WASHINGTON Members of a Senate panel battled Wednesday over the Supreme Courts "shadow docket," focusing on a contentious decision this month that allowed a Texas law banning most abortions after six weeks to remain on the booksfor now.

Critics framed the one-paragraph ruling in the Texas abortion case as ideologically driven and questioned the expedited process the court uses in such disputes. Republicans noted the courts emergency process isn't new and they accused progressives of mounting a pressure campaign to bully the court.

The 5-4 decision in the Texas case is the latest to bring the shadow docket under scrutiny at a time when progressives are calling for changes at the Supreme Court. The justices also recently unwound President Joe Bidens eviction moratoriumon the expedited docket and required the administration to keep migrants seeking asylum in Mexico.

More: Texas abortion ruling renews criticism of Supreme Court's 'shadow docket'

More: Supreme Court declines to block Texas ban on abortion at six weeks

"The Supreme Court has now shown that it's willing to allow even facially unconstitutional laws to take effect when the law is aligned with certain ideological preferences," said Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Constitutional rights for millions of Americans should not be stripped away in the dark of night."

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the committee, said the Supreme Court "did something very ordinary" by declining to step in to block the Texas law, which bans most abortions once doctors detect cardiac activity. The court ruled just before midnight Sept. 1 on a procedural matter, not the constitutionality of the law.

"This campaign against the court and against individual justices has hurt the public," Grassley said. "The dishonest rhetoric doesn't help the American people understand the issues."

The Supreme Court usually decides a case after the parties submit months' worth of legal briefs and take part in an hourlong oral argument. The opinions are usually signed so its clear how each justice voted and they generally involve the court parsing complex questions about how to apply the Constitution or a federal statute.

Shadow docket disputes, by contrast, usually involve deciding whether to temporarily block a law while the underlying legal questions are considered by lower courts. The parties sometimes have days to file briefs and there are no oral arguments.

Though criticism of the shadow docket appeared to spark some bipartisan interest during a House hearing earlier this year, Senate Republicans on Wednesday appeared mostly aligned in arguing those concerns are overblown. It's only the latest signal that congressional efforts to makechanges to the Supreme Court face tough odds.

After President Donald Trump nominated three justices during his four years in office, conservatives on the court now ostensibly enjoy a 6-3 advantage. In the Texas case, Chief Justice John Roberts, a President George W. Bush nominee, voted with the liberal wing and argued for halting the law while the underlying lawsuit continued.

Several polls over the summer indicated support for the Supreme Court has dropped since the Texas decision, particularly on the left. Democratic support dived 22 points over the summer in a Marquette University Law School poll, for instance.

The legal fight over the Texas law continuesin several courts simultaneously. A federal judge in Texas is set to hold a hearing Friday on a request by the Justice Department to temporarily halt enforcement of the abortion ban while the underlying constitutional questions are resolved. Abortion rights groups, meanwhile, brought a new challenge to the Supreme Court late last week in an effort to stop the law's enforcement.

Nearly 50 years ago the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that women have the right to an abortion during the first and second trimesters but that states could impose restrictions in the second trimester. In 1992, in a case called Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court allowed states to ban most abortions at viability, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb about 24 weeks.

Several conservative states have approved laws banning the procedure prior to viability in an effort to challenge the court's precedents, but most of those have been halted by lower federal courts. The Supreme Court will decide another major case this year challenging Mississippis ban on most abortions after 15 weeks.

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Senate battles over Supreme Court 'shadow docket' in the wake of Texas abortion law - USA TODAY

Axios Jonathan Swan spoke with Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, Adela Raz, for the latest episode of Axios on HBO. It was her first TV interview since the fall of Kabul.

Guests: Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center; Axios' Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen.

Credits: Axios Today is produced in partnership with Pushkin Industries. The team includes Niala Boodhoo, Sara Kehaulani Goo, Dan Bobkoff, Alexandra Botti, Nuria Marquez Martinez, Sabeena Singhani, Michael Hanf, and Alex Sugiura. Music is composed by Evan Viola. You can reach us at podcasts@axios.com. You can text questions, comments and story ideas to Niala as a text or voice memo to 202-918-4893.

