Most Americans feel they pay too much in taxes, AP-NORC poll finds

CORA LEWIS and LINLEY SANDERS
Sun, January 28, 2024 

The Internal Revenue Service 1040 tax form for 2022 is seen on April 17, 2023. Majorities of U.S. taxpayers say the amount they pay in taxes is too high, with many saying that they receive a poor value for the taxes they do pay, according to a new poll from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

 (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File) 


NEW YORK (AP) — A majority of taxpayers feel they pay too much in taxes, with many saying that they receive a poor value in return, according to a new poll from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Two-thirds of U.S. taxpayers say they spend “too much” on federal income taxes, as tax season begins. About 7 in 10 say the same about local property taxes, while roughly 6 in 10 feel that way about state sales tax. Generally speaking, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to view taxes as unfair, to say they are paying too much in taxes, and to see taxes as a poor value.

The poll found that few U.S. adults have a high level of confidence that the institutions that ultimately use their tax dollars — whether the federal government or local school districts — spend those taxes in the best interest of “people like them.” But people tend to trust governing bodies closer to home with their tax dollars slightly more: 16% are extremely or very confident in their local school district, compared to 6% for the federal government.

Adults who are 60 and older are more likely than younger adults to perceive taxes, generally, as fair.

Chris Berry, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy who was involved in the creation of the poll, said that, overall, public opinion about taxes and trust in government has declined. He sees the poll results as partly reflecting increased political polarization but says the public has long typically trusted local government more than the federal government.

“One of the things you’ll hear said is, ‘There’s no Democratic or Republican way to collect the trash or pave the streets,’” he said. “We tend to think of local government as less partisan.”

Among those who pay federal income taxes, half say they would prefer having fewer government services if it meant reducing their bill. One-third would keep their taxes the same in exchange for the same services, and 16% would opt to increase taxes for more services.

Danny Velasquez, 39, a business manager and Democrat in Boston who answered the poll, said he trusts local government to spend his tax dollars better than the federal government.

Asked how he would prefer his federal tax dollars be spent, Velasquez said the government “spends too much on war-making” and that he'd prefer “national healthcare and investment in education.”

Only about 1 in 4 taxpayers say they get a good value from paying either federal income tax, state sales tax or local property tax. About 1 in 3 in each case say it’s a poor value, and roughly 4 in 10 say the value is neither good nor bad.

According to the poll, most U.S. adults say they find either federal income tax or local property tax “unfair,” and about half say the same about state income tax, sales tax, and the federal Social Security tax.

Loretta Mwangi, 60, a Democrat who lives in Baltimore, sees taxes as fair and said she doesn’t have strong criticisms of how the government allocates tax dollars. Mwangi, who suffers from chronic pain after years of working in warehouses and as a security guard, currently lives on disability benefits.

“They’re going by how much you’re making and taking a percentage based on that,” she said. “There could be more support for education and for the homeless — there are a lot of people under the bridges still.”

Relatively few U.S. adults say they understand how the amount they owe is calculated. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults say they understand "extremely" or “very well” how amounts are determined for their local property tax. About one-quarter say they grasp the calculations for federal income tax. About 3 in 10 say they comprehend how state sales tax is calculated.

Yoany Mesa, 40, a computer engineer and Republican in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said he doesn’t view the tax system as “equitable or transparent.”

He and his wife, Grettel, 34, an auditor for a dental insurance company, said they perceive the federal tax code as full of loopholes, especially for the wealthy.

“There are a lot of things you hear people with money are able to claim — an inside club. I think if certain people have dependents, they should be able to get credits,” Grettel Mesa said. During the pandemic, the couple had received expanded child tax credits, for example, they said, but that policy ended in 2022.

Mesa said she had also previously trusted her local government more to spend their tax dollars, but that their area has recently been experiencing frequent flooding and sewage overflow, which makes her question that budgeting.

“There’s a lot of infrastructure spending that seems to be going by the wayside,” she said. “The money was supposed to go towards fixing the sewage systems — so where is that money going?”

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The poll of 1,024 adults was conducted Dec. 14-18, 2023 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 4.2 percentage points.

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The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

If Ukraine falls, we will demand Zakarpattia – Hungarian FASCIST party leader

Ukrainska Pravda
Sat, January 27, 2024

László Toroczkai. Photo: Index

László Toroczkai, leader of the Hungarian far-right Mi Hazank party, has announced claims to Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast if Ukraine loses its statehood as a result of the war.

Source: Index, a Hungarian news outlet; European Pravda

Details: In a speech at the party's annual conference in Budapest on Saturday (27 January), Toroczkai claimed that pressure from "international financiers" had led to the war in Ukraine, a war that would "destroy Europe and send the continent's economy to the bottom". According to Toroczkai, "Ukraine was bought by BlackRock," the world's largest investment fund with over US$10 trillion in assets.

László Toroczkai said his party advocates putting an end to the war in Ukraine: an immediate ceasefire, peace and a negotiated settlement.

He also announced that Mi Hazank will claim Zakarpattia if Ukraine's statehood ceases to exist as a result of the war.

"If Ukraine's statehood ceases to exist due to the war, Mi Hazank will claim Transcarpathia as the only parliamentary party," Toroczkai said.

During last year's party conference, Mi Hazank stated, among other things, that it was imperative to prevent a new world war and claimed that "Ukraine had been sold to foreign investors". He opposed Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO, as he considered that their entry would increase the chances of war with Russia.

Background:

• It is worth noting that this is not the first such remark by a Hungarian politician. Back in 2022, on the occasion of Poland's Independence Day, Toroczkai tweeted that he wished Poland to have a common border with Hungary again.

• He accompanied his tweet with a photo taken after Hungary seized Zakarpattia in 1939, where a Pole and a Hungarian shake hands at a border post.

• Oleh Nikolenko, spokesman for Ukraine's Foreign Ministry, then called on the Hungarian government to condemn Toroczkai's remarks.

How France left the British taxpayer on the hook as Hinkley costs go nuclear


Jonathan Leake

THE TELEGRAPH
Sun, January 28, 2024

Hinkley Point C is now predicted to come online in 2031 at an estimated cost of £46bn - HANDOUT/EDF ENGERY/AFP

For the future of Britain’s energy security it was a crucial decision, and one that lay in the hands of France’s biggest power supplier.

