GOP MEIN KAMPF

4 takeaways from the new Republican Party platform — or Trump’s playbook

By Faith E. Pinho

Staff Writer July 8, 2024

The Republican National Convention’s platform committee released its new platform Monday, cementing the party’s alignment with Donald Trump ahead of next week’s convention in Milwaukee.

The document focuses on many themes, such as immigration, Trump hammers at his rallies. The platform even mirrors Trump’s typical language and formatting in social media posts, with many capitalized letters, slogans such as “DRILL, BABY, DRILL” and broad promises.

Party delegates will vote on the proposed platform at their convention, where they will also formally accept Trump as the Republican nominee for president.

Here’s what you need to know:

No nationwide abortion ban

The party is leaving abortion up to the states, to decide how to rule on the contentious issue. The platform also takes credit for overturning Roe vs. Wade, the long-standing Supreme Court case that allowed abortions nationwide.

Trump frequently cites the 2022 Supreme Court decision which undid Roe while on the campaign trail. Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court who ruled in the case, Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which essentially gave states decision-making power on abortion.

Still, many on the Republican Party’s most conservative flank — including many evangelical leaders — have called for Trump and the party to go further, pushing for a federal ban on abortion.

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Knowing that stronger abortion restrictions could alienate key constituencies such as suburban women and young people, Trump has sought to carve out a narrow lane for himself — taking credit for undoing nationwide abortion access but leaving it to the states to decide how far to go. The new party platform reflects that tightrope.

“We proudly stand for families and Life,” the platform reads. “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights. After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the States and to a vote of the People.”

The document mentions the word “abortion” only once, when articulating the party’s opposition to “late term abortion.” It also notes that the party supports access to birth control and in vitro fertilization treatments.

‘America first’ foreign policy

In keeping with Trump’s “America first” mantra on foreign policy, the Republican Party platform says a second Trump administration will invest heavily in the U.S. military by increasing pay to the troops and ramping up defense equipment production.

The platform — like Trump — promises to build an Iron Dome missile defense system, like the one Israel has deployed against attacks by the militant group Hamas.

The platform does not mention Ukraine directly but does say one goal is to “restore peace in Europe.” Many Republicans have called for cutting off military aid to Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia two years ago.

Part of its America first policy includes promoting U.S. manufacturing and deregulating the energy industry.

Immigration control is everywhere

Immigration remains one of Republicans’ top priorities in the 2024 election, and the party platform capitalizes on the topic. In nearly every section — even on seemingly unrelated topics, such as supporting senior citizens — the platform includes a nugget about stanching illegal immigration.

It promises to restore Trump-era border policies, including the controversial “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers entering through the southern border. The party states a Trump administration would complete the U.S.-Mexico border wall, despite the fact that during Trump’s four years as president, fewer than 500 miles of wall were built along the 1,954-mile border, most of it replacing outdated fencing. Also, despite Trump’s repeated assertions that Mexico would pay for the wall, it never did.

The proposed party platform describes deporting millions of immigrants in the country illegally, even deploying federal troops to the southern border. It also pledges to increase penalties for those overstaying visas and to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities.

“Republicans will secure the Border, deport Illegal Aliens, and reverse the Democrats’ Open Borders Policies that have driven up the cost of Housing, Education, and Healthcare for American families,” the platform reads.

The Republican Party is Trump’s party

The new platform, dedicated “To the Forgotten Men and Women of America,” shows how closely the party is adhering to Trump’s campaign stump speech, with heavy emphasis on major issues, such as immigration, and few details for how policies would be designed or carried out.

Jon Fleischman, a Republican political strategist and former executive director of the California GOP, said the proposed platform is a continuation of the party’s move in the last eight years away from traditional Republicanism and toward Trump loyalism.

Not only has the Trump campaign placed its people in charge of many state party organizations, Fleischman said, but it has also changed the rules for many state parties to ensure that delegates are handpicked Trump loyalists. That way, Trump supporters are the delegates attending the convention and voting on the party’s rules and platforms.

