September 8, 2023

Friday, September 8, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

To read an article excerpted in this Roundup, click on its blue title. Each “blue” article is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

Please feel free to share.

Invite at least one other person to subscribe today! buttondown.email/AnnettesNewsRoundup

_____________________________

Joe is always busy.

Touch 👇 to watch the ceremony.

Reuters..

“Armed with cash for the World Bank and promises of sustained US engagement, US President Joe Biden hopes to persuade fast-growing economies in Africa, Latin America and Asia that there is an alternative to China, at the G20 leaders meeting.”

_____________________________

Kamala is always busy.

It took three flights, two refueling stops and more than a day for Vice President Harris to reach Jakarta.

Touch to watch the welcome the VP received in Indonesia.👇

This happened in Jakarta too. (Source. Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American).

As the press was leaving a photo opportunity between Harris and Indonesian president Joko Widodo, the White House pool reporter called out two questions, one to each leader. The White House pool reporter is the one designated by all the other outlets to represent the press for the day.

This reporter, Patsy Widakuswara, is an Indonesian American and the White House bureau chief for the Voice of America, the government-owned but independent U.S. broadcaster around the world. Indonesian officials physically blocked Widakuswara, told her to leave, and banned her from any other events. 

“It was tense, but I didn’t feel anxious or panicked or anything like that, because I knew that I was just doing my job,” Widakuswara told Liam Scott of VOA. ”And I also knew that the VP’s office would stand by me.”

And stand she did.

Harris refused to enter the summit room until the entire press pool, including Widakuswara, was inside.

Indonesian officials later expressed their regret, said her shouts raised security concerns, and reiterated support for press freedom (although Reporters Without Borders ranks Indonesia 108th out of 180 countries for press freedom). 

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told VOA: “A free and independent press is a core institution of healthy democracies and is vital for ensuring electorates can make informed decisions and hold government officials accountable.”

Harris’s defense of freedom of the press, a key pillar of democracy, stands out today as judges enforced the rule of law—the central pillar of democracy—in important ways.

Vice President Harris launching college tour to mobilize young voters in battleground states - ABC News.

Vice President Kamala Harris will soon be hitting the road for a monthlong college tour, traveling to more than a dozen campuses across eight states. The trip underscores both the value Democrats are placing on younger voters and the more forceful role Harris is seeking to play on key issues like abortion access ahead of the 2024 election, after weathering two years of scrutiny and low approval ratings.

The vice president's "Fight for our Freedoms College Tour" begins on Sept. 14 at Hampton University in Virginia. It will focus heavily on mobilizing young voters -- some of whom have expressed less than favorable views of President Joe Biden -- in states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin and Virginia, with additional campus visits and details to come.

News of the tour, first reported by ABC News, comes as students return to school for the fall semester.

Young voters proved to be a key constituency for Democrats, boosting candidates in the last midterm and presidential election cycles. In 2020, for example, Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in nearly 30 years -- with voters younger than 30 accounting for 21% of the returns, up from 15% in 2016 and backing Biden by more than 10 points, according to exit polls.

This year, however, Biden has faced low favorability marks from younger voters, according to ABC News/Ipsos polling.

In her tour, Harris is expected to visit a broad range of campuses, from four-year state schools to community colleges, technical colleges, apprenticeship programs and historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

"This generation is critical to the urgent issues that are at stake right now for our future," Harris said in a statement.

"It is young leaders throughout America who know what the solutions look like and are organizing in their communities to make them a reality," she added. "My message to students is clear: We are counting on you, we need you, you are everything."

As vice president, Harris has more recently been leading the administration's work on reproductive rights, reducing gun violence, addressing climate change and voting access -- issues that advisers expect to be central to her message as she meets with the students across the country.

_____________________________

Updates from Fani Willis.

Fani Willis Sharply Rebukes House Republican Investigating Her.

The prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, accused Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio of trying to obstruct her prosecution of the racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies.

The district attorney leading a criminal case against Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia accused Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio of trying to obstruct her prosecution of the case in a sharply worded lettershe sent on Thursday.

Soon after the district attorney, Fani T. Willis, a Democrat, announced last month that she was bringing a racketeering case against Mr. Trump and 18 other defendants for their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, Mr. Jordan, a Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that he was going to investigate Ms. Willis over whether her prosecution of Mr. Trump was politically motivated.

In her letter, Ms. Willis accused Mr. Jordan of trying “to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous partisan misrepresentations,” and of not understanding how the state’s racketeering law works.