However, not a single minister or civil servant was present when the directors of EDF decided the fate of the UK’s two biggest nuclear projects in their Paris boardroom on Tuesday.

The finances of Hinkley Point C and Sizewell B, the nuclear power stations which might one day supply 14pc of Britain’s electricity were top of the agenda.

Shortly after the meeting ended, Luc Remont, EDF’s managing director, and his colleagues summoned their media managers to organise a briefing for analysts and journalists.

Hinkley Point C, they were told, stood no chance of firing up in 2027, as once promised. Its first reactor would come online around 2031 while the second has no date promised at all.

Additionally, costs have surged again to £46bn, a far cry from the £9bn EDF suggested when pushing the idea to politicians around 2007 or the £24bn proposed when contracts were signed in 2016.

Sizewell C was also likely to be put on ice unless British ministers came up with a big extra dollop of taxpayers’ money.

Meanwhile, as EDF’s directors and French civil servants decided Britain’s nuclear future in Paris, Andrew Bowie, the minister responsible for new nuclear projects, was on his feet in parliament, talking up the UK’s prospects.

Apparently oblivious of the disaster heading his way from Paris, he told a Westminster Hall debate: “We are speeding up our nuclear expansion. Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first nuclear reactor in a generation is being built, and we are making rapid progress on Sizewell C. Nuclear will ensure we are never again dependent on the likes of Vladimir Putin for our energy.”

For Claire Coutinho, the Energy Secretary, the news was infuriating. Not only had a decision vital to the UK been taken in Paris but it came just days after she unveiled the Government’s long-awaited Nuclear Roadmap.

It pledged that Britain would build 24 gigawatts (Gw) of new nuclear power in the next few decades. That’s equivalent to six power stations the size of Hinkley C. EDF’s decision undermined both the pledge and Coutinho’s credibility.

A statement rushed out that evening made clear that Coutinho blamed the French for Hinkley’s extra costs and delays. “Hinkley Point C is not a government project and so any additional costs or schedule overruns are the responsibility of EDF and its partners and will in no way fall on taxpayers,” a spokesman for her department said.

The comments irritated the French enough to hold a second round of media briefings, this time involving EDF’s owners, the French government.

The UK, it was made clear, would have to offer up billions of pounds more in taxpayers’ money if Sizewell C was ever to be built. Coutinho subsequently pledged an extra £1.8bn of taxpayers’ money for the project.

Meanwhile, EDF has refused to up its stake from 20pc and Bowie has admitted he now needs to raise £20bn of private finance, most likely meaning the Government will have to put more taxpayer cash in and guarantee the debt.

Delays besetting Britain’s nuclear power projects come as China makes rapid advancements with its own technology. The Chinese government approved 10 nuclear power projects last year, in addition to 10 given the green light in 2022. Even war torn Ukraine is building faster than the UK, recently commissioning two new reactors it plans to have online by 2032.

Hinkley Point, near Bridgwater, Somerset, was chosen as the site for one of the UK’s first nuclear power stations in 1957.

Hinkley Point A ran from 1965 to 2000 producing not just power but weapons grade plutonium. It was followed by Hinkley Point B, which ran from 1976 till 2022. Both were built by British companies and financed from within the UK – and both are now being decommissioned.

They leave behind a legacy of grid connections, coastal siting and community acceptance that makes the area ideal for a third nuclear power station, Hinkley Point C.

At the same time, Britain lacks the engineers needed to build a new generation of power plants, leaving the nation dependent on foreign companies for its nuclear rebirth.

Simon Taylor, professor of finance at Cambridge University, who specialises in the economics of nuclear energy, believes EDF’s reactor designs have some fundamental flaws.

“The EPR or European Pressurised Reactor were designed to be incredibly safe, and to reassure people, after the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 but have turned out to be just much more difficult to build than anyone had expected,” he says.

“The one at Hinkley is technically the fifth of its kind to be built. The first one is in operation but massively late. The second one in France is sort of commissioning now, but also very late. The two built by the Chinese came in behind time and are operating but they’ve had a few teething troubles.”

Taylor believes there is also a deeper problem, a cultural one that seems to infect all major UK infrastructure projects. He adds: “I’m drawn to the conclusion that the fundamental problem is systemic, a kind of structural weakness, where the state wants to get things done via the private sector and it just isn’t working very well.”

Ashutosh Padelkar, a senior analyst at Aurora Energy Research, says: “The key barrier to infrastructure projects in the UK is planning and consenting constraints.

“Comparing Hinkley Point C to similar projects in other countries, a station at Flamanville in France is costing about £11bn while another in Finland came online last year at under £10bn. They are each half the size of HInkley which explains some of the difference but not all.”

Such problems were, he believes, exacerbated by Britain’s turbulent politics over the last decade. The turnover of energy secretaries – nine since 2010 – is one factor, but the biggest was Brexit, he says.

And then there was Fukushima, the disastrous 2011 radiation leak in Japan triggered by an earthquake-generated tidal wave that swamped a nuclear power station, shutting down its cooling systems and prompting an explosion.

For the UK safety authorities, Fukushima also led to a complete rethink of its safety rules.

Stuart Crooks, managing director of Hinkley Point C, said this required EDF to make 7,000 changes to the project.

These included building a massive tank, known as the swimming pool, whose sole task is to contain billions of litres of water, ready to flood the reactor should it be hit by a tidal wave. The UK also told EDF to build a sea wall high enough to deflect any such waves.

Mr Crooks says such changes have made for the toughest of projects. “Restarting the nuclear construction industry in Britain after a 20-year pause has been hard … we faced inflation, labour and material shortages all on top of Covid and Brexit disruption.”

Amid a blame game between France and the UK, the biggest loser remains the British taxpayer. They now face several more years of reduced energy security and the prospect of power bills hikes to raise the £20bn-plus bill for Sizewell C.

A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “Hinkley Point C is the first new nuclear power project built in the UK for a generation, and the first time the EPR reactor technology is being built in the UK. First-of-a-kind projects often face unique technical challenges and risks. Sizewell C will benefit from the lessons learned.

