
Major Japanese firms including Kirin Holdings have pushed into Myanmar since Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide election in 2015.

Major Japanese firms including Kirin Holdings have pushed into Myanmar since Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide election in 2015.
Though the U.S. lags on detecting more contagious variants, the agency says it’s stepping up efforts to find them. Here’s the latest pandemic news.

It’s bad faith in the name of bipartisanship.
by A.C. Thompson, ProPublica, and Lila Hassan and Karim Hajj, FRONTLINE
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between ProPublica and FRONTLINE that includes an upcoming documentary.
Hours after the attack on the Capitol ended, a group calling itself the Last Sons of Liberty posted a brief video to Parler, the social media platform, that appeared to show members of the organization directly participating in the uprising. Footage showed someone with a shaky smartphone charging past the metal barricades surrounding the building. Other clips show rioters physically battling with baton-wielding police on the white marble steps just outside the Capitol.
Before Parler went offline — its operations halted at least temporarily when Amazon refused to continue to host the network — the Last Sons posted numerous statements indicating that group members had joined the mob that swarmed the Capitol and had no regrets about the chaos and violence that unfolded on Jan. 6. The Last Sons also did some quick math: The government had suffered only one fatality, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, who was reportedly bludgeoned in the head with a fire extinguisher. But the rioters had lost four people, including Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran who was shot by an officer as she tried to storm the building.
In a series of posts, the Last Sons said her death should be “avenged” and appeared to call for the murder of three more cops.
The group is part of the Boogaloo movement — a decentralized, very online successor to the militia movement of the ’80s and ’90s — whose adherents are fixated on attacking law enforcement and violently toppling the U.S. government. Researchers say the movement began coalescing online in 2019 as people — mostly young men — angry with what they perceived to be increasing government repression, found each other on Facebook groups and in private chats. In movement vernacular, Boogaloo refers to an inevitable and imminent armed revolt, and members often call themselves Boogaloo Bois, boogs or goons.
In the weeks since Jan. 6, an array of extremist groups have been named as participants in the Capitol invasion. The Proud Boys. QAnon believers. White nationalists. The Oath Keepers. But the Boogaloo Bois are notable for the depth of their commitment to the overthrow of the U.S. government and the jaw-dropping criminal histories of many members.
Mike Dunn, a 20-year-old from a small town on Virginia’s rural southern edge, is the commander of the Last Sons. “I really feel we’re looking at the possibility — stronger than any time since, say, the 1860s — of armed insurrection,” Dunn said in an interview with ProPublica and FRONTLINE a few days after the assault on the Capitol. Although Dunn didn’t directly participate, he said members of his Boogaloo faction helped fire up the crowd and “may” have penetrated the building.
“It was a chance to mess with the federal government again,” he said. “They weren’t there for MAGA. They weren’t there for Trump.”
Dunn added that he’s “willing to die in the streets” while battling law enforcement or security forces.
In its short existence, the Boogaloo movement has proven to be a magnet for current or former military service members who have used their combat skills and firearms expertise to advance the Boogaloo cause. Before becoming one of the faces of the movement, Dunn did a brief stint in the U.S. Marines, a career he says was cut short by a heart condition, and worked as a Virginia state prison guard.
Through interviews, extensive study of social media and a review of court records, some previously unreported, ProPublica and FRONTLINE identified more than 20 Boogaloo Bois or sympathizers who’ve served in the armed forces. Over the past 18 months, 13 of them have been arrested on charges ranging from the possession of illegal automatic weapons to the manufacture of explosives to murder.

This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between ProPublica and FRONTLINE that includes an upcoming documentary.
Most of the individuals identified by the news organizations became involved with the movement after leaving the military. At least four are accused of committing Boogaloo-related crimes while employed by one of the military branches.
Examples of the nexus between the group and the military abound.
