortion or women's rights as a priority in the new poll, a modest increase from 5% who said that in December.

Steven Lefemine, who protests outside the Planned Parenthood in Columbia, South Carolina, called Roe’s reversal a “major benchmark” but said lawmakers needed to do much more, including pursuing a constitutional amendment to protect unborn children.

“I’d like to see legislation that lives up to God’s word,” he said.

Biden and Democrats have vowed to fight for abortion access, but they’ve struggled with how to act given crippling opposition from Republicans in a sharply divided Senate. Biden said to reporters on Thursday that he would support an exception to the filibuster rule to codify Roe into law.

Roderick Hinton, who voted for Biden, wants to see the president move on court reform, saying the court’s decisions “are not matching today’s time.” He was angry after the court overturned Roe -- that the older generation is “putting the screws” to younger Americans, including his two daughters.

Biden commissioned a review of the Supreme Court after promising to do so on the campaign trail, a response to rhetoric within the Democratic Party about expanding the court following former President Donald Trump’s three conservative appointments. The report released last year exercised caution about proposals to expand the court or set term limits.

“Their lifetime position is really crazy,” Hinton said. “As neutral as the courts were, it’s now becoming political. Their personal beliefs are being put in place.”

___

Associated Press/Report for America reporter Claire Savage in Chicago and AP writer Matt Sedensky in New York contributed to this report.

___

The poll of 1,053 adults was conducted June 23-27 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

A ‘sucker punch’: Some women fear setback to hard-won rights







A mother and child walk past reporters, clinic defenders and anti-abortion activists standing outside the Jackson Women's Health Organization clinic in Jackson, Miss., June 25, 2022. The clinic is the only facility that performs abortions in the state. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)More

JOCELYN NOVECK
Sun, June 26, 2022 

At 88, Gloria Steinem has long been the nation’s most visible feminist and advocate for women’s rights. But at 22, she was a frightened American in London getting an illegal abortion of a pregnancy so unwanted, she actually tried to throw herself down the stairs to end it.

Her response to the Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade is succinct: “Obviously,” she wrote in an email message, “without the right of women and men to make decisions about our own bodies, there is no democracy.”

Steinem’s blunt remark cuts to the heart of the despair some opponents are feeling about Friday's historic rollback of the 1973 case legalizing abortion. If a right so central to the overall fight for women’s equality can be revoked, they ask, what does it mean for the progress women have made in public life in the intervening 50 years?

“One of the things that I keep hearing from women is, ‘My daughter’s going to have fewer rights than I did. And how can that be?’” says Debbie Walsh, of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “If this goes, what else can go? It makes everything feel precarious.”


Reproductive freedom was not the only demand of second-wave feminism, as the women’s movement of the ’60s and ’70s is known, but it was surely one of the most galvanizing issues, along with workplace equality.

The women who fought for those rights recall an astonishing decade of progress from about 1963 to 1973 including the right to equal pay, the right to use birth control, and Title IX in 1972 which bans discrimination in education. Capping it off was Roe v. Wade a year later, granting a constitutional right to abortion.

Many of the women who identified as feminists at the time had an illegal abortion or knew someone who did. Steinem, in fact, credits a “speak-out” meeting she attended on abortion in her 30s as the moment she pivoted from journalism to activism — and finally felt enabled to speak about her own secret abortion.

“Abortion is so tied to the women’s movement in this country,” says Carole Joffe, a sociologist at the University of California, San Francisco medical school who studies and teaches the history of abortion. “Along with improved birth control, what legal abortion meant was that women who were heterosexually active could still take part in public life. It enabled the huge change we’ve seen in women’s status over the last 50 years.” Joffe says many women, like her, now feel that the right to contraception could be at risk — something she calls “unthinkable.”

One of them is Heather Booth. When she was 20 and a student in Chicago, a male friend asked if she could help his sister obtain an abortion. It was 1965, and through contacts in the civil rights movement, she found a way to connect the young woman, nearly suicidal at the prospect of being pregnant, to a doctor willing to help. She thought it would be a one-off, but Booth ended up co-founding the Jane Collective, an underground group of women who provided safe abortions to those in need. In all, the group performed some 11,000 abortions over about seven years — a story recounted in the new documentary “The Janes.”

Booth, now 76, sees the Roe v. Wade upheaval as a chilling challenge to the triumphs of the women’s movement.

