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Sometimes it feels like grotesquely wealthy industrialist Charles Koch is determined to burn down the planet by the time his semi-ambulant corpus is officially declared dead. He’s 86, but with some luck and resolve, he’ll likely be able to time his cremation perfectly, disgorging his oily soul and erupting into a sulfuric pillar of flame just as the last verdant patch of earth inevitably yields to the cruel exigencies of global climate change.

In other words, he’s a total d*ck who doesn’t really care about our planet or anyone on it.

And, sadly, he’s far from alone. Indeed, there seems to be no end of Republican officials willing to grease the skids for sure environmental destruction if it gets them invited to the right cocktail parties. And Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts appears to be one of these characters. 

In a detailed new exposé, HuffPost has unmasked an unholy and largely secret alliance between Ricketts and a Koch-funded group called American Stewards of Liberty, which has been working behind the scenes to scuttle President Joe Biden’s pro-conservation 30×30 initiative ever since it was announced in early 2021.

After the Biden administration unveiled 30×30, with the goal of conserving 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030, American Stewards Executive Director Margaret Byfield reached out for willing accomplices to help murder the initiative and, according to HuffPost, the organization, which “has become a magnet for anti-federal land zealots,” would soon find a “star” in Ricketts.

Internal communications HuffPost obtained via a public record request to Ricketts’ office show Byfield acting as a shadow adviser of the governor, not only on 30×30 but other environmental policy issues. She even played a direct role in crafting an executive order the governor signed in late June aimed at preventing President Joe Biden from implementing his 30×30 plan in Nebraska.

One of the governor’s top aides, Taylor Gage, was in regular contact with Byfield between February and November of last year. The two kept one another abreast of their anti-30×30 efforts and shared materials ahead of a series of town halls the governor held around the state to “raise awareness about the threat 30×30 poses to our way of life here in Nebraska.” They also strategized about dealing with reporters and which media outlets could best help them get their message out.

Of course, this is just another example of the right’s savant-like mastery of simple, deceptive messaging. According to American Stewards, Biden’s initiative was a “land grab” that “hands the powers of the Federal regulatory agencies to a movement that has been working to abolish private property for decades.”

That’s nonsense, of course—and you know it’s nonsense because 1) it makes no sense and 2) it almost immediately became an article of faith among dopey Republicans like Ricketts. Indeed, shortly after meeting with Byfield at the state Capitol on March 10, 2021, Ricketts began parroting the group’s dubious claims about the Biden administration’s conservation efforts.

“When the agriculture secretary [Tom Vilsack] says it’s not a land grab, then you know it is a land grab,” Ricketts told attendees at an anti-30×30 town hall meeting in June 2021. Behind him was a screen projection that included the words “30×30 LAND GRAB.” Oddly enough, the image was lifted directly from American Stewards’ website. Of course, if anyone who merely acknowledges the existence of gay people can be a “groomer,” there’s seemingly no limit to the kinds of rhetorical dross these dingbats are prepared to burnish into sparkly berms of bullshit.

In its story, HuffPost shows how the information pipeline from the ironically named American Stewards to Ricketts’ office was wide open, with Gage, who’s now the executive director of the Nebraska Republican Party, acting as a liaison between the anti-environment group and the governor. Within weeks of Biden floating 30×30 as a national goal, writes HuffPost, American Stewards began coordinating with Gage. Those efforts culminated in a June 2021 executive order that Ricketts signed. The order could only be described as industry-friendly—and it’s a document that, according to HuffPost, “has Byfield’s fingerprints all over it.”

Meanwhile, Ricketts’ administration was playing dumb. When contacted by The Daily Beast just prior to the executive order signing, the governor’s office “pretended it had little if any knowledge of the right-wing group.”

Which brings us to Earth Day 2022. American Stewards is sponsoring a STOP 30×30 Summit in nowhere else but Lincoln, Nebraska, to mark the holiday. Byfield has described it as “the most important conference” her group has ever organized, while HuffPost calls it a “who’s who of land transfer proponents, climate change deniers, conservation foes and sympathizers of anti-government extremists.” In other words, the Republican Party in a nutshell.