Last year, an FBI task force in San Francisco opened a domestic terror investigation into Aaron Horrocks, a 39-year-old former Marine Corps reservist. Horrocks spent eight years in the Reserve before leaving the Corps in 2017.
The bureau became alarmed in September 2020, when agents received a tip that Horrocks, who lives in Pleasanton, California, was “planning an imminent violent attack on government or law enforcement,” according to a petition to seize the man’s firearms, which was filed in state court in October. The investigation, which has not previously been reported, links Horrocks to the Boogaloo movement. He has not been charged.
A petition asking an Alameda County, California, court to bar Aaron Horrocks from owning firearms and ammunition.
Superior Court of California, County of Alameda
Horrocks did not respond to a request for comment, though he has uploaded a video to YouTube that appears to show federal law enforcement agents, in plainclothes, searching his storage unit. “Go fuck yourselves,” he tells them.
In June 2020 in Texas, police briefly detained Taylor Bechtol, a 29-year-old former Air Force staff sergeant and munitions loader with the 90th Aircraft Maintenance Unit. While in the service, Bechtol handled 1,000-pound precision-guided bombs.
The former airman was riding in a pickup truck with two other alleged Boogaloo Bois when the vehicle was stopped by Austin police, according to an intelligence report generated by the Austin Regional Intelligence Center, a multi-agency fusion center. Officers found five guns, several hundred rounds of ammunition and gas masks in the truck. The men expressed “sympathetic views toward the Boogaloo Bois” and should be treated with “extreme caution” by law enforcement, noted the report, which was obtained by ProPublica and FRONTLINE after it was leaked by hackers.
One of the men in the vehicle, Ivan Hunter, 23, has since been indicted for allegedly using an assault rifle to shoot up a police precinct in Minneapolis and helping to set the building ablaze. No trial date has been set for Hunter, who has pleaded not guilty.
Bechtol, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing in connection with the traffic stop, did not respond to a request for comment.
Taylor Bechtol, then an Air Force staff sergeant, with munition at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska on Oct. 26, 2018. Bechtol has been linked to the Boogaloo Bois.
Jonathan Valdes/USAF
Linda Card, a spokeswoman for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which deals with the service’s most complex and serious criminal matters, said Bechtol left the service in December 2018 and was never investigated while in the Air Force.
In perhaps the highest-profile incident involving the group, several Boogaloo Bois were arrested in October in connection with the widely reported plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. One of those men was Joseph Morrison, a Marine Corps reservist who was serving in the 4th Marine Logistics Group at the time of his arrest and arraignment. Morrison, who is facing terrorism charges, went by the name Boogaloo Bunyan on social media. He also kept a sticker of the Boogaloo flag — it features a Hawaiian floral pattern and an igloo — on the rear window of his pickup truck. Two other men charged in the plot had spent time in the military.
The Marine Corps is working to root out extremists from its ranks, a spokesman said.
“Association or participation with hate or extremist groups of any kind is directly contradictory to the core values of honor, courage and commitment that we stand for as Marines and isn’t tolerated,” Capt. Joseph Butterfield said.
No reliable numbers exist about how many current or former military members are part of the movement.
However, military officials at the Pentagon told ProPublica and FRONTLINE that they have been concerned by a surge in extremist activity. “We are seeing an increase in concerning behavior,” said one official, stressing that military leaders are “very actively” responding to tips and are thoroughly investigating service members linked to anti-government groups.
Experts worry about people with military training joining extremist groups.
Boogaloo Bois with military experience are likely to share their expertise with members who’ve never served in the armed forces, building a more effective, more lethal movement. “These are folks who can bring discipline to a movement. These are folks that can bring skills to a movement,” said Jason Blazakis, director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
Though some Boogaloo groups have made spectacular blunders — among them, sharing information with undercover FBI agents and using unencrypted messaging services to communicate — the movement’s familiarity with weapons and basic infantry techniques clearly poses serious challenges for law enforcement.
