"Arizona lawmakers secured enough votes on Wednesday to repeal an abortion ban that first became law when Abraham Lincoln was president and a half-century before women won the right to vote," the New York Times reports.
"A bill to repeal the law appeared to be on track to narrowly pass in the Republican-controlled State Senate with the support of every Democratic senator and two Republicans who were breaking with anti-abortion conservatives in their own party."
"If it passes as expected, it would go to Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, who is expected to sign it."
New York Times: "The issue has galvanized Democratic voters and energized a campaign to put an abortion-rights ballot measure before Arizona voters in November. On the right, it created a rift between anti-abortion activists who want to keep the law in place and Republican politicians who worry about the political backlash that could be prompted by support of a near-total abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest."
"Florida's strict ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy went into effect Wednesday, which clinic operators fear will impact at least 40,000 women a year unless voters agree to overturn the measure in November," Politico reports.
New York Times: "Perhaps the biggest political question in Florida, though, is just how much abortion might swing the election. Is it unique enough to turn around a state that has trended reliably Republican?"
Wall Street Journal: What Florida can learn from Georgia's six-week abortion ban.
"Florida's abortion ban after six-weeks gestation is in effect as of May 1. That means the time a person has to decide whether or not to have an abortion in Florida is – at most – two weeks," NPR reports.
"It has to do with how the medical community dates a pregnancy."
"Today, an extreme abortion ban takes effect in Florida, banning reproductive health care before many women even know they are pregnant. There is one person responsible for this nightmare: Donald Trump." — President Biden, quoted by NPR.
Florida's six-week abortion ban took effect today. That means abortion is now either banned or severely restricted in nearly the entire southern United States.
North Carolina, which has a 12-week abortion ban, is not a practical option for many patients due to a mandated 72-hour waiting period. The only Southern state with no gestational limits on abortion is Virginia. It's certain this will cause massive implications for reproductive care across the South. The political implications are still to be determined.
"The group leading the effort to put abortion rights on South Dakota's November ballot said Wednesday it was turning in far more petition signatures than required, while an opposition group said it will challenge the legitimacy of the petitions," South Dakota Searchlight reports.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said she will trigger a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) next week, Punchbowl News reports. Greene said she wants to force a recorded vote on Johnson's speakership to expose how House Republicans would vote. Democratic leaders have already said they will provide the votes necessary to block Johnson's ouster.
House Democrats met Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) plan to force a vote on ousting Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) with dismissal and derision, Axios reports. Said one House Democrat: "She is about to realize her inevitable irrelevance."
"Fresh bait always finds a fish. Jeffries throwing that out there, it's chum in the water. Everyone knows what he did." — A senior GOP official, quoted by Politico, on House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) riling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) by offering to save Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from a motion to vacate.
"Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Wednesday said he's ready for the 'chaos' that has plagued the House for much of 2023 and 2024 to end next week, when a bipartisan group of lawmakers is expected to vote to quash a motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from his post," The Hill reports.
Said McConnell: "I'm relieved as I think all of America is that the chaos in the House will be discontinued."
Punchbowl News: "One of our big questions right now is what happens if Greene or other conservative hardliners keep trying to oust Johnson? Will Democrats keep stepping up to save him?"
"We put that question to Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar. They pointedly didn't say their vow to save Johnson extends beyond this one instance…"
"For Greene, the threat of ousting Johnson is in many ways more useful than the reality of actually ousting him. Greene gets far more attention — and presumably raises way more money — when she's trying to dump Johnson. Just take a look at the news conference this morning, which is certain to be packed."
New York Times: "Even the insiders are fed up with Washington. To understand why, we put the same eight questions to House and Senate members in both parties who are on the way out, looking for patterns and prescriptions to get a handle on the place."
"A half-dozen conservative senators known as the 'Breakfast Club' are banding together to try to influence the race for Senate GOP leader — and how the chamber would run with a Republican majority," Axios reports.
"The Breakfast Club is an unofficial group but it's as close as the Senate gets to the House Freedom Caucus, which has been a persistent thorn in the side of GOP leadership during one of the most chaotic sessions in that chamber's history."
"President Biden's push to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug is the latest in a series of administrative policy moves that anxious Democrats hope will bolster his re-election standing with young voters," the Wall Street Journal reports.
Axios: Biden gives cannabis industry a badly needed win.
"President Biden has been personally involved in intense efforts in recent days to reach a hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which he sees as a crucial element of a much wider strategy at home and abroad," Axios reports.
"The president's senior advisers say the deal on the table right now is the only conceivable path to a ceasefire in Gaza and to possibly ending a war that has drawn sharp criticism of Biden among some of his key supporters ahead of the presidential election."
CBS News: "In recent weeks, the documents show, senior officials across several federal U.S. agencies have discussed the practicality of different options to resettle Palestinians from Gaza who have immediate family members who are American citizens or permanent residents."