“I think we are on a knife’s edge,” she says. “On the one hand, there’s been 50 years of a change in women’s condition in this society,” she adds, recalling that when she was growing up, women could only respond to employment ads in the “women’s section,” to list just one example.

“So there’s been an advance toward greater equality, but … if you ask about where we stand, I think we are on a knife’s edge in a contest really between democracy and freedom, and tyranny, a dismantling of freedoms that have been long fought for.”

Of course, not every woman feels that abortion is a right worth preserving.

Linda Sloan, who has volunteered the last five years, along with her husband, for the anti-abortion organization A Moment of Hope in Columbia, South Carolina, says she values women’s rights.

“I strongly believe and support women being treated as equals to men … (in) job opportunities, salary, respect, and many other areas,” she says. She says she has tried to instill those values in her two daughters and two sons, and upholds them with her work at two women's shelters, trying to empower women to make the right choices.

But when it comes to Roe v. Wade, she says, “I believe that the rights of the child in the mother’s womb are equally important. To quote Psalm 139, I believe that God ‘formed my inner parts’ and ‘knitted me together in my mother’s womb.’”

Elizabeth Kilmartin, like Sloan, volunteers at A Moment of Hope and is deeply pleased by the court's decision.

In her younger years she considered herself a feminist and studied women's history in college. Then, over the years she came to deeply oppose abortion, and no longer considers herself a feminist because she believes the word has been co-opted by those on the left. “No women’s rights have been harmed in the decision to stop killing babies in the womb,” Kilmartin says. “We have all kinds of women in power. Women aren't being oppressed in the workplace anymore. We have a woman vice president ... It’s just ridiculous to think that we’re so oppressed."

Cheryl Lambert falls squarely in the opposing camp. The former Wall Street executive, now 65, immediately thought back to the gains she made earlier in her banking career, becoming the first woman to be named an officer at the institution she worked for. She calls the court decision “a sucker punch.”

“My thought was, what era are we living in?” Lambert says. “We are moving backwards. I’m just furious on behalf of our children and our grandchildren.”

Lambert herself needed an abortion as a young mother when the fetus was found to carry a genetic disease. “I thought it would get easier, not harder, to have an abortion in this country,” she says.

Now, she and many other women fear a return to dangerous, illegal abortions of the past — and a disproportionate impact on women without the means to travel to abortion-friendly states. Still, many are trying to see a positive side: that as bleak as the moment may seem, change could come via new energy at the ballot box.

“We're in it for the long haul,” says Carol Tracy, of the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia.

Steinem, too, issued a note of resolve.

“Women have always taken power over our own bodies, and we will keep right on,” she wrote in her email message. “An unjust court can’t stop abortion, but it guarantees civil disobedience and disrespect for the court.”

___

AP Reporter Maryclaire Dale contributed to this report.

___

For AP’s full coverage of the Supreme Court ruling on abortion, go to https://apnews.com/hub/abortion.

WTF

Kentucky's Democratic governor says it would be 'indefensible' for Biden to nominate an anti-abortion Republican to a lifetime federal judgeship

Bryan Metzger

Fri, July 1, 2022 

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky speaks at an event in Lexington, KY on April 08, 2022.Jon Cherry/Getty Images for Concordia

• Biden plans to nominate an anti-abortion Republican to a federal judgeship in Kentucky.

• Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear called it "indefensible," citing the judge's record on other issues.

• A House Democrat from Kentucky said the appointment was "some kind of effort to appease Mitch McConnell."

Kentucky Democrats are reeling from President Joe Biden's plan to appoint Chad Meredith, an anti-abortion Republican, to a lifetime federal judgeship in their state.

"If the president makes that nomination, it is indefensible," said Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear at a press conference on Thursday. "This is an individual who aided and advised on the most egregious abuse of power by a governor in my lifetime."

Beshear was referring to Meredith's service as former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's deputy counsel, including when the governor issued a raft of controversial pardons — including of a man convicted of raping a child — at the end of his term in 2019.

"I don't know how the President could say he's for public safety if he makes this nomination," said Bevin.

On Wednesday, the Louisville Courier-Journal first reported that Biden planned to make the nomination in an apparent deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky's senior senator. On Friday, a federal judge in the state announced her resignation, opening up a spot for Meredith's appointment to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

But even more concerning for some Democrats is Meredith's record on abortion, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning the constitutional right to an abortion last week.