But can the UK really realise its ambition of several more power stations by 2050? Not a chance, says Aurora’s Padelkar. “We don’t believe that to be a feasible ambition.”

Haji Malang: The Sufi shrine caught up in a religious row in Mumbai

BBC
Sun, January 28, 2024 

The Haji Malang dargah is said to be more than 700 years old

A Sufi shrine frequented by Indians of all faiths made headlines recently after a top political leader said that he wanted to "liberate" it for just Hindus. The BBC's Cherylann Mollan visited to understand what the controversy was about.

The ascent is no easy feat, with some 1,500 rock-cut steps separating the devout from their destination: a Sufi saint's tomb that has become a seat of faith, legend and disputed history.

The Haji Malang dargah (shrine), sitting on a hill on the outskirts of Mumbai in the western state of Maharashtra, is said to house the tomb of an Arab missionary who came to India more than 700 years ago. Like many other Sufi shrines across India, the dargah is seen as a symbol of assimilation and tolerance, despite being at the centre of a religious dispute.


When I visited, both Hindus and Muslims were offering flowers and a chadar - a piece of cloth offered as a symbol of respect in Sufi traditions - at the saint's tomb. The belief is that any wish asked for with a "pure heart" will be granted.

The shrine's managing board mirrors this sense of respectful co-existence - while two of its trustees are Muslims, its hereditary custodians are from a Hindu Brahmin family.

People of all faiths visit the shrine

But earlier this month, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde stirred controversy by reviving a decades-old claim at a political rally. He asserted that the structure, traditionally considered a dargah, was a temple belonging to Hindus, and declared his commitment to "liberating" it.

Mr Shinde did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

His claim comes at a time when some prominent mosques and Muslim-made monuments in India are mired in disputes over claims that they were constructed by demolishing Hindu temples centuries ago.

In the 1980s, Mr Shinde's political mentor, Anand Dighe, spearheaded a campaign to "reclaim" the Haji Malang dargah for Hindus. In 1996, he reportedly led 20,000 workers from the Shiv Sena party inside the dargah to perform a pooja (a Hindu act of worship).

Since then, Hindu hardliners, who refer to the structure as Malanggad, have continued the practice of performing pooja at the shrine on full Moon days, occasionally leading to clashes with Muslim devotees and locals.

There are also several temples on the hill - like this one just next to the dargah

But political observers say that Mr Shinde's stance may have less to do with faith and more to do with optics. Dighe's campaign had bumped up his appeal among Hindu voters in Maharashtra state.

"Mr Shinde is now trying to position himself as the 'Hindu saviour' of Maharashtra," says Prashant Dixit, a former journalist.

Separate from the national election, Maharashtra - India's wealthiest state - will vote for the state assembly later this year. Securing support from the Hindu majority is crucial for Mr Shinde, given the state's distinctive political landscape, says Mr Dixit.

Elections in Maharashtra are usually a four-way contest between the nativist, Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the centrist Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress, each with their own share of core voters.

But Mr Shinde faces an additional complication - in 2022, he and his supporters defected from the erstwhile Shiv Sena.

The rebellion toppled the then-triparty government - an unlikely coalition of the Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP - and forged a new alliance with the BJP to form the new government.

"But while lawmakers might change parties, it's hard to get core voters to switch loyalties," Mr Dixit says. "By raising the dargah issue, Mr Shinde is hoping to appeal to the emotions of the core voters of the erstwhile Shiv Sena and consolidate the Hindu vote bank," he says.

Kushal Misl (left) visits the shrine once every year - a tradition started by his grandfather

Hindu devotees the BBC spoke to had mixed reactions to Mr Shinde's comments.

Kushal Misl, for instance, sees Mr Shinde as articulating what has long been on his mind - a belief that the shrine originally belonged to a Hindu saint and was later taken over by Muslims during invasions in India.

Rajendra Gaikwad shares a similar view but says that he feels uneasy about the ongoing debate. "Whatever is happening in India right now is very bad," he says, and underscores his belief that for him, "all gods are one".

Abhijit Nagare, who goes to the shrine every month, says that it doesn't matter to him which religion the structure belongs to - he likes to visit because he feels at peace there.

Nasir Khan, one of the shrine's trustees, told the BBC that the controversy had led to a dip in the number of devotees visiting the shrine. "People come with their families and don't want to be hassled by miscreants," he said.

The controversy is also hurting local businesses.

Visitors have to climb some 1,500 steps to reach the Haji Malang shrine

The structure sitting atop the 3,000ft (914m) hill doesn't stand alone. The elevation is punctuated with houses, shops, and restaurants carved into the stone and rock over the years.

Mr Khan says that about 4,000 people, both Hindus and Muslims, live there. The locals depend on tourism to make a living, but it's a tough existence.

Locals told the BBC that they struggle to get basic amenities like potable water, especially in the gruelling summer months.

"Water has to be rationed. Each family is given just 10 litres of water per day," says Ayyub Shaikh, a local village council member.

The hill also doesn't have a proper hospital, school or an ambulance.

"An educated person would not want to live here; there's nothing for them to do," says 22-year-old tuk-tuk driver Shaikh, who asked for only his first name to be used.

"All politicians want to do is play games to get votes. Nobody really cares about what the people want."

The sentiment is echoed by numerous locals.

"Hindus and Muslims have co-existed in harmony on this hill for centuries," Mr Shaikh says. "We celebrate festivals together and support each other in times of need.

"Nobody else stands by us - so why would we fight among ourselves?"

Pakistan accuses India of assassinations on its soil

Mathias Hammer
Fri, January 26, 2024 

Semafor Signals

Insights from Foreign Affairs, Good Authority, and the Financial Times

The News

Pakistan has accused India of assassinating two anti-Indian militants on Pakistani soil as part of a wider pattern of extrajudicial killings abroad, leading to vehement denials from Delhi.

Islamabad has “credible evidence” that Indian agents were behind the killings of two Pakistani nationals in its territory, Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi said Thursday.

India immediately dismissed the allegations as “false and malicious anti-India propaganda.”

