April 19, 2023

Wednesday, April 19, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

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.

From the White House on Tuesday: President Biden will sign an executive order directing federal agencies to adopt more than 50 measures aimed at increasing access to child care and long-term care, a move the White House is calling the “most sweeping set of executive actions to improve care in history.”

Here 👇 are Biden’s analyses and measures on child-care and long-term care. This is a targeted initiative by the Administration.

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Most Sweeping Set of Executive Actions to Improve Care in History | The White House

Today, President Biden will announce the most comprehensive set of executive actions any President has ever taken to improve care for hard-working families while supporting care workers and family caregivers. Joined by people with disabilities, family caregivers, long-term care workers, early educators, veterans, and aging advocates, the President will sign an Executive Order that includes more than 50 directives to nearly every cabinet-level agency to expand access to affordable, high-quality care, and provide support for care workers and family caregivers.

Too many families and individuals struggle to access the affordable, high-quality care they need. 

The cost of child care is up 26% in the last decade and more than 200 percent over the past 30 years. For the elderly or people with disabilities long-term care costs are up 40% in the past decade.

The result is many Americans – particularly women – stay out of the workforce to care for their families, making it hard for businesses to attract and retain a skilled workforce and for the economy to grow. A BCG brief forecasts losses of $290 billion each year in gross domestic product in 2030 and beyond if the U.S. fails to address the lack of affordable child care.

At the same time, many workers providing this critical care find themselves in low-paying jobs with few benefits. Care workers, who are disproportionately women of color, struggle to make ends meet, and turnover rates are high. In addition, at least 53 million Americans serve as family caregivers—including over 5 million caring for service members or veterans—and many face challenges due to lack of support, training, and opportunities for rest.

President Biden believes that we must secure significant new federal investments to transform care in this country. That’s why he and Vice President Harris called for investments to support high-quality, affordable child care, preschool, and long-term care in their fiscal year 2024 budget. While Congress considers those proposals, the President is taking immediate action to make care more affordable for American families, support family caregivers, boost compensation and improve job quality for care workers, and expand care options. Specifically, his Executive Order will:

• Make child care and long-term care more accessible and affordable for families, including military families. The acute challenges families face in accessing affordable, high-quality care are well documented. In 2019, 76% of families with young children who searched for care reported difficulty finding adequate child care, and military families consistently cite access to high-quality child care as an impediment to military spouse employment and family economic security.

  More than three-quarters of home and community-based care service providers are not accepting new clients, leaving hundreds of thousands of older Americans and Americans with disabilities on waiting lists for home and community-based services or struggling to afford the care they need. The President is taking action to make child care and long-term care more affordable by directing federal agencies to:
  

  • Identify which of their grant programs can support child care and long-term care for individuals working on federal projects, and consider requiring applicants seeking federal job-creating funds to expand access to care for their workers. This builds off of the historic child care requirement for semiconductor employers seeking significant federal funding under the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 to submit a plan for how they will help employees access affordable child care. These actions help employers delivering major federal projects recruit and retain a robust, skilled, and diverse workforce.

  • Lower costs for families benefitting from the Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program, including by directing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to consider actions to reduce or eliminate families’ co-payments for child care.

  • Ensure the federal government is a model employer by supporting its own workforce. The Executive Order directs the Office of Personnel Management to conduct a review of child care subsidy policy and consider setting standards for when and how federal agencies should provide child care subsidies to federal employees. Additionally, all federal agencies will review opportunities to expand employee access to child care services through federal child care centers, child care subsidies, or contracted care for providers.

  • Provide support for our service members and their families by directing the Department of Defense to take steps to improve the affordability of child care on military installations.

• Improve access to home-based care for veterans. To meet our sacred obligation to our veterans and their families, the Executive Order directs the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to improve access to home-based care for veterans who require support with activities of daily living, like bathing and getting dressed, by giving them more decision-making power over who delivers that care and when. VA is directed to consider expanding its Veteran Directed Care program to all 172 VA Medical Centers by the end of Fiscal Year 2024.