Biden has said he would use all of his "appropriate lawful powers" to fight back against the ruling.

While working for Bevin's office, Meredith defended an abortion law enacted in 2017 that required abortion doctors to perform an ultrasound and describe the image to the patient before performing the procedure.

Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky called the decision a "huge mistake" and said the planned nomination was "some kind of effort to appease Mitch McConnell, which is something this state and country should be very upset about." Yarmuth's office also confirmed to Insider that he'd been informed of the nomination by the White House.

Charles Booker, the party's nominee for US Senate, went even further.

"The President is making a deal with the devil," he wrote on Twitter. "This is some bullshit."

'Deal with the devil.' Secret Biden-McConnell deal on anti-abortion GOP judge enrages Democrats


'Deal with the devil.' Secret Biden-McConnell deal on anti-abortion GOP judge enrages Democrats


Joe Sonka and Andrew Wolfson
Fri, July 1, 2022 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Democrats are blasting President Joe Biden for agreeing to nominate an anti-abortion Republican to a lifetime federal judgeship in Kentucky, less than a week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

"The president is making a deal with the devil and once again" and "the people of Kentucky are crushed in the process," Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker tweeted after The Courier Journal broke the story Wednesday night.

"At a time when we are fighting to protect human rights, this is a complete slap in the face."

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, who confirmed Biden is poised to nominate Chad Meredith to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, called it a "huge mistake."

Chad Meredith

"Why you would pick him to fill a federal vacancy when you're a Democratic president is beyond me."

Yarmuth said the nomination is bad not only because Meredith is anti-abortion but because of his actions in the general counsel office when he helped former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin issue hundreds of controversial pardons at the end of his term that spurred outrage and a federal investigation.

Gov. Andy Beshear, said Thursday he also strongly opposes the pick, saying his team was informed last week that Biden intended to nominate Meredith.

Beshear said his understanding is that Biden has not yet submitted the nomination, “which I hope means in the very least it's on pause.

“If the president makes that nomination, it is indefensible.”

What Trump did on Jan. 6: On Jan. 6, Trump was out of public view as aides urged him to act. A breakdown of those 187 minutes.
A GOP candidate in exchange for no more blocked nominees?

Biden was poised to nominate Meredith presumably as the result of an undisclosed deal with U.S. Mitch McConnell, Yarmuth told The Courier Journal.

McConnell has blocked the nominations of two lawyers for U.S. attorney positions there were recommended by Yarmuth. The presumption is that with Meredith's nomination, McConnell would agree not to hold up future federal nominations from the Biden White house, Yarmuth said.

"We were informed by White House staff that this nomination was coming," Yarmuth said. "I expressed my objections to it in the strongest terms I use."

Robert Steurer, a spokesman for McConnell, said he would have no comment until Biden makes his nomination.

There are currently no open federal judgeships in Eastern Kentucky. However, Eastern District Judge Danny C. Reeves is eligible for senior status when he turns 65 years old Aug. 1, while Judge Karen Caldwell is already eligible.

Neither Reeves nor Caldwell could be reached for comment.

Yarmuth said "clearly someone has agreed to resign and we don't know what deal has been made with that person, and I think that's something to media needs to try to figure out."
Beshear: Bevin pardons should be disqualifying

Beshear said Meredith should be disqualified from a nomination for his work on Bevin's controversial pardons and commutations, saying Meredith “aided and advised on the most egregious abuse of power by a governor in my lifetime.”

The Courier Journal reported in 2020 that Meredith was one of the staff attorneys involved in string of controversial acts of clemency Bevin doled out at the end of his term in 2019.

Bevin administration documents showed Meredith was one of Bevin's general counsel staff to give recommendations to the governor on whether certain applicants deserve clemency.

More: What to know about Kentucky abortion services after the trigger law ban was suspended

One spreadsheet of clemency applicants from those records showed "Chad working" written next to the name of Patrick Baker — one of the most controversial pardon recipients, who was convicted of killing a man in a robbery and whose family hosted a fundraiser for Bevin at his home.

Former Gov. Matt Bevin (left) speaks with Eric Baker (right) and others guests at his campaign fundraiser on July 26, 2018 at the Corbin home of Baker.