“Your attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution,” she added. “The defendants in this case have been charged under state law with committing state crimes. There is absolutely no support for Congress purporting to second guess or somehow supervise an ongoing Georgia criminal investigation and prosecution.”

The letter came as the defendants and the prosecution continued sparring in legal filings over where and when the trial would take place. In a new filing, Mark Meadows, a defendant, who served as the White House chief of staff under Mr. Trump, was seeking a stay of the proceedings in state court until a judge ruled on his motion to move his case to federal court.

The Georgia case is one of four criminal indictments that have been brought against Mr. Trump this year; Mr. Jordan’s investigation of Ms. Willis is the latest example of House Republicans using their power in Congress to try to derail efforts to prosecute the former president.

When he announced his inquiry last month, Mr. Jordan, a close Trump ally, said it would look for any evidence of communication between Ms. Willis and the Biden administration and examine her office’s use of federal grant money.

While Mr. Jordan expressed concerns that former federal officials were being unfairly targeted in a state prosecution, some of the issues he raised had little to do with the underlying facts of the investigation. For example, in a letter to Ms. Willis, he said her new campaign website had included a reference to a New York Times article that mentioned the Trump investigation.

Ms. Willis’s response is the latest sign that she will not take attacks on her office and the investigation quietly — a striking difference in style from that of Jack Smith, the more reserved and laconic special prosecutor handling the two federal criminal cases against Mr. Trump.

She has a track record as a pugnacious, law-and-order prosecutor, and is pursuing racketeering cases not only against the former president and his allies, but a number of high-profile Atlanta rappers accused of operating a criminal gang.

In a heated email exchange in July over the terms of Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, providing testimony in her investigation, Ms. Willis called the governor’s lawyer, Brian McEvoy, “wrong and confused” and “rude,” after Mr. McEvoy expressed frustration over mixed signals he said he had received from her office, and asserted that there had been “leaks” associated with her investigation.

“You have taken my kindness as weakness,” she wrote, adding: “Despite your disdain this investigation continues and will not be derailed by anyone’s antics.”

On Thursday, scores of Trump supporters gathered near the State Capitol for a news conference and rally, demanding that the state legislature call a special session to defund Ms. Willis’s office. The effort, led by Colton Moore, a freshman state senator, has little support among Mr. Moore’s fellow lawmakers and is almost certain to fail.

Mr. Moore, who has drawn attention and praise in recent weeks from news outlets supportive of Mr. Trump, said that Ms. Willis was engaged in “politicization” of the justice system. His constituents, he said, “don’t want their tax dollars funding this type of corrupt government power.”

In her letter to Mr. Jordan, Ms. Willis invited him to purchase a book about racketeering statutes written by one her fellow prosecutors on the Trump case, John Floyd, titled “RICO State by State.”

“As a non-member of the bar,” she wrote, “you can purchase a copy for two hundred forty-nine dollars.” (New York Times).

_____________________________

Anti-Abortionists convicted of felony charges.

Anti-Abortion Extremists Charged With Breaking Federal Law in Historic Justice Department Conviction

Lauren Handy outside the Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, the day the Court overturned Roe v. Wade. (Eric Lee / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

BY MADELYN AMOS | Emotions ran high over the past few weeks as reproductive rights activists watched United States v. Lauren Handy et al., play out in federal court.

On Tuesday, a federal jury convicted five anti-abortion defendants of federal civil rights offenses in connection with a reproductive healthcare clinic invasion and blockade in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 22, 2020.

According to the Department of Justice, defendants were each convicted of a felony conspiracy against rights and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act offense. Each defendant faces a potential penalty of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $350,000.

The case marks the first time the Justice Department charged anti-abortion activists with a violation of the civil rights conspiracy statute, in conjunction with the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act—a historic moment in the ongoing fight to hold anti-abortion extremists accountable for their unlawful behavior.

“This important victory vindicates the rights of women, patients and abortion providers across the country,” said duVergne Gaines, director of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Clinic Access Project.

The civil rights conspiracy statute prohibits “two or more persons conspiring to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

Lauren Handy, 28, of Alexandria, Va., and eight other co-conspirators were indicted for planning and executing the invasion and blockade of a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic on Oct. 22, 2020. On Tuesday, a jury found Handy; John Hinshaw, 67, of Levittown, N.Y.; Heather Idoni, 61, of Linden, Mich.; William Goodman, 52, of Bronx, N.Y.; and Herb Geraghty, 25, of Pittsburgh, Pa., guilty in the first case.