“It really illustrates that America lives in a weak party system,” Fleischman said. “I mean the parties are not in charge, the candidates are in charge.”

The platform is a 16-page document, down 50 pages from its 2016 version.

“One generation ago, it would’ve been heresy to say we want to replace the party platform, which is a very large document,” Fleischman said. “Now it has become a campaign literature.”

AMERIKA

Support for legal abortion has risen since Supreme Court eliminated protections, AP-NORC poll finds

A new poll finds that a solid majority of Americans oppose a federal abortion ban and that a rising number appear to support access to abortions for any reason

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO and AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX - Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) — A solid majority of Americans oppose a federal abortion ban as a rising number support access to abortions for any reason, a new poll finds, highlighting a politically perilous situation for candidates who oppose abortion rights as the November election draws closer.

Around 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don't want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s an increase from June 2021, a year before the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to the procedure, when about half of Americans thought legal abortion should be possible under these circumstances.

Americans are largely opposed to the strict bans that have taken effect in Republican-controlled states since the high court’s ruling two years ago. Full bans, with limited exceptions, have gone into effect in 14 GOP-led states, while three other states prohibit abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, before women often realize they’re pregnant.

They are also overwhelmingly against national abortion bans and restrictions. And views toward abortion — which have long been relatively stable — may be getting more permissive.

Vincent Wheeler, a 47-year-old Republican from Los Angeles, said abortion should be available for any reason until viability, the point at which health care providers say it's possible for a fetus to survive outside the uterus.

“There’s so many reasons as to why someone may want or need an abortion that it has to be up to that person of what they have to do in that specific circumstance,” Wheeler said, acknowledging that some fellow Republicans might disagree.

Likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has declined to endorse a nationwide abortion ban, saying the issue should be left up to the states. But even that stance is likely to be unsatisfying to most Americans, who continue to oppose many bans on abortion within their own state, and think Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to abortions nationwide, according to the poll.

Seven in 10 Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a slight increase from last year, while about 3 in 10 think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

Robert Hood, a 69-year-old from Universal City, Texas, who identifies as an “independent liberal,” has believed that abortions should be allowed for any reason since he was an 18-year-old high school senior, because “life is full of gray situations.” He recalls reading stories as a teenager about women who died trying to get an abortion before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision provided a constitutional right to the procedure.

“Pregnancy is complicated,” he said. “Women should make the choice with the advice of their doctor and family, but at the end of the day it’s her choice and her body and her life.”

He said he would support national protections for abortion rights.

Views on abortion have long been nuanced and sometimes contradictory. The new AP-NORC survey shows that even though the country is largely antagonistic to restrictions on abortion, a substantial number of people hold opinions and values that are not internally consistent.

About half of those who say a woman should be able to get an abortion for any reason also say their state should not allow abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy and about one-quarter say their state should not allow abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

But the vast majority of Americans — more than 8 in 10 — continue to say abortion should be legal in extreme circumstances, such as when a patient's life would be endangered by continuing the pregnancy. About 8 in 10 say the same about a pregnancy caused by rape or incest or when a fetal anomaly would prevent the child from surviving outside the womb.

National bans on abortion are broadly unpopular: Around 8 in 10 Americans say Congress should not pass a federal law banning abortion. About three-quarters say there should not be a federal law banning abortion at six weeks, and 6 in 10 oppose a federal law banning abortion at 15 weeks.

Most Republicans — about two-thirds, according to the survey — say a nationwide abortion ban should not happen.

On the campaign trail, Trump has courted anti-abortion voters by highlighting his appointment of three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe. But his strategy on abortion policy has been to defer to the states, an attempt to find a more cautious stance on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans since the 2022 Dobbs decision.