“If you are a lawyer that advised on that and went along with it, you should be disqualified from serving in a role where you would hand out sentences," Beshear said. "I mean, these are individuals who are pardoned who are walking free today, despite committing terrible violent crimes.”

Meredith’s personal lawyer, Brandon Marshall, has told The Courier Journal Meredith had "no meaningful involvement with any of the most controversial pardons about which the media has made much.”

Directing his attention back to Biden, Beshear added: “I don't know how the president could say he's for public safety if he makes this nomination.”
'A deal with the devil'

Booker, who is challenging Sen. Rand Paul for his seat, reacted with even harsher criticism to news of Meredith's pending nomination on Twitter, writing, "This is some bulls—."

"The president is making a deal with the devil, and once again, the people of Kentucky are crushed in the process," Booker tweeted. "At a time when we are fighting to protect human rights, this is a complete slap in the face."

A White House spokesman declined to speak on the nomination, saying "we do not comment on vacancies."

Yarmuth said the Meredith nomination is obviously "some kind of effort to appease Mitch McConnell, which is something this state and country should be very upset about."

"Mitch McConnell was not elected by anyone outside of Kentucky, yet he is imposing his individual will on the federal judiciary and the president of the United States just because he has the power to do it, not because it makes sense good sense for our country."

Nicole Erwin, the spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates-Kentucky, issued a statement that did not directly address the Biden nomination but expressed concern.

"We need judges in place that prioritize the health and wellbeing of people in Kentucky and reflect the diversity and progressive values of the nation now more than ever — that means nominating qualified and unbiased judges to the bench,” Erwin said.
Nominee a Federalist Society member

Meredith is a Federalist Society member who served as deputy counsel to Bevin and more recently solicitor general for Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

Cameron is now a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in 2023.

He defended a 2017 Kentucky abortion law requiring doctors who perform abortions to first perform an ultrasound and describe the image to the patient, losing first at a trial in federal court before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld the statute.

As the top appellate lawyer for Cameron, Meredith also successfully defended a state law in the Kentucky Supreme Court that stripped Gov. Beshear of his emergency power to implement COVID-19 restrictions.

More: Judge grants temporary order to restore abortion access in Kentucky

Meredith was being vetted for a federal judgeship in 2020 by President Donald Trump’s administration but was later dropped from consideration for that position.

He is a longtime member of the Federalist Society, from which Trump drew nominees for the Supreme Court and other judgeships.

Meredith previously practiced as a litigator with Frost Brown Todd in Louisville and Ransdell & Roach of Lexington. Since leaving the attorney general's office in January, he has worked at Cincinnati law firm Squire Patton Boggs.

Reporter Caleb Stultz contributed to this story.

Reach reporter Joe Sonka at jsonka@courierjournal.com and follow him on Twitter at @joesonka. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today at the top of this page.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Biden-McConnell deal on judge enrages Democrats following Roe v. Wade

Mitch McConnell says some women's rights 'outdated and wrong' following abortion ruling

David Edwards
June 27, 2022


Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suggested on Monday that women's reproductive rights have become "outdated" -- and that's why the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

McConnell made the remarks during a speech in Florence, Kentucky.

The Senate minority leader compared the Supreme Court's abortion decision to its reversal on racial segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson.

"It became, 9 to nothing, the law of the land, bringing down racial segregation," McConnell noted. "So I raise that just to make the point that precedent is important but sometimes the precedent is outdated or wrong."

GASLIGHTING
"And this [abortion] issue [was] sent back to the democratic process for the will of the American people to make the decision," he added.

Watch the video below.

 

John Cornyn says 'Now do Plessy vs Ferguson/Brown vs Board of Education'

Kelly McClure Salon
June 26, 2022

Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas speaking at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

On Saturday morning, Texas Senator John Cornyn tweeted a racist comment along with a share of former President Barack Obama's statement regarding Friday's Supreme Court ruling to reverse Roe v. Wade

Obama, making his statement on Twitter on Friday morning shortly after the ruling was handed down, said "Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans."

The following morning, Cornyn shared that statement from Obama to his own Twitter account adding "Now do Plessy vs Ferguson/Brown vs Board of Education."

Brown v. Board of Education, ruled on by the Supreme Court in 1954, did historical justice in wiping away the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, making "separate but equal" rightfully unconstitutional.

