03/15/ 03/15/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> this incident between u.s. bridge road and russian fighter jet is a public manifestation of a secret that is barely concealed, and that is that the u.s. and nato are engaged in war a proxy war with russia that could very quickly snowfall into a full-blown hot war with

nuclear consequences. when you set the sick is the backdrop of the very serious question of who blew up the nord stream pipeline, you understand how high the stakes are right now for the world. amy: and u.s. surveillance drone crashes tuesday into the black sea about 75 miles off the coast of crimea. the u.s. has accused russian war planes of intercepting and then damaging the drone, but russia says the united ates proked the incident. we will speak to investigative journalist jeremy schahill about u.s. drone operations, the war in ukraine, as well as conflicting reports about who blew up the nord stream pipelines. then we look at the fight to protect reproductive rights in united states as a trump appointed judge in texas is deding whether to ban the aborti pill mifepristone across the united states. >> we artalking about a texas judge who any day now could aben access aill that is part of the most popular method of abortion nionwide, impacting patients in states from california to n york. ifothing else, this should put

to rest any claim by th antiaboron movent that this was ever about state rights. it is always been about banning abortion nationwide through whatever means possible. amy: and news of americans kidnapped in mexico make headlines, we look at a story that has received less attention -- the tens of thousands of mexicans who remain missing in mexico. we will look at the latest on the ayotzinapa 43. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. russian fighter jets intercepted a u.s. drone over the black sea tuesday, leading the operators of the mq-9 reaper drone to bring it down in international waters. they say it was downed after a jet struck its propeller and russia denies making contact with the drone, which it said

was gathering intelligence to help ukraine attack russia and sa it had entered a prohibited area near crimea. if a collision is confirmed, it would behe first known contact between the u.s. and russian militaries since the start of the war in ukraine. we'll have more on the implications of this, as well as the latest reports on the nord stream pipeline blowup after headlines with the intercept's jeremy scahill. massachusetts senator elizabeth warren introduced a bill to repeal the trump-era rollback of the dodd-frank act following the collapse of silicon valley bank and signature bank. the bill brings back down the threshold for banks that must undergo extra federal regulations to those with at least $50 billion in assets. the limit was raised to $250 billion in 2018 after lobbying by the banking industry, including svb which held around $209 billion in assets. this is senator warren speaking tuesday. >> the federal government once again was told to take extraordinary measures, the kind of measures that dodd-frank was

originally supposed to protect us against. these threats should never have been allowed to materialize. we must prevent them from occurring again. amy: congressmember katie porter unveiled a similar bill in the house. this comes as reports emerged the justice department and the securities and exchange commission opened investigations into the collapse of svb. the environmental protection agency has proposed new rules to force water companies to remove what's known as forever chemicals, or pfas, from drinking water. the man-made chemicals, which have been linked to cancer, infertility, and thyroid problems, have also been detected in many common household products including cosmetics and food packaging. environmental groups welcomed the move but pushed for stronger regulations against the all-around use of pfas and to force chemical companies to pay for their pollution. president biden issued an

executive order offering modest improvements on gun control, including increasing background checks. den annound the new asures tuday while siting california's monterey park, where a gunman killed 11 people in january at a dance studio during lunar new year celebrations. pres. biden: attorney general to take every lawful action possible to move us as close as we can to universal background checks without new legislation. it is common sense. check if someone is a felon, a domestic abuser before they buy gun. it expands public awareness campaigns about red flag orders. amy: biden also called again on congress to pass more robust gun gun control legislation, including assault weapons ban.

the second attempt to arrest imran khan this month. on tuesday, hundreds of supporters gathered outside his residence, blocking security forces. right it police fired to disperse protesters. imran khan is accused of corruption and terrorism, charges he has denied and denounced as politically motivated. secretary of state antony blinken is meeting with ethiopian leaders today in addis ababa, including tigrayan officials, four months after a peace deal was reached last november following two years of brutal war. blinken will travel to niger on thursday in the first visit to the west african nation by a sitting u.s. secretary of state. in southeastern africa, the death toll from cyclone freddy more than doubled in one day, jumping to 220 tuesday across malawi, mozambique, and madagascar, with hundreds more injured and scores missing. cyclone freddy is the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record. survivors in malawi, which suffered the highest death toll,