  This program provides veterans with a budget to hire personal care assistance including from family members. VA will also consider piloting a new self-directed care program in no fewer than 5 new sites that provides veterans with a budget for personal care assistance while reducing administration burdens related to managing care.

  Further, VA will consider adding 75 new interdisciplinary teams to its Home-Based Primary Care program to serve an additional 5,600 veterans in their homes.

• Boost job quality for early educators. Early care and education professionals are among the lowest-paid workers in the country. Child care workers earn a median wage of less than $18 an hour, while the typical nonsupervisory worker in the U.S. earns over $28 an hour. While the average salary of a public preschool teacher and kindergarten teacher is about $49,000 and $60,000, respectively, the average annual salary for Head Start and preschool teachers is about $35,000. To address this, HHS will take steps to increase the pay and benefits for Head Start teachers and staff. HHS will implement policies so that more child care providers benefiting from CCDBG receive higher reimbursements for the children they serve.

  Additionally, the Department of Education (ED) will encourage grantees of the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program—which supports thousands of student-parents across the country pay for care while going to school—to improve the quality of the services they provide, including higher wages for child care workers.

• Enhance job quality for long-term care workers. The President is committed to improving the quality of long-term care jobs in this country so that Americans can get the reliable, high-quality care they deserve—whether it is in their homes and communities or in nursing homes. To advance the President’s long-term care priorities, the Executive Order directs HHS to consider issuing several regulations and guidance documents to improve the quality of home care jobs, including by leveraging Medicaid funding to ensure there are enough home care workers to provide care to seniors and people with disabilities enrolled in Medicaid, as well as build on the minimum staffing standards for nursing homes and condition a portion of Medicare payments on how well a nursing home retains workers.

• Support family caregivers. Without adequate resources, family caregiving can affect caregivers’ physical and emotional health and well-being and contribute to financial strain. These negative consequences are felt most acutely by women, who make up nearly two-thirds of family caregivers and who drop out of the workforce at higher rates than men. To provide greater support to family caregivers, the Executive Order directs HHS to consider testing a new dementia care model that will include support for respite care (short-term help to give a primary family caregiver a break) and make it easier for family caregivers to access Medicare beneficiary information and provide more support to family caregivers during the hospital discharge planning process. Additionally, VA will consider expanding access to the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers and provide more mental health support for caregivers enrolled in that program. These actions build on the 2022 National Strategy to Support Caregivers.

• Advance domestic workers’ rights. Care workers should be supported, valued, and fairly compensated, and care workers should have the free and fair choice to join a union. In particular, domestic workers providing care for our loved ones are often underpaid and subject to discrimination and abuse. To provide greater protection for these workers, the Department of Labor will publish a sample employment agreement so domestic child care and long-term care workers and their employers can ensure both parties better understand their rights and responsibilities.

• Ease construction of early childhood facilities for Tribes. There are approximately half a million American Indian and Alaska Native children under the age of 13 who potentially need child care so their parents can work. Nearly half are below the age of five. To help the families of these children access high-quality child care, HHS will streamline the process for tribal grantees of federal child care assistance and Head Start to apply for and construct or improve early childhood facilities.

• Engage affected communities. To make the delivery and design of federal care assistance and programs work better for families, the care workforce, and people seeking care, the Treasury and the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Veterans Affairs, will engage with parents, guardians, and other relatives with care responsibilities; individuals receiving long-term care; State and local care experts; care providers and workers; employers; and labor unions. The Executive Order also encourages the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to consider conducting similar engagement.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s Record on Care

The Administration invested over $60 billion from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act in the care economy, including $39 billion to help child care providers keep their doors open and to provide child care workers with higher pay, bonuses, and other benefits—reducing turnover and attracting new staff. To date, these efforts have helped 220,000 child care programs, which employ more than one million child care workers with the capacity to serve 9.6 million children. In addition, the Administration invested $25 billion in ARP funds to help states strengthen their Medicaid home care programs, including over $9 billion in spending to boost wages for home care workers as well as improve overall job quality.

The stabilization funding provided through the ARP saved child care in this country. One in three child care programs who received stabilization support report that they would have been forced to close permanently without these funds.