Following Cornyn's initial tweet, which received tremendous heated backlash, he fired off another one saying "Thank goodness some SCOTUS precedents are overruled."

"Let's help out less intelligent fellow Americans out," one commenter said in response to Cornyn's initial tweet. "Plessy stood as law of the land longer than Roe. That was [John Cornyn's] point. Now if liberals are arguing Brown v. Board of Ed was wrongly ruled because of long standing precedent, then they should openly say so."


That comment was retweeted by Cornyn. The following replies were not.

One commenter tweeted a photo of Cornyn with the word "racist" in red over his chest.



Another commenter shared an archival photo of a Black man drinking from a water fountain labeled "colored" and asked "You miss this sort of thing?"

And yet another out of the thousands of similar commenters shared an illustration of a Klan hood next to a MAGA hat featuring the text "Evil doesn't die, it reinvents itself."

Ukrainian Hare Krishna devotees seek sanctuary in N.Ireland

PUBLISHED : 1 JUL 2022 
WRITER: AFP

Inish Rath on Lough Erne in Northern Ireland has been home to a Hare Krishna temple since the 1980s

INISH RATH (UNITED KINGDOM) - Nestled among the reeds of Northern Ireland's Lough Erne, the wooded island of Inish Rath has been home to a Hare Krishna temple since the 1980s.

But since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, it has also become a sanctuary for devotees fleeing the city of Mariupol, which fell to Russian troops after a brutal siege in May.

"We left Mariupol because it is completely burned down," Ruskin Khabibullin, a leading member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in Ukraine, told AFP.

"They bombed the buildings, bombed our apartment and office," he added.

Since April, Inish Rath's temple, located in a 19th century hunting lodge reachable only by boat, has been home to Khabibullin, 48, his wife Tatiana and their 14-year-old son Nikita.

In the peace of the island where deer and peacocks roam, Khabibullin said the family are starting to recover from the horrors of the devastated port city.

"It was difficult. Even (after leaving) when we saw planes or helicopters, we immediately remembered the war," he said.

"But the care of devotees, the care of people that are nearby, the atmosphere in the temple... gives spiritual protection," he added.

- Taken into homes -

While Khabibullin and his family live in the temple, other Ukrainian refugee Hare Krishna followers have been taken into homes in the surrounding area.

Narayan Das, 22, and his wife Valeria had been crammed into a Mariupol basement with 50 other Hare Krishna devotees to escape the bombing.

"We were cooking, looking for water, looking for food supplies and everything. When you're in a city which is surrounded, it's very hard to maintain," he said.

Three months of fierce fighting for the besieged city on the Sea of Azov led hundreds of thousands of residents to flee for their lives and caused the deaths, by Kyiv's estimate, of at least 22,000 people.

Narayan left Mariupol in mid-March, using the Hare Krishna international network to reach Ireland via Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

- 'No place to go back to' -

With 90 percent of his home town now in ruins, "I am thinking of settling down over here," said Narayan, who is now living in Ballinamore, a half an hour drive over the border in the Republic of Ireland.

"There's really no place to come back to."

On Sundays, Das helps prepare food for visitors to the temple and joins the devotional services.

ISKCON, which is known commonly as the Hare Krishna movement, was founded in the 1960s and is an offshoot from a historic line of Hinduism.

The movement, which claims to have one million members worldwide, expanded rapidly into eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Its purchase of the island in 1982 was inspired, in part, by the tradition of Irish Catholic monks secluding themselves on islands and in other hermitages for spiritual reflection.

Tulasi Priyal, a 67-year-old member originally from Dublin, said the island temple had become a "focal point" for Hare Krishna followers and other Hindus across Ireland.

Even if the future is uncertain, Khabibullin said his faith will remain constant.

"It's impossible to predict, to think about returning or not, because it is unknown what's going to happen with Ukraine, when the war will be over," he said.

"We will stay with devotees in any case and keep practising, whether that be in Ireland, in Ukraine, or somewhere else in the world."

Paris airport strike spurs flight cancellations

Issued on: 01/07/2022 - 

02:58 Passengers check departure boards at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport on July 1, 2022, as a French airport workers strike sparked cancellations. © Sarah Meyssonnier, Reuters

Text by :FRANCE 24

Video by: Dheepthika LAURENT

About 10 percent of all flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport were cancelled due to strikes by ground personnel on Thursday and similar disruption is expected on Friday, a spokesman for airport operator ADP said.