described harrowing scenes and heroic rescues. >> the child was stuck up to her head in the mud. she was crying for help. even though the water was very strong, we managed to cross and rescue her. amy: back in the united states, novo nordisk announced it is lowering the cost of insulin by up to 70%. this follows a similar move by drug competitor eli lilly earlier this month and comes after years of pressure from activists, lawmakers, and people with diabetes. it also puts pressure on sanofi, the other major insulin manufacturer in the united states, to follow suit. last week, congressmember cori bush and senator bernie sanders introduced the insulin for all act to cap insulin prices at $20 per vial. in massachusetts, students at wellesley college have approved a nonbinding referendum calling for the school to accept admissions applications from nonbinary and transgender students. currently, the college only

admits students who identify as women. the referendum also asks that the college's communications use gender-neutral language and pronouns. the proposals would still have to be approved by the college's board of trustees. ohio is suing norfolk southern over last month's train derailment which spewed toxic chemicals over the town of east palestine. the 58-count lawsuit refers to multiple violations of state and federal law. ohio is seeking damages, civil penalties, and a "declaratory judgement that norfolk southern is responsible." this is ohio attorney general dave yost. >> among the things we noted in the complaint are north of something -- norfolk southern's escalating, 580% over 10 years. that is a concerning number. at least 20 derailments since 2015 have included chemical spills.

amy: meta, the parent company of facebook and instagram, is laying off 10,000 workers and imposing a hiring freeze on another 5000 open positions. this comes less than six months after the social media giant cut 11,000 jobs last november. another wave of layoffs and restructuring at meta are also expected in april. in a victory for uber and lyft, a california court has upheld proposition 22, allowing the companies to keep classifying ride-hail and delivery drivers as independent contractors rather than as employees, depriving them of basic wage and labor protections. david huerta, president of seiu california, said in a statement -- "when gig companies can spend over $200 million to pass a law that violates our state's constitution instead of investing in workers, it's clear that california needs better safeguards for our democracy." the ruling is expected to be appealed at the california supreme court. illinois has become the third u.s. state to enact a law requiring employers to provide

up to 40 hours of paid time off a year for workers to use for any reason. governor j.b. pritzker signed the law monday, joining maine and nevada. it goes into effect january 2024. and pioneering former congressmember and feminist patricia schroeder has died at the age of 82. she was elected as the first woman to represent colorado in the u.s. house in 1973 and served for nearly a quarter-decade. she championed women and workers' rights, access to healthcare, and environmental protections. she led the fight to pass the 1993 family and medical leave act, which guarantees workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. as the first woman on the armed services committee, patricia schroeder called for arms control and reduced military spending. she faced unrelenting misogyny throughout her career, but used her public platform to call it out and encourage other women to run for office. this is pat schroeder speaking onhe house floor in 1992 in favor of the passage of the freedom of choice act, which

would have codified roe v wade. >> especially as we are looking more and more toward national health care, we cannot have a national health care that does not recognize women equally. otherwise, we will be forcing all women as a secondary class citizens. i hope the right to choose bill get a majority of this body, we pass it out of here, and say to america's women, indeed, they are going to be treated equally. amy: that was former colorado congressmember patricia schroeder. she died monday at the age of 82. she served in congress for more than a quarter of a century. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. when we come back, jeremy scahill joins us on u.s. russian relations after a u.s. surveillance drone crashed tuesday in the black sea about 75 miles off the coast of crimea

after being intercepted by russian planes. we will talk about the drone, the ukraine war, the nord stream explosion, and more. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by democracy now!'s juan gonzález in chicago. hi, juan. juan: hi, am welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: we begin today's show looking at increasing tensions between the united states and russia. on tuesday, a u.s. mq-9 reaper drone crashed over the black

sea. one of the jets clipped the propeller, forcing the u.s. to down the daged drone russia admitted its jets intercepted the drone but said there was no direct contact and that the drone crashedn its own after making a sharp turn. pentagon press secretary brigadier general pat ryder spoke at a news conference tuesday. >> what we saw were fighter aircraft dumping fuel in front of this yav and then getting so close to the aircraft it damaged the propeller on the mq-9. we assess it likely caused some damage to the russian aircraft as well. to our knowledge, to what we know, the aircraft -- the russian aircraft did land. i am not going to go into where they landed. again, demonstrative, very unprofessional, and safe airman