“We have the upper hand,” Dunn said. “A lot of the guys have knowledge that your normal civilians do not have. Police officers are not used to combating that kind of knowledge.”
Dunn at a gun rights rally at the Virginia Capitol in Richmond on Jan. 18.
Alex Lourie/Redux
The marriage of extremist ideology and military skill was apparent in an alleged plot last year to attack police officers at a racial justice protest.
On a hot spring evening last May, an FBI SWAT team swarmed on three alleged Boogaloo Bois as they met in the parking lot of a 24 Hour Fitness club on the east side of Las Vegas. Agents found a small arsenal in the trio’s vehicles: a shotgun, a handgun, two rifles, plenty of ammunition, body armor and materials that could be used to make Molotov cocktails — glass bottles, gasoline and rags torn into small pieces.
All three men had military experience. One had served in the Air Force. Another the Navy. The third, 24-year-old Andrew Lynam, was in the U.S. Army Reserve at the time of the arrests. During his teenage years Lynam attended the New Mexico Military Institute, a public academy that prepares high school and junior college students for careers in the armed forces.
In court, federal prosecutor Nicholas Dickinson portrayed Lynam as the leader of the group, a Nevada-based Boogaloo cell called Battle Born Igloo. “The defendant associated with the Boogaloo movement; i.e., he referred to himself as a Boogaloo Boi,” the prosecutor told the court during a June detention hearing, according to a transcript. Lynam, continued Dickinson, “corresponded with other Boogaloo groups, especially in California, Denver and Arizona. Essentially, the defendant was radicalized to the point where he wanted to act out, it wasn’t talk.”
According to the prosecutor, the men intended to join a protest over the death of George Floyd and hurl firebombs at police, and they had made plans to bomb an electric power substation and a federal building, actions they hoped would spark a wider anti-government uprising.
“They wanted to damage or destroy some sort of government building or infrastructure to get the response of law enforcement and, hopefully, the overreaction of the federal government,” Dickinson told the court.
The prosecutor said he found it particularly “troubling” that Lynam was serving in the military while at the same time plotting to attack government infrastructure.
During the June hearing, defense lawyer Sylvia Irvin pushed back, criticizing the “clear weaknesses” in the government’s case, challenging the credibility of an FBI informant and suggesting Lynam was really a minor player in the group.
Lynam, who has pleaded not guilty, is now represented by attorney Thomas Pitaro, who did not respond to requests for comment. Lynam and his co-defendants, Stephen Parshall and William Loomis, are also facing a parallel slate of charges brought by local prosecutors in state court. Parshall and Loomis have pleaded not guilty.
A spokesman for the Army Reserve said Lynam, a medical specialist who joined in 2016, currently holds the rank of private first class in the service. He has never deployed to a combat zone. “Extremist ideologies and activities directly oppose our values and beliefs, and those who subscribe to extremism have no place in our ranks,” said Lt. Col. Simon Flake, noting that Lynam is facing disciplinary action by the Army when his criminal cases conclude.
The body of criminal law that governs the armed forces, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, doesn’t include an explicit prohibition on joining extremist groups.
But participation in criminal gangs, white supremacist organizations and anti-government militias is barred by a 2009 Pentagon directive that covers all military branches. Service members who violate that ban can face court-martial for disobeying a lawful order or regulation, or for other offenses related to their extremist activity, such as making false statements to superiors. Military prosecutors can also use a catchall provision of the military code called Article 134 — or the general article — to charge service members who’ve engaged in conduct that brings “discredit” to the armed forces or harms the “good order and discipline” of the military, said Geoffrey Corn, a retired Army officer who served as a military attorney and who now teaches national security law at South Texas College of Law Houston.
Pointing to the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, who enlisted in the Army and served in the first Gulf War, Corn said it’s no secret that the military has been a “breeding ground” for extremism to some extent for decades. McVeigh’s devastating 1995 attack on that city’s Alfred P. Murrah federal building killed 168 people, many of them children.
