John Roberts: Supreme Court draft leak 'absolutely appalling'
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The Supreme Court’s final decision will not be affected by leaks, the chief justice says.Chief Justice John Roberts called the leak of a drafted court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade “absolutely appalling” in a talk Thursday. The justice went on to dismiss any question that the leak would affect the Supreme Court’s final decision.”A leak of this stature is absolutely appalling,” Roberts said. “If the person behind it thinks that it will affect our work, that’s just foolish.”DEMOCRATS PUSH TO PACK THE SUPREME COURT, ABOLISH FILIBUSTER, AFTER LEAKED ABORTION DRAFT OPINIONThe chief justice made the remarks during his first public post-leak appearance. Roberts was speaking in Atlanta at an annual meeting of lawyers and judges from the federal 11th Circuit, which includes Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.
A crowd of people gather outside the Supreme Court, Monday night, May 2, 2022, in Washington following reports of a leaked draft opinion by the court overturning Roe v. Wade.
(AP Photo/Anna Johnson)Roberts confirmed Tuesday that Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was genuine – although the draft dates back to February, and it does not represent the current or final opinion of the court. In the draft, Alito strikes down Roe v. Wade, which struck down state laws across the country, and allows states to again make their own laws on abortion.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPAbortion activists have launched a full-throttle campaign against the conservative Supreme Court justices signed on to the leaked document, announcing plans to send protesters to their homes.
Official portrait of Chief Justice John G. Roberts
Biden makes head-scratching remark about American students learning Spanish
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President Biden made an odd remark during his speech at the White House’s Cinco de Mayo event on Thursday, as he talked about students in the U.S. learning Spanish.Biden was speaking to an audience in the Rose Garden of the White House. After commenting on the quarter of U.S. children who can speak Spanish, he began talking about plans to “conquer” and “honor” people who have “gotten in the way.””Twenty-five out of every 100 children in grades kindergarten through senior in high school speak Spanish,” Biden stated. “Twenty-five out of every 100. It’s overwhelming the interest of not only those kids but of all Americans that we invest – we invest in the community. And we’ll conquer and honor and lift up all those folks who in fact, are, have gotten in the way.”NEW YORK TIMES DRAWS ATTENTION TO BIDEN’S ‘LOW-KEY MEDIA STRATEGY,’ FUELING ‘CONCERN’ AMONG ALLIES’Biden’s administration has supported increased immigration and expanded Spanish-language resources for migrants.
President Biden talked about students learning Spanish during a Cinco de Mayo event at the White House, Thursday, May 5, 2022.
(Fox News)”We are an immigrant nation. We say that, but people act like they don’t believe it,” Biden said during his remarks. “That is our strength.”The White House has been guarded when it comes to Biden’s accessibility to the press. He has only done one interview with a news organization so far in 2022.
First lady Jill Biden speaks as President Biden hosts a Cinco de Mayo reception in the Rose Garden of the White House on Thursday, May 5, 2022.
(Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThroughout the Biden presidency, the White House has rarely utilized the backdrop of the Oval Office for public events. And that’s reportedly because the president’s aides want him to stick to the script. Politico published a report on Thursday about the potential 2024 “rematch” between Biden and former President Trump. While no official announcement has been made, with the exception of off-the-cuff remarks from Biden saying he intends to run again, it’s “all systems go” inside the White House with aides and advisers “taking initial steps to mount a bid” despite poor polling.
Warren pushes to eliminate filibuster over Roe v. Wade, says she's 'madder than hell'
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Massachusetts’ senior senator is “madder than hell.”Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said Thursday that Democrats cannot allow the filibuster to block their intended legislation enshrining Roe v. Wade. The senator has described herself as “madder than hell” over the Supreme Court’s leaked draft decision overturning the abortion rights case. “Right-wing extremists have hijacked the Supreme Court of the United States,” Warren said Wednesday after a public rally against the leaked decision. “We must [expand the Supreme Court] to rebalance it and defend our basic rights, including the constitutional right to an abortion.”SUPREME COURT LEAK CONFIRMS RUTH BADER GINSBURG’S PRESCIENT WARNING ABOUT ROE V. WADE”It’s long past time. And we can’t let the filibuster stand in our way,” she added Thursday.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during a protest outside the Supreme Court Tuesday, May 3, 2022 in Washington.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed Tuesday that Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was genuine – although the draft dates back to February, and it does not represent the current or final opinion of the court. In the draft, Alito strikes down Roe v. Wade, which struck down state laws across the country, and allows states to again make their own laws on abortion.”I’m MADDER than hell. And I’m determined to fight like hell,” Warren said Thursday on social media.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPA furious Warren rallied pro-choice supporters outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday, giving an impassioned speech decrying what she called an “extremist” court.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito speaks at the University of Notre Dame Law School in South Bend, Indiana, on Sept. 30, 2021.