Qazi linked the alleged killings to accusations by Canada that Indian agents were involved in the murder of a prominent Sikh activist near Vancouver in June. The U.S. also raised concerns with India after foiling a plot to assassinate another Sikh separatist in New York in November. Sikh separatists advocate for the creation of an independent ethno-religious state in the Punjab.

India has denied being involved in either case, but has said it is looking into the U.S. allegations.

SIGNALS

Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories.

Suspicions grow over India’s security apparatus after killings

Sources: Good Authority, The New York Times, Financial Times

A growing list of suspicious deaths of anti-Indian figures in Pakistan has led to questions over whether India’s conservative Hindu-led government is behind a pattern of extrajudicial, extraterritorial killings, despite its consistent denials.

There have been at least 11 targeted killings of anti-Indian activists, militants, or terrorists in Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir since Mar. 2022, Christopher Clary, a professor of political science, wrote in Good Authority.

After being indicted by the U.S. over his alleged role in the New York assassination plot, an Indian agent allegedly directed by a government official told an undercover officer that “we have so many targets.”

“India might just be, or is, the new Israel,” one South Asia expert told the Financial Times, referring to Israel’s security services’ track record of covert operations and assassinations overseas.

Indian crackdown targets Islamist and Sikh opponents abroad

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Foreign Affairs

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has elevated his country’s intelligence agency during his decade in power, giving it “a free hand to operate” in targeting the country’s enemies abroad, one Indian security official told The Wall Street Journal.

Pakistan’s allegations center on two alleged members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist militia group with ties to Islamabad’s security apparatus that was behind the deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, the Canadian and U.S. allegations focused on opposition figures from the exiled Sikh community, whose movement to secede has drawn a crackdown by Delhi that some see as overblown and detrimental to its relations with other governments.

While India’s Sikh minority plays an outsized role within the country, “the international [Sikh] threat is still a figment of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s imagination,” journalist Hartosh Singh Bal wrote in Foreign Affairs.

Ex-Pakistan PM Khan, party erased from election campaign

Cyril BELAUD and Zain Zaman JANJUA
Fri, January 26, 2024 

A relentless crackdown widely attributed to Pakistan's powerful military has seen Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party almost erased from the election campaign ahead of the vote (Aamir QURESHI)


Pakistani cricketing legend turned world leader Imran Khan is wildly popular in his constituency and ancestral homeland of Mianwali, but the political posters that line the streets do not bear his face and flags do not fly his colours.

A relentless crackdown widely attributed to Pakistan's powerful military has seen him and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party almost erased from the election campaign ahead of the vote.

"Our party workers are facing harassment, and I personally have received death threats," says 61-year-old Jamal Ahsan Khan, who is standing for PTI in Mianwali in place of his leader.


"Throughout my life, I have never witnessed an election as intense and threatening as this one."

Khan, currently in jail facing dozens of legal challenges, is barred from contesting elections on February 8 because of a graft conviction -- cases he claims are politically motivated.

Across the country, PTI has been obstructed from holding rallies and the heavily censored media is restricted in its coverage of the opposition, pushing the party's campaign almost entirely online.

Dozens of candidates nationwide have also had their nomination papers rejected by the electoral commission.

Like many other party candidates, loyalist Ahsan Khan has been in near hiding in the build-up to the election, unable to hold meetings or distribute leaflets.

"It feels disheartening that as a candidate of Pakistan's leading political party, I am unable to conduct my campaign in a meaningful way," he told AFP.

With two weeks until the vote, there is none of the fervour and excitement that usually marks an election in the country of more than 240 million people.

- 'He is a hero' -

It was from Mianwali, a largely rural district in the central province of Punjab, that Khan built his political career and was elected three times as MP.

PTI's national victory in 2018, driven by its promises to put an end to corruption and the family dynasties which have ruled the country for generations, propelled him to prime minister.

In Mianwali, where he notably built a hospital and a university, the 71-year-old "is not just a political figure, he is a hero", Rana Amjad Iqbal, editor-in-chief of local newspaper Nawa-e-Sharar, or the Daily Spark, tells AFP.

"However, the primary and most significant reason for his enduring political relevance lies in his anti-establishment stance," underlines the journalist.

Khan was widely believed to have been backed by the military in his rise to power, but became emboldened during his leadership and began to push against the control of the mighty generals.

Eventually, he lost their favour and was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in 2022 after dozens of his MPs defected.

His subsequent arrest in May 2023 brought supporters onto the streets who protested against military symbols -- sparking the start of a widespread crackdown against PTI.

Thousands of supporters were arrested and around 100 -- half from Mianwali -- are awaiting trial before military courts, while senior party leaders were detained and forced underground before defecting in their dozens.

Khan "is still popular with the public, but he is unacceptable" to the army, retired schoolteacher Ijaz Khan said.

- Sidelined -

Earlier this month, PTI suffered a crucial blow when the Supreme Court banned it from contesting elections with its electoral symbol: the cricket bat.

In a country where millions of people cannot read or write, symbols are crucial for voters to identify their prefered party and candidate.

The election commission instead ordered Ahsan Khan to use a bottle, an emblem viewed with disdain in rural areas because it is associated with alcohol.

Khan's rival in Mianwali, Obaid Ullah Khan, is indifferent to the punishment meted out to his rival political party.

"When would it be justified if not now?" he said of the crackdown.

Unlike PTI candidates, Ullah Khan, who is standing for Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), meets openly with villagers, whose leaders assure him of the support of the entire community, in hope of future favours.

The PML-N is the party of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was jailed ahead of the 2018 election and later forced into self-imposed exile.

As Khan has fallen, Sharif has risen, returning to his country and into the arms of the military, analysts say.

Despite being sidelined from the election campaign, voters have not lost their lust for Khan.

Hanzala bin Shakeel, a 23-year-old computer science student, will vote for the first time and is making no secret of his choice.

"I will vote for (Imran Khan) because he is the only one who really cares about this country; the others prioritise their personal interests."

zz-cyb/ecl/ssy/cwl


Pakistani police use tear gas to disperse pre-election rally by supporters of former leader Khan

Associated Press
Sun, January 28, 2024 


Supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan and political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) attend an election campaign rally in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024. Pakistani police fired tear gas to disperse supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the southern city of Karachi on Sunday, less than two weeks before a national parliamentary election that Khan was blocked from running in because of a criminal conviction.