A Hawaiian floral pattern, one of the Boogaloo Bois’ symbols, on body armor at a rally.
Evan Simko-Bednarski/Redux
Military officials have acknowledged an uptick in extremist activity and domestic terrorism cases in recent years.
Addressing a congressional committee last year, Joe Ethridge, intelligence chief for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, said his staff had opened seven investigations into allegations of extremist activity in 2019, up from an average of 2.4 per year during the previous half decade. “During the same time period, the Federal Bureau of Investigation notified CID of an increase in domestic terrorism investigations with soldiers or former soldiers as suspects,” he told members of the House Armed Services Committee.
Ethridge also noted that most soldiers who are flagged for extremist behavior face administrative sanctions — including counseling or retraining — rather than criminal prosecution.
In the aftermath of the Capitol attack and a flurry of news reports documenting the involvement of service members in the chaos, the Department of Defense announced a comprehensive review of its policies on extremist and white supremacist activity to be conducted by the Pentagon’s inspector general.
“We in the Department of Defense are doing everything we can to eliminate extremism” within the military, Garry Reid, a director for defense intelligence at the Pentagon, told ProPublica and FRONTLINE. “All military personnel, including members of the National Guard, have undergone a background investigation, are subject to continuous evaluation and are enrolled in an insider threat program.”
The military is clearly worried about Boogaloo Bois training up civilians. Last year, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the law enforcement agency that investigates felony-level crimes involving sailors and members of the Marine Corps, circulated an intelligence bulletin.
Called a threat awareness message, the bulletin detailed the arrests of Lynam and the other men in Las Vegas and noted that Boogaloo followers have engaged in discussions about “recruiting military or former military members for their perceived knowledge of combat training.”
NCIS concluded the bulletin with a warning: The agency couldn’t ignore the possibility that individuals involved with the Boogaloo movement were serving throughout the military. “NCIS continues to emphasize the importance of reporting suspected boogaloo activity through the chain of command.”
The subject came up during a court hearing in Michigan involving Paul Bellar, one of the men arrested on state charges in connection with the plot to kidnap Whitmer. “It’s my understanding Mr. Bellar used his military training to teach combat procedures to members of this terrorist group,” said Magistrate Frederick Bishop, explaining his reluctance to lower Bellar’s bail during the October hearing. Bellar, who has since been released from jail on bond, has pleaded not guilty.
In another instance, an ex-Marine gathered at least six men at a wooded property in McLoud, Oklahoma, a small town outside of Oklahoma City, and taught them how to storm a building. In a video posted to YouTube last year, the former Marine, Christopher Ledbetter, shows the group how to enter a house and kill any enemy combatants inside. Filmed with a GoPro camera, the video concludes with Ledbetter, who served in the Marine Corps from 2011 to 2015, blasting a wooden target with a barrage of bullets from a fully automatic AK-47-type carbine.
Ledbetter called his training facility the “kill house,” according to court records.
A series of Facebook Messenger conversations obtained by the FBI show that Ledbetter, 30, identified with the Boogaloo movement and was preparing for the coming armed insurrection, which he thought would be a “blast.” In an interview, Ledbetter told agents that he had been manufacturing hand grenades and admitted that he had modified his AK-47 so that it would fire automatically.
A transcript of Facebook messages between Christopher Ledbetter and a Facebook user. Ledbetter said, “Can’t keep the goons” — a nickname for Boogaloo members — “from finding each other.”
United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma
Ledbetter pleaded guilty in December to illegal possession of a machine gun. He is currently serving a 57-month sentence in federal custody.
On an hourlong podcast posted in May 2020, two Boogaloo Bois discussed, in detail, how to do battle with the government.
One of the men, who dispenses combat advice online using the handle Guerrilla Instructor, said he had enlisted in the Army but had eventually grown disenchanted and left the service. The other man, who called himself Jake, said he was currently serving as a military police officer in the Army National Guard.