(Michael Caterina /South Bend Tribune via AP)”I am angry because an extremist United States Supreme Court thinks that they impose their extremist views on all of the women in this country, and they are wrong,” she said, waving her finger in the air. Passing a federal law making abortion legal could be difficult in Congress. The Democrats have a narrow 50-50 majority in the Senate (with two Independents caucusing with Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris breaking ties), and moderate Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., support upholding the 60-vote filibuster threshold. Fox News’ Brie Stimson contributed to this report.
Bush calls Zelenskyy the 'Churchill of our time'
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Former President George W. Bush praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the “Churchill of our time” following a virtual meeting Thursday.”I was honored to spend a few minutes talking with President Zelenskyy – the Winston Churchill of our time – this morning. I thanked the President for his leadership, his example, and his commitment to liberty, and I saluted the courage of the Ukrainian people,” Bush said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy walks to a meeting with President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 1, 2022.
(Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES “President Zelenskyy assured me that they will not waver in their fight against Putin’s barbarism and thuggery. Americans are inspired by their fortitude and resilience. We will continue to stand with Ukrainians as they stand up for their freedom,” he added.Zelenskyy’s office detailed the call and said he thanked the former president for the support of the U.S.”Americans are sincere, open-minded people, and I feel it. We have common values. I feel that it is from the heart,” Zelenskyy reportedly told Bush. “Our conversation is important to me because you are an example of a strong leader.”UKRAINIAN FIGHTERS IN AZOVSTAL STEEL PLANT REFUSE TO SURRENDER, WILL ‘STAND TILL THE END’: COMMANDER’S WIFEZelenskyy drew on the events surrounding Sept. 11, 2001 and recalled how many Ukrainians at the time “sympathized with the American people and shared the pain.”Though Ukraine is not a NATO member nation, it supplied troops for the war in Afghanistan during the aftermath of 9/11 as part of the International Security Assistance Force.The U.S. has been a leading nation in support of Kyiv during Russia’s more than 10-week long war and has supplied billions of dollars-worth of defensive aid. Late last month President Biden requested another $33 billion from Congress to provide security, economic and humanitarian aid to counter Russia’s aggression.
President Volodymyr Zelensky visits the front-line positions of the Ukrainian military in Donbass, Ukraine, on Dec. 6, 2021.
Planned Parenthood silent on how it’s worked to ‘examine’ Margaret Sanger's eugenicist past
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More than one year ago, Planned Parenthood disavowed its co-founder Margaret Sanger over her racist and eugenicist views, saying it will “no longer make excuses or apologize” for her influence on society.”But we can’t simply call her racist, scrub her from our history, and move on,” Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson wrote in a New York Times op-ed on April 17, 2021. “We must examine how we have perpetuated her harms over the last century — as an organization, an institution, and as individuals.”FORMER PLANNED PARENTHOOD ECHOES BIDEN, LAMBASTS GOP AS ‘MOST EXTREME POLITICAL GROUP’ IN HISTORYBut the organization is staying mum on what efforts it’s taken to “examine” exactly how it has “perpetuated her harms over the last century.” The organization doesn’t appear to have mentioned her name publicly since April 2021.
A sign at Planned Parenthood of Utah in Salt Lake City, Aug. 21, 2019.