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NIALA BOODHOO: Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today! Its Monday, October 4th. Im Niala Boodhoo. Heres what you need to know today: The Supreme Court takes up some of our nations biggest issues. Plus, Mike Allen on the Pandora Papers. But first, todays One Big Thing: Afghanistans ambassador to the U.S. speaks out.

JONATHAN SWAN: Do you think Af-Afghans will ever trust an American president again?

ADELA RAZ: Uh, not soon, probably. I'm sorry to say that. I don't think so.

NIALA: That was Axios Jonathan Swan speaking to Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, Adela Raz, for the latest episode of Axios on HBO. It was her first TV interview since the fall of Kabul, and Jonathan Swan is here to tell us how her story might reflect Afghanistans story right now.

NIALA: Jonathan, thanks for being with me.

JONATHAN: Thanks for having me.

NIALA: Jonathan, Afghanistan's ambassador to the U.S., Adela Raz, is still working in D.C., and I wanted to start by asking you: Does she still consider herself the ambassador to the U.S. and is she?

JONATHAN: Yeah, she does consider herself the ambassador and it's the most extraordinary situation. Basically shes stateless. She has kept the embassy open, the Afghanistan embassy. Obviously, she has no leader that she reports to because Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani fled the country in secret, and the Biden administration is declining to meet with her. She's someone who's spent her whole adult life fighting for the rights of Afghan women and girls. And she's basically, in the last month, watched her life's work go up in flames.

NIALA: What was her response to President Biden saying that the U.S. still wants to advocate for the rights of women and girls there?

JONATHAN: She said really it's all talk because what leverage does the U.S.-is the U.S. exerting of the Taliban? The Taliban has taken over the government. They're now stopping women from going to school. All the gains of the last 20 years that she's been involved in working for, are being erased right now.

NIALA: And what about President Biden's actions overall? What did she say about how the Biden administration handled the exit from Afghanistan?

JONATHAN: She really wishes that the Biden administration had renegotiated a better deal with the Taliban, one that put conditions in place, rather than just saying, we're going to leave. She saw that as a betrayal.

NIALA: Can you give me a sense of what her role was like in the lead up to the withdrawal?

JONATHAN: She was actually Afghanistan's ambassador to the United Nations. She was the first woman to be in that role. She was only appointed the ambassador to the United States in Washington in July. She was having to sort of publicly project confidence in her government when, of course privately, she had grave doubts about it. So she was just in a-in a horrendous position. We had to stop the interview several times. She was crying, had to collect herself, she feels like her life has just been taken away.

NIALA: What are you left thinking about now after this interview?

JONATHAN: I'll be honest, it left me feeling pretty bleak. The Taliban has shown pretty clearly that they haven't really changed. Ideologically, they're still the same Taliban that they were in the 1990s when they stopped Ambassador Raz, when she was a young girl, from going to school. The other thing that people aren't thinking about right now is Afghanistan is already experiencing a humanitarian crisis. There are sanctions on the Taliban and yet there's this moral imperative to get aid and food to the Afghan people. So it's just a very complicated situation and real people's lives are-are at stake.

NIALA: Jonathan Swan covers politics for Axios, and you can watch that whole interview with Ambassador Raz on Axios on HBO. Jonathan, thanks for giving us this backstory.

JONATHAN: Of course. Thank you.

NIALA: Well be back in 15 seconds with what to know about the Supreme Courts new fall term.

[ad]

NIALA: Welcome back to Axios Today! Im Niala Boodhoo. Abortion, guns and religious rights top the list of major issues in front of the Supreme Court as it starts its new term later today. Jeffrey Rosen is the President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and he's with us for what he's watching as this new term begins.

JEFFREY: Hi, great to be here.

NIALA: We're hearing so much about, for example, abortion, is that the biggest issue the Supreme Court is taking up this fall?

JEFFREY: Yes, it is. The Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade, and that is the biggest constitutional issue in decades. And that's what makes this case, which is coming out of Mississippi, so important.

NIALA: What do we need to know about that case?

JEFFREY: Well, Mississippi passed a law banning abortions after 15 weeks and Roe v. Wade. And the cases after that said you can't ban abortions, uh, before fetal viability around 24 weeks. So if the Supreme Court were to uphold this ban, that would represent a huge setback for abortion rights.

NIALA: I've also been hearing a lot about this term shadow docket. Can you explain what this is and how this factors into The Supreme Court this fall?