Feminist Majority (FM) spearheaded the research and policy analysis in the development of the FACE Act in 1994, which forbids “violent, threatening, damaging and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain or provide reproductive health services.” (Note: FM is the 501(c)(4) arm of the Feminist Majority Foundation, publisher of Ms.)

A trial for the four remaining defendants begins next week.(Ms. Magazine).

_____________________________

Update on Mexico.

Mexico ends federal ban on Abortions but a patchwork of state restrictions remain, stands in contrast to U.S.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican Supreme Court decision to end the federal ban on abortion extended a regional trend of increasing access to the procedure, but left in place a patchwork of varying state restrictions.

The high court on Wednesday threw out all federal criminal penalties for abortion, in a ruling that will require the federal public health service to offer the procedure to anyone who requests it.

That will mean access for millions of Mexicans since the social security service and other federal institutions provide health care to most people who work in the formal economy.

Some 20 Mexican states, however, still criminalize abortion. Those laws were not affected by the Supreme Court ruling, but abortion rights advocates will likely ask state judges to follow its logic.

Abortions are not widely prosecuted as a crime in Mexico, but many doctors refuse to provide them, citing the law.

Celebration of the ruling soon spilled out onto social media.

“Today is a day of victory and justice for Mexican women!” Mexico’s National Institute for Women wrote in a message on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. The government organization called the decision a “big step” toward gender equality.

Sen. Olga Sánchez Cordero, a former Supreme Court justice, applauded the ruling, saying on X that it represented an advance toward “a more just society in which the rights of all are respected.” She called on Mexico’s Congress to pass legislation in response.

But others in the highly religious country decried the decision. Irma Barrientos, director of the Civil Association for the Rights of the Conceived, said opponents will continue the fight against expanded abortion access.

“We’re not going to stop,” Barrientos said. “Let’s remember what happened in the United States. After 40 years, the Supreme Court reversed its abortion decision, and we’re not going to stop until Mexico guarantees the right to life from the moment of conception.”

Across Latin America, countries have made moves to lift abortion restrictions in recent years, a trend often referred to as a “green wave,” in reference to the green bandanas carried by women protesting for abortion rights in the region.

The changes in Latin America stand in sharp contrast to increasing restrictions on abortion in parts of the United States. Some American women were already seeking help from Mexican abortion rights activists to obtain pills used to end pregnancies.

In its ruling, the Mexican court said on X that “the legal system that criminalized abortion” in federal law was unconstitutional because it “violates the human rights of women and people with the ability to gestate.”

The decision came two years after the court ruled that abortion was not a crime in one northern state. That decision set off a slow state-by-state process of decriminalizing it.

Last week, the central state of Aguascalientes became the 12th to drop criminal penalties.

Abortion-rights activists will have to continue seeking legalization state by state, though Wednesday’s decision should make that easier. State legislatures can also act on their own to erase abortion penalties.

For now, the ruling does not mean that every Mexican woman will be able to access the procedure immediately, explained Fernanda Díaz de León, sub-director and legal expert for women’s rights group IPAS.

What it does do — in theory — is obligate federal agencies to provide the care to patients. That’s likely to have a cascade of effects.

Díaz de León said removing the federal ban takes away another excuse used by care providers to deny abortions in states where the procedure is no longer a crime.

It also allows women with formal employment who are part of the social security system and government employees to seek the procedure in federal institutions in states where the abortion is still criminalized, she said.

Díaz de León and officials at other feminist organizations worry that women, particularly in more conservative areas, may still be denied abortions.

“It’s a very important step,” Díaz de León said. But “we need to wait to see how this is going to be applied and how far it reaches.”

Mexico City was the first Mexican jurisdiction to decriminalize abortion 16 years ago.

After decades of work by activists across the region, the trend picked up speed in Argentina, which in 2020 legalized the procedure. In 2022, Colombia, a highly conservative country, did the same.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that provided a right to abortion nationwide.

Since then, most states led by conservative lawmakers and governors have adopted bans or tighter restrictions. Meanwhile, states with liberal governments have taken steps to try to protect abortion access.

The fact that the U.S. government is politically divided makes a nationwide ban or legalization unlikely, at least in the short term.

Observers in Mexico agreed that it would take time to see how Wednesday’s ruling is applied.