Traditional infantry tactics wouldn’t be particularly useful during the coming civil war, opined Guerrilla Instructor, arguing that sabotage and assassination would be more helpful for the anti-government insurgents. It was simple, he said: A Boogaloo Boi could just walk up to a government figure or law enforcement officer on the street and “shoot them in the face” before fleeing.
But there was another assassination technique that held special appeal for Guerrilla Instructor. “I believe honestly that drive-bys will be our greatest tool,” he said, sketching out a scenario in which three Boogs would hop in an SUV, spray a target with gunfire, “kill some dudes” and speed off.
“That’s some real gangster shit right there,” enthused Jake.
About three weeks after the podcast was uploaded to Apple and other podcast distributors, a security camera tracked a white Ford van as it moved through the darkened streets of downtown Oakland, California. It was 9:43 p.m.
Inside the vehicle, prosecutors say, were Boogaloo Bois Steven Carrillo, who was armed with an automatic short-barreled rifle, and Robert Justus, Jr., who was driving. As the van rolled along Jefferson Street, Carrillo allegedly flung open the sliding door and unleashed a burst of gunfire, hitting two federal protective services officers posted outside the Ronald V. Dellums federal building and courthouse. The barrage killed David Patrick Underwood, 53, and wounded Sombat Mifkovic, whose age has not been released.
At this point, there’s no evidence Carrillo — a 32-year-old Air Force staff sergeant stationed at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California — ever heard the podcast or communicated with the men who recorded it. But, obviously, his alleged crime closely resembles the assassination strategies discussed on the show, which is still available online. He is facing murder and attempted murder charges in federal court, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Evidence used by prosecutors in Steven Carrillo’s case included a patch of the Boogaloo flag on a ballistic vest found in a vehicle registered to him.
United States District Court for the Northern District of California
According to the FBI, Carrillo used an exotic and highly illegal weapon to carry out the shooting: an automatic rifle with an extremely short barrel and a silencer. The weapon, which fires 9 mm ammunition, is a so-called ghost gun — it lacks any serial numbers, making it difficult to trace.
Built from machined aluminum, heavy-duty polymers or even 3D printed plastic, ghost guns have been embraced by Boogaloo movement members, many of whom take an absolutist position on the Second Amendment, arguing that the government lacks any authority to restrict gun ownership.
Last year police in New York state arrested an Army drone operator and alleged Boogaloo Boi on charges that he owned an illegal ghost gun. Noah Latham, a private based at Fort Drum, did a tour of Iraq as a drone operator, according to an Army spokesperson. Latham was discharged from the service after he was arrested by police in Troy in June 2020.
The shootings at the courthouse in Oakland were only the first chapter in Carrillo’s alleged rampage. In the days after, he headed about 80 miles south, to a tiny town nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains. There he allegedly got into a gun battle with Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputies and state police, a shootout that killed deputy Damon Gutzwiller, 38, and injured two other law enforcement officers. According to prosecutors, who have charged Carrillo with premeditated murder and a host of other felonies in state court, Carrillo also hurled homemade bombs at the cops and deputies and carjacked a Toyota Camry in a bid to escape.
Before ditching the car, Carrillo apparently used his own blood — he was hit in the hip during the skirmish — to write the word “Boog” on the hood of the car.
Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, has monitored the links between the military and extremist groups for years, tracking each policy tweak, every criminal case. In her view, Carrillo’s grisly narrative is a product of the military’s refusal to adequately address the issue of radicalization within the ranks. She said, “The failure to deal with this problem on the part of the armed forces” has “unleashed people who are highly trained in how to kill” on the public.
Zoe Todd, FRONTLINE, contributed reporting.
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Get out of women’s lives fools!