JEFFREY: The shadow docket are cases The Supreme Court decides without full arguments and briefings. And in the abortion context, the court recently refused to block Texas' abortion law, which bans abortion after six weeks. And it did it on the shadow docket. In other words, it issued a brief opinion but it didn't give reasons that really justified what it was doing. And it also didn't have full briefing. So critics of the shadow docket say this is allowing the court to make really important decisions without hearing good arguments on both sides. And that's the source of the criticism.

NIALA: Were also hearing a lot of criticism or maybe should say debate over the politicization of the court. And Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas last week said the court quote may have become the most dangerous branch of government. What's going on here?

JEFFREY: Well, those who say the court's becoming politicized, say the justices are ruling based on politics rather than The Constitution. And it's interesting that, not only Justice Thomas, but also justices Barrett and Justice Breyer, appointed by President Clinton, all denied that. They say judges are actually deciding based on their judicial philosophies, not politics. Now, not everyone is convinced by that. And Justice Thomas thinks the court is getting into areas where it shouldn't. And that's why he says the courts become dangerous.

NIALA: How should people think about this? Because it gets really tricky when you hear liberal and conservative justices denying and saying this has happening.

JEFFREY: There are many cases where the court is not political. And in fact, last term, there were more unanimous decisions than in a long time. And you saw the justices agreeing in all sorts of unexpected ways. At the same time, there are these counterexamples: abortion, guns. How can we explain this? Well, Justice Breyer has said, there's some areas where justice feel so strongly, and abortion is certainly one of them that they may not be able to separate their political from their constitutional views. But in other cases where they feel less strongly, they can. Maybe that's the simplest way to explain it.

NIALA: National Constitution Center CEO, Jeffrey Rosen, also hosts the podcast We the People, where he brings together liberals and conservatives to talk about the big constitutional issue of the week. Thanks Jeffrey.

JEFFREY: Thank you.

NIALA: Yesterday, the ICIJ - that's the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released: the Pandora Papers, an attempt to untangle the world of offshore finance via millions of leaked financial records. And this investigation was the result of a year-long collaboration between more than 600 journalists in 117 countries, including news organizations like the BBC, the Indian Express and The Washington Post. We'll be no doubt hearing about this investigation for some time. But for this morning, I asked Axios' Mike Allen what you need to know about what ICIJ says is the largest investigation ever in journalism history.

MIKE ALLEN: At a time when people are ever more suspicious of insiders and the establishment, the papers reveal mammoth deception and unthinkable spending on personal luxury. All with this astonishing, convincing paper trail. Look at Jordan. Among the poor countries in the Middle East, a large recipient of U.S. foreign aid. The king secretly spent more than a hundred million dollars on luxury homes. In the U.S. and London, including a compound in Malibu, the Washington Post reports. Another place the Pandora papers had home for Americans, The Washington Post found that South Dakota is now a hub of financial secrecy, tens of millions of dollars from outside the U.S. now sheltered by trust companies in Sioux Falls.

NIALA: Mike Allen is a cofounder of Axios.

Thats all weve got for you today!

Im Niala Boodhoo - thanks for listening - stay safe and well see you back here tomorrow morning.

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Afghanistans ambassador to the U.S. speaks out - Axios

Oct. 5LEWISTON The city has received its first tax payment tied to the New England Clean Energy Connect project, the result of new valuation that allowed Lewiston to lower its property tax rate this year.

The $1.55 million in property taxes paid by NECEC, the Central Maine Power project, represents roughly half of the full year's payment, and comes as a November referendum seeks to halt the controversial transmission line that's already under construction.

The statewide referendum, through a citizens' initiative, hopes to kill the project by banning "high-impact" transmission lines in the upper Kennebec region and requiring the Maine Legislature to approve such projects, which would be retroactive to 2020 before CMP's parent company, Avangrid, had received the necessary permits.

City officials Monday said they are not planning specifically based on possible outcomes of the referendum battle, but are staunchly against the effort. They see the tax revenue as an important piece of the city's revitalization, and one that could finally get Lewiston out of the shadow of the recession in the late 2000s.

Heather Hunter, interim city administrator, said the tax payments were budgeted for this year, which allowed officials to lower the tax rate from $29.67 per $1,000 of assessed valuation to $28.26.