These grants likely have had effects beyond the child care workforce and providers as access to child care is critical for parental employment, particularly for women. The President’s Council of Economic Advisers analyzed this relationship in their most recent Economic Report of the President, and found that mothers’ employment has recovered more quickly in areas with greater child care capacity supported by ARP stabilization grants. In those areas, employment among mothers with young children outpaced that of mothers in lower ARP-supported areas throughout 2022 and rebounded to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2022.

The FY 2024 President’s Budget builds on these investments and proposes investing $600 billion over 10 years to expand access to high-quality, affordable child care and free, high-quality preschool. This funding will enable States to increase child care options for more than 16 million young children. The proposal lowers costs so that parents can afford to send their children to high-quality child care while also paying child care providers wages that reflect the value they provide families and communities. 

The President’s Budget also includes $150 billion over the next decade to improve and expand Medicaid home care services—making it easier for seniors and people with disabilities to live, work, and participate in their communities. This funding would improve the quality of jobs for home care workers and support family caregivers. The Administration is also promoting the use of apprenticeship programs and partnering with employers, unions, and others to recruit, train, and keep long-term care workers on the job while also helping them advance their careers as registered and licensed nurses. Just this month, the President also signed the first-ever proclamationdesignating April as National Care Worker Recognition Month, to honor the efforts and sacrifices of our child care and long-term care workers.

The Administration is committed to getting caregivers the resources and respect they deserve. The National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers outlines nearly 350 actions the federal Government can take to support family caregivers’ health, well-being, and financial security. And the ARP provided $145 million to help the National Family Caregiver Support Program deliver counseling, training, and short-term relief to family and other informal care providers. The Administration has also expanded the VA Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers to veterans of all service eras so more veteran caregivers have the financial and mental health support they deserve. Through the First Lady’s Joining Forcesinitiative, the Administration has partnered with more than 50 public and private sector organizations to launch the “Hidden Helpers” Coalition to serve the 2.3 million military and veteran children in caregiving homes.

###
_______________________

Kamala is always busy.

From the White House on Tuesday: Vice President Harris will hold an event on abortion with Rosario Dawson, continuing her recent emphasis on the issue.

_______________________

Hillary is always busy.

Touch to watch. 👇

_______________________

Republicans speak in one voice on Feinstein. It ain’t pretty.

McConnell opposes allowing Democrats to replace Feinstein on Judiciary Committee

The Senate minority leader's opposition effectively closes the door on a bid by Democrats to strengthen their hand in confirming federal judicial nominees.

Senate Republicans blocked Democrats on Tuesday from temporarily replacing Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on the Senate Judiciary Committee, stymieing the party in their push to confirm President Biden’s judicial nominees during Feinstein’s extended absence.


Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer asked for unanimous consent for Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) to act as the temporary replacement.
“She’s a legend in California,” Schumer said of Feinstein on the floor of the chamber. “The first woman senator from the state. She’s a legend here in the Senate, the longest-serving woman senator in U.S. history. … She shattered innumerable glass ceilings. … Our colleague and friend has made her wish clearer that another senator temporarily serve on the Judiciary Committee until she returns. I thank Senator Cardin for agreeing to step in. So today I am acting not just as leader but as Dianne’s friend in honoring her wishes, until she returns to the Senate.”



Sen. Lindsey O. Graham objected, saying that Schumer’s move was “about a handful of judges that you can’t get the votes for.”


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) earlier Tuesday voiced his strong opposition to allowing Democrats to temporarily replace Feinstein on the committee.
During remarks on the Senate floor, McConnell argued that nominees by President Biden that enjoy some Republican support are still able to move forward through the committee as Feinstein recovers from shingles in California.


Adding another Democratic vote in the meantime would only serve to allow Democrats to “force through their very worst nominees,” McConnell said.
“The supposed emergency is the Senate Democrats are unable to push through the small fraction of their nominees who are so extreme, so extreme and so unqualified, that they cannot win a single Republican vote in committee,” McConnell said.


When Barack Obama was president and McConnell the Senate majority leader, McConnell blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, denying the nominee a hearing. McConnell also refused to confirm other Obama judicial nominees, leaving dozens of vacancies that Donald Trump was able to fill when he became president.


