Britt, 42, third youngest serving senator, spoke on the heels of her state’s supreme court ruling that frozen embryos are ‘children’
Republicans chose first-term Alabama senator Katie Britt, the youngest Republican woman ever to serve in the Senate, to deliver the rebuttal to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday.
The 42-year-old presented a counterpoint to the oldest sitting president at her kitchen table in Alabama after his speech.
Continue reading...Guests at Biden address to include Alabama woman whose IVF was cancelled, and Texas women who went through abortion ordeals
More than a quarter of Black female voters describe abortion has their top issue in this year’s presidential election, according to a new poll.
The findings by health policy research firm KFF reveal a significant shift from previous election years, when white, conservative evangelicals were more likely to put abortion as their biggest priority when voting, AP reported. Those voters were highly motivated in recent presidential elections to cast ballots for Donald Trump.
Abortion voters are young, Black women – and not white evangelicals.
Continue reading...White House says Cox and Latorya Beasley’s stories show ‘how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to healthcare’
An Alabama mother who saw a second round of IVF canceled after the state supreme court ruled that embryos were children and a Texas mother forced to travel outside her state for a doctor-recommended abortion were due to attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, as guests of the first lady, Jill Biden.
The White House said the cases of Latorya Beasley of Birmingham, Alabama, and Kate Cox, from Dallas, Texas, showed “how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to reproductive healthcare for women and families across the country”.
Continue reading...Congressman and ex-Dodgers player emerge as top two contenders, boxing out progressives Katie Porter and Barbara Lee
Adam Schiff, the centrist Democratic congressman, is poised to be the next US senator from California after securing enough votes to advance to the November election. He will face off with Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, who also performed well in the non-partisan primary on Tuesday.
Schiff, a pro-Israel Democrat, was quickly called a winner by the Associated Press, and Garvey secured his spot in the general election about an hour after polls closed.
Continue reading...Republican candidate pulls out of race; Biden campaign says Trump running ‘on an extreme agenda’ in fresh warning after Super Tuesday
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nikki Haley is to pull out of the 2024 presidential election race. It says the candidate is expected to make a brief appearance at 10am ET (3pm GMT).
Haley has won only two primaries – the District of Columbia and Vermont – during her campaign.
Haley won’t announce an endorsement Wednesday, the people said. She will encourage Donald Trump, who is close to having the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination, to earn the support of Republican and independent voters who backed her.
She is expected to emphasize that she will continue to advocate for the conservative domestic and foreign policies she supports and caution against some of the dangers, such as isolationism and a lack of fiscal discipline, that she sees coming from Washington.
Continue reading...Extremist tells Emily Maitlis ‘you’re a conspiracy theorist’ and dismisses interviewer over ‘Jewish space lasers’ question
Far-right Republican congresswoman, Trump ally and potential vice-presidential pick Marjorie Taylor Greene told a British interviewer to “Fuck off”, when asked about her frequent repetition of conspiracy theories.
Emily Maitlis, formerly a senior journalist at the BBC and now a presenter of the News Agents podcast, spoke to Greene at Donald Trump’s Super Tuesday celebration at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, as the former president closed in on the Republican nomination.
Continue reading...Measure allows parent to seek child support up to a year after giving birth to retroactively cover pregnancy expenses
The Republican-led Kentucky senate voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to grant the right to collect child support for unborn children, advancing a bill that garnered bipartisan support.
The measure would allow a parent to seek child support up to a year after giving birth to retroactively cover pregnancy expenses. The legislation – Senate Bill 110 – won Senate passage on a 36-2 vote with little discussion to advance to the House. Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers.
Continue reading...Donald Trump looks all but certain of Republican presidential nomination as Nikki Haley rejects suggestions of third-party bid and says she may keep fighting
Over at CNN, Ronald Brownstein has an analysis piece which looks a little at the potential weakness of Donald Trump support away from his core base. Brownstein writes:
[Trump’s] performance so far reflects his success at transforming the Republican Party in his image. He’s reshaped the Republicans into a more blue-collar, populist and pugnacious party, focused more on his volatile blend of resentments against elites and cultural and racial change than the Ronald Reagan-era priorities of smaller government and active global leadership that former South Carolina Gov Nikki Haley has stressed.
But while the primaries have underscored Trump’s grip on the GOP, they have also demonstrated continued vulnerability for him in the areas where he has labored since he first announced his candidacy in 2015 – particularly among the white-collar suburban voters who mostly leaned toward the GOP before his emergence. The early 2024 nominating contests have shown that a substantial minority of Republican-leaning voters remain resistant to Trump’s vision.
Continue reading...The bill sets a discretionary spending level of $1.66tn for fiscal 2024 and still faces opposition from hardline House Republicans
US congressional negotiators on Sunday revealed a bill to fund key parts of the government through the rest of the fiscal year that began in October, as lawmakers faced yet another threat of a partial shutdown if they fail to act by Friday.
The legislation sets a discretionary spending level of $1.66tn for fiscal 2024, a spokesperson for Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said. It fills in the details of an agreement that Schumer and Republican House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson set in early January.
