Last June, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop its cruel and inhumane practice of family separation. At least 245 children have been ripped from their families since then.
Take a second to digest that: Families are still being separated, some permanently.
Hateful immigration policies are a shameful hallmark of the Trump administration. Family separation is a stain on our nation’s character, and President Trump’s recent illegal emergency declaration to build a monument to hate on the Southern border is no different. That’s why House Democrats are taking him to task.
Next Tuesday, the House will vote to block Trump’s illegal emergency declaration. The measure, introduced today with over 220 cosponsors, is expected to sail through the House and land squarely in Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s lap.
But as these new reports about family separation demonstrate, the House has to be as aggressive as possible in their oversight and hearings well beyond the wall and use the power of the purse to stop this shameful policy once and for all.
GOP VOTER FRAUD LEADS TO A NEW ELECTION.
The people of North Carolina’s 9th district have been waiting since November of last year to hear yesterday’s news: North Carolina’s State Board of Elections finally granted a new election in NC-09.
Here’s the deal:
- After months of scrutiny and four days of evidence “indicating fraud and an attempt to conceal the scheme from state investigators,” GOP candidate Mark Harris finally gave in on calls for a new election. It culminated in damning testimony from his own son.
- The Harris campaign was accused of involvement in ballot tampering and election fraud. The campaign hired a Republican operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, who allegedly orchestrated the scheme to tamper with absentee ballots in the state. The candidate was allegedly unaware of the scheme.
- The new election includes a new primary, so Harris isn’t guaranteed a place on the ballot.
Heading into the weekend, we leave you with this observation from the Washington Post’s Philip Bump:
“…after years of warnings, a federal election has indeed been tainted by fraud to the extent that an election has had to be rerun. But it wasn’t an election tainted by people showing up to cast illegal ballots, the fraud allegation that has been leveled scores of times by President Trump alone. Instead, it focused on allegedly corrupt actions by a man working for a consulting firm hired by one of the candidates.”
ANOTHER ATTACK ON WOMEN’S HEALTH AND RIGHTS.
In yet another attack on women’s rights and reproductive freedom, the Trump administration today issued a domestic gag rule that threatens the health and well-being of millions of low-income Americans.
The gag rule will bar Title X-funded family planning providers like Planned Parenthood from offering any abortion-related care with private, non-federal funds—even counseling and referral for safe, legal abortion—or else strip funding from these Title X providers.
Title X providers are a vital source of quality family planning and related preventive health services for more than 4 million low-income women and men, and disproportionately benefit young women, women of color, and immigrant women. Women will not stand silently by and watch a minority of anti-choice Republicans continue this assault on women’s rights.
See a full statement from the Center for American Progress here.
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