Most committee assignments for both Republicans and Democrats are passed without fanfare or controversy by unanimous voice votes on the Senate floor.


But replacing Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee would take 60 votes to approve given GOP objections. This means at least 10 Republicans would need to back the measure — a number that appeared out of reach even before McConnell delivered his first public remarks on the issue on Tuesday. (Washington Post).

_______________________

But Republicans don’t speak in one voice on the Debt Ceiling. Even Kevin McCarthy knows that.

From Gabe Fleisher - To state the obvious, McCarthy’s proposal will go nowhere with Democrats and would be considered dead-on-arrival in the Senate. (A White House spokesperson described the plan as a “vague, extreme MAGA wish list” in response to McCarthy’s speech [at Wall Street.])

But the more immediate question for McCarthy: would his proposal even be able to pass the House? As you no doubt recall from the days-long speaker balloting he had to endure to get the job, McCarthy is dealing with a very narrow — and very divided — majority, unable to lose more than four Republican votes to advance a party-line debt ceiling package.

Even he isn’t sure this proposal has the support of his own conference. When asked that question on CNBC yesterday, McCarthy declined to answer. “I think I have the support of America,” he said, before pivoting away to a different talking point. (“I’m still not sure of the answer,” the anchor who asked the question later wrote on Twitter.)

House Republicans won't commit to McCarthy's debt ceiling plan.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, during an interview on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

---

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) faces a steep challenge in cobbling together the 218 votes he needs to pass a proposed debt ceiling increase by his new self-imposed deadline.

Why it matters: Top Republicans say they want the bill on the floor by next week, but members across the GOP conference have a range of reservations about a proposal that's still incomplete.

• Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said it's "probably not" enough time to get her on board: "To turn it around in a week, that's pretty short order."

• "This is the single biggest point of leverage that will exist in these two years," said another Republican lawmaker.

Driving the news: GOP leadership unveiled their proposal to raise the debt ceiling into 2024 while slashing spending — but a half-dozen House Republicans, more than enough to sink the bill, said they are still not sold.

• Coming out of the closed-door GOP conference meeting where the proposal was laid out, Rules Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters, "I think we’ll be moving stuff probably next week."

What they're saying: “I think that they should go further. ... I am in favor of very aggressive cuts," said right-wing Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.).

• Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a former chair of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, said McCarthy's proposal to keep nondiscretionary, nondefense at 2022 levels is a "long ways away" from his demand to bring it down to pre-pandemic levels.

• "I’m not at the table. And I get it, McCarthy’s pissed that I ran against him, so I don’t get invited to any of these deals," said Biggs, "But I think it’s unfortunate that he doesn’t want to hear from everybody.”

• Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), a Biden-district moderate who has raised concerns about proposed welfare work requirements, told Axios, "I think we're making progress, but we're still taking a look at it."

Between the lines: Others are simply uncomfortable with the whole enterprise. "I just didn't run for Congress to raise the debt ceiling, so ... it’s not something I’m excited about," said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.).

• "I really want to see some real restraints and fiscal cuts, not just promises," he said.

• Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) has raised similar hesitations about raising the debt limit on principle.

State of play: That puts McCarthy far from where he needs to be in terms of floor vote math — but even his detractors say it's possible they could come together.

• "We're not there yet as far as I'm concerned, but I'm firmly in support of the idea we have to get a package passed and do it soon," said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.). "So I think the next week or so is extremely important."

• "There are still some negotiations that are going to happen within the conference to put a little more meat around it," said Mace. "I'm waiting for more information. Right now I'm not there yet."

• “I’m open to listening to what they have to say," said Biggs. (Axios).

_______________________

Your chance to gasp at authoritarianism in modern day America (in a state called Florida).

DeSantis wants to ‘Make America Florida.’ Here’s what that looks like.

Education

Eliminate diversity programs (HB 999/SB 266)

What it would do: Build on DeSantis’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and critical race theory (CRT) from public education.

The bill would prohibit state universities from spending money on campus diversity programs and instruct them to remove any majors focused on CRT or “radical feminist theory,” among other gender-related subjects. It would also weaken tenure protections for state university professors and encourage universities to promote instruction on Western civilization.