ship on the partf these pilots. amy: russia's ambassador to the united states anatoly antonov accused the united states of attempting to provoke russia by flying a drone with its transponder turned off near a military zone. >> the aircraft was flying with the transponder turned off. it had entered the area where it determined it was special military operation took place. we, russia, warned everybody about this on international can occasions channels. i think it was a real provocation. they were provoking us to take search actions after which they could accuse the russian military was some sort of lack of professionalism. amy: he was called to the state department. when he came out, he said, what would the united states do if there was a russian drone outside san francisco, off the coast? to talk about the drug incident much more, we are joined by jeremy scahill, senior reporter and correspondent at the

intercept. his latest piece headlined "conflicting reports thicken nord stream bombing plot." we will get to that in a minute. first, if you can talk about the latest in the drone and the significance of it going down in the black sea, the u.s. says it has not been able to retrieve it in anyway yet, though it is able to zero out all that it possibly has been surveilling inside automatically. >> i think this is an indication of the real risks at play and it is proxy war. the u.s. tries to deny it is engaged in a proxy war and yet we know for a fact moscow is correct in its assessment it is not just fighting the armed forces of ukraine and militias that are fighting on the side of ukraine, but actually against the weapons infrastructure of nato countries. what i think is relevant about this particular incident is the

united states -- this does not get much attention -- for the united states in particular has been providing ukraine with actionable intelligence from satellite imagery, from drone imagery, that ukraine is using to strike at russian forces. from russia's perspective, this is a provocation on the part of the u.s. it is not simply, as the pentagon portrays it, the u.s. was innocently flying its reaper drone over the area to sort of look at topography. this is a vehicle of war. it doesn't have to have missiles allotted to be parof a system that makes the u.s. a combatant war in this war. from russia's perspective, you can understand why they would have scrambled and why they would consider this a hostile act. that is not defeing russia going and dumping fuel and try to force the drone to the ground, but it is important

sometimes to understand what motivates other act or's on the others of the barrel of the u.s. guide or in this case, the cameras of a u.s. drone. i think it dramatizes just how close we are coming to the potential foan over conflict with united states. lindsey graham soon after this took place went on fox news and suggested the united states should be starting to shoot down russian aircraft and the biden administration should threaten russia, that of any incident like this happens again, the u.s. is going to begin shooting down russian planes. it is an incendiary development. i think it portends real dangers at play as the united states continues this proxy war. juan: jemy, about this drone. it seems to me, first of all, clearly, we have heard often this war in ukraine is the first where drones have played such enormous role in terms of not

just of surveillance, but of actually being invold in attacks. of course, the reality is it is an american drone -- the russians would have to figure out, who is operating it? is it ukraine? is it the ukrainian military or is it the u.s.? could you talk about the drone warfare in this particular confct? >> in fact, ukraine does have some upper tier level drones, but the united states to date, not that we know of, not transferred one of its top-tier drugs. although, there is an increing number of u.s. senators and other lawmakers and certnly the drone and defense war industry in the u.s. has been pressuring the white house to se ukraine drugs which have a very long range, can carry a very heavy weapons payload, have the potential to strike deep

within russia. the most powerful drugs that ukraine has right now are turkish-manufactured drones. russia itself really has not kept up or kept pace with united states and china, for example, in terms of developing advanced technology drones. that is part of why you have seen russia using what are called swarm attacks. their purchasing much smaller kamikaze drones that are single-use drones, carry explosives. essentially, the higher and remote control missile. what russia has been using as a tactic is to said a bunch of these at the same time to strike at targets. ukraine has also been doing this. the u.s. has authorized a number of private contracts from an american corporation to sell ukraine single-use explosive suicide drones. in fact, they have an escalating the supply chain to get more and more of these to ukraine.