 (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police fired tear gas to disperse supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the southern city of Karachi on Sunday, less than two weeks before a national parliamentary election that Khan was blocked from running in because of a criminal conviction.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw between 20 and 30 people getting arrested at the rally. A dozen workers from Khan's political party were arrested for attacking officers and blocking the road, police said.

Although Khan will not be on the ballot for the Feb. 8 election, he remains a potent political force because of his grassroots following and anti-establishment rhetoric. He says the legal cases against him were a plot to sideline him ahead of the vote.

Senior police superintendent Sajid Siddozai said workers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI party organized the rally without obtaining permission from authorities and blocked the road. Siddozai confirmed the use of tear gas.

“When police officials attempted to negotiate and persuade them not to block the road, they attacked the police," he said. "This resulted in injuries to five police officials, including a female officer. One of the wounded is in a critical condition.”

The police operation was ongoing, Siddozai added.

PTI worker Waheedullah Shah said Khan had called for rallies across the country and that Sunday's event in Karachi was peaceful. “But police dispersed our rally and arrested our workers,” Shah said. "We will not be deterred by such tactics. We stand by Khan and will always support him.”

There were violent demonstrations after Khan's May 2023 arrest. Authorities have cracked down on his supporters and party since then.

Pakistan's independent human rights commission has said there is little chance of a free and fair parliamentary election next month because of “pre-poll rigging.” It also expressed concern about authorities rejecting the candidacies of Khan and senior figures from his party.

Rural voters are (mostly) Trump voters, new poll shows: Why Biden suffers outside cities

Terry Collins, USA TODAY
Updated Sun, January 28, 2024


Four years ago, cattle rancher JD Hill bucked his family's Democratic tradition and voted for Donald Trump. Now a registered Republican, he's going to do it again this year.

It's not that Hill, a resident of Greenville, Kentucky, loves the New York real estate mogul and all he stands for. He's well aware of Trump's legal problems and "I don't like his rhetoric."

But Hill, 57, believes the Democrats and Biden in particular simply haven't paid enough attention to communities like his.

"Am I a huge Trump fan? No. But I just haven’t seen the country go in the right direction under Joe Biden," said Hill, whose town in Muhlenberg County has a population of about 31,000. "Personally, I don't think Biden is in touch with rural America."

A new poll of likely rural voters suggests Americans living outside cities and suburbs favor Trump above all his competitors, both Republican and Democratic.

That support is lukewarm, though. Only a slim majority of rural Trump supporters polled said they would be "very happy" if he were at the top of the GOP ticket, according to the poll of 2,500 Americans conducted Jan. 5-10 by researchers at Maine's Colby College. And, nearly a third of those Trump supporters say their vote is really against Biden, believing the president has ignored their issues during his time in office.

Cattle rancher JD Hill of Greenville, Kentucky, who became a registered Republican last year, said he believes President Joe Biden is out of touch with the concerns of rural Americans. Hill said he plans to vote for current GOP frontrunner former president Donald Trump.

That matches Hill's feelings.

"Look, I get that the electoral votes are in the larger states like Illinois, California and New York," said Hill, who travels up to 4,000 miles a month as a national sales manager for an animal health supplement manufacturer. "But those in the flyover states are being looked over, the people who help feed this country and keep this country alive."
Eager for a new direction while still preserving a way of life

The Colby College poll suggests rural Republican voters like Hill have only seen the bad in Biden's four years in office. Meanwhile, Trump has had resounding victories against his GOP primary contenders in both New Hampshire and Iowa, with particular strength in rural areas.

"We’ve been hearing that Trump's 'the Great Disruptor' and rural Americans are anxious for a new direction," said Dan Shea, a Colby professor who co-researched the poll. "Rural voters think more about the entire community and not just themselves. They think their community is in trouble and that the Democrats can’t provide solutions."

That's a sentiment shared by Hill, who didn't participate in the Colby poll of anonymous respondents. He sides with Colby's findings that, compared to urban residents, rural voters were more likely to say the economy is in horrible shape (27%), their specific communities are doing worse than America overall (39%), and they have yet to financially recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I don’t feel like (Biden's) leadership qualities are quite what this country needs right now," Hill said.

4 takeaways from New Hampshire primary: Donald Trump wins again, Nikki Haley vows to stay in the race

Hill's neighbor, Cindy Hendricks, 69, agrees with nearly 45% of rural Trump voters surveyed that a second Biden presidency will hurt their community. That's compared to 33% of Trump voters living in cities and suburbs who shared similar concerns about a Biden reelection.

A lifelong Republican, Hendricks said Trump cares more about "trying to ensure success for the businesses in America, big and small," which is a difference-maker to her.

"He represents a symbol of strength and I‘m not just speaking for me, these are what my friends also share with me," said Hendricks, adding that she thinks the former president would make America look more feared by international leaders.
Legal troubles are no problem for rural Trump supporters

Despite Trump's legal troubles ‒ he is currently facing four indictments on 91 felony charges ‒ any convictions will have a limited impact on his popularity with rural voters, the poll found. An overwhelming 92% of rural supporters, including Hendricks, said even a conviction would not change their vote.

"I'm not going to throw stones. I'd like to hear somebody in politics say, 'I’ve never made a mistake,'" she said. "I think he can rise above it. ... I just think his good outweighs the bad."

More than 60% of Trump supporters polled agreed with the statement that charges against Trump related to the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol were "phony, made-up charges by the Democrats to keep him from office." That is 13 percentage points higher than Trump voters who live outside of rural America.

Colby College professors Dan Shea and Nicholas Jacobs say in their latest poll Republicans fare very well with rural voters, which currently includes former president Donald Trump as President Joe Biden will have to work hard to make inroads with those same voters.

Colby professor Nicholas Jacobs, who co-researched the poll with Shea said in most rural voters' minds, Trump continues pushing the boundaries of traditional government.

"They don’t believe in anybody else," said Jacobs, co-author with Shea of the new book, "The Rural Voter: The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America."