Context to know: The Florida governor is on a quest to eliminate what he calls “woke” left-leaning ideologies from the Sunshine State. And he has repeatedly focused on CRT and DEI initiatives as two signature components. CRT is an academic framework based on the premise that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions. DEI includes initiatives to promote diversity in education and the workplace.

Critics say DeSantis’s “anti-woke” platform is having a chilling effect, compelling teachers and schools to eliminate any instruction or initiative related to race or diversity. DeSantis and his supporters argue DEI and CRT are being used to impose an “ideological agenda.”

Status: Introduced

Expand universal vouchers (HB 1/SB 202)

What it will do: Dramatically expand the state’s school voucher program by opening it up to all K-12 students regardless of family income. Recipients will be given a taxpayer-funded “scholarship” to pay for the private school of their choice.

Context to know: Few other states offer a universal voucher program. Proponents say it will allow parents to enroll their child in the school they believe is the best fit.

Democratic opponents questioned the program’s cost. A Florida Policy Institute analysis found it will come with a yearly price tag of $4 billion — far more than the state legislature’s estimate.

Status: Signed into law; goes into effect July 1.

Expand ‘don’t say gay’ (HB 1223/SB 1320)

What it would do: Prohibit classroom instruction related to gender identity or sexual orientation in prekindergarten through eighth grade. Currently, the state outlaws any such lessons in kindergarten through third grade.

The proposal would also ban the use of personal pronouns in public schools that do not correspond to a teacher, administrator or student’s sex at birth.

Context to know: DeSantis backed a similar bill covering earlier grades in 2022 that critics dubbed the “don’t say gay” law, arguing it discriminates against LGBTQ students and families. In the year since, the law has been used to justify decisions like banning books that focus on the LGBTQ community and removing “safe space” labels from classrooms.

Even if the new bill doesn’t pass, the law is likely to expand soon to all grade levels. The DeSantis-stacked Board of Education is expected to vote in April on a rule that would bar lessons related to gender identity and sexual orientation through the 12th grade.

Status: Introduced

2

Culture wars

Ban kids at drag shows (HB 1423/SB 1438)

What it would do: Allow the state to revoke the liquor license of any establishment that permits a child to attend an “adult live performance.”

The bill is worded vaguely and does not specifically mention drag performances. It defines an adult live performance as any show including nudity, sexual content, or lewd exposure to “prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts.”

Context to know: Over the past year, the DeSantis administration has targeted several establishments featuring drag performances. In perhaps the most notorious incident, the governor filed a complaint against Miami drag bar R House after a viral video surfaced showing a scantily clad dancer holding hands and walking with a young girl.

Critics say the bill is unnecessary because exposing children to sexually explicit activity is already a crime in the Sunshine State. They contend the bill is a crackdown on drag shows. Some do feature sexual content, while others are family-oriented. Conservatives in more than a dozen states have filed bills placing restrictions on drag show performances.

Status: Passed Senate vote; pending in House

Prohibit ESG (HB 3/SB 302)

What it would do: Prohibit state and local governments from making a range of investments based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations. The proposal would also bar banks from making financial decisions that take into account a customer’s political or religious beliefs, as well as factors like whether they own a firearm.

ESG is a range of indicators designed to evaluate a company’s sustainability by looking at performance on topics such as carbon emissions, human rights and staff diversity.

Context to know: DeSantis has characterized ESG as a “radical ideological agenda” and framed measures to curtail its use as part of his “anti-woke” campaign. Republicans in several other states have sought to blacklist banks that factor climate risks and social concerns into investment decisions. But not all have succeeded.

In recent months, conservatives in strongholds like North Dakota and Mississippi have defeated proposals similar to the one DeSantis is backing, arguing that the government should avoid interfering with private business decisions.

Status: Passed House vote; pending in Senate

3

Media and transparency

Bolster ‘media accountability’ (HB 991/SB 1220)

What it would do: Make it easier to sue news organizations for defamation and win.