Despite Trump's statements, Penny Johnson, 73, from Sherman Oaks, California, said she is deeply afraid Republicans might pursue a national abortion ban if they win the White House and Congress in November.

“We’ll have a lot of women who’ll die,” she said.

The poll of 1,088 adults was conducted June 20-24, 2024, 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 4.0 percentage points.

Fernando reported from Chicago. Associated Press polling writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.


The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

POST DOBBS

Apnews.comapnews.com/article/abortion-poll-roe-dobbs-ban-opinion-fcfdfc5a799ac3be617d99999e92eabe

Few US adults support full abortion bans, an AP-NORC poll finds

Jul 11, 2023 ... The majority of U.S. adults, including those living in states with the strictest limits on abortion, want it to be legal at least through ...

Apnorc.orgapnorc.org/projects/in-the-wake-of-the-dobbs-ruling-more-americans-are-citing-abortion-or-womens-rights-as-priority-issues/

In the wake of the Dobbs ruling, more Americans are citing abortion ...

Jul 1, 2022 ... That increased to 32% in May 2022 and 34% in June 2022. The biggest changes are among women and Democrats. There has been no change among men or ...

PRE DOBBS

Pewresearch.orgwww.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/08/29/u-s-public-continues-to-favor-legal-abortion-oppose-overturning-roe-v-wade/

U.S. Public Continues to Favor Legal Abortion, Oppose Overturning ...

Aug 29, 2019 ... The new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted July 22-August 4 among 4,175 adults, also finds little support for overturning Roe v. Wade, the ...

 THE LAST COLONY   VIVE INDEPENDENCE

New Caledonia elects pro-independence candidate to French national assembly

The election results are another setback for loyalists as unrest continues to simmer in the Pacific island territory.

BenarNews staff
2024.07.09

Emmanuel Tjibaou, a winning pro-independence candidate in the second of New Caledonia’s two constituencies in the French national assembly, reacts following a press conference in Dumbea, New Caledonia on July 3, 2024.

 Delphine Mayeur/AFP

New Caledonia elected a pro-independence candidate to France’s national assembly for the first time in nearly four decades, another setback for French loyalists as unrest continues in the Pacific island territory despite substantial security reinforcements.

Official results released on Monday for New Caledonia’s two constituencies in the national assembly showed the island also elected a loyalist candidate, even as the pro-independence bloc got more votes overall.

The results highlight the divisions in New Caledonia which has been rocked by unrest since May when pro-independence activists rioted in response to a proposed constitutional change that would dilute the voting power of indigenous Kanaks. The arrest of pro-independence activists and their removal to France for trial has also fueled protests. 

France’s High Commission, in a regular security update on Monday, said “the public order situation has improved” in recent days, helped by the presence of 3,500 regular and paramilitary police. However it also mentioned that schools had been set on fire. 

An update last week said police were still clearing roadblocks in the capital Noumea, nearly two months after the unrest first erupted, and that operations to regain control of the Noumea neighborhood of Mont-Dore were continuing. 

The election results, part of France’s snap national election on the weekend, showed indigenous Kanak Emmanuel Tjibaou won 57.4% of votes in New Caledonia’s 2nd constituency to defeat his loyalist opponent in a second-round contest.

Loyalist Nicolas Metzdorf triumphed in the 1st constituency with 52.4% of votes. Overall, about 158,000 New Caledonians voted and the pro-independence bloc outpolled loyalists by some 10,000 votes. 

However, loyalist leader Sonia Backès said the election was undermined by insecure conditions in New Caledonia and a lack of oversight at some polling locations. 

Last year, New Caledonia elected a pro-independence candidate, Robert Xowie, to France’s Senate for the first time.

Tjibaou is the son of a Kanak independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou who was assassinated in 1989. A newcomer to politics, Emmanuel Tjibaoul’s campaign emphasized a return to dialogue with France and loyalists to achieve the independence movement’s goals. 