Predictably, Ricketts is hosting the event and will welcome such luminaries as Byfield, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, and other “leading figures” of the anti-30×30 movement. It promises to be the best event that dark Koch money can buy. 

American Stewards is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The majority of its revenue comes from donations, major gifts, and income from trainings, speaking fees and consulting contracts with local governments. Between 2015 and 2019, Kane County, Utah, paid the organization $483,000 for land-use consulting and legal services, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. Over that same five-year period, Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust, two groups that received millions from the fossil fuel moguls Charles and David Koch and have funneled huge amounts of dark money to climate change denial and other conservative causes, gave American Stewards at least $170,000, according to the Center for Media and Democracy.

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Hey, it looks like maybe there will be some consequences for one of the big-time Republican donors who helped push the party’s hoaxes about supposed “election fraud” when Republicans didn’t win a presidential election and started having an absolute fascist cow about it.

And by “maybe,” I mean probably not, and by “consequences,” I mean he’ll probably never see the inside of an actual Texas courtroom ever because the Texas courts would rather burn their own buildings down than abide a rich conservative guy having to answer for a crime. But at least we can enjoy Steven Hotze getting his name in the newspapers for helping to fund a crackpot Republican vigilante who ran an air conditioner repairman off the road and held him at gunpoint, believing the repairman to be involved in some weirdly premised “election fraud” scheme that existed only as a propaganda campaign in the heads of those shouting it.

The Texas Tribune reports that Texas Republican “megadonor” Steven Hotze was on Wednesday indicted on two felony counts for his role in that armed assault. Hotze wasn’t at the scene, but the man who held the repairman at gunpoint so that his truck could be searched was one of the supposed investigators Hotze was paying to find supposed fraud. And while Hotze’s lawyer is performatively outraged that Hotze would face charges over that, Hotze wasn’t just a little involved.

Hotze paid investigator/gunman Mark Aguirre over a quarter of a million dollars, and the vast majority of that was paid to Aguirre the day after the assault.

Anyway, the guy is a far-right activist, he’s been active in Texas Republican politics for approximately forever, he’s able to shell out a truly bizarre amount of money even for an alleged physician—who the hell throws down a quarter-million bucks for some random gun-toting ex-cop to go on a violent “fraud hunt” based on nothing but internet conspiracy claims?—and now he and his ally Ken Paxton are both qualified to wear “currently indicted for criminal acts but still quite welcome in all Republican circles” commemorative t-shirts. But now he’ll have to spend money on a few more lawyers as well, which is money that can’t go toward getting anyone else in Texas nearly gunned down over a hoax. It’s the small things that count.

The idea that you can pay someone a quarter of a million dollars to “find” election fraud and the guy you’re paying follows that order by running a random vehicle off the road in the dead of night and holding a man at gunpoint in order to search his work truck for “ballots” is extremely not good, and yeah, it’s pretty clear why a grand jury thought Hotze’s extremely lavish funding of the scheme counts as being involved with the crime. There’s a deeper story here somewhere, and if Hotze wants to argue that he was conned by a violent weirdo he’s going to have to have a better explanation for why he paid $211,000 of the $266,000 provided the day after the attack took place.

Because that doesn’t look like an “investigation,” that looks like a bounty being paid out for doing “something” publicly to keep the election fraud hoax alive—even if the “something” meant pinning that hoax on random and innocent people.

RELATED STORIES:

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In Alabama, Lowndes County’s wastewater system is investigating discrimination. According to NBC News, residents in the county pay for sewage to flow into lagoons because they lack advanced centralized treatment facilities that are common in larger cities. But pumping the flow into lagoons isn’t even an option for some taxpayers. In some neighborhoods, the lack of a functioning sewage system has caused sewage to flow into yards.

“It really smells. It smells so bad,” said Jerry Dean Smith a resident of the county. “You got waste running in people’s yards, neighbors’ yards, running into places. It backs up into the majority of these neighbors’ homes. It backs up into their bathroom and on their floors. And the waste, I mean pure waste, comes through.”

According to NBC News, while the plumbing systems in some of the houses in Smith’s neighborhood are tied to the county system, they aren’t working properly, or the connections have failed entirely.