Due to expected demonstrations, he added, road traffic leading to CDG could be disrupted on Friday and recommended that travellers take a train from Paris to the airport.

The spokesman said Orly airport south of Paris was not affected by the walkout, which was called in a dispute over pay and benefits.

With airline traffic returning toward pre-pandemic levels, the hardline CGT trade union and others want serious wage increases to offset galloping inflation, which hit a record high 6.5 percent in France in June. The CGT is demanding a general wage increase of €300 euros per month for all staff.

The workers’ demands come as airlines are struggling to recruit staff after having cut their headcounts massively during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The French aviation authority DGAC has asked airlines to cancel one flight in six on Friday between 7:00am local time (0500 GMT) and 2:00pm. Airport operator ADP expects that roughly 10 percent of flights will be cancelled on Friday.

On Thursday, only ADP workers were on strike, but on Friday staff at airlines, subcontractors and other airport-related companies are expected to join.

A first airport strike in Paris on June 9 – involving 1,500 strikers, according to the CGT – led to the cancellation of 20 percent of flights in the morning at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle.

“Salaries need to go up, not by two or three percent but by 15 to 20 percent,” said Loris Foreman, a ground handling agent at Paris’s main international airport, on the eve of the walkout.

“When you start at 5:00am or work odd hours all the time, this leads to burn-out, and at the moment there are loads of airport staff who are on sick leave for depression,” he added.

Last month, Foreman earned €1,770 net, but he said that does not allow him to live comfortably anymore, with inflation eroding his wages.

He now has to scour supermarkets for promotions on food items - showing three pots of cream in his fridge and a lamb shoulder in his freezer - and never fills his car’s fuel tank to the top, he said.

A strike is a bother for travellers, Foreman acknowledged, but added that he had no choice.

“Yes, we know that we are taking passengers hostage, but we need to make our voice heard and the only way to do that is with a strike,” he said.

Several European airlines and airports have experienced strikes in recent weeks and more travel disruptions are expected next month as airline workers use strong travel demand and staff shortages caused in part by the Covid-19 pandemic to push for higher wages and better working conditions.

Airports in cities such as London, Amsterdam, Rome and Frankfurt have had to cope with flight cancellations and long queues.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

'American Woman' rocker reunited with stolen guitar... 46 years on

Katie Forster
Fri, July 1, 2022 


They say you never forget your first love, and after pining for his stolen guitar for almost half a century, Canadian rock star Randy Bachman has finally been reunited with the instrument which an eagle-eyed fan tracked down in Japan.

Bachman, who wrote the original "American Woman" with his band The Guess Who, was in Tokyo for the emotional handover on Friday -- 46 years after his cherished orange Gretsch was snatched from a Toronto hotel.

"Wow," a stunned Bachman said, holding the guitar lovingly and tuning it up on stage before playing in a special concert at the Canadian Embassy.

The 78-year-old told AFP he had been "pretty much devastated" by the theft.

"With that guitar, I wrote many million-selling songs... it was like my magical guitar. And then when it's suddenly gone, the magic is gone."

The rocker bought the now vintage 6120 Chet Atkins model as a teenager in the early 1960s with $400 painstakingly saved up from mowing lawns, washing cars and babysitting.

He had long admired the instrument, spending hours staring at it in a shop window in Winnipeg with his friend and fellow musician Neil Young.

It meant so much to Bachman that he would chain it to hotel toilets on tour. "Everybody in the band made fun of me, but because I worked so hard to get this guitar, I didn't want it stolen."

But in 1976, he entrusted the guitar to a roadie who put it in a room with other luggage while the band was checking out.

Before they knew it, it was gone.

- Some sleuthing and a handover -

Over the decades, Bachman hunted for his Gretsch, which has a small, dark knot in the wood grain on its front, but to no avail -- until a Canadian fan decided to help with the search from his home in 2020.

William Long compared old images of the stolen instrument with new and archived pictures of the model on guitar shop websites around the world.

"Yeah, I'm a sleuth," Long, 58, told AFP. "I was confident I was going to find it. I got the process down so quick -- I went through 300 images of orange Gretches."