More than $100 million in new valuation came online this year tied to the site work and related upgrades underway at 1651-1653 Main St., the site of a Lewiston converter station. Officials held a news conference in late June to announce the new valuation and its impact on the city's budget.

Hunter said the most "immediate impact" from the new tax revenue is the impact on the city's tax rate, but that the City Council may also decide to start adding back programs that were lost in the late 2000s and were never revived. She said Lewiston's recreation programs are "well under the industry average" based on the city's population.

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Referring to the upcoming referendum, Hunter said there's no specific measure that would repeal the work that's already been done, meaning she expects the tax impact gained by Lewiston so far would "stay on the books."

However, she said, she's concerned for the referendum's broader implications for how major infrastructure projects are handled in the future.

Ted Varipatis, a NECEC spokesman, said this week that tax payments made so far are "based on work already done in these communities and the money is theirs regardless of the vote in November."

"Of course, future payments over the next two decades wouldn't happen if the project is killed, but this is money paid out and in these towns' coffers," he said.

Mayor Mark Cayer said Monday that he's hopeful that NECEC will ultimately continue, given its benefits to Lewiston, but said he already sees the city gaining in new investment.

"We've had some really good economic development in our community over the past year and a half," he said. "We're moving forward one way or the other. This project will allow us to do a lot of work, but we're still moving in a positive direction."

So far, Lewiston is by far the biggest municipal tax recipient from NECEC. Other municipalities receiving payments so far include Embden, New Sharon, Cumberland, Pownal, West Forks, Moscow, Anson, Industry, Jay and Durham. The municipality with the second-highest tax assessment is Jay, at $146,695.

In September, the City Council passed a resolution reaffirming support for the project. The Lewiston substation will convert and transmit hydropower from Canada to southern New England.

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Lewiston receives first tax payments tied to NECEC project - Yahoo News

This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on October 1, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Good evening and welcome to TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT. Happy Friday.

Since nobody reads books anymore, all of us get all of our history from Wikipedia. It is convenient. The problem is Wikipedia is so politicized and dishonest that on a lot of topics, certainly anything related to partisan politics, it's not even really worth reading anymore. There's just too much lying.

On the other hand, there is a lot of stuff there, it's a huge site and there are some gems remaining on Wikipedia.

So if you have a minute this weekend, take a look at the entry on mass hysteria through the ages before the authorities inevitably delete it as I'm certain they will, and as you read the entry, ask yourself if any of this sounds familiar to you? There are lots of witch trials of course, many of them -- many, many, many of them over many centuries. There are plagues of spontaneous dancing, mass ghost sightings, fits of laughing and trembling and babbling that seized entire towns at once for no apparent reason. It's all there.

And then there are more esoteric outbreaks of mass hysteria. There's a medieval French nun who according to the entry quote, "Inexplicably began to meow like a cat leading the other nuns in the convent to meow as well.

Eventually all of the nuns in the convent began meowing together leaving the surrounding community astonished. This did not stop until the police threatened to whip the nuns." It's hilarious as you read it, though at the time, the nuns definitely did not see the humor in it. They sincerely thought they were cats.

Hysteria is like that. When large groups of people start acting totally crazy, the reference points disappear. It all seems normal, no matter how nuts it is.

So with that feature of human nature, which never changes, with that in mind, take a look at this tape from yesterday's hearing before the House Oversight Committee. The topic was legal abortion, but because it is the year 2021, and we're all convinced we're cats, the conversation soon turned to the newly established scientific fact that men can get pregnant. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:And I just wanted to acknowledge, a lot of people are being left out of this conversation today because as we know, people get pregnant and not just women, but I hear people over and over and over again say women get pregnant, but that's excluding people that should be a part of this conversation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, you don't want to exclude anyone, and it turns out that even in 2021, there are people out there who are still claiming that only women get pregnant and they'd better stop claiming that or else.

Amanda Presto just learned this. Presto is a writer at "The Daily Wire" and by the way, a woman, so she tweeted this thought crime assuming that she had biology on her side. She wrote this quote: "Demanding others call you by your preferred pronouns and growing out your hair does not make you a woman. Stop demeaning womanhood." No, Amanda, you stop demeaning pregnant men.