“It’s not necessary for this to be going on in 2022,” Smith said. “It just shouldn’t be in the United States. It shouldn’t be. This is the wealthiest country. A sewage system should be a right.”

Many are blaming racism for the lack of a centralized sewage system since the county is predominantly Black and has a poverty rate of 22%, about double the national average. According to NBC News, at least 40% of the county’s homes have inadequate or no sewage systems, resulting in residents having to carry PVC pipes with waste from their homes into open holes in the ground, a method known as “straight piping.”

Following complaints, the Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation in November to assess whether the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Lowndes County Health Department are operating in a manner that discriminates against Black residents.

“I think it is happening because the county is majority Black,” said Catherine Coleman Flowers, an environmental activist who grew up in the county. “We’re rural, and we may not speak standard English all the time, so people may think that we’re not smart. But we’re smart enough to know when we’re being screwed.” Flowers noted that she is also concerned that government officials can give penalties and place liens on homes that don’t have proper septic systems, even if people can’t afford them.

The investigation stems from evidence of the state and local departments’ inability to deliver adequate services. The Department of Justice is examining whether the state and local departments are blocking Black peoples’ access to adequate sanitation systems on purpose.

“We will conduct a fair and thorough investigation of these environmental justice concerns and their impact on the health, life and safety of people across Lowndes county, Alabama,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division, after launching the investigation.

By blocking their sanitation systems, not only are the residents disadvantaged in terms of infrastructure, but their health is at risk since the chance of parasitic infections increases.

According to The Guardian, a 2017 study conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine found that hookworm was thriving in Lowndes county. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hookworm is an intestinal parasite that was once widespread in North America but had not been detected in the U.S. since the 1980s.  The study found that one of every three adults has tested positive for hookworms.

“Sanitation is a basic human need,” Clarke said. “Bold action is needed to ensure that no one in this country is unjustifiably subjected to illness or harm resulting from inadequate access to safe sewage services.”

But lack of septic tanks and sewage are not the only issues rural Alabama faces. According to CBS News, in much of rural Alabama, there is a water crisis due to a lack of running water, indoor plumbing, and sanitation. Most of the cases were in the same county, Lowndes.

“When there is a lot of rain, you cannot flush the toilet,” Perman Hardy, who also lives in Lowndes County, told CBS News. Hardy noted that if he were to flush the toilet, the sewage would be on his home’s floor.

To address similar cases, the Biden administration has requested $1.4 million from Congress to open an environmental justice office within the Justice Department.

According to data collected by state agencies, there were more than 1,200 sewage spills across Alabama in 2016 alone. The number has been expected to increase in recent years. Click here to see a map of sewage overflow in the state.

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Ahead of President Biden signing an executive order to protect old-growth and mature forests, dozens of environmental groups sent a letter to the president affirming their support of the measure as a matter of leading by example as the U.S. looks to continue mitigating climate change. “Protecting mature forests and large trees on federal forestlands would set an important, highly visible example for other major forest-holding nations to follow as they address climate change threats. But it would also help stem the biodiversity crisis and secure for Americans the ecosystem benefits most valued from our public forests,” the letter noted.

The letter affirmed the president’s ability to make an executive order with an impact that could reverberate far beyond any incoming administration or subsequent attempts to dismantle such an act. Speaking with Center for Biological Diversity Public Lands Program Director Randi Spivak yesterday, Spivak pointed to the fact that many executive orders have stood the test of time because of what they’ve inspired. “If it directs the agencies to undertake a process and rule-making, rule-makings can be very, very durable,” Spivak said. “An administrative rule coming out of this administration, which is what I hope this executive order leads to, actually can be quite durable and stand the test of time.”

This order in particular addresses some of the concerns I had ahead of its release. The Biden administration has vowed to enact what the White House is calling “climate-smart stewardship” policies following a comprehensive inventory of old-growth and mature forests, the data on which will eventually be publicly available. This stewardship includes partnerships between the Interior Department, Agriculture Department, and “other federal agencies, states, Tribal Nations, and any interested private landowners to better coordinate conservation and wildfire risk reduction efforts”—which, of course, could address some of the bizarre complaints the anti-30×30 crowd may have about land use. Much of the information gleaned from the forest inventory will also be used for sustainable job opportunities and industries that further communities rather than forcing them to be reliant on more damaging industries like logging.

