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US Supreme Court fights: why ending Roe is only the beginning
The US is now a much more divided country than it was almost 50 years ago, when the Supreme Court granted the constitutional right to abortion — recently overturned by the court.
Interestingly, most of the rest of the world is moving in the opposite direction, including in majority-Catholic countries. But striking down Roe v. Wade will surely have a bigger impact on US politics.
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to New York Times columnist Emily Bazelon, who knows a thing or two about this ultra-divisive issue because she's also a senior research fellow at Yale Law School.
Just hours after the bombshell ruling dropped on June 24, Bazelon reacted to it by analyzing what abortion rights will look like soon across different US states; why SCOTUS upheld the constitutional right to carry guns but not to get an abortion; the next steps by the Biden administration and Congress; and why the battle over abortion pills is likely headed to the same court that got rid of Roe.
Bonus: Wanna get an abortion in Missouri? It'll be a long drive, and you may get sued.
US Senate passes bipartisan gun bill but SCOTUS may loosen gun laws
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, shares his perspective on US politics:
How are the rules on gun ownership changing in the US?
This has been the most consequential week for regulations on gun ownership in the US for many years. In response to two recent high-profile mass shootings in New York and Texas, the Senate this week passed a bipartisan bill that restricts access to gun ownership by preventing people convicted of domestic abuse against a romantic partner from purchasing a firearm. And also increases funding for mental health, school security and incentivizes states to adopt laws that prevent people who are in mental distress from purchasing a gun.
At the same time, the Supreme Court struck down a rule in New York State that requires an applicant to demonstrate a "proper cause" before they will issue a concealed carry permit. The Supreme Court's decision, the first on gun rights in over a decade, has the potential to lead to the overturning of similar laws in other states, expanding the ability for individuals to carry firearms outside their home. Though several justices noted that this decision does not overturn other licensing requirements, such as background checks or firearms training.
The courts were reshaped by President Trump who appointed over 200 judges at the circuit and district court level and put three conservative justices on the Supreme Court who have signaled they are ready to overturn decades of precedent in gun laws, abortion, and business regulation. So, once the House passes this gun bill it will be harder for certain people to purchase guns and this is likely to reduce crime and save lives, but thanks to the Supreme Court, it will be easier for other people in some states to own and carry firearms in public.
The effects on public safety from these two measures are unclear. As Justice Alito pointed out, crimes are frequently committed by people who own guns unlawfully. But politicians in states with large densely packed cities worry that limiting their ability to regulate gun ownership will make it harder to stop gun crimes. There's little evidence to support these claims and in fact, the evidence on the effects of concealed carry permits in crime in either direction is mixed the best. And in the absence of stronger evidence linking these permits to higher crime, the court's rightward turn towards liberalizing gun laws is likely to increase access to gun ownership.
What We're Watching: G7 summit, SCOTUS gun-rights ruling, Ramaphosa's bad optics
G7 meets as global fault lines deepen
Leaders of the world’s leading industrialized democracies — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US — will gather in Bavaria this weekend to discuss ways to shore up support for Ukraine without slipping into a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. China’s “coercive economic practices” will also be on the agenda, according to US officials. With global geopolitical fault lines opening up as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, one key G7 guest to watch is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will attend just two days after taking part in a pivotal summit of the BRICS, where B(razil), I(India), C(hina) and S(outh Africa) all looked for ways to deepen ties with R(ussia.)
SCOTUS wades into another US culture war
The legislative and judicial branches are out of sync in America. On Thursday night, the Senate passed (lukewarm) gun-safety legislation following the Texas school shooting, hours after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a constitutional right to carry firearms in public. In its first major gun-rights decision in years, the court overturned New York’s requirement for people to demonstrate a need for a gun to obtain a concealed-carry license. Very soon, almost anyone will be allowed to carry guns on the streets of America’s biggest cities — which also tend to have the toughest anti-gun laws. Still, the decision is at odds with the bipartisan effort in Congress to make at least some progress on the divisive issue of gun-safety legislation. It also kicks off a series of looming high-profile rulings before the court’s summer break — including the likelihood that the conservative majority will overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the US. Just months before November’s midterm elections, this is bound to have many questioning whether the court still stays above politics.
South Africa’s Ramaphosa — “ought he to have known” about graft?
A bombshell three years in the making dropped this week when an independent inquiry charged with investigating suspected government corruption under former President Jacob Zuma reported findings damning current President Cyril Ramaphosa. Zuma, the former African National Congress heavyweight, still faces fraud charges on allegations that he pillaged state resources and colluded with the Indian-born Gupta brothers, recently arrested in Dubai, to ravage state coffers. Ramaphosa denied knowing about any graft, but the report suggests that he – as Zuma’s deputy from 2014-2018 – should have known what was going on and tackled serious allegations. While Ramaphosa isn’t accused of wrongdoing, the optics are bad for a politician who has sought to establish himself as an anti-corruption warrior. This throws another spanner in the works for the head of state as he tries to stave off bitter internal party divisions and enhance the ANC’s poor image ahead of 2024 elections in which the party is at risk of losing its ruling majority.