For her attack on the pregnant man community, Twitter shut Amanda Presto down. We are cats, and that's all there is to it, and that's true across the ocean in Great Britain. The Head of the Labour Party in the U.K. has now declared that men too can have cervixes because of course they can, "meow."

A few days later, a senior member of the Labour Party was asked whether she agreed that men can have cervixes. She was asked on television. Watch this uncomfortable moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Is it transphobic to say only women have a cervix? Good morning.

RACHEL REEVES, SHADOW CHANCELLOR: Good morning, Nick, and it's great to talk to you.

I just think that this issue has just become so divisive and toxic and it pits people against each other, both groups who face discrimination in society, women and trans-women, and I just find this debate incredibly unhelpful and unproductive to be totally honest.

QUESTION: Is it transphobic, yes or no?

REEVES: Look, is it -- is it transphobic? Look, I just -- I don't even know how to start answering these questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh come on, Rachel Reeves, Shadow Commissioner, whatever you are of the Labour Party. It's a simple question, it's not a debate. Do men have cervixes? But she can't bring herself to say it.

On the other hand, she doesn't dare note the obvious, which is that the entire conversation is completely insane, so she breathes heavily. She harrumphs quite a bit and tries to move on to the next topic.

"The Washington Post" is hoping to avoid moments of uncertainty like this, so Jeff Bezos's newspaper has just issued a new style guidance to all of its reporters. Here is what it says, quote: "If we say pregnant women, we exclude those who are transgender and non-binary," which of course is not defined. So no more pregnant women in "The Washington Post." That's an outdated inherently offensive category, like secretaries and housewives.

And this is true in hospitals, too, across the country. Some physicians now punishing subordinates who recognize biological differences between men and women.

Dr. Lauren Chong for example, a pediatric trainee at the Sydney Children's Hospitals Network recently told "The New York Times" that healthcare workers should not use terms like "ovaries" and "uterus." Quote: "You can just say reproductive organs," Chong said, and that's an order.

The problem is that it may actually be medically relevant whether somebody has ovaries and a uterus. Reproductive organs might not be specific enough.

But honestly in 2021, when we're all cats, who cares.

Curing disease may be important, but is it more important than not offending the human rights campaign? Probably not. That's a conclusion the C.D.C. has reached.

The Center just released a graphic pointing out that quote, "Only 31 of pregnant people have been vaccinated," not pregnant women, pregnant people.

And then there's "The Lancet," which not that long ago was considered a serious medical journal. "The Lancet" just released a cover with this headline, quote: "Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected." So that's the term. You thought you were a woman, now you're a -- according to "The Lancet," a body with a vagina.

Try to imagine a more dehumanizing phrase, but then, it is probably not possible to imagine it, actually. At yesterday's House Oversight Hearing, Gloria Steinem showed up to prove that she is still alive and still relevant somehow.

For 50 years, Steinem has been -- as she describes it, defending women -- in the 70s, she wrote a piece for "Cosmopolitan" Magazine entitled, "If men could menstruate" and then she was constantly reminding us -- and this is a quote -- "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." Oh but now men can get pregnant. So, the script has changed a little bit.

Here was Gloria Steinem who we should note is now a cat, meowing, telling us that absolutely anybody can get pregnant and therefore anyone can get an abortion. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLORIA STEINEM, JOURNALIST: What's happening in Texas is not only a local issue or a women's issue, it's a step against democracy, which allows us to control our own bodies and our own voices.

Remember when Hitler was elected and he was elected, his very first official act was to padlock the family planning clinics and declare abortion a crime against the state. Mussolini did exactly the same thing because they knew that controlling reproduction and nationalizing women's bodies is the first step in a controlling state -- in an all-controlling state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It turns out Gloria Steinem was always pretty dumb, but back when she was 35, nobody noticed, but rewriting history, can't let you do that.

Sorry, you're not Wikipedia.

Actually, Adolf Hitler was an enthusiastic eugenicist, just like Margaret Sanger who founded Planned Parenthood. He encouraged abortion according to almost everyone who studied this. Jeffrey Tuomala for example, a law professor who has written a lot about the Nuremberg trials, Hitler like Gloria Steinem supported abortion, not just as a matter of physical autonomy, but as a way to keep women working and contributing to the economy, quote: "The Nazis preferred that the Eastern European workers not become pregnant so they would not be taken out of the workforce. They took measures to identify pregnant workers and to encourage or pressure them into making use of the abortion services the Nazis provided."