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

Climate Advisers CEO Nigel Purvis, who once worked in the State Department and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, hailed the executive order as a clear sign that President Biden was honoring campaign commitments. “Today’s pledge to mount a government-wide effort is encouraging. The President is saying all the right things; however, success will depend on delivering real action,” Purvis said in a statement. The order is an ambitious one and does extend to forests across the world. According to a White House fact sheet, the State Department will work with other agencies to not only combat global deforestation, but to center Indigenous and local communities in the fight to conserve and restore forests.

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Friday, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene testified in federal court challenging her eligibility for reelection in the 14th district based on comments she made before and after the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

The challenge was filed with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger by five voters represented by Free Speech for People, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 2010 offering legal assistance with a focus on election and constitutional issues.

The ruling reads that Greene “voluntarily aided and engaged in an insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power, disqualifying her from serving as a Member of Congress under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”

During his opening comments, Ron Fein, the attorney for the group of challengers, Free Speech for the People, called the hearing “solemn,” adding that the “most powerful witness against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s candidacy, in establishing she crossed a line, is Greene herself.”

RELATED STORY: Judge allows challenge by Georgia voters to block Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from the ballot

Although James Bopp Jr., Greene’s attorney, called the attack on Jan. 6 “despicable,” he also noted that no one involved had explicitly been charged with insurrection. He framed the hearing as a political move to silence Georgia voters.

“Our democracy is at stake. It should not be; it should be the voters, not government employees, public officials, judges, and lawyers who decide our elections,” Bopp said. “Voters have a right to vote for the candidate of their choice unless there was very compelling legal—not rhetorical—justification for that.”

Administrative Judge Charles Beaudrot oversaw Greene’s hearing.

Greene answered under oath Friday that she doesn’t “support violence of any kind” and asserted that her “words never mean anything for violence.”

Greene, 47, has denied being involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol. No evidence from Congress, the Jan. 6 congressional committee, or law enforcement has linked her to the attack.

On Jan. 5, 2021, Greene appeared on Newsmax for a Facebook Watch interview. During that show, the day before Congress met in a joint session to formally count the electoral college votes, Greene said, “This is our 1776 moment,” a reference to the American Revolution that has become synonymous with “freedom” for far-right extremists.

Greene claimed she had never heard anyone use “1776” in terms of violence.

At Friday’s hearing, there was a lot of eye-rolling by Greene and a lot of “I don’t recall,” and “I don’t remember,” but Greene did admit to believing that President Biden lost the election to former President Trump.

“We saw a tremendous amount of voter fraud,” Greene said.

When Andrew Celli, one of the voters’ attorneys, asked Greene whether it was her “personal opinion” and “wish that Congress not certify Joe Biden,” Greene answered, “No, that’s not accurate.”

When Celli questioned Greene about whether she’d ever called Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a “traitor,” Greene answered, “I don’t recall saying all of this.” Greene added that she didn’t know the Jan. 6 mob was targeting Pelosi.

“I’ve seen that on the news, but I don’t know for sure. I haven’t investigated all that,” Greene said.

Greene initially declined to respond to several of Celli’s questions regarding an article from CNN, accusing the outlet of taking her words out of context.

“Here’s the article we wrote last year. It’s just a quotes from ***her own*** videos we saved before she deleted them,” CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski tweeted.

When asked about comments she’s made comparing the American Revolution in 1776 with Jan. 6, Greene said she simply meant having “the courage to reject” the results. She denied she’d meant her comments as a code for violence on Jan. 6.

Greene also insisted that she’d “heard of the Proud Boys” but “didn’t know much about them or what they do.”

When shown a video of herself saying, “We can’t allow this, just let it go. To just transfer power peacefully, like Joe Biden wants, and allow him to become our president because he did not win this election,” Greene alleged that the videos were “chopped,” “cut,” and “spliced.”