“We must recreate the conditions for dialogue,” Tjibaou said in an interview Sunday with New Caledonia’s public broadcaster. “It’s a cry for help, it’s a cry for hope,” he said of the election results. 

Kanaks are about 40% of New Caledonia’s 270,000 people but are marginalized in their own land – they have lower incomes and poorer health than Europeans who make up a third of the population and occupy most positions of power in the territory.

The weeks of unrest, in which at least nine people have died, is the worst political violence in the Pacific territory located between Australia and Fiji since the 1980s. 

The riots erupted May 12 as the lower house of France’s parliament debated and subsequently approved a constitutional amendment to unfreeze New Caledonia’s electoral roll, which would give the vote to thousands of French immigrants.

Final approval of the amendment requires a joint sitting of France’s lower house. Such a vote now appears unlikely following the snap general election in France called by President Emmanuel Macron, which produced a plurality for centrist and left-wing parties but no outright majority.

France’s control of New Caledonia gives the European nation a significant security and diplomatic role in the Pacific at a time when the United States, Australia and other Western countries are pushing back against China’s inroads in the region. New Caledonia also has valuable nickel deposits that are among the world’s largest.

Backès, the leader of New Caledonia’s loyalists, said the French state failed to ensure the election was “democratic and transparent.”

“In the vast majority of polling stations on the East Coast, no assessor could attend due to lack of ability to get there, let alone safety,” she said in a Facebook post. 

“On Mont-Dore, the road blockage and violence against people trying to cross weakened the outcome of this election,” she said. 

THE RETURN OF MAOISM

The Chinese Embassy in India Holds a Seminar on the 70th Anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence

（From Chinese Embassy in India）

2024-07-05 13:48

On July 4, 2024, the Chinese Embassy in India held a Seminar on the 70th Anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Ambassador Xu Feihong delivered a keynote speech. About 30 representatives from India’s political parties, think tanks, universities, media and friendship organizations attended the Seminar.

Ambassador Xu elucidated the key elements of the important address delivered by President Xi Jinping at the conference marking the 70th anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Ambassador Xu reviewed the 70-year development of the Five Principles, and expounded on its relevance for our times. He emphasized that China and India should carry forward the spirit of the Five Principles, promote the healthy and stable development of China-India relations, and build a community with a shared future for mankind. The two sides should accurately grasp the characterization of the bilateral relationship and establish a model of positive interaction, properly manage the divergence and avoid the mindset of competition and confrontation, focus on the mutually beneficial cooperation and advance the coordinated development, and make unremitting efforts toward a brighter future of the two peoples and humanity.

The Indian participants agreed that against the backdrop of the profound transformation of international situations and amounting global challenges, the Five Principles is of even greater relevance. As the joint advocates, India and China should follow the spirit of the Five Principles, mutually respect each other’s core interests, strengthen communication and dialogues, promote people-to-people exchanges and mutually beneficial cooperation, so as to push forward the development of bilateral relations, and jointly maintain peace and stability of the world.

Northern Ireland

CHEEKY

PSNI invite owner of wallet containing ‘crystal meth’ found near popular NI fun park to ‘reclaim their lost property’

Drugs found by the police inside wallet.

Garrett Hargan

Today at 11:38

Police have invited the owner of a lost wallet containing suspected drugs to retrieve it at the station.

They warned that the white powder could have fallen into the hands of a child who may have mistaken it for an “edible sherbet”.

The PSNI’s Causeway, Coast and Glens Facebook page said: “Lost property found!

“Today officers were handed a lost wallet whilst patrolling the area of Curry’s, Portrush.

"On opening said wallet they found a bag of white crystal like powder suspected to be Methamphetamine.

"Surprisingly there was no ID inside the wallet and the owner never reappeared to reclaim their lost property!”

Learn more

Pause

Unmute

The post added: “We are more than happy to return the property… temporarily whilst across an interview table with the owner should they wish to come forward! This is however VERY doubtful.