(AP Newsroom)Sanger, who helped found the organization as a birth control clinic in 1916 Brooklyn, has been a thorn in the side of abortion advocates for years because of her support for the then-popular eugenics movement of the 1920s and 1930s, which promoted selective breeding that often targeted people of color and the disabled.In 1921, Sanger wrote that “the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” She also spoke to the women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan at a rally in New Jersey and supported the Supreme Court’s 1927 decision in Buck v. Bell, which allowed states to forcibly sterilize people deemed “unfit” by the government.Pro-life activists also often point to Planned Parenthood’s prominence in low-income communities as Sanger’s enduring legacy in controlling population growth among people she may have viewed as “unfit.”A report by the anti-abortion Life Issues Institute indicated in 2017 that a spate of new PPFA “mega-centers” targeted women of color. “Our research revealed that an alarming 88% (22 of 25) target women of color. Disturbingly, 80% target Black communities, 56% target Hispanic/Latino neighborhoods and 80% target one or more colleges. In total, 96% (24 of 25) of the mega-centers target women of color, college women, or both,” it claimed.Some 39% of Planned Parenthood patients are people of color, with Latinos outnumbering people who identify as Black, according to Planned Parenthood. The organization hasn’t elaborated on how many of its 300,000-plus abortions every year are performed on Black mothers.But according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2019, non-Hispanic Black women accounted for the largest percentage of abortions (38%) in the U.S. in 2016, while non-Hispanic white women accounted for 35%.BLACK PRO-LIFE LEADERS PAN PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S SANGER DISAVOWAL: ‘LIKE CHANGING THE NAME OF AUSCHWITZ’The pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, which previously functioned as the research arm of Planned Parenthood, similarly reported that Black, non-Hispanic women saw the highest abortion rate (27.1 per 1,000 women aged 15-44) in 2014, compared to other racial groups.Before McGill’s op-ed, Planned Parenthood had staunchly defended Sanger, claiming she was well-intentioned in her outreach to Black communities. A Planned Parenthood “Fact Sheet” dating back to 2004 claimed that “anti-family planning activists” were attacking Sanger “because she is an easier target than the unassailable reputation of PPFA and the contemporary family planning movement,” and that “attempts to discredit the family planning movement because its early 20th-century founder was not a perfect model of early 21st-century values is like disavowing the Declaration of Independence because its author, Thomas Jefferson, bought and sold slaves.”In her op-ed condemning Sanger, McGill spoke about the organization facing a “reckoning” on understanding its founder’s “full legacy and its impact,” and that “our reckoning is the work that comes next.”While the “Our History” section of Planned Parenthood’s website was updated to address Sanger’s eugenicist views, it’s unclear what “work” the national organization has done to attempt to rectify Sanger’s influence on the current abortion movement in the past year.The last time Planned Parenthood or McGill mentioned Sanger’s name publicly appears to be in late April 2021.Planned Parenthood’s website for its Greater New York chapter’s “Reviving Radical” program, which was designed to “reckon with Planned Parenthood’s legacy and contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color” and determine an “outreach plan to reach target communities,” also hasn’t been updated since early 2021. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPFox News Digital reached out to Planned Parenthood twice, asking, “What steps has the national organization taken to ‘examine’ how it has ‘perpetuated’ Sanger’s ‘harms over the last century’ and what has it done to try to rectify that past in the current year?” We also asked for the organization’s most recent demographic information on the abortions it performs. Planned Parenthood did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.Fox News’ Sam Dorman contributed to this report.
Democrats push to pack the Supreme Court, abolish filibuster, after leaked abortion draft opinion
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Prominent Democrats have demanded radical changes to the United States’ system of government in the wake of the Supreme Court’s leaked abortion draft opinion overturning the Roe v. Wade (1973) abortion precedent, from packing the Court to abolishing the Senate filibuster.Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed Tuesday that Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was genuine – although the draft dates back to February, and it does not represent the current or final opinion of the court. In the draft, Alito strikes down Roe v. Wade, which struck down state laws across the country, and allows states to again make their own laws on abortion.SUPREME COURT LEAK CONFIRMS RUTH BADER GINSBURG’S PRESCIENT WARNING ABOUT ROE V. WADE”Right-wing extremists have hijacked the Supreme Court of the United States,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted Tuesday. “We must #ExpandTheCourt to rebalance it and defend our basic rights, including the constitutional right to an abortion.”
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren visits with striking teachers at Oscar DePriest Elementary School on Oct. 22, 2019, in Chicago.
(Scott Olson/Getty Images)”A stolen, illegitimate, and far-right Supreme Court majority appears set to destroy the right to abortion, an essential right which protects the health, safety, and freedom of millions of Americans,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., tweeted Monday. “There is no other recourse. We must expand the court.” He later added, “Now is the time to add four more seats to the Court, restore balance, and protect the right to an abortion.””I don’t care how the draft leaked. That’s a sideshow,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., tweeted Wednesday. “What I care about is that a small number of conservative justices, who lied about their plans to the Senate, intend to deprive millions of women of reproductive care. Codifying Roe isn’t enough. We must expand the court.”DEMOCRATS CONDEMN SUPREME COURT ABORTION DRAFT AS ‘ABOMINATION,’ URGE CONGRESS TO CODIFY ROE V WADERep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., a member of “The Squad,” called for both packing the Court and abolishing the Senate filibuster, the rule that requires 60 votes or more to proceed to a final Senate vote on most legislation. “Expand the court. Abolish the filibuster. Pass the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify Roe v. Wade into law,” she tweeted Wednesday.
Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks at a “Black women in defense of Ilhan Omar” event on April 30, 2019, at the Capitol in Washington.