People participate in the March for Our Lives on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
What We're Watching: US gun-control deal, Indian protests, Macron's majority, Biden goes to Saudi
US Senate reaches compromise on guns
On Sunday, a group of 20 US senators announced a bipartisan framework on new gun control legislation in response to the recent wave of mass shootings. The proposal includes more background checks, funding for states to implement "red-flag" laws so they can confiscate guns from dangerous people, and provisions to prevent gun sales to domestic violence offenders. While the deal is much less ambitious than the sweeping ban on assault weapons and universal background checks President Joe Biden called for after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, it's a rare bipartisan effort in a deeply divided Washington that seeks to make at least some progress on gun safety, an issue on which Congress has been deadlocked for decades. Biden said these are "steps in the right direction" and endorsed the Senate deal but admitted he wants a lot more. The announcement came a day after thousands of Americans held rallies on the National Mall in the capital and across the country to demand tougher gun laws. Will the senators be able to turn the framework into actual legislation before the momentum passes?
Prophet protests grow violent in India
Protests across India over the government's failure to punish two officials from the ruling BJP party for making derogatory remarks about Islam and the Prophet Mohammad turned violent over the weekend, with two demonstrators shot dead by police in Jharkhand state. In Uttar Pradesh, cops razed houses belonging to Muslim protesters as hundreds were arrested and mass gatherings were banned. Although India has seen communal tensions for decades, the new wave of protests is growing, with Muslims clashing with police, Hindu mobs, or both, ranging from as far east as Bengal to as far west as Kashmir. Why? Because the BJP handled the controversy like just another day at the office, suspending one official and firing the other after almost all Islamic countries in the region — including Saudi Arabia and Iran, which rarely agree on anything — demanded corrective action from the government. PM Narendra Modi's foot-dragging on this issue is deeply resented by many of India's 200 million Muslims, who feel they've been marginalized under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, and by many Islamic countries that trade with India.
Vote throws Macron's parliamentary majority in danger
French President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble (Together) Party looks set to win the most seats in parliament after the first round of voting on Sunday, but projected results show it might fall short of an outright majority. Ensemble was tied at 25.2% of the vote with Nupes, the resurgent left-wing coalition led by firebrand candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Macron's party is projected to secure 260-310 seats in the National Assembly, where the magic number is 289. The French president needs a parliamentary majority to carry out his ambitious reform agenda. Without it, his government will have to form ad-hoc parliamentary alliances to win votes on individual proposals like raising the retirement age from 62 to 65, which Mélenchon strongly opposes. Far-right leader Marine le Pen, who lost the presidential election to Macron in April, called on her supporters to abstain wherever Ensemble candidates are running against Nupes challengers in the second round of voting next Sunday, when voters will have another go in constituencies where no one candidate got 50%.
Risks and rewards await Biden in Saudi Arabia
The White House, after changing the itinerary, is expected to announce President Joe Biden’s first trip to Saudi Arabia as early as Monday. What an about-face for Biden, given his earlier rebukes about the Saudi human rights record and not giving dictators blank checks. The trip includes a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS, who an American intelligence report says was the signing authority on the Jamal Khashoggi murder (this obviously hasn’t gone down well with Khashoggi’s widow). But there’s an element of realism at play here: MBS is likely to rule Saudi for decades, and Riyadh needs to sign the Abraham Accords in order to really stabilize the Middle East. The groundwork has been set by friends: the Israelis have been lobbying for the trip, while British PM Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron have already met MBS and encouraged Biden to do the same. In a big get for Washington, the Saudis might have some welcome gifts: ousting Russia from the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries led by Riyadh or perhaps announcing the normalization of ties with Israel. But don’t expect anything to change on the Saudi human rights front.
General view of Severodonetsk from the last floor of a damaged building in the outskirts of the city.
What We’re Watching: Russian progress in Ukraine, gun ban plans in Canada, DRC-Rwanda tensions
Ukraine update: Is the war really shifting?
In recent days, Russian forces have made incremental gains in the Donbas. Vladimir Putin’s military now controls most of Luhansk province, and they are close to taking the strategic city of Severodonetsk, which would open the way to a wider Russian occupation of Donetsk province. Russia has shifted strategy in recent weeks, withdrawing from areas it couldn’t hold around Kyiv and Kharkiv to focus on more limited objectives in the East and South. Some military analysts warn that Russia’s recent gains are still coming at a very high cost in terms of human losses and morale. But even these slight shifts in the winds of war have raised fresh questions in the EU and US about what comes next. Driving Russia out of the east and south does not seem immediately possible. And although Washington continues to send Ukraine advanced weapons, US President Joe Biden on Monday said he would exclude rockets that could strike into Russian territory. After more than three months of war, the Ukrainians are still fighting like hell to defend their country and their democracy, but it’s no clearer yet what a reasonably achievable endgame looks like for Ukraine, for its Western backers, or for Moscow.