None were a perfect match, until he found one on the site of a Tokyo guitar shop with the tell-tale mark.

More searching pointed Long to a Japanese musician called Takeshi, who he spotted playing Bachman's beloved guitar in a YouTube video.


Takeshi, who had always wanted a vintage Gretsch, says he bought Bachman's guitar in 2014 for around 850,000 yen ($6,300).

Long alerted Bachman to his discovery, and the musicians arranged to meet in Tokyo to swap Bachman's original guitar with another of the same type, also made in 1957.

On Friday, at an event held on Canada Day, the pair shared a big hug and then jammed together.

They performed songs including "American Woman", the 1970 hit later covered by US singer Lenny Kravitz, and "Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman's other band, Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Bachman is not the only rock star to be reunited with a long-lost guitar: last year, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page also tracked one down that went missing at an airport decades ago.

But Bachman, who had given up ever finding the guitar after four decades of searching, said he had been touched by Long's "random act of kindness".

"When I was playing it, I looked down and figured -– time has stood still, or 50 years has just flown by really fast," he said.

"I couldn't have written this if I wrote it as a script. Nobody would believe it. But it's true. It's really great."

kaf/jta

Hundreds rally in Sudan day after 9 killed during protests


Sudanese anti-military protesters march in demonstrations in the capital of Sudan, Khartoum, on Thursday, June 30, 2022. A Sudanese medical group says at least seven people were killed on Thursday in the anti-coup rallies during which security forces fired on protesters denouncing the country’s military rulers and demanding an immediate transfer of power to civilians. 

(AP Photo/Marwan Ali)

Fri, July 1, 2022 

CAIRO (AP) — Funeral processions turned into anti-military marches and hundreds took to the streets Friday in Sudan's capital, a day after nine people were killed in demonstrations against the country's ruling generals.

The United States and others in the international community condemned the violence in this East African nation, which has been rocked by near-weekly protests since an Oct. 25 coup upended its fragile transition to democracy.


Several Killed at Sudan Anti-Coup Demonstrations, Doctors Say


Sudan protesters rally against coup leaders, day after nine killed


The rallies on Thursdays were the largest seen in months. Sudanese military authorities have met the protests with a deadly crackdown, which has so far killed 113 people, including 18 children.

In and near Khartoum, funeral marches for some of those killed the day before turned into protests while others gathered after Friday prayers at mosques in the country's capital. Online, photographs of the dead were posted, in some cases in an effort to identify them.

The Sudan's Doctors Committee, a medical group that monitors casualties from demonstrations, said security forces shot and killed nine people, including a child, in or near Khartoum during the rallies on Thursday. The demonstrations coincided with widespread internet disruptions. Internet monitors and activists say the government has crippled communications to prevent gatherings and slow the spread of news on days when large protest turnout is expected.

Sudan’s leading pro-democracy groups — Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change and the Resistance Committees — had called for nationwide protest against the coup. The takeover upended the country’s short-lived transition to democracy following the 2019 ouster of longtime autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir.

Since the coup, the U.N. political mission in Sudan, the African Union, and the eight-nation east African regional Intergovernmental Authority in Development group have been trying to broker a way out of the political impasse. But talks have yielded no results so far.

In a joint statement tweeted Friday the three bodies expressed “disappointment over the continued use of excessive force by security forces and lack of accountability for such actions, despite repeated commitments by authorities.”

Thursday’s protests also fell on the third anniversary of a 2019 mass rally that forced the generals to sit down at the negotiating table with pro-democracy groups and eventually sign a power-sharing agreement that was expected to govern Sudan during a transitional period, until general elections were to be held. The coup last October scuttled this arrangement.

Western governments have repeatedly called on the generals to allow for peaceful protests, but have also angered the protest movement for sometimes engaging with the leading generals. Pro-democracy leaders call for the generals to leave power immediately.

“We are heartbroken at the tragic loss of life in yesterday’s protests,” the U.S. Embassy in Sudan said in a statement Friday. “We urge all parties to resume negotiations and call on peaceful voices to rise above those who advocate for or commit violence.”