juan, your question is a good one. we have to remember the united states set this trend in motion, that using weaponized remotely piloted aircraft is in a standard part of warfare. a couple of months ago, china unveiled a drone that is on par with many of the upper tier u.s. drones. it is a matter of time before russia does have semi's more powerful drugs that have not been used widely get in ukraine. that could well happen. to me, what we're seeing here is russia starting to confront what we know to be true and what russia has been alleging and that is the united states is not providing its ally -- although none nato ally, ukraine -- with a lot of weaponry, but actively providing ukraine with intelligence, that it is allowing it to attacrussian forces. i think that is what we're saying, russia starting to say,

we are fed up with this and we are going to start escalating from our end. 1.i want to make, regardless of anything we talk about today, there's one person who could end tomorrow and that is vladimir putin. it is important to state this is a war of aggression filled with war crimes. vladimir putin made the decision to invade ukraine. none of that justifies u.s. politicking or the u.s. position, but vladimir putin should squarely be held as possible for starting this bloodbath that is now extended beyond a year in ukraine. juan: i wanted to ask you about the nord stream pipeline. you recently wrote a piece in the intercept dissecting and analyzing the seymour hersh explosive report. could you talk about that? >> first of all, i think it should be said that seymour

hersh is one of the greatest generations -- one of the greatest journalists in american history, with a very long track record of breaking stories of great consequence on american war crimes, american covert operations. i think that often gets lost in the shuffle in people's confirmation vices -- biases. you could argue for sure a single source story that appears to have a bunch of details in it that are contradicted by open-source intelligence on ship movements and airplane movements -- they are all legitimate questions to raise. i don't pretend to know the answer of what happened to the nord stream pipeline and i'll sign my own questions about some of the citations in sy's reporting. but here's what i will say with confidence. i know if seymour hersh has a

source that he believes has credible access to intelligence and he reports it and reports those assertions, there is "there there. it is worth pursuing. what i try to to do my stories give some context to what it is like to work with confidential sources. one thing we know is very few people in government have access to every detail of a covert operatn or every detail of the secret program. sometimes what happens is sources ow what they know and they share that, but they mix it with speculation or they mix it with things that were being discussed as a potential plan. i think it is plausible that seymour hersh may have some of the detailsrong, not because he himself is sloppy but because sources sometimes don't

delineate what they know to be true from what is speculation. it is also possible this is one of the plans that was being discussed within the biden administration as part of a secret task force and that they ended up operating the plan in a different manner. there are a number of questions that i think we should be asking. but what i think is the central most important assertion is that sy hersh has a source that he believes is legitimate and real and has information that is true who is asserting the united states carried out this operation or sponsor this operation. i think the dismissal of sy hers h by so many people as reckless and shows a total disregard for the history of american covert operations, and it ultimately seeks to silence people who are questioning what i think is quite clearly the top suspect

and it international act of terrorism that is the party that would have the greatest motivation to conduct this attack. and that would be united states. amy: i want to go to what russian president vladimir putin said, the bombing of the nord stream carried out at the "state level." he pointed out the u.s. had an interest in the pipelines being blown up. >> who is interested? theoretically, the united states is interested in order to stop the supply of energy carriers to the european market. and supply vibes of their own, including liquefied natural gas. and because that is vladimir putin. for people who are not following this closely, could you summarize what major news outlets are saying, whether you're talking about germany,

talking about "the new york times" or seymour hersh, what each is contending? >> seymour hersh says this was the united states operation that was covert in nature, although according to hersh, once joe biden in -- on february 7, 2020 two, joe biden had a meeting in east room of the white house, press conference, with the new german chancellor olaf scholz. and during that press conference, biden is asked about the nord stream pipeline and he says we will shut it down, we will end it, i promise you that. what seymour hersh is saying, once biden said that, the operation that was intended to be a covert operation under title 50 of the u.s. code -- which means if the president issues a secret presidential finding, that the u.s., for interest of national security,

has to conduct an operation to keep it secret, that under the law or president of the united states is required to inform the senate and house intelligence committees or at a minimum the so-called gang of eight, which would be the chairs of the senate and house intelligence committees and then the leadership of in both the senate and the house. what seymour hersh is saying is that once biden let the cat out of the bag by sort of saying we are going to do this, biden did not say we're going to blow up the pipeline but you could read into it very easily that biden was saying, one way or the other, we are taking this thing out. that then the cia and other said, well, this can't be a covert operation ithat manner so they shifted it to a military operation that would fall under a title x of the u.s. code. in that case, you do not have the same congressional reporting requirements t the intelligence committees. according to hersh, they were able to circumvent informing

