Trump’s New CDC Director Promised Dystopian New Abortion Policy

President Donald Trump’s new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention thinks the government should know if you’ve had an abortion.

During her confirmation hearing Wednesday, Dr. Erica Schwartz committed to improving “abortion surveillance,” despite advocates’ insistence that federal tracking violates patient privacy and undermines access.

“Abortion surveillance is absolutely a critical component of what the CDC is currently doing,” Schwartz told lawmakers.

“I also want to make sure that certain states are not conflating emergency services and hiding abortions in that emergency services case definition,” she continued. “We need to make sure we’re pulling out true abortions and making sure that we’re really having clear case definitions regarding abortions so the data is actually accurate.”

There is no factual evidence suggesting that states are “hiding” or purposefully misreporting information about abortions to the CDC, HuffPost reported Thursday. The CDC’s data collection on abortion is currently voluntary, meaning that certain states, such as California, New Jersey, and Maryland, don’t report annual abortion numbers to the federal government.

Schwartz’s comment is especially preposterous because in states with abortion bans, the clear case definitions between abortion and emergency services are acutely felt.

Hospitals in states with abortion bans were more likely to violate federal life-saving rules and delay treatment for pregnancy-related emergencies. It’s for this reason that pregnant people living in states with abortion bans face a significantly higher risk of death than those in other areas of the country.

Mini Timmaraju, the president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, released a statement saying that Schwartz’s confirmation “cements an anti-abortion agenda at the center of the CDC’s work, rather than containing outbreaks and keeping the public safe.”

Last month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche promised that he was working with the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that the Dobbs decision would become “permanent” nationwide. Now, Schwartz may be part of the push.

The commitment to ramp up abortion monitoring comes also amid a renaissance in dystopian surveillance technology brought on by the Trump administration—and nationwide revolt against such tech.

Ailing Senator Mitch McConnell has been discharged from rehabilitation after being hospitalized nearly two months ago.

“Earlier today, I was discharged from the rehabilitation center to continue my recovery at home. Elaine and I are grateful for the many well wishes and support from friends, colleagues, and Kentuckians, and for the attentive care I’ve received from excellent doctors, nurses, therapists, and hospital staff,” McConnell wrote in a statement released Thursday afternoon.

“On the advice of my doctors, I’ll maintain an intensive regimen of physical therapy from home during the state work period, and I’ll continue to engage with my staff and colleagues on important Senate business.”

This is the most significant health update we’ve gotten from McConnell in almost two months, as the 84-year old Republican has been MIA since June 14 when he was found unconscious on the floor of his Washington, D.C. home. After that incident, McConnell was taken to the hospital by ambulance, and his office has released just two photos and a press statement until this announcement. Rumors of his death or incapacitation have swirled the entire time, with his staff offering little clarification.

It’s unclear if McConnell will be returning to work anytime soon, despite warnings from Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat.

Donald Trump’s administration is awarding a $150 million contract to give legal representation to immigrant children to a small Texas law firm with ties to the president—where only two of the attorneys actually practice immigration law. 

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, plans to give the contract to the Houston-based Burke Law Group, the Trump administration announced late Tuesday. Marcella Burke, one of the group’s four founders, was previously appointed by Trump to the Senior Executive Service for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department. 

The contract for Burke Law Group was a “single source cooperative agreement,” meaning the firm was selected without a standard bidding process, according to the Associated Press.

Of the 26 attorneys currently employed by Burke Law, only two practice immigration law, per the firm’s website.  

Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, a group providing children legal representation in the Washington, D.C., area, told reporters the group was “clearly unqualified.”

The contract is set to begin on August 15, while the existing contract already expired last Friday, according to the Associated Press. 

ORR officials previously said that they’d offered to extend the existing contract if providers agreed to share information about their clients with the government. But several nonprofit leaders said that the government had requested confidential information about the children and their sponsors, making them concerned that the information would be used to target families during immigration enforcement operations. 

The decision comes as the Trump administration has rapidly expedited the removal of immigrant children. Immigration hearings for children are reportedly being moved up by weeks or even months, making it increasingly difficult for children to obtain legal resources or relief. At the same time, the Trump administration has made it increasingly difficult for immigrant children to be allowed to stay in the United States. Sponsors in the U.S. now face stricter documentation requirements and even risk arrest themselves. 