(Olivier Douliery/Abacapress.com)Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., the fourth-highest ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, also called for abolishing the filibuster in order to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify Roe and make some kinds of abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy, blocking many state laws on the practice.”5 Supreme Court Justices, appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote & confirmed by 50 Senators who represent less than half the country, are poised to overturn #Roe, despite the fact that Americans in every single state support the right to abortion,” Clark tweeted with the hashtag “#AbolishTheFilibuster.”DEMOCRATS USE LEAKED SCOTUS OPINION TO PUSH BILL LEGALIZING SOME ABORTIONS FOR ALL 9 MONTHS”Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent who caucuses with Democrats and who has twice finished as the runner-up in a Dmeocratic presidential primary, tweeted Monday. “And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is joined on stage by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during the climate crisis summit at Drake University on Nov. 9, 2019, in Des Moines, Iowa.
(Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., went so far as to call for a primary challenge against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., on the issue of abortion, despite Sinema’s 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America, because Sinema supports the filibuster.”We could protect Roe tomorrow, but Sinema refuses to act on the filibuster,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to Sinema’s statement condemning the leaked draft opinion. “Until that changes she can take a seat talking about ‘women’s access to health care.’ Hold everyone contributing to this disaster accountable, GOP & Dem obstructionists included. She should be primaried.”Despite these calls for the abolition of the filibuster, it remains unclear if the Roe bill would actually get 50 votes (plus one with Vice President Kamala Harris), should it come to the Senate again. The Women’s Health Protection Act failed in the Senate by a vote of 46-48 in March, with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., voting with Republicans against the bill. Democrats have increasingly called for radical changes to the U.S. government in recent years. Although Joe Biden, as a senator in 1987, condemned former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s scheme to add new members to the Supreme Court amid the court’s early unfavorable rulings on New Deal cases in the 1930s, he refused to pledge not to add seats to the court during the 2020 election. Last year, he issued an executive order creating a commission to study “Supreme Court reform.” The commission he created voted to send him “no position” on the issue.PRO-ABORTION GROUPS TARGET CHURCHES FOR MOTHER’S DAY PROTESTSThe Constitution does not stipulate the size of the Supreme Court or the filibuster rule. In Nov. 2013, the Democratic-majority Senate voted to change the rules to approve judges – except Supreme Court justices – with a mere majority vote. In April 2017, the Republican-majority Senate allowed the approval of Supreme Court justices by majority vote.By advocating such drastic reforms in order to block the effects of one Supreme Court ruling, Democrats may be falling afoul of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s warning about rulings like Roe v. Wade. While Ginsburg firmly supported abortion, she warned that Roe represented a drastic move that “may prove unstable.””Measured motions seem to me right, in the main, for constitutional as well as common law adjudication,” she argued in 1992. “Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable. The most prominent example in recent decades is Roe v. Wade.”CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPIf Democrats pack the court now or abolish the filibuster now in pursuit of passing an abortion bill, they may enable a future Republican president and/or Republican-majority Senate to pass legislation or pack the court further, and even to reverse abortion law far more radically than the leaked draft opinion did.
Gillibrand speaks directly to men in abortion speech: 'I don't think a man in America could actually imagine'
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U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand spoke directly to American men Thursday while making a fervent speech about why she believes the right to an abortion is important for women’s “freedom.””I would like to speak to America’s men for one minute,” the New York Democrat said in a press conference. “Imagine you do not have authority over your own body for 10 months.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference about next week’s vote to codify Roe v. Wade, Thursday, May 5, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)She asked men to imagine not being able to have control over their body even if it meant they could die.She said she didn’t think an American man could “imagine not having control of his body, his bodily functions, what happens to him, and what life would be like for 10 months.” PRO-ABORTION GROUPS TARGET CHURCHES FOR MOTHER’S DAY PROTESTSDEMOCRATS TO FORCE SENATE VOTE ON ABORTION BILL AFTER SUPREME COURT LEAK She also claimed that the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who appeared to favor overturning Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft opinion had lied in their confirmation hearings when they said Roe was settled law, calling it an “outrage.”
Demonstrators protest outside of the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday, May 5, 2022 in Washington.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)”Five justices said they respect precedent. Five justices said that Roe v. Wade was established precedent. Five said they would never undermine established precedent. It is unconscionable what this decision will do to the American people,” she said. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPShe called the potential overturning of Roe “barbaric, unacceptable and inhumane” and said if the government takes away a woman’s right to make decisions about her “health and wellbeing she is no longer a full citizen. She no longer has freedom.”