congress because of this distinction. now, i talked to lawyers, putting the top lawyer for the director of national intelligence under barack obama robert litt, who was saying even with those semantics, is kind of an operation would fall clearly under covert action statutes and was questioning the veracity of that claim that no one from congress would have been informed. it all of that aside, and it is important understand the distinctions for how covert actions are authorized -- by the way, joe biden as a young senator played a role in establishing these rules that now govern covert operations and in setting up intelligence committee. so what hersh is alleging is this w a secret operation with the support of the norwegian government and that it was done undercover of nato -- a well-publicized nato training operation and involved deep-sea

divers were part of the vanilla u.s. navy, not special operations because it would've had to be reported to members of congress, and that they then placed the explosives on portions of the pipeline that they had identified as particularly good place to disrupt it and sabotage it, and then they detonated it. that was immediately attacked by a lot of commentators online, a lot of other journalists. interestingly, still to this moment has never gotten a fair hearing in "the new york times" "the washington post." last week when "the new york times" asserted u.s. judges zeroing in on what they call our pro ukrainian group that may have been involved in attacking or sabotaging the nord stream pipeline, for the first time they mentioned seymour hersh's report and it was in the 23rd

graph of their story and they did not even make any assertion of what sy actually said. they were mentioning it as though sy i just done a blog post referencing biden's perceived public threat. i think what was clear, as a follower of "the new york times" and u.s. covert action, there elements in the community who are spinning this story and they're doing it for one of two reasons. either to distract from hersh's report or because this is representative of some sort of deception operation or an attempt to put together a false flag where you have the appearance that these individuals did it and that it is intended to mask the actual sponsor of the operation. at the same time "the new york times" does it story, a consortium of german journalists from different publications

published a story that was not based on intelligence reporting, but was based on the federal criminal investigation that germany is doing io the disruption of the nord stream pipeline. they then offered more details from the german investigation that there was a private boat that had been rented by -- from a ukrainian-owned company and that explosives had been transported by land for poland and through germany and placed onto this what essentially was a sailboat with 75 horsepower motor and that this boat carried six individuals, divers, and a doctor, and that they went out into the sea and there were the ones who placed explosives on it. what is interesting, amy, aed sy hersh about this about calling into question parts of the story. some of those same people then started to go to townissecting

the inconsistencies of the reporting from the german publication and the findings as they were relayed in the papers in germany from the german federal police. about how such a small team of divers what i've been able to do this, how they would have transported the volume of explosives -- we're talking about hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of explosives that were alleged to have been used and it is operation, military level explosive devices. i don't know this ship was or wasn't involved with it, but in many ways, it reeks of a operation. it is totally possible the individuals on the boat were involvedn some capacity. but even the defense minister of germanhimself said he would get equal weight to the theory that were involved with the attack and -- or they were part of a false flag operation. i would say the top suspect in this should logically be the

united states. many othe same principles i can offer in analyzing this private boat scenario could also apply to russia. it is just the case that russia would've had the motive to do thiss much flimsy or than the case united states would have or that ukraine would have. what i think is a theory -- again, this is just speculation on my part, but informed speculation -- is that i would not be shocked if we had some point learned the u.s. sponsor this operation using deniable assets for plausible deniability and that some elements of ukrainian forces, whether private or official, were involved, carried out the operation. i think that would be the logical line of inquiry. i am not saying i know that to be true but if our running investigation, i would be looking at benefits and who has the capacity to do such a sophisticated operation. juan: in line with that issue of the sophisticated operation, i don't know if you saw the piece

that scott ritter, the former u.n. weapons inspector, wrote in consortium news yesterday. he totally debunks this idea this small boat, as you say, could have been involved in this not only because of the number -- the amount of explosives necessary to destroy those pipelines which were highly reinforced and a concrete, but also said they were at 240 feet below the level of the water and that he said the rule of thumb is decompression takes approximately one day per 100 feet of sea water plus a day. this means the team of divers would have required three days of decompression for a dive but to decompress you need a chamber. and if there were two divers involved, they would've had to