“Thankfully this fell into the right hands but could’ve easily have ended up in a child’s hand who may of suspected it to be some kind of edible sherbet or sweet.

“If you wish to be reunited with your property and have a night away with some new friends, pop on into Coleraine Station and we shall see what we can do for you!”

SCOTLAND

Plans for windfarm rejected for a third time

THEY PREFER NORTH SEA OIL



NIMBY

An application to build a wind farm in the Scottish Borders has been rejected for the third time.

Scottish Borders Council previously turned down the eight-turbine Wull Muir scheme near Heriot and an appeal to the Scottish government was also unsuccessful in 2020.

Revised plans had been submitted which suggested moving the turbines and increasing them in size.

But the local authority rejected the plans on the grounds there would be "significant landscape and visual impacts" in the area.

Rejected wind farm seeks approval after revisions

'Severely disruptive' turbines refused on appeal

Permission for the original project - close to the boundary with Midlothian - was turned down by the council in February 2020 on the grounds of its "unacceptable significant adverse impacts on the landscape".

The developers appealed against that decision and took the case to the Scottish government which confirmed the scheme should not proceed.

Revised plans were submitted which suggested moving the turbines away from the Lammersmuir and Moorfoot escarpment.

The new proposals also suggested the turbines been increased in size, to 149m (489ft).

A report to the planning committee recommended the approval of the new plans, despite widespread opposition locally, but councillors rejected them.

Alice Munro's daughter alleges sexual abuse by the late author's husband

AP |
Jul 09, 2024 


TORONTO — The daughter of the late Nobel laureate Alice Munro has accused the author's second husband, Gerard Fremlin, of sexual abuse, writing that her mother remained with him because she “loved him too much” to leave.

Alice Munro's daughter alleges sexual abuse by the late author's husband

Munro, who died in May at age 92, was one of the world's most celebrated and beloved writers and a source of ongoing pride for her native Canada, where a reckoning with the author's legacy is now concentrated.

Andrea Robin Skinner, Munro's daughter with her first husband, James Munro, wrote in an essay published in the Toronto Star that Fremlin sexually assaulted her in the mid-1970s — when she was 9 — and continued to harass and abuse her until she became a teenager. Skinner, whose essay ran Sunday, wrote that in her 20s she told the author about Fremlin's abuse. Munro left her husband for a time, but eventually returned and was still with him when he died, in 2013.

“She reacted exactly as I had feared she would, as if she had learned of an infidelity,” Skinner wrote. “She said that she had been ‘told too late,’ she loved him too much, and that our misogynistic culture was to blame if I expected her to deny her own needs, sacrifice for her children and make up for the failings of men. She was adamant that whatever had happened was between me and my stepfather. It had nothing to do with her.”

Skinner wrote that she became estranged from her mother and siblings as a result. Shortly after The New York Times' magazine published a 2004 story in which Munro gushed about Fremlin, Skinner decided to contact Ontario Provincial Police and provided them letters in which Fremlin had admitted abusing her, the Toronto Star reported in a companion news story also published Sunday. At 80, he pleaded guilty to one count of indecent assault and received a suspended sentence — one that was not widely reported for nearly two decades.

The news stunned and grieved the literary world, although some readers — and Skinner herself — cited parallels in the author’s work, for which she was awarded the Nobel in 2013 and dubbed a “master of the contemporary short story” by the judges.

Author Margaret Atwood, a fellow Canadian and longtime friend of Munro's, told the Star that she didn’t know about Skinner’s story until after Fremlin had died and Munro was struggling with dementia.

“The kids probably wondered why she stayed with him,” Atwood said. “All I can add is that she wasn’t very adept at real life. She wasn’t very interested in cooking or gardening or any of that. She found it an interruption, I expect, rather than a therapy, as some do.”