Republicans have been resonating more with rural voters than Democrats since Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980, Jacobs and Shea said. That support accelerated rapidly by 2010, the midway point of President Barack Obama's first term.

Sam Van Wetter, left, a field organizer for the Rural Utah Project, believes the concerns of rural voters, no matter their party affiliation, are being overlooked by politicians on a national level.

Trump was able to win 65% of the rural vote in 2020, up from 59% in 2016, and more than Mitt Romney did in 2012, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center study. During the 2022 midterms, Republican candidates raked in 69% of the rural vote nationwide.

"It's true that Trump has a unique approach, an in-your-face style that is popular in rural America but this movement with Republicans and rural voters predates Trump and probably will continue long afterward," Shea said.

Regardless of the polls and perceptions, not everyone in rural America votes the same way, said Sam Van Wetter, a field organizer for the Rural Utah Project, a nonprofit that helps underrepresented communities have a voice in local and state politics. "It’s important to note that rural voters are not a monolith."
Biden struggling to be heard in rural America

The Colby College poll showed that Biden's messages aren't being heard in rural America.

Only 35% of rural residents said they’ll likely vote for Biden in November's general election and only 29% of those supporters are "very happy" he's the nominee, the poll found.

The Colby poll asked rural voters if they are familiar with Biden's infrastructure plans that have led to the launch of 32,000 projects across 4,500 communities totaling $220 billion. Just 23% of rural voters said yes, compared with 33% of their urban counterparts.

When asked about the Biden administration's new investments in broadband internet, 41% of rural voters polled reported hearing "nothing at all."

Hendricks, who is the secretary of the Republican Party of Muhlenberg County, said her neighbors haven't yet reaped any benefits from Biden's infrastructure plan.

"We haven’t seen or felt any of that 'positive stuff,'" Hendricks said. "What we’ve felt are the effects of inflation and rising cost of living, I haven’t seen any of that good that he’s talking about."

To win over rural voters, Biden needs to convince them in their wallets, their bank account and their gut, said Issac Wright, co-founder of the Rural Voter Institute, a nonprofit that works to help Democratic and progressive candidates better communicate with rural voters.

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"The economic angst in rural America and what small-town voters are feeling should not be ignored as there's been a build-up of what has been going on for years," Wright said. "It is serious, it is real, and it needs to be addressed."

Wright cites an upcoming research study by the Rural Voter Institute that goes deeper into why Democrats are having a hard time connecting with rural and small-town voters. Among themes expressed by rural panelists in focus groups included a sense that "rural America and its values are being threatened." Panelists said they are being "forgotten by politicians" at the state and federal levels and in overall general policy discussions.

"When factual positives and rhetoric about Democrats’ economic record were introduced, rural and small-town respondents rejected the positive information as fake news or false information, yielding a tepid response," the Rural Voter Initiative study said.

For his part, Hill, the Kentucky cattle rancher, worries if Biden is reelected, the country could go into an economic depression.

"Our main staples, the farming, cattle and hog industries, are going to suffer," Hill said. "I feel that strongly. I could be totally wrong about this, and I hope I am."

He wants to use his vote to help improve his community and his nation.

"Whatever reservations I have, I know my vote, when I do it, I believe it will be for the good of the country," Hill said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Trump voters make up large part of rural electorate

GOP legislatures in some states seek ways to undermine voters' ability to determine abortion rights

CHRISTINE FERNANDO
Sun, January 28, 2024 

CHICAGO (AP) — Legislative efforts in Missouri and Mississippi are attempting to prevent voters from having a say over abortion rights, building on anti-abortion strategies seen in other states, including last year in Ohio.

Democrats and abortion rights advocates say the efforts are evidence that Republican lawmakers and abortion opponents are trying to undercut democratic processes meant to give voters a direct role in forming state laws.

“They’re scared of the people and their voices, so their response is to prevent their voices from being heard," said Laurie Bertram Roberts, executive director of Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund. “There’s nothing democratic about that, and it’s the same blueprint we’ve seen in Ohio and all these other states, again and again.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, voters in seven states have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to curtail them in statewide votes. Democrats have pledged to make the issue a central campaign topic this year for races up and down the ballot.

A proposal passed Wednesday by the Mississippi House would ban residents from placing abortion initiatives on the statewide ballot. Mississippi has among the toughest abortion restrictions in the country, with the procedure banned except to save the life of the woman or in cases of rape or incest.

In response to the bill, Democratic Rep. Cheikh Taylor said direct democracy “shouldn’t include terms and conditions.”

“Don’t let anyone tell you this is just about abortion,” Taylor said. “This is about a Republican Party who thinks they know what’s best for you better than you know what’s best for you. This is about control. So much for liberty and limited government.”

The resolution is an attempt to revive a ballot initiative process in Mississippi, which has been without one since 2021 when the state Supreme Court ruled that the process was invalid because it required people to gather signatures from the state’s five previous U.S. House districts. Mississippi dropped to four districts after the 2000 census, but the initiative language was never updated.

Republican Rep. Fred Shanks said House Republicans would not have approved the resolution, which will soon head to the Senate, without the abortion exemption. Some House Republicans said voters should not be allowed to vote on changing abortion laws because Mississippi originated the legal case that overturned Roe v. Wade.

“It took 50 years … to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Mississippi House Speaker Jason White, a Republican. “We weren’t going to let it just be thrown out the window by folks coming in from out of state, spending 50 million bucks and running an initiative through.”

But Mississippi Democrats and abortion access organizations panned the exemption as limiting the voice of the people.

“This is an extremely undemocratic way to harm access to reproductive health care," said Sofia Tomov, operations coordinator with Access Reproductive Care Southeast, a member of the Mississippi Abortion Access Coalition. "It’s infringing on people’s ability to participate in the democratic process.”

In Missouri, one of several states where an abortion rights initiative could go before voters in the fall, a plan supported by anti-abortion groups would require initiatives to win a majority vote in five of the state’s eight congressional districts, in addition to a simple statewide majority.

The proposal comes days after a Missouri abortion-rights campaign launched its ballot measure effort aiming to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. Missouri abortion rights groups also have criticized Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, saying he is attempting to impede the initiative by manipulating the measure's ballot summary. A Missouri appeals court recently found the summaries were politically partisan and misleading.