have two chambers and all the oxygen necessary -- it is impossible to fit this all on the little boat. he said it is clearly, from his perspective, a cover story to hide really was involved. what are your thoughts about that? >> we don't even need to cite scott ritter on those points. you have naval warfare experts who have called into question almost every single part of that narrative, meaning the actual divers were on this small ship and went down to place the explosives. if you speak to who are experts at diving, it really does not add up. the question beces, why is this story being pushed? this has not got much play in the u.s., but in european media, there is a lot of reporting indicating a name is going to

come out about the person who potentially sponsored this component of the operation. i think the fact the german defense minister is stating that it is like 50/50 that this thing was a false flag is a pretty good indication that dominant narrative that has been pushed that this was sort of the attackers and they used this ship and did it by themselves -- it just do not pass the smell test. you don't eveneed to get into political rhetoric or having any other theory about it just to y the facts do not make any sense on a technical level that that specific ship could have been the sole party responsible for blowing this up. amy: jeremy scahill, thank you for being with us, senior reporter and correspondent at the intercept, author of "blackwater" and the book "dirty wars." we will lick we will link to your new

piece "conflicting reports thicken nord stream bombing plot." coming up, trump appointed judge in texas is deciding whether to ban abortion pill used by more than half -- in more than half the abortions in the united states. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "raise hell" by brandi carlile. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we turn now to the fight to protect reproductive rights in the united states. a decision could come as early as today from a trump appointed federal judge in texas on whether to ban the abortion pill mifepristone nationwide. the hearing is taking place in amarillo, a four hour drive from any major city and only became public after reporters raise the alarm about the lack of transparency after judge matthew kaczmarek tried to delay notice and hide the date. it attempts to revoke the abortion pill and after the supreme court overturned the right to abortion last year overturning roe v. wade. we go now to amy littlefield.

welcome back to democracy now! first, let's take on this hearing today. trump appointed antiabortion judge is deciding whether this drug can be used, used in more than half the abortions in the united states. so if he decides know, even in states where abortion is totally legal, they will not have access? is that right? >> that is right. if the judge succeeds in's revoking the fda's approval of mifepristone, which has been on the market in the united states for 23 years, it would have a catastrophic impact specifically in states where abortion is legal. we are talking about this hearing taking place in a state that is not even going to be impacted by because abortion is already banned in texas.

this would reverberate across states like massachusetts, new york, california -- states where abortion is legal. the abortion pill mifepristone is the first of two drugs used in the standard of care for medication abortion. what providers across the country have been preparing to do in preparation for this ruling is to start providing medication abortion only using the second drug in the protocol. that still works but less effective. about 88% effective according to recent study as opposed to 99% when used with mifepristone, and causes more intense suffering most of our cramping, prolonged bleeding. more intensive process for the person going through that medication abortion. you're talking about imposing suffering i medication abortion patients across the country. medication abortion using mifepristone's most popular,

using more than half the abortions nationwide. this could have a huge impact. it depends on exactly what the food and drug administration does. there is a growing chorus of voices sing the fda should ignore this ruling and providers should continue to offer this drug where they can. the pretense this was about states rights, which is what the supreme court claims was doing with the decision. what we're saying is an effort to ban abortion nationwide using what antiabortion legal strategists hope is a judicial pipeline that is going to allow them to go all the way to the supreme court and have a sympathetic antiabortion hearing. juan: amy, what are the legal

arguments of those who are -- who brought this case? especially given the fact the fda has greenlighted the use of the drug for so long? >> what is a miracle about this case, we would not even be talking about it if it were not for the judge involved because the legal argument here announced to the fda did not follow the protocol that it was supposed to when it approved the drug when in fact mifepristone has been stringently studied. the arguments in this case really add up to we don't like abortion and we don't think it should be available. defending freedom come the legal group that brought you -- on behalf of a bunch of the

antiabortion medical organizations. the justice department which is defending the fda's approval of mifepristone has called these claims in the lawsuit unfounded. they are not new. they are the same arguments they've been making sense mifepristone was first approved. the reason we're even talking about this right now is because of judge matthew kaczmarek who served on the board of a christian antiabortion maternity home where his sister gave birth as a teenager and put a baby up for adoption. judge kaczmarek who has railed against every thing from homosexuality, which he considers a disorder, to no-fault divorce laws and the decision to get rid of penalties or adultery -- which he sees as part of an effort to undermine heterosexual marriage. in a case that could be a harbinger for this one, judge matthew kaczmarek in december upheld the right of a father who wanted to prevent his teen daughters from seeking