The current Supreme Court standard established nearly 60 years ago requires public figures attempting to sue for defamation to prove the journalist knew their statements were false or acted recklessly in making them. Private citizens face a lower threshold. Under the proposal, who is considered a “public figure” is narrowed, meaning fewer people would fall under the higher standard set by the court.

The proposal would also expose journalists who use anonymous sources — long considered essential in certain cases to protect an individual whose job or life might be at risk — to new legal liability.

Context to know: Publishers and free speech advocates, including some from conservative media, warn that the bill would dramatically change how journalists do their jobs. Opponents say a provision that presumes reporting cited to anonymous sources is false could make it harder for journalists to investigate corruption and sensitive topics.

DeSantis’s open antipathy toward “corporate media” is a key part of his brand. A DeSantis spokesman characterized the proposal as part of a push to enforce “media accountability.” The bill’s author told The Washington Post free speech concerns are overblown.

Status: Introduced.

The list goes on. Click here to read on. (Washington Post).

_______________________

Some prepare to remove Trump from Presidential Ballots in 2024. Some prepare to defend him.

Ignore the title of the article below. 👇 This article tells about groups on both sides of the question of whether Trump should be on the President ballots in 2024, based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment - which disqualifies any “officer of the United States” from future public office who, after taking an oath to support the U.S. Constitution, has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the country.

Trump team prepares to fight efforts to block him from ballots over Jan. 6.

Donald Trump’s campaign team is preparing for a state-by-state legal battle later this year over untested claims that a Civil War-era clause in the U.S. Constitution bars the former president from appearing on Republican primary ballots because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Two nonprofit groups who do not disclose all their donors, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and Free Speech for People, have prepared multipronged legal strategies to challenge Trump across the country under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. They have written letters to state election officials calling on them to block Trump from the ballot, while separately preparing voter lawsuits and state election board complaints.

“It is a strategy designed to enforce the Constitution to bar Trump from serving as president,” CREW chief counsel Donald Sherman said of the legal efforts. “We have had two major insurrections in this country. One was the Civil War, which gave rise to Section 3. And one was Jan. 6.”


But there is little recent legal precedent to guide courts on how to apply Section 3. Opponents of the effort are likely to argue that state elections officials have a ministerial role that does not allow them to bar candidates under the constitution, according to attorneys familiar with the issues. They will likely also argue that Trump did not engage in an “insurrection,” that Section 3 should not apply to a candidate before an election and that there needs to be an act of Congress to enforce Section 3.

Legal scholars have also raised questions about whether a former president who has never served in another office counts as an “officer” under the clause.

Gerard Magliocca, a law professor at Indiana University, has written extensively on Section 3 and advised both groups now seeking to apply the clause to Trump. He has noted that Section 3 was clearly applied to Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederate States, who did not fight personally in the Civil War and was not convicted of a crime.


Magliocca said the ongoing Justice Department investigation of Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 attack could also factor into how courts, including the Supreme Court, view the Section 3 claim.
“I think there will be some judicial decisions saying he is ineligible,” Magliocca said. “If he is indicted in these other cases, that increases the possibility that you can find five justices who will be interested in disqualifying him.”

_______________________

The Journalist Evan Gershkovich is still in Putin’s prison.

Russian court rejects U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich's appeal of his detention.

MOSCOW — A Moscow court has rejected an appeal against the continued detention of American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was apprehended on Mar. 29 on charges of espionage.

Tuesday's hearing marked the first time the 31-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter was seen in public since the initial hours following his detention by Russian security agents while he was on a reporting trip in the Ural mountain city of Yekaterinburg.

Journalists were allowed briefly into the court room, where Gershkovich could be seen inside a glass cage, dressed in a blue checked shirt and jeans, chatting with his lawyers and occasionally smiling at onlookers. Burly masked Federal Security Service officers flanked the defendant cage.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy was also present for portions of the otherwise closed hearing. Following the ruling, Tracy repeated U.S. government calls for Gershkovich's immediate release.

"I can only say how troubling it was to see Evan, an innocent journalist, held in these circumstances," said Tracy, who noted she had only been granted consular access to the American journalist Monday after two weeks of trying.