Protesters demonstrate against abortion at the Texas Rally for Life on Jan. 23, 2021, at the state Capitol in Austin
Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune
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Republican lawmakers, buoyed by a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court and the trouncing of state-level Democrats in the November election, are pushing to reclaim Texas’ role as the vanguard among states restricting access to abortion this legislative session.
Legislators have promised to back a so-called “heartbeat bill” that would bar abortions before many women know they are pregnant. Anti-abortion advocates have urged them to challenge the Roe v. Wade decision that established the right to an abortion. And Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said at a “Texas Rally for Life” event in January that there is more “we must do to defend the unborn.”
With the GOP in control of state government and “a favorable backstop from the courts, it’s going to be a no-holds-barred approach for Republicans on abortion,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
They’re wasting no time.
On one of the first days of the session, a freshman lawmaker attempted to stop the House from naming bridges or streets without first voting to abolish abortion. The amendment failed, but was supported by more than 40 lawmakers, about half of the Republicans in the House.
At a committee hearing in December, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, who chairs the powerful Senate State Affairs committee, said 10 states had already passed “heartbeat bills” and it was time for Texas to catch up.
And on Jan. 22 — 48 years after the landmark Roe v. Wade decision — two “trigger” bills were filed that would ban abortion in Texas if the Supreme Court overturned the case or otherwise altered abortion laws. Another bill could ban abortion after 12 weeks.
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are at the very center of what it means to be an American,” state Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, one of the bill authors, said in a statement. “I believe there always has been and always will be energy from Texans to promote and protect life.”
Advocates of abortion rights fear the tone already set augurs a fierce fight about the procedure during a time when the pandemic has limited the public’s ability to voice concerns within the Capitol.
Wendy Davis, a former state senator whose 13-hour filibuster of abortion restrictions received national attention in 2013, said anti-abortion activists are “emboldened” by the makeup of the Supreme Court.
“I’m not at all surprised to see the the number, the depth and the breadth of the abortion bills that have been filed,” she said.
Davis has terminated two pregnancies for medical reasons, one because the fetus had a severe brain abnormality. She received multiple medical opinions suggesting the baby would not survive, and the decision was followed by an “indescribable blackness… a deep, dark despair and grief,” she wrote in her book.
“Politicians have no right to make such deeply personal decisions for a woman and her family,” she said in an interview, adding that the issue should be afforded the same level of privacy as “any medical decision.”
Most abortions are banned after 20 weeks in Texas, and women seeking an abortion must get a sonogram at least 24 hours before the procedure. Their doctor must describe the sonogram, make audible any heartbeat and provide information that critics say is misleading.
There were 21 abortion clinics in Texas in 2017, and the overwhelming majority of the state’s 254 counties did not have one, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that supports abortion rights. Some 55,000 abortions were performed in Texas in 2018, down from around 77,500 in 2010.
Other bills filed this session target abortion in ways that go beyond the time periods in which it can be performed.
One measure prevents government entities from appropriating money to offer logistical support — like paying for child care or lodging — for women making a sometimes multi-day journey to get an abortion. Another proposed law would appoint attorneys to represent fetuses when minors go before a judge to get an abortion without their parents’ consent.
The bill’s author, state Rep. Scott Sanford, R-McKinney, said it’s intent was to be fair — to ensure “all parties would be represented.”
Drucilla Tigner, a policy and advocacy strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said the measure was akin to “putting minors on trial” and could prove to be intimidating or traumatizing.
There are additional Texas abortion laws before the courts, including one that would restrict access to the most common way to end a pregnancy in the second trimester. While judges have blocked similar measures across the country, anti-abortion advocates see hope in the new constitution of the Supreme Court — where three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump have solidified the conservative majority.
They are also energized by an opinion Chief Justice John Roberts issued in a recent Supreme Court case that indicated state lawmakers might have more leeway to enact limitations on abortion.
Anti-abortion advocates have cited changes at the court in pushing for new state laws this session.