The owners of Munro's Books, a prominent independent store in Victoria, British Columbia, issued a statement Monday expressing support for Skinner and calling her account “heartbreaking.” The author co-founded the store in 1963 with first husband and Skinner's father, James Munro, who continued to run the store after their 1971 divorce. Two years before his 2016 death, he turned the store over to four staff members.

"Along with so many readers and writers, we will need time to absorb this news and the impact it may have on the legacy of Alice Munro, whose work and ties to the store we have previously celebrated,” the store said in a statement issued Monday.

In Skinner's account, she wrote that she had told her father — with whom she lived for most of the year — of the initial assault, but he told her not to tell her mother and continued to send her to Munro and Fremlin for summers.

“The current store owners have become part of our family’s healing, and are modelling a truly positive response to disclosures like Andrea’s,” reads a statement from Skinner and other family members posted on the store's website. “We wholly support the owners and staff of Munro’s Books as they chart a new future.”

Although Skinner spent many years estranged from her siblings, they have since reconciled and her family spoke with the Toronto Star in support of Skinner. While they felt the world needed to know of the coverup and that sexual violence must be talked about, the Star reported, Munro's children believe her acclaimed literary reputation is deserved.

“I still feel she’s such a great writer — she deserved the Nobel,” daughter Sheila Munro told the Star. “She devoted her life to it, and she manifested this amazing talent and imagination. And that’s all, really, she wanted to do in her life. Get those stories down and get them out.”

Sheila Munro, also an author, wrote of her mother in the 2002 book “Lives of Mothers & Daughters: Growing Up With Alice Munro,” a project suggested by Alice Munro. Sheila makes no reference to the abuse of Skinner, but does observe that her mother often drew upon her private life and that she struggled to separate Munro's fiction “from the reality of what actually happened.”

Munro biographer Robert Thacker noted to The Associated Press that such Munro stories as “Silence” and “Runaway” center on estranged children. In “Vandals,” a woman grieves over the loss of a former boyfriend, Ladner, an unstable war veteran who we learn assaulted his young neighbor, Liza.

“When Ladner grabbed Liza and squashed himself against her, she had a sense of deep danger inside him, a mechanical sputtering,” Munro wrote, “as if he would exhaust himself in one jab of light, and nothing would be left of but black smoke and burnt smells and frazzled wires.”

Thacker, whose “Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives” came out in 2005 — the same year Fremlin was convicted — told the that he had long known of Fremlin's abuse but omitted it from his book because it was a “scholarly analysis of her career."

“I expected there to be repercussions one day,” said Thacker, who added that he even spoke to the author about it. “I don’t want to get into details but it wrecked the family. It was devastating in lots of ways. And it was something that she spoke deeply on.”

Italie reported from New York.

 

Opponents of Louisiana's Ten Commandments law want judge to block it before new school year starts

BATON ROUGE, La.

FILE - A copy of the Ten Commandments is posted along with other historical documents in a hallway of the Georgia Capitol, Thursday, June 20, 2024, in Atlanta. In motions filed Monday, July 8, 2024, parents challenging a new Louisiana law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms are asking a federal court to block implementation of it while their lawsuit progresses — and before the new school year starts. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Opponents of a new Louisiana law requiring that a version of the Ten Commandments be posted in public school classrooms have asked a federal court to block implementation of the requirement while their lawsuit against it progresses and before the new school year starts.

A group of parents of Louisiana public school students, representing various faiths, filed the lawsuit last month, soon after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the new law. In motions filed Monday, their attorneys asked for a preliminary injunction blocking the law. And they sought an expedited briefing and hearing schedule that would require the state to respond to the request for an injunction by July 19 and for a hearing on July 29. Public schools open in August.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Baton Rouge, says the law violates First Amendment clauses protecting religious liberty and forbidding laws establishing a religion.

Backers of the law argue that it doesn't violate the Constitution and that posting the Ten Commandments is appropriate and legal because they are part of the foundation of U.S. law.

The Associated Press