Immigrant children are often subjected to extended stays with the ORR, during which they can be subjected to all kinds of alleged mistreatment and abuse, either at government shelters or foster homes. 

In June, there were an average of 1,796 children in ORR custody, whose average length of care was 194 days—roughly six months, according to the office’s website. 

Centrist Democratic lobbyists and strategists are preparing to go to “war” with the left following Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary.

The New York Times reported Thursday on Third Way, a prevalent, well-documented, dark money–funded, neoliberal think tank bankrolled by billionaires, corporations, and Wall Street executives, among others. Its president, Jonathan Cowan (who has worked for Bill Clinton and Andrew Cuomo), described the recent electoral success of progressives like El-Sayed, as well as democratic socialists, as “deeply troubling”—and he’s ready to spend millions of dollars to fight it.

“We are preparing for the next war that is coming.… It is deeply troubling to see radical, far-left candidates winning in places that are potentially presidential swing states,” Cowan told the Times, later describing the Democratic Socialists of America—a group that believes “working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few”—as a “mortal danger.”

Third Way wants to make DSA feel the pain of pushing prison abolition, reparations, a 32-hour workweek, and other policies it sees as overly radical. The organization is preparing to drop $15 million between now and 2028 to discredit democratic socialism, but it’s unclear where the money will come from.

“The upside of being associated with more extreme movements is you get attention and real and perceived energy and outsider status,” said centrist Welcome PAC founder Liam Kerr.

The left sounded off against the article on social media.

“Just so you understand, this is wall street, the military industrial complex, the Israel lobby, big tech AI money and all kinds of corporate money declaring war on the only faction of the dems that believes in something and knows how to fight Trump,” commentator Kyle Kulinski wrote. “‘Third Way’ is a Diet MAGA op.”

“Hey Shane is there a reason you don’t mention who funds Third Way, WelcomePAC and Center for New Liberalism?” podcaster Adam Johnson said to the article’s author, Shane Goldmacher. “They’re backed entirely by pro Israel billionaires, big pharma, big oil, big tobacco, Wall St, etc. isn’t this worth noting when reporting on their alleged motives?”

The Democratic centrist response to its own voters rejecting it and the establishment has been to reinject millions of dollars back into that failed establishment. While the DSA has certainly run spirited campaigns, what has stood out most in this ongoing left-versus-liberal battle is liberals’ institutional lack of vision—and their beholdenness to corporate power.

Why can’t we stop giving Israel money to blow up babies in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran? Why can’t we make sure Americans don’t go into financial ruin just to get chemotherapy? Why can’t we give the average person more power than corporate PACs and billionaires? These aren’t just frivolous talking points that only hold water in Bushwick—these are winning issues in the hearts and minds of Democratic voters across the country.

Edwin López-Cornejo, the 39-year-old Salvadoran immigrant who died in an unknown “medical emergency” at the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility on Saturday, had documented health concerns including epilepsy and high blood pressure just days before he died in the notoriously inhumane New Jersey detention center.

López-Cornejo’s attorney, Ingrid Echeverria, filed a habeas petition on July 24, referencing the various medications he was taking for epilepsy and blood pressure as justifications to have him released and prevent his transfer to another facility.

“If not, he at least asks that Respondents be required to give advance written notice before any transfer, identify the receiving facility, and ensure that his medications accompany him and are administered without interruption,” her petition stated.

López-Cornejo died just over a week later, the twenty-second person to die in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody this year—and the second to die in Delaney Hall.

Delaney Hall has been the center of anti-ICE protests, as multiple reports of inhumane treatment—from lack of adequate food to unsanitary conditions—have led hundreds of detainees to go on a hunger and labor strike. It is run by the private prison company GEO Group, and multiple elected officials have been denied entry to inspect the facility.

And while ICE insists that the facility meets condition requirements, López-Cornejo’s death gives the public yet another reason for disbelief. Hundreds of protesters met outside the center on Monday and Tuesday, joining local politicians in calling for its closure.

“Private companies like GEO Group are getting paid to keep people detained. Giving people proper medical care costs them money; neglect doesn’t. Medical abuse is now a business model, and ICE is encouraging it,” New Jersey Democratic Representative Analilia Mejia said on Tuesday. “Edwin Jovanny López Cornejo should still be alive today.”