The Legislature should pass bills that strategically challenge the Roe v. Wade decision and highlight the “humanity of the child and the inhumanity” of the procedure, said John Seago, with Texas Right to Life, at a December hearing.
“We have a great circuit court [the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals], we have an even better Supreme Court and we need to catch up,” he said. The 5th Circuit, which hears cases from Texas, is considered one of the most conservative courts in the nation.
Legislation pushed by Seago’s organization has an “ultimate goal of ending elective abortions in Texas” and proposes barring later-term abortions even in the case of severe fetal abnormalities. Women would receive information about “perinatal palliative care” — support services for people who want to follow through with such pregnancies — which Seago considers to be a more ethical alternative, he said.
Joe Pojman, who leads another anti-abortion group called Texas Alliance for Life, is more reticent to pass laws that would be blocked by the courts and not enforced. Legal losses can also empower advocates of abortion access and can be costly. When the Supreme Court ruled against Texas’ attempt to impose additional regulations on abortion providers in 2016, the state was ordered to pay more than $2 million.
Pojman thinks the odds that anti-abortion bills gain traction are “substantially higher” this year than in the 2019 legislative session, which focused on bread-and-butter issues like school finance and property taxes — and came just months after Democrats picked up a dozen House seats in the Nov. 2018 elections.
Since then, Democrats drummed up hope that they could flip even more seats in the Texas House — but ultimately won just the district of former Rep. Sarah Davis in the most recent election. Davis, a Republican, reliably sided with Democrats in backing abortion rights.
The GOP, meanwhile, unseated a Democratic state representative.
Abortion has been among the most divisive issues to come before the Legislature, but it doesn’t break along strictly party lines. A few Hispanic Democrats representing Catholic constituencies have crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans, including Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr., D-Brownsville, a co-author on one of the trigger bills.
A 2019 University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll showed 48% of Texas voters approved of outlawing abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Nearly 70% said the availability of abortion should be a personal choice or allowed in the cases of rape, incest or danger, while 15% said it should never be permitted.
Rottinghaus, the political science professor, said Republicans return to abortion because it “foments” a base “hungry for legislative wins, and not just talk” about conservative issues.
He sees parallels this year with the 2011 legislative session, when GOP lawmakers pushed through a measure that requires women seeking abortions to get a sonogram at least 24 hours before the procedure.
Republicans were “feeling their political power,” Rottinghaus said, after Democrats were crushed in an election that was seen as a referendum on former President Barack Obama’s first two years in office.
Combined with the ambitions of statewide Republican officials, like then Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the resulting session produced “conservative outcomes like the sonogram bill,” a major cut to the family planning budget and an effort to largely defund Planned Parenthood.
The anti-abortion measures proposed have prompted pushback from advocates of abortion rights.
State Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, said those committed to women’s health should instead focus on expanding Medicaid as Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the country.
“This is somebody trying to check a box on a political scorecard,” she said. “I stand strong and firm that women should have control over their own bodies and their own destiny.”
Sarah Davis, the former state representative, said overturning the Roe v. Wade decision could “destroy” the Republican party because there are “plenty of Republican women who may identify as pro-life” but wouldn’t support such an extreme change.
Like Alvarado, Davis suggested lawmakers should invest their energy in other areas.
Davis pointed to recent state efforts to cut funding for women’s health and to kick Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor.
“We want to talk about women’s health,” she said, of her former legislative colleagues. “But it’s really just about making sure the baby’s born.”
Disclosure: Planned Parenthood and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) makes his way to a news conference in the Capitol on January 26, 2021. | Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
A new poll shows that people prioritize speed when it comes to a new relief package.
Americans want Covid-19 relief fast — and they’re supportive of passing it via budget reconciliation if that’s what it takes.