contraception at federal clinics in texas because he said if his daughters were to access contraception, it would violate his religious beliefs. in a decision that cited catholic had a schism, he sided with the father in that case -- catholic catechism, he sided with the father and case. he was a staff attorney at first liberty institute which is a christian right law firm. i could go on and on about judge matthew kaczmarek. amy: could you talk about what he did today? having this hearing and trying to keep it secret? >> this is remarkable. judge matthew kaczmarek on friday said, look, we've been getting a lot of phone calls, getting death threats. i don't want a circus-like atmosphere in my courtroom so please don't tell anyone about

this hearing that we are scheduling for wednesday. he told the attorneys he was not going to put it on public docket until late on tuesday. eleanor who has been covering this for the texas tribune said, if i had -- if i found out late tuesday about hearing happening wednesday morning, she would've had to drive through the night on tuesday to reach amarillo, texas, where the hearing is taking place from austin, which is eight hours away. there are journalists camped out on the steps of that courthouse who have been there since the crack of dawn, apparently choosing to let in 19 journalists. that is only after judge matthew kaczmarek went to pretty unusual measures to try to prevent the public from knowing what is going on in this hearing today, which obviously is of enormous public interest to people across the country. juan: meanwhile, also in texas, five women are suing after they

were denied abortions even as their pregnancies posed serious risk to their health and were nonviable. you wrote a piece in the nation recently, "she had a heartbeat too." tell us about the near-death experience of amanda zurawski. >> i was listening to democracy now! on friday and a clip of a manner that you played where she talked about how she was losing her pregnancy, losing a very wanted pregnancy. her water broke at about 18 weeks. the doctors in texas told her, "we are so sorry, her pregnancy is not going to survive, but we cannot terminate it because the fetus still has a heartbeat and we are terrified of going to jail are facing civil penalties under texas abortion law." so she waited for days. she needed to wait until either the fetus died or she became so close to the brink of death that

doctors would feel justified in saving her. when i was listening to her story, amy and juan, i had this feeling, this sad and angry feeling i felt so many times before. i know this story. before roe v. wade fell, i wrote about how women in a catholic hospitals had been subjected to the same days long wait until they got so close to the brink of dad that doctors felt they could intervene and terminate the pregnancy despite the catholic directives that guide health care. these stories now that roe v. wade is gone, we are hearing the stories emerging with just crushing regularity. i started to think about how does you can only get an abortion if you are almost dead -- we are going to eventually

have someone who dies. i wrote this article for two reasons. one is that i wanted to really debunk the idea these life and health exceptions in abortion bans mean anything because what we see in amanda zurawski's case and other women in the texas lawsuit is when you impose a prison sentences and civil penalties on doctors, they're not going to intervene until the most extreme situations possible. we need close the abortion clinics, get rid of the infrastructure for people to even contemplate an abortion. and the second reason is i i wanted to issue a warning. in ireland, a woman died in 2012 nine situation similar to a man does. when people get sick while miscarrying, they can decline very fast. i am afraid we're going to see someone die in this country and i hope when that happens that her death means something the way it did in ireland, where her

death led to a transformation of ireland's abortion law. amy: amy littlefield, thank you for being with us. there's so much more to talk about but we will do this in the days to come as well. amy littlefield, abortion access correspondent at the nation. former democracy now! producer. we will link to your piece just out "'she had a heartbeat too': waiting for one dead woman." this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. as news of americans kidnapped in mexico, and two of them killed, is making headlines, we look at a story that has received less attention -- the tens of thousands of mexicans who remain missing in mexico. la week, four americans who traveled to matamoros, mexico, for plastic surgery were caught in a shootout between drug cartels, with two killed and two others held captive for days before they were rescued. one was shot repeatedly. three women from a texas border