Pride turns to outrage over abortion ruling as marchers take to US streets

Issued on: 27/06/2022 

02:00

Members of Planned Parenthood were invited to lead the 2022 NYC Pride parade in response to the overturning of the landmark Roe v Wade abortion decision, in New York City, June 26, 2022. © Brendan McDermid, Reuters

Text by: NEWS WIRES|
Video by: Yinka OYETADE

People attending Pride celebrations hosted by LGBTQ+ communities across the United States this weekend expressed outrage at the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion as well as a wave of anti-transgender legislation.

For more than 50 years, LGBTQ+ people and supporters have marched on the last weekend in June to celebrate hard-won freedoms. But now many fear those freedoms are under threat.

Pride parades in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Denver followed protests in some of the same cities decrying the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

“This march is going to have more of a serious tone than celebratory, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all,” said Krystal Marx, executive director of Seattle Pride, which drew thousands of people to its parade on Sunday.

In New York City, throngs of people dressed in rainbow colors cheered as representatives of the abortion rights group Planned Parenthood took part in a parade in Manhattan. The marchers held pink signs that read “Together. We fight for all.”

“Everybody please scream for Planned Parenthood!” an announcer called over a loudspeaker. “We won’t back down!” the crowd responded.

The marches commemorate protests that broke out after police raided a gay bar at the Stonewall Inn in New York City on June 28, 1969.

LGBTQ leaders fear the abortion ruling by the court’s conservative justices endangers personal freedom beyond abortion rights. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the Court might reconsider other precedents, mentioning specifically the rulings protecting the rights to contraception, same-sex intimacy and gay marriage.

“The anti-abortion playbook and the anti-LGBTQ playbook are one and the same. Both are about denying control over our bodies and making it more dangerous for us to live as we are,” Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of LGBTQ advocacy organization GLAAD, said in a statement.

Even before the Supreme Court’s ruling against abortion rights, the LGBTQ+ community’s Pride month jubilation was weighed down by a raft of Republican-backed state laws that specifically target transgender youth.

The measures enacted in several red states bar classroom discussion of gender identity, block access to healthcare to help young people transition, and restrict participation in sports.

In Texas, where Republican Governor Greg Abbott has called for prosecuting some gender-affirming care as child abuse, the line from overturning Roe to rolling back LGBTQ+ rights was clear to Patrick Smith, who attended Houston’s Pride Parade.

“The government should stay out of our private lives,” said Smith, who attended the event on Saturday with his partner. “Women went first. I fear what could happen to us too.”

Abortion rights and transgender rights were top of mind at San Francisco’s Pride parade, where people held signs that read “Abort the Court,” “Protect trans youth,” and organizers led a chant of “Get your laws off our bodies.”

“It feels like there’s a cloud over everybody who has a uterus,” said Maya Reddick, a high school student attending San Francisco’s celebration with friends. She held a sign that said “reproductive rights are human rights.”

(REUTERS)

UNESCO inscribes Ukrainian borsch soup as endangered heritage


By AFP
PublishedJuly 1, 2022

UNESCO said borsch was an 'integral part' of Ukrainian life - 

Copyright POOL/AFP Selim CHTAYTI

The UN’s cultural agency on Friday inscribed the culture of cooking borshch soup in Ukraine on its list of endangered cultural heritage, in a move urged by Kyiv but vehemently opposed by Moscow.

Ukraine considers borshch — a thick nourishing soup usually made with beetroot — as a national dish although it is also widely consumed in Russia, other ex-Soviet countries and Poland.

The culture of Ukrainian borshch cooking “was today inscribed on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding” by a UNESCO committee.

The decision was approved after a fast-track process prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the “negative impact on this tradition” caused by the war, UNESCO said.

Kyiv hailed the move, with Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko saying on Telegram that “victory in the borshch war is ours… will win both in the war of borshch and in this war.”

Adding the soup culture to the UNESCO list aims at mobilising attention to ensure it is preserved despite risks to its existence.

The committee noted that the war had “threatened the viability” of the soup culture in Ukraine.

“The displacement of people (poses a threat)… as people are unable not only to cook or grow local vegetables for borshch, but also to come together… which undermines the social and cultural well-being of communities.”

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had slammed the move as a bid to make it belong to “one people… one nationality… This is xenophobia,” she said.

But UNESCO noted that Ukrainian borshch was just a version of a dish popular elsewhere and was essential to daily life in in the country.

“Ukrainian borshch — the national version of borscht consumed in several countries of the region — is an integral part of Ukrainian family and community life”.