When asked during a recent committee hearing if the GOP proposal was an attempt to get rid of direct democracy, Republican state Rep. Ed Lewis said “I think that our founding fathers were about as fearful of direct democracy as we should be. That’s why they created a republic.”

Sam Lee, lobbyist for Campaign Life Missouri, testified on Tuesday for the need for provisions like this that make sure “the rights of the minority aren’t trampled on.”

“The concern of our founders, and the concern of many people throughout the decades and years, is to avoid having a tyranny of the majority,” he said.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo said controlling who can vote and on what subjects has been “the highest priority of the Republican Party for the last 20 years."

“This is how democracies die,” he said in an interview. “We are watching it in real time. This is the scariest moment that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

Democratic Rep. Joe Adams criticized the plan in part by alleging that the state's congressional and legislative districts are gerrymandered to favor Republicans. That would make it nearly impossible for an abortion measure to be approved under the proposed legislation.

Attempts to keep abortion measures off the ballot in Missouri and Mississippi follow a similar blueprint in other states to target the ballot initiative process, a form of direct democracy available to voters in only about half the states.

Florida’s Republican attorney general has asked the state Supreme Court to keep a proposed abortion rights amendment off the ballot as an abortion-rights coalition this month reached the necessary number of signatures to qualify it for the 2024 ballot.

In Nevada, a judge on Tuesday approved an abortion-rights ballot measure petition as eligible for signature-gathering, striking down a legal challenge by anti-abortion groups attempting to prevent the question from going before voters.

Ohio abortion rights advocates have said last year’s statewide vote to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution was as much about abortion as it was a referendum on democracy itself. They said Republicans tried to obstruct the democratic process before the vote and attempted to ignore the will of voters after the amendment passed.

Ohio Republicans called a special election in August attempting to raise the threshold for passing future constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60%. That effort was defeated at the polls and was widely seen as aiming to undermine the abortion amendment.

After Ohio voters approved the abortion protections last year, Republican lawmakers pledged to block the amendment from reversing the state's restrictions. Some proposed preventing Ohio courts from interpreting any cases related to the amendment.

“It wasn’t just about abortion," Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer of the ACLU, said last fall after the Ohio amendment passed. "It’s about, ‘Will the majority be heard?’"

__

Associated Press writers Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri, and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.

___

‘Rage’ abortion donations dry up, leaving funds struggling to meet demand

Nathaniel Weixel
Sun, January 28, 2024 



Abortion funds that help people cover the costs of getting the procedure are struggling with money as the waves of donations that followed the end of Roe v. Wade have begun to dry up.

It’s led some of the independent organizations — which help cover expenses for abortions and associated costs, such as transportation, child care, and lodging — to scale back or even pause operations.

After the Dobbs decision in June 2022, many funds received large donations from Americans outraged at seeing the right to an abortion stripped away.


The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), which comprises 100 funds across the country, said its members disbursed close to $37 million to about 103,000 people from July 1, 2022, to June 30. That was an 88 percent increase in spending compared to the year before.

People giving money were so angry at the time that the gifts were described as “rage” donations.

But as the issue has faded from headlines, donations have too, even as demand for help and the costs for helping individual people have skyrocketed.

“We noticed with any sort of moment that happens, whether it is a certain election, an introduction of an abortion ban, or in this case, the overturning of Roe, there is this immediate desire to like, make a contribution to abortion funds or make contributions to the movement,” said Oriaku Njoku, NNAF’s executive director.

“While we appreciate the rage, giving what is actually required to make sure that people can consistently get the care they need is that long-term investment in abortion funds,” Njoku said.

When the Dobbs decision first leaked out, “money was thrown. People went into a panic and dollars were just raining,” said Chasity Wilson, executive director of the Louisiana Abortion Fund.

“Everyone was very mad, because it was in the headlines. It was national, all throughout the U.S. Things were changing pretty rapidly for people. So people were of course mad and they were giving a lot,” said Bree Wallace, director of case management at the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund. “And then a few months after that, it kind of died off.”

The large influx of donations changed how funds operated. Some were pushing money out the door to vastly expand the number of people they could aid. Others tried to save the extra money to boost their budgets long-term.

Wallace estimated the fund spent about $700,000 in 2023, but “we definitely couldn’t do that again this year.”

Donations dropped 63 percent from 2022 to 2023, Wallace said. The fund was previously able to help people across Florida but now is limited to people coming into or out of the Tampa area.

Wilson said individual donors are still keeping the Louisiana fund operational, but she added foundations and philanthropies have noticeably pulled back — a common refrain from funds in the South.

Almost every fund contacted by the Hill said they have seen a decrease in donations at a time when access to abortion care is much more expensive than it used to be. When abortion was still legal, abortion funds were mostly needed to help people drive to local clinics and cover the cost of the procedure.

For funds in the Deep South, the options for sending someone to an in-state clinic were extremely limited, so people had to travel out-of-state frequently.

But now abortion is banned or restricted in more than 21 states across the country, meaning people often must travel much further than before, and navigate an ever-changing landscape of local restrictions.

On top of the travel, abortions also cost more. A medical abortion using pills costs up to $200 more than it used to, according to Kenny Callaway, a health-line coordinator for the abortion fund ARC Southeast, which serves people in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

The same amount of money doesn’t go nearly as far as it used to.

“There was a there was a time when we were helping like 20 people a week. Now we’re doing good to help two or three,” said Laurie Bertram Roberts, co-founder of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund. “We’ve been doing this for 10 years. In a lot of ways it feels like going backwards in our capacity.”

Before Dobbs, Mississippi only had one abortion clinic in the state. Bertram Roberts said the fund spent between $200 to $600 on average per caller. But now, the fund needs to spend between $1000 to $1500 just for people who need an abortion before 12 weeks’ gestation. If they are further along, the costs are significantly higher.

Most people in the state are making a 10-hour drive to Carbondale, Ill., a two-day trip that requires money for food, gas, and lodging.

“No disrespect to the rage givers. They enabled us to get a lot of people seen before Roe fell. Thing is, is that now we have these harder, higher standards to reach to get people to care. And we have less investment,” Bertram Roberts said.