"One of those proposals involves using the decades-old United States Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with U.S. ties who have managed to escape Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt, according to the inter-agency planning documents."
"Hundreds of police officers in riot gear marched onto the campus of Columbia University in Upper Manhattan late Tuesday, where protesters had occupied a campus building, as clashes over the war in Gaza continued to escalate at American universities," the New York Times reports.
"House and Senate Democrats' anxiety is spiking as pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses around the country kick into overdrive," Axios reports.
"The protests are fueling a volatile political dynamic sparked by the Oct. 7 attack and the Israel-Hamas war just as the 2024 election comes into view."
Said one House Democrat: "The longer they continue, and the worse that they get, the worse it's going to be for the election overall."
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said that he has started drafting a censure resolution against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) following her comments that suggested some Jewish students at Columbia University are "pro-genocide," the New York Times reports.
"The Federal Reserve voted to keep interest rates at a 23-year high on Wednesday, as the central bank tries to curb stubborn inflation," NPR reports.
"Investors now think it could be September at the earliest before borrowing costs start to come down."
Politico: The Fed thinks time is on its side. That could get awkward.
New York Times: "Every major currency in the world has fallen against the U.S. dollar this year, an unusually broad shift with the potential for serious consequences across the global economy."
The Biden administration on Wednesday canceled more than $6 billion in student debt for 317,000 people who attended the Art Institutes, a now-defunct network of for-profit colleges that President Biden said "knowingly misled" students, the New York Times reports.
"United Methodist delegates repealed their church's longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy with no debate on Wednesday, removing a rule forbidding 'self-avowed practicing homosexuals' from being ordained or appointed as ministers," the AP reports.
"A law firm that has long defended Donald Trump's campaign and businesses from employment lawsuits has abruptly asked to withdraw from a yearslong case over what it calls an 'irreparable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship,'" the New York Times reports.
"The firm — LaRocca, Hornik, Greenberg, Rosen, Kittridge, Carlin and McPartland — has represented Mr. Trump's political operation in numerous suits dating to his first presidential run, helping secure several settlements and dismissals and billing nearly $3 million in the process."
"But late on Friday, it asked a federal magistrate judge to allow it to withdraw from a suit filed by a former campaign surrogate, A.J. Delgado, who says she was sidelined by the campaign in 2016 after revealing she was pregnant. The timing of the motion was notable, just two days after the same federal court had ordered the campaign to turn over in discovery all complaints of sexual harassment and gender or pregnancy discrimination from the 2016 and 2020 campaigns — materials that the defendants have long resisted handing over."
"A federal judge in New York scheduled a closed-door meeting to deal with a request by lawyers for Donald Trump's presidential campaign to withdraw from a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by former senior advisor to his 2016 White House bid," CNBC reports.
Charlotte evangelical pastor Loran Livingston is in the national spotlight for a fire-and-brimstone sermon denouncing as "blasphemous" and "disgusting" what's become known as the Trump Bible, the Charlotte Observer reports.
His sermon on the "Trump Bible" has drawn millions of views on social media.
"Google and X, formerly Twitter, recently provided hundreds of files to Michigan prosecutors for their 2020 election subversion probe, complying with search warrants that investigators obtained after CNN revealed secret social media accounts belonging to pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who played a major role in the fake electors plot," CNN reports.
"The previously unreported warrants gave prosecutors access to new Chesebro emails and his private direct messages on Twitter."
Preliminary 2023 FBI data "paint the picture" of a big decrease in overall crime across the United States, USA Today reports.
"That's not the picture Trump and his supporters are painting on the campaign trail, with voters likely to hear plenty more in the coming months that attempts to cast President Joe Biden as weak on crime… Trump's crime rhetoric has been escalating as he faces his own criminal jeopardy, with the former president arguing that prosecutors are ignoring the real crime problem in America to pursue a political 'witch hunt' against him."
William Kristol: "Over three months later, on August 26, 1968, the Democratic party's national convention assembled in Chicago, and in scenes of riots and disorder, nominated as the party's candidate a long-time senator and the incumbent vice president, Hubert Humphrey."
"This year the Democratic convention will come to order on August 19, in Chicago. It will nominate a long-time senator, the former vice president and incumbent president, Joe Biden."
"In 1968, the Republican party voted to put on their national ticket—for an unprecedented fourth time—Richard Nixon. This capped a remarkable political comeback. After Nixon had not only lost the presidential race in 1960 but the California governorship in 1962, he was widely supposed to be finished."
"This year the Republicans will nominate for president, for an unprecedented third time in succession, Donald Trump. This will cap a remarkable political comeback. After Trump not only lost the presidential race in 2020 but failed in his attempt afterwards to overturn the results, he was widely supposed to be finished."
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