Oh, does that sound familiar? So once again the goal is to reduce women to wage slaves. It is more virtuous to work at JPMorgan than it is to be a mother, that's what they're telling you. That's what Ayanna Pressley is telling you. She complained that abortion bans are tools of -- you guessed it -- white supremacy, and the experts at the hearings yesterday agreed.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:I think that it's very important for us to understand the intersection of racial justice policies and gender justice policies and reproductive justice policies because you don't understand why these bans on abortion are not about having more black and brown babies born, they want more white babies to be born.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: We're falling for it again, rising to the bait, being literal, correcting insanity because you know, it's kind of hard to resist.

There is no rational conversation about anything currently underway in the United States. We have to say, just again in the interest of fact checking that what you just heard is the opposite of the truth.

New York City is the biggest city in America, it's got eight million people. The abortion rate in New York among African-American mothers is roughly three times the rate that it is for white mothers. Thousands more black babies are born in New York that are born every year. So shutting down the abortion clinics in New York, which no one is even proposing, but if you were to do that, you would have a lot more black babies than you have now.

We can't even get to that conversation because we can no longer agree that only women have babies. Now men have babies, so for 50 years, they told us men have no interest in whether or not abortion is legal because they can't have kids, but now they can, so we thought it would be worth weighing in on this.

According to the House Oversight Committee, it is all for your own good.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. GHAZALEH MOAYEDI, OBSTETRICIAN-GYNECOLOGIST IN DALLAS, TEXAS: I know firsthand that abortion saves lives. For the thousands of people I've cared for, abortion is a blessing. Abortion is an act of love. Abortion is freedom.

We need Federal protection now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON:"Abortion is freedom," finally someone said it out loud, but is it? We thought for once it would be good to have a man, someone who by definition can get pregnant and have an abortion assess this claim, and that man tonight is Jason Whitlock. He is host of "Fearless." He's just written a new piece in "The Blaze" about how lunacy like this is the left's new religion.

Jason Whitlock, thanks so much for coming on tonight, so I don't know how you even begin to untangle the series of intersecting arguments none of which makes sense, but taken together become this like Gordian knot of insanity. How do you even unravel this? But I'm going to throw it to you and see if you can.

JASON WHITLOCK, HOST, "FEARLESS WITH JASON WHITLOCK": Tucker, we're looking at and we're living in an era where the truth is under an attack that it's never been under, a level of attack it's never been under. And you have to understand it from a biblical perspective.

God is a search for truth. God is truth. The Gospel is truth, and it's under attack in this very secular society and they're very clever and strategic about how they're going about it. The whole defining of truth as offensive and this whole little safe space society we've built where everybody lives in fear of saying anything that someone can define as offensive is an attack on truth.

Because the truth, particularly biblical truth in this era is probably offensive and will make people uncomfortable, but we're creating a society where we don't want to make sure anything that comes out of our mouth doesn't make any single person on the planet uncomfortable, therefore it's impossible to get to the truth.

Strategy number two, which is just as effective or perhaps the most effective is they frame the left as, the Democratic Party has framed every argument in racial terms and they control the racial conversation in this country. And so if you disagree with anything they say, if they say you know what, abortion is freedom, abortion is an extension of white supremacy, even though the truth and the facts say 40 percent of the abortions in America are happening to black women and we're killing about

650 black babies per day here in America through abortion, it is not abortion.

If it is an extension of white supremacy, it is because it's executing a genocide on black babies. The protection of abortion rights is in no way protecting black people, but the Democratic Party has just been so clever in its assault on the truth and its silencing of truth and anybody that speaks against it, I've just got to tip my hat to them because this is a propaganda campaign the likes of which I am not sure we've ever seen in the history of the planet, and it's effective, and if men don't stand up and women don't stand up and those of us that believe in truth, those of us that believe in the founding principles of this country, if we don't stand up they're going to continue to slaughter us with lies framed as truth.

CARLSON: It's pretty easy to at least on the margins to defeat the argument with like really simple commonsense, so if you care about someone, if you really love someone, your own children for example, what's the one thing you want for them? For them to have children.

You want more people like them, right, so if you love someone, wouldn't you encourage them to have kids? To reproduce? To be fruitful and multiply?

