CONTRA-CONCEPTION

Senate Democrats plan to put Republicans on blast this summer over their opposition to reproductive rights with a series of high-profile votes.

• Democratic lawmakers are working to fast-track a Senate vote next month on a bill enshrining nationwide protections for access to contraception, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Wednesday. Republican resistance means the bill is likely to fail. But Democrats hope that forcing Republicans to actually vote against the Right to Contraception Act will clarify the stakes of the 2024 election. They aim to show just how endangered reproductive rights have become in America at the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to roll back Roe v. Wade — in time for voters to do something about it at the ballot box in November.

• The contraception vote is just part of the plan. Lawmakers including Sen. Pat Murray (D-WA), a vocal proponent of reproductive rights, are hashing out a scheme to force Republicans into a further series of votes on related issues. “Every single time Senate Democrats have gone to the Senate floor to try and pass bills to protect reproductive rights — on everything from access to birth control or IVF to preventing the criminalization of women who get abortions — Republicans have blocked it,” she tweeted earlier this month.

• Disgraced former president Donald Trump said this week he’s “looking at” policies that would restrict contraception access. “I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly, and I think it’s something you’ll find interesting. I think it’s a smart decision. We’ll be releasing it very soon,” he said, before suggesting that the issue should be left to individual states. Trump later took to Truth Social to claim that he does not support a ban on birth control.

The overwhelming majority of Americans – from both parties – support access to birth control. Time will tell if lawmakers share the views and values of those who sent them to Washington.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

Spain, Norway and Ireland said they will recognize an independent Palestinian state, in a coordinated diplomatic gesture underscoring Israel’s growing isolation over its devastating invasion of Gaza. The move to join roughly 140 countries in recognizing a Palestinian state is historic, though also largely symbolic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the step as a “prize for terrorism.”

A majority of Americans believe the U.S. economy is in recession, even though that isn’t true, according to a Harris poll conducted for the Guardian. Furthermore, they blame Biden for this imaginary recession. It’s just the latest example of the president’s inability to connect with voters on one of their top issues: the economy.

Fulton County Democrats backed District Attorney Fani Willis to keep her seat after attempts to remove her from a Trump racketeering case earlier this year failed. She’s now favored to defeat Republican Courtney Kramer, an attorney and former Trump White House intern, in the general election.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. Vice President, slammed Trump as a “known antisemite” over Trump’s suggestion that Jewish Americans who back Biden need “to have their head examined.”

Police hazmat teams arrived at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington D.C. after a suspicious package containing two vials of blood and leaking ice packs was delivered to the building. Police cleared the package and are still investigating. That didn’t stop RNC chair Michael Whatley from attacking Biden and “the extreme left” in response, which he would have done regardless.

Half of swing-state voters worry there will be violence surrounding the U.S. presidential election, according to the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. Both Democrats and Republicans are equally concerned.

Former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley finally broke down and did what many of her critics on the left predicted she would do: announced she’ll vote for Trump in November. How’s that backbone doing, Nikki?

Justice Samuel Alito flew ANOTHER flag associated with Jan. 6 rioters outside his beach house in New Jersey last summer, the New York Times reported. This one was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, carried by some of the Capitol rioters. This report follows an earlier incident in which an upside-down American flag flew outside Alito’s home, for which he blamed his wife. It’s like the dude is making his own authoritarian version of “Fun With Flags.”

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