According to a new poll from Vox and Data for Progress, a majority of likely voters — 64 percent — would back more coronavirus relief, even if it means approving it via budget reconciliation, rather than the standard process for advancing most bills. Typically, most bills need 60 votes in the Senate in order to pass, but a budget resolution would only need 51 — and Democrats would be able to include several Covid-19 priorities in such a measure. (In the poll, we didn’t use the specific term “budget reconciliation,” but asked people if they’d support a bill passing with 51 votes as a budget measure, versus the standard 60 votes that are usually needed.)
Support for taking this route appears largely driven by people’s interest in seeing more Covid-19 relief sooner rather than later: Sixty-three percent of people would like to see this coronavirus aid pass as soon as possible, including 72 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of independents, and 56 percent of Republicans. A previous DFP poll also found that 55 percent of people would favor a change in Senate rules if it meant coronavirus relief could pass more quickly.
Most relief provisions garner overwhelming backing in the poll as well, even if they would be passed via nonstandard procedure that requires just 51 votes. Seventy-nine percent of people would support approving $1,400 stimulus checks and 77 percent feel the same about funding to help schools reopen. Other efforts including an eviction moratorium, as well as increased funding for vaccines and testing, also had a majority of people’s support.
Bipartisanship is historically quite popular as well, so there’s a tension between the support to get something done more quickly and the support for taking a bipartisan approach. According to a recent Monmouth poll, 71 percent of people want Republicans to work with Biden, rather than focusing on keeping him in check.
In order to meet this desire for Congress to move faster on Covid-19 relief, Democrats might well have to go it alone. A group of 10 Senate Republicans recently unveiled their counterproposal to Biden’s plan and it offers far less in funding than the White House’s would, signaling a rocky path ahead for any bipartisan negotiations. Even if the two sides could ultimately agree on a top-line dollar figure, that process would likely delay the package’s passage. Democrats could attempt to move ahead on the legislation as soon as this week, depending on how talks go between Biden and key Republicans, and whether they can get all their caucus on board with a bigger bill.
“The work must move forward, preferably with our Republican colleagues, but without them if we must,” Schumer has said. Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday initiated the process for considering a budget resolution.
This survey included 1,164 likely voters, and was conducted from January 22 to January 25. It has a 2.9 percentage point margin of error.
Addressing the public health crisis is a chief concern for many people relative to other legislative issues.
When asked to pick top legislative priorities for Congress, Covid-19 relief was cited as a key focus by a plurality of people (49 percent), followed by reducing prescription drug prices and making health care more affordable via the creation of a public option, at 40 percent and 34 percent respectively.
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Ethan Winter / Data for Progress
The current Biden coronavirus relief plan allocates funding to scale up vaccine distribution and coronavirus testing, in addition to providing another round of direct payments and an extension of enhanced unemployment insurance. Spending on vaccines and testing is the main area where Biden’s and Republicans’ bills align even as obtaining more coronavirus relief remains key for many people. Republicans’ offer also includes direct payments and an expansion to unemployment insurance, though their provisions are more limited than Biden’s.
Since Democrats have both the House and Senate majorities this time around, they now have an opportunity to advance a more ambitious coronavirus relief bill, as well as other efforts to promote Medicare negotiations to reduce prescription drug prices and bills to expand health care access. Whether they take it likely depends, at least in part, on how sustained the support is for using procedures like budget reconciliation, and ultimately, eliminating the filibuster.

The inspector general blamed state corrections officials for the outbreak at San Quentin prison, where 28 incarcerated persons and one staff member died of COVID.
IT IS A PANDEMIC. LIKE THE PLAGUE – OBEY THE LAW AND SAVE COMMUNITY OVER YOUR EGO!

“I will always defend my profession. My job is not to click and collect and put food in a box. I have always been a restaurateur, I love what I do,” Stéphane Turillon, owner of La Source Bleue, said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday blasted Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s embrace of “loony lies and conspiracy theories” as a “cancer for the Republican Party.”…

Deliveries will come towards next winter when people may need to be revaccinated.
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