WHITLOCK: You certainly would if you want them to experience the highest level of joy that life has to offer, and I think that is having, raising, and developing young kids. Obviously, family is at the root of all successful societies. We are destroying that under a barrage of lies.

And Tucker, as a black man, a proud black man in this country, I am so offended that we, as black people, are being used by the left political machine in an attempt to grab power. They are using our previous pain and discrimination to bring us down and this entire nation down and I'm just begging those of us who are believers, not --

Just those of us with any commonsense, we must call this unbelievable racism that we're seeing from the left. We must call it out. We must stand up against it, call it exactly what it is.

The left -- if there's anybody imitating Hitler, Margaret Sanger, it is the left. They are trying to destroy this country and they are doing it by destroying black people first and then using race and the religion of race that they've replaced Christianity and the Judeo-Christian values that made this country great.

It was our pursuit of the approval of God that made this country accomplish great things. Now, we're all begging to be on the right side of some racial history that the left is going to write.

CARLSON: Nicely put, as always. Jason Whitlock, thank you so much for coming on tonight.

So, we still have no idea what these objects are in the sky. They are still unidentified flying objects, but we know there are a lot of them and we know they've been videotaped by U.S. military aircraft near military installations and U.S. Navy ships. What's interesting is that as far as we know, nobody in the Federal government is trying to figure out what this is and what it's about. That may change soon.

We'll have an update for you after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: The House of Representatives just passed a Defense Bill, excuse me -- that will cost more than $770 billion. We told you about it previous nights this week. Some of it is hard to defend, but some of it is worthwhile and some of it is interesting.

So the bill includes a provision to create a permanent office under the Defense Secretary that will be tasked with investigating reports of UFOs.

That office would quote, "Carry out on a department-wide basis the mission currently performed by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force."

Interesting. It's unclear if the Senate will approve that provision. We'll be watching.

Lue Elizondo led The Pentagon's secret UFO Task Force for years, he joins us tonight to assess. Lue, thanks so much for coming on.

So, what would this do if it becomes law? And do we need it?

LUE ELIZONDO, FORMER PENTAGON OFFICIAL: Yes, Tucker. This is really historic. Yes, first of all, we absolutely need it. It's a long time coming. Frankly, we should have had it decades ago if you ask me. But it is historic and it is historic for several reasons.

In this obscure five pages that most people may not be aware of, it really says a lot. In fact, it -- first of all, it creates an environment where it disestablishes the UAP Task Force, which was a temporary capability to begin with and solidifies a permanent capability. Two, it also forces the Secretary of Defense to report on an annual basis to Congress what we've learned about UAPs. Three, it also requires us to now work with our international friends and allies. That's a big deal.

And if that wasn't a big deal enough, two other items that I found very interesting. Number four is that it -- and you kind of broke this story a few years ago, it requires any recovered material associated with UAPs to finally be reported to Congress, and then last but not least, it also requires the government to report to Congress any adverse medical effects that have been encountered by our pilots who may have come up close and personal to these UAPs.

CARLSON: So that suggests there have been adverse medical effects, that American servicemen have been hurt by proximity to these objects?

ELIZONDO: Yes, it actually suggests two things. It suggests that, what you just said that pilots may have actually suffered medical consequences, adversely; but also, that there is recovered material and that recovered material may be in the possession of the U.S. government.

CARLSON: So does anybody that you're aware of in The Pentagon believe -- sincerely believe -- that these objects are part of the Russian or Chinese military or that they're foreign military aircraft?

ELIZONDO: I mean, honestly, if you were to ask them off the record, no. I think, the consensus that this isn't Russian or Chinese technology, of course, you still have to keep that door open just a crack and I think it helps have the conversation help socialize it initially to especially some folks who are just now actually hearing about this for the very first time.

As crazy as it sounds, there are still people when you say hey, have you heard about the UAP issue that we're encountering off the Coast of California or over in the Middle East? They are saying no, what are you talking about?

So unfortunately, you still have to keep that part of the conversation open, but I think the general consensus is that we are dealing with something else.

CARLSON: Yes, something else. I mean, why is this not the biggest story ever of our lifetimes? And of course it is.

Lue Elizondo, thank you so much for all your efforts on this.

ELIZONDO: Always my pleasure. Thank you.