Canada’s Trudeau goes after guns
Another mass shooting that killed US schoolchildren in Texas has provided Canada’s Justin Trudeau with a big political opportunity to propose new gun laws. The prime minister has promised stricter gun control, and his government has proposed a ban on the purchase, sale, transfer, or importation of handguns in hopes of freezing the number of personally owned handguns across Canada. Trudeau’s interest in tougher gun laws isn’t new; his government had expanded background checks for firearm purchases and proposed a ban on assault weapons before the latest US shootings. But Ottawa will also have to continue to increase funding for security at the US border to keep smugglers from expanding the black market for weapons and ammunition. Republicans will continue to block tougher gun rules in the United States, but in Canada there are enough votes from Trudeau’s Liberals and the leftist opposition New Democrats to ensure this latest handgun proposal becomes law later this year. How effective will it be in reducing gun violence? It will be years before that question can be answered.
Tensions rising between DRC and Rwanda
The Rwandan genocide ended in 1994, but its ripple effects continue today in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. On Monday, hundreds of people took to the streets of the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, to call out Rwanda for allegedly supporting the notorious M23 rebels. (This armed group is made up of ethnic Tutsis who fled Hutu massacres in Rwanda some 28 years ago, and is currently staging its largest offensive in almost a decade.) The protesters want to kick out the Rwandan ambassador following a recent uptick in M23 violence in the eastern DRC, which has suffered near-constant conflict since Rwandan forces began crossing the border to go after escaped Hutu génocidaires. Rwanda, for its part, denies backing the M23 and on Saturday accused the DRC of being behind the kidnapping of two Rwandan soldiers by the FDLR, an anti-Rwanda Hutu armed group that operates inside the DRC and opposes the M23. If this all was not complicated enough, Ugandan forces recently entered the same region on a joint mission with the Congolese military to fight the Allied Democratic Forces, a jihadist outfit blamed for a string of attacks on civilians. We'll keep an eye on how this very messy situation plays out.
This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Subscribe for your free daily Signal today.
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a pistol as he attends an exhibition together with Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev before the annual expanded meeting of the Interior Ministry Board in Moscow, Russia.
What We’re Watching: Putin to tighten Russian gun laws, Iran-Saudi thaw, new forests vs climate change
Putin orders review of gun laws after school shooting: Details remain sketchy following a shooting at a school in the Russian city of Kazan. At least seven children and one teacher were killed, and a 19-year-old has been arrested, according to local officials. In response to the attack, President Vladimir Putin "gave an order to urgently work out a new provision concerning the types of weapons that can be in civilian hands, taking into account the weapon" used in this shooting, according to a Kremlin spokesman. There's an irony here that extends to the United States, where school shootings are all too common. In 2018, a Russian woman named Maria Butina pleaded guilty to using the National Rifle Association, the gun rights lobbying group, to "establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over American politics." At the time, Putin described Butina's 18-year sentence as an "outrage." The NRA, of course, works hard to prevent Congress and the president from taking precisely the kinds of actions that Putin swiftly ordered following the shooting in Kazan.
Forests growing back: Finally some good news about the environment. According to a new WWF study, an area of forest equivalent to the size of France has regrown across the world in the past 20 years. These "new" forests in places like Brazil, Mongolia, Canada or parts of Africa could possibly trap up to 5.9 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually — more than the US, the world's second largest emitter, puts into the atmosphere annually. The forest regrowth is the result of planting new trees, keeping livestock away, eliminating invasive plants, and, interestingly, not doing anything at all. While this is a welcome development in the global struggle against climate change, unfortunately it's still being offset by alarming rates of deforestation, especially in the Amazon. The experts tell us that for forests to become a true climate solution, we would need to grow new forests at least twice as fast as we're destroying them around the world. So time to plant a lot of trees, or to just leave forests alone.
Iran-Saudi talks: Could longtime bitter Middle East rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia be on the cusp of an understanding? Tehran has just confirmed that both sides actually sat down recently for the first time in years to ease tensions — perhaps in part as a consequence of the Biden administration's move to cut support for the Saudis in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have been fighting a proxy war since 2014. Washington, which aims to draw back from the region more broadly, also wants the Saudis to go along with any US-Iran deal to resurrect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman recently said he wants to get along with the Iranians, a major change of tone for him. Let's not get carried away of course: there's still a lot of bad blood between both sides, but the mere fact that Iran and Saudi Arabia are talking is progress towards avoiding a major conflict between the region's two main powers.