In the southern state of Guerrero, Marina Reyna, director of the Guerrero Association Against Violence toward Women, cautioned that challenges would persist. Her state decriminalized abortion last year, but there are 22 open investigations against women accused of ending their pregnancies.

“There is still a lot of resistance,” she said. (Associated Press).

A Historic First for Mexico as Two Women Vie for the Presidency.

Mexico will elect its first woman as president next year after the governing party chose Claudia Sheinbaum to square off against the opposition’s candidate, Xóchitl Gálvez.

Claudia Sheinbaum in her office in 2020, when she served as the mayor of Mexico City.

Mexico’s governing party chose Claudia Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City, as its candidate in next year’s presidential election on Wednesday, creating a watershed moment in the world’s largest Spanish-speaking country, with voters expected to choose for the first time between two leading candidates who are women.

“Today democracy won. Today the people of Mexico decided,” Ms. Sheinbaum said during the announcement, adding that her party, Morena, would win the 2024 election. “Tomorrow begins the electoral process,” she said. “And there is no minute to lose.”

Ms. Sheinbaum, 61, a physicist with a doctorate in environmental engineering and a protégé of Mexico’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will face off against the opposition’s top contender, Xóchitl Gálvez, 60, an outspoken engineer with Indigenous roots who rose from poverty to become a tech entrepreneur.

“We can already say today: Mexico, by the end of next year, will be governed by a woman,” said Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez, a political scientist at Mexico’s Monterrey Institute of Technology, adding that it was an “extraordinary change” for the country.

As the two female candidates target weaknesses in each other’s campaigns, they share some similarities. While neither are explicitly feminist, both are socially progressive, have engineering degrees and say they will maintain broadly popular antipoverty programs.

Both women also support decriminalizing abortion. In Ms. Gálvez’s case, that position stands in contrast to that of her conservative party. Mexico’s Supreme Court on Wednesday decriminalized abortion nationwide, building on an earlier ruling giving officials the authority to allow the procedure on a state-by-state basis.

Ms. Sheinbaum, who was born to Jewish parents in Mexico City, would become Mexico’s first Jewish president if she wins the race. She has faced a misinformation campaign on social media claiming falsely that she was born in Bulgaria, the country from which her mother emigrated; supporters of Ms. Sheinbaum have called this effort antisemitic.

She studied physics and energy engineering in Mexico before carrying out her doctoral research at California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. After entering politics, she became Mr. López Obrador’s top environmental official when he was mayor of Mexico City.

When Ms. Sheinbaum herself was elected mayor of the capital in 2018, she took on public transit and environmental issues as top priorities, but was also the target of criticism over fatal mishaps in the city’s transportation systems, including the collapse of a metro overpass in which 26 people were killed.

Still, while hewing to Mr. López Obrador’s policies, Ms. Sheinbaum has also signaled some potential changes, notably expressing support for renewable energy sources.

Drawing a contrast with her rival, Ms. Gálvez, a senator who often gets around Mexico City on an electric bicycle, has focused on her origins as the daughter of an Indigenous Otomí father and a mestiza mother.

Ms. Gálvez grew up in a small town about two hours from Mexico City without running water and speaking her father’s Hñähñu language. After receiving a scholarship to the National Autonomous University of Mexico, she became an engineer and founded a company that designs communications and energy networks for office buildings.

After Vicente Fox won the presidency in 2000, she was appointed as head of the presidential office for Indigenous peoples. In 2018, Ms. Gálvez was elected senator representing the conservative National Action Party. (New York Times).

_____________________________

Trump White House official Navarro convicted of contempt after defying House Jan. 6 subpoena.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump White House official Peter Navarro was found guilty Thursday of contempt of Congress charges for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The verdict came after a short trial for Navarro, who served as a White House trade adviser under President Donald Trump and later promoted the Republican’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election he lost.

Navarro was the second Trump aide to face contempt of Congress charges after former White House adviser Steve Bannon. Bannon was convicted of two counts and was sentenced to four months behind bars, though he has been free pending appeal.

Navarro vowed to appeal the verdict, saying the “die was cast” after a judge ruled that he couldn’t fight the charges by arguing he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta found that Navarro didn’t have enough evidence to show Trump had invoked it.

_____________________________

Queen Elizabeth II died September 8, 2022.

_____________________________

The Women’s Final at the U.S. Open is at 4 pm on Saturday.

Meet one of the Finalists.👇 Coco is 19.

The American teenager will play the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka who just became #1 in the rankings.

Again, 4 pm on Saturday.

_____________________________