CARLSON: Because it is the biggest story of our lifetime, there is no getting around that, bigger even than COVID, we've been covering this for five years. We've put together a documentary in fact on "Tucker Carlson Originals," it's called "The UFO Files." You can stream it now on FOX Nation, if you like.

So the Southern border is open. People from all around the world are responding as you would respond if you lived in a poor country and someone offered you free healthcare. We just learned how many people are expected to arrive from foreign countries illegally uninvited just this month, and that number is shocking. It's much bigger than you would think, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, the Southern border is still open tonight, it appears there are more people on the way to the United States and the free healthcare they've been promised than we thought.

FOX's Matt Finn has the numbers on that for us tonight. Hey, Matt.

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Tucker: This is the end of biology - Fox News

SOUTH BEND A crowd consistingpredominantly of women gathered in downtown South Bend late Saturday morning as part of a national movement over women's reproductive rights.

The Rally for Reproductive Justice in Indiana - South Bend was part ofmorethan 650 marchesinall 50 statesand Washington, D.C. organized byWomen's March protesters and, locally, by the Michiana Justice Coalition and other similargroups. It comes a month aftera Texas lawbanningabortions after six weeks of pregnancy went into effectanddays before the Supreme Court is scheduled to reconvene on Monday.

Local organizers say it was purely coincidental the rally was scheduled for Saturday, mere weeks after two conservative Supreme Court Justices, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, eachspoke at the University of Notre Dame on topics such as a'race-obsessed world' and 'shadow dockets.'

More: Justice Alito says nothing 'shadowy' about Supreme Court emergency orders during talk at Notre Dame

Local organizer Molly B. Moon said the ultimate goal of Saturday'srally was to bring awareness to the issue and how it affects women nationally and locally.

"The rally is going to have action stations where people will be able to register to vote, figure out how to get involved and speak out against this egregious behavior on American democracy," she said earlier this week.

Attendees carried posters saying "mind your own uterus" and "my favorite season is the fall of the patriarchy." Darcie Cichon of LaPorte and Suzanne Hall of South Bend both wore shirts that said "sugar and spice and reproductive rights."

"I feel like if this is the first step, then what's next?" Hall said. "Like (Vice President) Kamala (Harris) said, there's no rules on the book that say what a man can do with his body."

According to USA Today, Women's March executive director Rachel O'Leary Carmona said that while abortions have never been fully accessible, aMississippi challenge to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, Texas' abortion legislation, and the possibility of other states following with similar laws, represent an "unprecedented attack" on reproductive freedoms.

"For a long time, groups of us were ringing the alarm bell around abortion access and many of us were told we were hysterical and Roe v. Wade will never be overturned," Carmona told USA Today."But now it's clear that our fears were both rational and proportional. We are at a break-glass moment for America, and now's the time for mass mobilization and federal action."

New legislation: House passes legislation protecting the right to an abortion, but bill faces unlikely prospects in the Senate

In August, a federal judge struck down several of Indiana's abortion laws, such as bans on telemedicine and laws saying only physicians can performcertain kinds of abortion care. Other laws, however,were upheld in the judgement, such as requiring an ultrasound before an abortion and that medication abortions meet FDA standards.

Following the ruling, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita appealed the federal judge's decision up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the IndyStar reported.

On Saturday, several area leaders spoke at the local rally in South Bend in front of the Morris Performing Arts Center, including attorney and formerDemocratic nominee for Indianas 2nd District U.S. House seat Pat Hackett.Hackett prefaced her speech saying she was speaking from a point of view as an "attorney and personof faith."

"The fact that the current Supreme Court in its majority allowed this (Texas) law to go forward at this time is ominous. Women in our nation are under attack, ourconstitution and our rule of law are under attack and these assaults will metastasize in other states and in other populations, including Indiana unless we do something," Hackett said."Economic justice and ending violence against women getting access to healthcare including reproductive healthcare reverenceslife. The Texas law does not. ... As an attorney and as a person of faith, Iask you to join me, Iurge our dissent and our action."

Contact Mary Shown at 574-235-6244 and mshown@gannett.com. Follow heron Twitter:@maryshownSBT and @marketbasketSBT.

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South Bend crowd rallies over women's reproductive rights as part of national movement - South Bend Tribune