Her organization stopped giving out funds for four months and only reopened at the beginning of January.

“It feels horrible. It feels gross. It feels like you’re letting people down, because you are. It puts you in a position to be like the gatekeeper of people getting access to care. And nobody wants to be that,” Bertram Roberts said.

When abortion was legal, it was not uncommon for funds to pause operations if they ran over their monthly budgets. But fund officials said there’s a ripple effect now, because when one fund closes or pauses, others step in to help.

“That is the reality for organizations like this. We do run out of funds and there are some people we cannot support,” said Callaway.




Abortion expansion or abolition? What 51 years of Roe v. Wade means today

Nicole Fallert, USA TODAY
Updated Sat, January 27, 2024 

The White House marked the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade this week by rolling out expanded access to contraception and steps to inform pregnant patients about their abortion options during life-threatening emergencies. The measures were another sign that President Joe Biden will place reproductive rights at the center of his reelection campaign.

The landmark 1973 case has become even more politically potent since it was overturned by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority in its explosive 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Sins the Dobbs decision, 14 states have completely banned abortion, including Alabama, Mississippi, and South Dakota, while swath of others in the southeast have also enacted early-term bans ranging from six to 18 weeks of pregnancy. Other states have moved to protect abortion access, including Ohio, which voted in a November referendum to include the right to an abortion in the state constitution.
Roe is dead, and still powerful

And 2024 is set to include more decisive moments as abortion hits the polls in states like Maryland and New York, where voters will weigh state constitutional amendments enshrining reproductive rights. Meanwhile, a major decision from the Supreme Court is expected regarding mifepristone, the FDA-approved pill that accounts for more than half of all abortions in the United States.

"Roe is now shorthand for what has been lost," said Joshua Prager, author of "The Family Roe," a history of the legal case. "That is a very powerful thing."

Related: Election lessons: Abortion delivers for Democrats from Ohio to Virginia to Kentucky
Making abortion 'unthinkable'

Amid this complex landscape, voices on both the anti-abortion and abortion rights camps told USA TODAY they share the goal of never returning to Roe − for vastly different reasons.

The anti-abortion side wants complete, total elimination of abortion to the point it is “unthinkable,” said Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, an annual gathering in Washington that drew thousands of anti-abortion supporters last week.

“While the Dobbs decision is a huge victory and milestone in building a culture of life there is much more work to be done,” Mancini said.

More: Abortion restrictions repel graduating OB-GYNs from conservative states, report shows

Anti-abortion activists march and rally in front of the United States Supreme Court during the annual March for Life in Washington on January 19, 2024.
Roe was inadequate, activists say

Meanwhile, some abortion rights advocates believe the moment should be for revision, rather than reversion, back to Roe. This means legalizing abortion nationally, and protecting access, especially for members of marginalized groups who struggled to access abortion services even under Roe, said Serra Sippel of The Brigid Alliance, which supports patients traveling to seek abortion care.

It's vital “we don't make the mistake of reinforcing what was there," Sippel said. "That's a 51-year-old decision.”

For abortion rights supporters, Roe should be "the floor, not the ceiling," Sippel said, meaning that the decision was not only too vulnerable to being overturned but also limited in its power to assure equity in abortion access.

Compare this sentiment with the stance of President Joe Biden, who stood in front a banner with the words “Restore Roe” at a campaign event in Virginia on Tuesday, where he castigated his predecessor, Donald Trump, for dismantling the protections previously guaranteed by Roe.

More: Indigenous women, facing tougher abortion restrictions post-Roe, want Congress to step in

President Joe Biden arrives to speak during a Democratic National Committee event at the Howard Theatre, Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) ORG XMIT: DCEV401
Joe Biden expands access to contraception

Biden’s rally came on the tails of his announcement Monday that the White House was expanding coverage for no-cost contraception through the Affordable Care Act. Federal employees will also receive greater access to contraception under guidelines issued to insurers.

The Health and Human Services Department is rolling out a plan to educate patients about the administration's position that they are entitled to care for pregnancy-related emergences − including abortion care in some cases − under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

Democrats have been increasingly successful in talking about abortion rights, said Jessica Valenti, a feminist writer and founder of "Abortion, Every Day," which tracks national and state-level changes in abortion laws. Valenti spoke to Senate Democrats at a briefing on abortion rights last week and said she felt “hopeful” after leaving the room.

Democrats, Valenti said, "need to get out of a defensive crouch. It can’t be ‘We just want to go back to way things were.’”

Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his four years in office, including Amy Coney Barrett. They were part of the five-vote majority that overturned Roe v Wade.
Trump dances around abortion

Whether conservatives, in their effort for total abolition of abortion, will gain a key ally in the White House will be decided in less than 10 months.

While former president Donald Trump appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe, the GOP frontrunner has been largely mute on the issue, giving subtle and nonspecific answers on whether he would push for a national abortin ban if he beats Biden in November.

"He is strategically and deliberately feigning moderation," Valenti said. "He is hoping people who are horrified by the end of Roe ... that they won't attach him to that and think that he will make things worse. That's just not true. Things could get much worse under a Trump presidency."

More: SCOTUS' leaked Roe v. Wade opinion led to near tenfold increase in abortion pill demand, study shows
A 19th century obscenity law could target abortion pills

If Trump returns to the White House, he could order the Department of Justice to use the Comstock Act, an obscenity law from the 1800s, to ban shipments of not only abortion medication, but medical equipment used for abortion or even clinic supplies, Valenti said. The Biden administration has already ruled that sending abortion pills via mail doesn’t violate the act, but a new administration could interpret the law differently.

January 19, 2024: In a snow storm anti-abortion activists march and rally in front of the U.S. Capitol during the annual March for Life in Washington on January 19, 2024. The event ended at the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Politically it's clear we need something more protective," Valenti said.

But she also remarked that many Americans may feel stranded between forceful advocates for unrestricted access and those working toward complete abolition.

For people in the middle, Valenti said, it’s important to consider who they trust to make a major decision about their lives: "At the heart of the matter is, do you think that this is a decision that the government should be involved in or not?”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What 51 years of Roe v. Wade means today