Continue reading...Former president is awarded all 39 state delegates for November’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Donald Trump continued his march toward the GOP nomination at the Michigan Republican party convention on Saturday, sweeping all 39 delegates.
The delegates awarded will fuel Trump ahead of Tuesday, 5 March, when 15 states will hold primaries and Trump’s nomination could be all but decided. The Michigan state party delegates met on Saturday at the sprawling Amway Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, huddling in 13 separate meeting rooms representing the state’s 13 congressional districts.
Continue reading...The state GOP had ousted its party chair, Kristina Karamo, in January, but she has not accepted her removal, dividing members
Michigan Republicans are gathering in Grand Rapids for a convention they hope will be less fraught than the last four months of chaotic power struggle within the state Republican party.
During Saturday’s convention, the party will choose most of the delegates it will send to the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July to formally choose the party’s 2024 presidential candidate (Tuesday’s primary, which Trump won, determined the rest).
Continue reading...Trump’s last remaining Republican primary challenger says ‘I don’t think there should ever be a president that’s above the law’
Asked if she thought Donald Trump would follow the US constitution if he is elected for a second term as president, Nikki Haley said: “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know. I don’t – I don’t know,” the former South Carolina governor, Trump’s last opponent for the Republican presidential nomination, told NBC’s Meet the Press in an interview to be broadcast in full on Sunday.
Continue reading...Supreme court rejects Democratic lawsuit challenging new maps drawn by Democratic governor Tony Evers
The liberal-controlled Wisconsin supreme court on Friday rejected a Democratic lawsuit that sought to throw out the battleground state’s congressional maps, marking a victory for Republicans who argued against the court taking up the case.
The decision not to hear the congressional challenge comes after the court in December ordered new legislative maps, saying the Republican-drawn ones were unconstitutional. The GOP-controlled state legislature, out of fear that the court would order maps even more unfavorable to Republicans, passed maps drawn by the Democratic governor, Tony Evers. Evers signed those into law on 19 February and urged the court to take up the congressional map challenge.
Continue reading...Majority leader Chuck Schumer had hailed bipartisan legislation to stop partial shutdown due to occur this weekend
The Senate has passed a short-term funding bill following a House vote on Thursday afternoon, narrowly averting a partial government shutdown that was due to occur this weekend.
Ahead of the Senate vote, the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, addressed the chamber floor, saying that he saw “no reason this should take a very long time”.
Continue reading...Dueling border visits of 2024 contenders 300 miles apart shows that immigration has become a central issue in the White House campaign
It might be seen as the first US presidential debate of 2024. Two candidates and two lecterns but 300 miles – and a political universe – apart.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump spent Thursday at the US-Mexico border, a vivid display of how central the immigration issue has become to the election campaign. Since it is far from certain whether official presidential debates will happen this year, the duelling visits might be as close as it gets.
Continue reading...Judge Tracie Porter sides with voters who sought disqualification but delays ruling from taking effect in light of expected appeal
An Illinois state judge on Wednesday barred Donald Trump from appearing on the Illinois Republican presidential primary ballot because of his role in the attack at the US Capitol on January 6, but she delayed her ruling from taking effect in light of an expected appeal by the former US president.
The Cook county circuit judge Tracie Porter sided with Illinois voters who argued that the former president should be disqualified from the state’s March 19 primary ballot and its 5 November general election ballot for violating the anti-insurrection clause of the US constitution’s 14th amendment.
Continue reading...Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith rejects Access to Family Building Act, saying bill is ‘vast overreach full of poison pills’
Senate Democrats’ attempts to move forward a bill that would have granted Americans federal protections for in vitro fertilization access have failed.
The bill, sponsored by the Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth, came after a recent Alabama supreme court ruling that declared frozen embryos are children and led to the closure of multiple infertility clinics across the state.
Continue reading...Defeated former South Carolina governor has pledged to stay in Republican presidential primaries at least through Super Tuesday
Donald Trump has won Michigan’s Republican primary election, the latest in a string of convincing primary victories as he closes in on the GOP presidential nomination.
The Associated Press called the race for Trump over the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley at 9pm ET.
Continue reading...Follow live as the state’s Republican and Democratic voters choose their preferred candidate for the US presidential election
Democrats and Republicans went to the polls on Tuesday for Michigan’s presidential primary. The critical swing state’s election will prove a test for both frontrunners, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But a separate Republican convention held on Saturday will determine the final delegate count for the Republican party.
Here are the results from the 27 February Michigan primary:
Continue reading...Biden says he ‘didn’t know my good friend, apparently, is going’ as he plans Brownsville visit while Trump heads for Eagle Pass
Joe Biden and Donald Trump will both travel to the US border with Mexico on Thursday, dueling visits by the president and his probable opponent for re-election underlining the importance of immigration as an issue in the coming campaign.
Biden will visit Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande valley, while his presidential predecessor will head for Eagle Pass, about 325 miles distant.
Continue reading...