With the ruling, the judge rejected a more than $600,000 bail offer by The Wall Street Journal's parent company, Dow Jones, as well as a request to place him under house arrest pending trial, Gershkovich's lawyers said.

Gershkovich and his employers have vehemently rejected the espionage charges — which carry up to 20 years in prison in Russia.

"He would like to fight and prove that he is not guilty," says Maria Korchagina, one of the lawyers representing Gershkovich. (NPR).

_______________________

Georgia on my mind.

Progress - Georgia Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed for the removal of a lawyer representing many fake electors from the 2020 election, for not advising them that the D.A. had offered immunity for cooperating.

This lawyer is a goner.

One more thing. While we wait for Georgia Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to indict Donald J. Trump, I thought you might like to read the transcript of Trump’s call to the Georgia Secretary of State in 2020. 👇

The full transcript of Trump’s audio call with Georgia’s Secretary of State.

_______________________

And what will happen next with Fox?

Yesterday, Fox paid Dominion Voting Systems $787,500,000 to stop a jury trial which was expected to bring additional exposure of Fox’s Lies about the 2020 Election to a very broad audience of Americans.

Next will come the Smartmatic case against Fox. Smartmatic is another election technology company, which filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox in February 2021, accusing Fox of falsely implicating the company in a bogus narrative about vote rigging in the 2020 election.

Then will come shareholder lawsuits against Fox. Did we mention there will be Dominion cases against Trump “lawyers” -Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell? Mike Liddell? Against One America News and NewsMax too?

Here is the Press Conference with the Dominion Voting Systems CEO.👇

_______________________

Another Red State falls in line.

North Dakota House passes near-total abortion ban with limited exceptions.

There are exceptions for rape or incest, but only up to six weeks.

Lawmakers in North Dakota advanced an abortion bill Monday that seeks to ban the procedure with few exceptions.

The state House passed SB 2150 with a vote of 76-14, mostly along party lines, which makes performing or aiding an abortion a class C felony, which is punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a fine of $10,000.

According to the language in the bill, the pregnant woman would not be charged.

The only exceptions are if the mother's health or life are in danger and in cases of rape or incest, but only up until six weeks' gestation, before many women know they're pregnant.

Additionally, the state's Department of Health & Human Services will be required to publish material on services that can assist a woman through pregnancy, color photographs documenting the development of a fetus, material on the "long-term risks" of an abortion and the possibility of reversing an abortion. (ABCNews).

_______________________

The children are not safe.

16 year old Ralph Jarl in Kansas City.

He was supposed to pick up his younger brothers. He rang the wrong doorbell. An 84-year-old white man shot him in the head. He went to 3 houses before someone helped him. Somehow, he is alive and healing.

---

Touch to watch the protests. 👇

The shooter was charged Monday with first-degree assault.

Conversations on gun violence continue in Tennessee.

Touch 👇 to watch Justin Jones dramatize the issue.

_______________________

Liz Cheney’s book will be out on November 14.

Scoop: Liz Cheney's book plans.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — vice chair, and key driving force of the House's Jan. 6 committee — will be out Nov. 14 with "Oath and Honor," which publisher Little, Brown calls a memoir, a call to action and "urgent warning."

Why it matters: Cheney, daughter of the former vice president, became a household name during Jan. 6 hearings last summer — and wants to be sure the issues of principle/duty/obligation stay in the national debate.

• "The last two years have shown us once again that our constitutional republic is not self-sustaining," Cheney, who calls herself a "constitutional conservative," said in a statement.

• "It survives only because of the courage and honor of individual Americans. When history looks back on this time, each elected official will have to answer the questions: Did we do our duty? Were we faithful to our oath of office?"

Cheney's book "will take readers inside the rooms where congressional leaders grappled with the threat posed by Trump's efforts to overturn the election," the announcement says. "She will detail lessons learned — stories of leadership, of cowardice, and of courage."

• "Cheney will explain why she decided to stand almost alone against her party; why she risked her career, her seat, and her position in leadership to do what she knew was right."

What's next: Cheney, often mentioned as a future national candidate, in March was named a professor of practice at the University of Virginia Center for Politics — running through the end of the 2023 fall semester, with an option to renew.(Axios).

_______________________