U.S. News

The co-hosts of "The View" are in The Bahamas for a working vacation and they're debating what the next steps should be as the Democrats continue to fight to preserve women's privacy and freedoms.

Whoopi Goldberg said that she's ready to expand the court because the one tradition of the Supreme Court is that it is in balance and serves as the point of reason for the country. That's no longer the case, she argued, saying that it has been thrown completely out of balance.

Looking at the collective term of the Supreme Court, the justices have slowly eroded the power of the executive and legislative branches of government, according to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

The Supreme Court recently eliminated powers of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enforce regulations and disputed President Joe Biden's elimination of the Remain in Mexico policy and sent it back to a court where a pro-Donald Trump judge has been hostile to the administration.

The Washington Post reporter who won a Pulitzer for her stories on the Secret Service on Wednesday questioned why agents had not apprehended pro-Trump insurrectionists who brought weapons to the U.S. Capitol.

"Individuals who were with Donald Trump on Jan. 6th essentially did their job," Carol D. Leonnig said during an appearance on MSNBC. "They blocked the president despite him apparently roaring in their faces from going with the rabble, the mob that was heading to the Capitol. They said no, sir, cannot do that insane thing that you are proposing. So, that is, check. Mission accomplished. You know, their civil servant job performed. However, there is a problem in all of this which is the Secret Service uniformly kept enabling Donald Trump all along the way in the final year of his office. Doing things that were extremely dangerous and to his own agents, to his own health, to the health and safety of peaceful protesters."

Former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman explained Wednesday on MSNBC that Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony before the House Select Committee was a "game-changer."

Hutchinson was a top aide in the White House in the lead-up to the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and the attack on Congress on Jan. 6. Speaking under oath to the committee on Tuesday, she linked her former boss, then-chief of staff Mark Meadows to first-hand knowledge about several possible conspiracies.

Former White House senior aide Cassidy Hutchinson revealed some new information to the House Select Committee investigating the attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the election.

One question being asked by the New York Times, however, is whether the information she gave was enough to aid in a potential criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

Former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for campaign finance crimes the Associated Press reported Wednesday. The Federal Elections Commission said that they couldn't find evidence to discern whether he was guilty, even after he plead guilty.

"At least seven victims invested a total of more than $2 million in Fraud Guarantee because Parnas and Correia misled them about the financial arrangements," wrote ABC 7 New York in March. "The majority of investor funds were withdrawn as cash and were spent on personal expenditures such as Parnas' rent, prosecutors said."

UPDATE: Missouri health system reverses course, resumes offering emergency contraception after assurances

The Republican-led state of Missouri has accidentally, or perhaps intentionally, banned a key birth control method.

According to the Kansas City Star, PlanB, emergency contraception, which does not cause abortions, is no longer being used by Saint Luke's Health System. The hospitals usually give PlanB to women who have come in after experiencing being raped. Now, Missouri doesn't allow any options for women faced with rape or incest.

Across from a Texas Planned Parenthood with signs that look all too similar, is a crisis pregnancy center, so-called because they target women who are pregnant and in crisis about it. They don't usually give free pregnancy tests. They don't provide any medical care. Diapers, ultrasounds and prenatal care for women who decide to go forward with their pregnancy still have strings attached. To get resources to help, the women are forced to take religious parenting classes.

When NBC News went to a crisis pregnancy center across from Planned Parenthood, what they told producers outright shocked two female lawmakers, one a Republican and another a Democrat. Taxpayer dollars go to the facilities and in the case of Texas, $100 million is being spent on the clinics in 2022 and 2023, public records showed. Frequently such offices lie that abortions cause infertility.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — "Where do I begin?" Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) asked, speaking to Raw Story after the House Select Committee's sixth public hearing.

She explained that what former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson revealed on Tuesday was "a total betrayal by the president of the United States and their oath" of office. "It was a setup. He was a part of it. He wanted to lead it. He wanted to lead the criminal insurrection, the overthrow of the government. His own government."

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Metro Police Officer Daniel Hodges has been among those sitting in the audience at the public hearings for the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks. Hodges is most well-known for the footage of him bleeding from the mouth and the doors being used to smash his body on that fateful day.

After the sixth hearing, one official from the committee went over to him to talk about their gratitude toward the officers for their efforts that day. He told the officer that he was just glad that what he did gave members the time necessary to get to safety.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — One of the main things revealed in the last-minute Tuesday hearing with Cassidy Hutchinson before the House Select Committee is that days ahead of the attack on Congress, the president's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, kept mentioning the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper militias.

When they were at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, Hutchinson revealed that Trump didn't want officials to use metal detectors so people with weapons could enter the event.

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) spoke to Raw Story after today's J6 committee hearing, saying that it was a "very sad" moment for the United States.

"I couldn't help but hug some of these Capitol Police officers," he said. They "were sent to be potentially slaughtered."

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke to reporters after the sixth public House Select Committee hearing, this time interviewing former top White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Among the things Hutchinson revealed, Raskin said, was witness tampering in Trump World around the investigation.

"I found that to be quite astounding that the president of the United States was upset that the Secret Service and others were using metal detectors for people entering his rally — he wanted those taken down so everyone could enter including those who were armed," Raskin explained to Raw Story. "And there were official reports of people carrying AR-15s on that day. And to me, that's something the American people need to think about."