town have been missing since february after traveling to a flea market in matamoros. meanwhile, tens of thousands of mexicans remain missing in cases that have gone unsolved, some of them for decades. this includes the 2014 case we have followed closely for years of the 43 young men from ayotzinapa teachers' college who were attacked and forcibly disappeared. we go now to kate doyle. she is senior analyst at the national security archives who has new details about what happened that are drawn from the ayotzinapa records in the 4 million emails and records stolen from the mexican defense ministry by an anonymous collective of hackers known as "guacamaya." they just released a new report and she also co-produced the after ayotzinapa podcast with reveal as part of the nsa's ongoing work on this case. thank you so much for rejoining

us, kate. you are joining is actually from guatemala city. can you talk about what you found? talk about this in the context of when ericans pay attention and when they don't. >> thank you. good morning the guacamaya -- th leaks from the mexican military has records far as we have seen -- we have only begun to look at them. they go ba as early as 2006 to show the level of hostility toward an surveillance of t ayotnapa school where the 43 students disappeared in 2014 attended. in the context of the case of the americans who were killed and the others who were missing and the over 100,000 mexicans who are missing and disappeared as you mentioned at the top, the ayotzinapa case is a kind of

exple of or stands in if y will for a of the thousands of missing mexicans in it shows the tremendous impunity that ill dominates these cases of disappeared, which are not solved. people are not found and nobody is punished. the guacamaya leaks documents confirm suspicions that people had about the military, the mexican military's efforts to both cover up what happened, shield itself from any kind of public scrutiny about its own rules the night -- roles in the town the night they went missing, to conduct surveillance and spy on the school, the students, their parents, and human rights organizations that represent them legally going back almost a decade. i can talk about specific documents, but overall, that is

the kind of things we are finding. juan: kate, could you talk specifically and terms of how they were thought to discredit the parents and the lawyers that even the u. commission after the disappearances? >> sure. when you look back at 20, this intelligence rept that we found that shows the intensity of the scrutiny that t military was doing on the school itself, the spine, clearly the school was infiltrated and they used a kind of language of counterinsurgency to describe the students and calling it a green ground of subversi. then you look at oth documents, another intelligence report from as recent as 2020, that discusses crimil activities in iguala, the same town, and compas them and

colate them with the social movementthat have been started by the parents and the organizations that support them. in this particular document, you seehe parallel strategies in e way the military talks about organized criminal leaders and leaders in the parents movement to demand answers for the disappearance of their sons who re taken away by police officials in police uniforms and the backs of police trucks and never seen again it is kind of an extraordinary example of the st of ambition between the way the military vis criminals as a kind of colict development in mexico anyway the military views social activists and leaders a parents of missi boys. it is a really disturbing tell on how the defense ministry

considers these parents. amy: i want to play a clip of mexico's former defense secretary salvador cienfuegos zepeda. in a 2015 interview, he responded to accusations the mexican military was involved in the disappearance of the 43 students from ayotzinapa. i can't permit my shoulders to be treated like criminals or to be interrogated so that they are later made t feel that something to do with the night of iguala instead of being supported. amy: kate doyle, can y respond? >> that is so of a piece of how the military has tried to shield itself really from the beginning of this ce from any kind of investigative body, any nd of scrutiny. the then defense minister, yes, refused to allow investigators to interview anybody in the

dense institution, including the soldiers o make up what i known as the 27th military and infantry battalion which has i base in iguala in the same soldiers were moving around iguala the entire night while these students were being shot at with machine guns, while the students were being beaten, some were killed and then 43 were taken away. the soldiersever intvened to stop it. the defense ministry never permitted the investigators to interview tm. there e ways in which the military sought to shield itself, for example, one of the documents that we posted shows that when the parents and their lawyers suggestedhey should be ab to enter the base, the 27th battalion base in iguala, to see if there's any edence thereto possibly conduct excavations to

see if they could find remains, there are internal members -- memos to e same tippet secretary recommending any detentn cells that may be on the base be dismantled and removed and that soldiers orhe commander of the base explicitly refuse to allow the investigators to excavate or dig up the ground of the base. amy: we want to thank you, kate doyle, for being with us, nior analyst at the national secured archives. we will link to your report at democracynow.org. kate was speaking to us from guatemala city. democracy now! is currently accepting applications for a digital fellow. learn more and apply at democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

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thank you for joining us again on nhk newsline. breaking news on this weekend. japan's defense ministry said the missile that north korea launched is now down and it has fallen into waters outside of japan's exclusive economic zone and likely