At one point, Celli pointed out that one of Greene’s comments was eerily similar to a line from the film Independence Day—when actor Bill Pullman says, “We will not go quietly into the night!”—as code for 1776 and violent insurrection.

In describing the events of Jan. 6., Greene was pointed in saying that her initial thought after learning there was violence that day was that it must have been from “BLM [Black Lives Matter] or antifa.”

She’d said something similar early on in her testimony when asked about protests in Washington, D.C., that “the only violence” she “ever saw was Antifa and BLM riots.” And later referred to the insurrectionists as “patriots.”

“I only believe in peaceful demonstration,” Greene said. “I do not support violence.”

Following Friday’s hearing, the Georgia judge will outline the facts of the case and make a recommendation to Raffensperger, who will make the final ruling on whether Greene will appear on the ballot this November.

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The closer we get to the midterm elections, the more Republicans fall in love with hysterics. Sure, the Republican Party has long relied on stirring hate and outrage to rile up their fanbase, but these last few months feel like a special effort. After all, conservatives know they’ve failed to lead during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and they know Donald Trump’s presidency has been nothing but an international embarrassment. If conservatives like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis think they stand a chance at becoming president, for example, they’re likely quite motivated to attack easy targets as much as possible.

We’ve seen DeSantis (among others) sign heinous legislation into law, targeting rights from reproductive health to gender-affirming health care to (ahem) saying gay in the classroom. We’ve seen conservatives call for book bans if not book burnings. Critical race theory (CRT) has become an absolute rallying cry for the right, though I’m willing to bet plenty of folks on all sides of the political aisle couldn’t give the correct definition of the concept if they tried. This is perhaps how we’ve gotten to a point where examples from math textbooks are being banned from public school classrooms for references to CRT and checks notes lessons in empathy.

Where is this happening? If you guessed Florida, you guessed right.

RELATED: School districts in blue states aren’t safe from hysteria—just look at what’s happening in Maryland

We now have a few examples of examples from math textbooks that allegedly include references to CRT and social-emotional learning (SEL), as reported by CNN. Social-emotional learning, as some background, helps students learn how to solve problems and make decisions while managing their emotions and using empathy. Sadly, it’s easy to see why conservatives would want to stomp this sort of learning out—imagine if their minions developed a hint of empathy for the marginalized people they love to hate? Suddenly they’d have to work a lot harder to get votes. 

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

In a more advanced application, social-emotional learning is valuable for adults, too, when it comes to us understanding how and why we engage with others (as well as ourselves) in various situations at home, work, or with friends. For white people like myself, for example, this could mean an opportunity to identify and take accountability for microaggressions or racial bias. For able-bodied people like myself, it could mean challenging ableism when it comes to, say, deciding who gets a work opportunity or what logistics go into planning a community event. 

Again, these skills sound basic on the surface, but plenty of people lack them for a number of reasons. Kids learning this sort of stuff in school is absolutely not a bad thing. 

The Florida Department of Education shared four pages as examples, but The New York Times gained access to more than 20 texts as well. Surprising absolutely no one, the agency has not been specific in what counts as a violation of policy versus an outright ban, so it’s unclear what specifically caused which issue in the pages the Times acquired. 

One example shared by the Times includes a word problem where, in addition to the obvious math, students are able to learn how to support a friend who is scared about crossing a bridge in the jungle. Students learn that they can help the hypothetical friend by building up their confidence and supporting them, which is probably why conservatives are upset about it.

“We don’t want things like math to have, you know, some of these other concepts introduced,” DeSantis told reporters at a press conference on Monday, April 18. “It’s not been proven to be effective, and quite frankly, it takes our eye off the ball.”

Ah, yes, because nothing distracts from learning like … developing basic social skills, compassion, and real-world problem-solving. Guess kids should go back to copying multiplication tables on the blackboard and call it a day?

If it gets conservative votes, that’s probably more than fine with them, which is why we have to keep up the fight to do and be better for youth.

Who is ready for a Banned Book Club here at Daily Kos?

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Republican-controlled state after Republican-controlled state is copying the Texas vigilante abortion ban, and if (when) the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, most or all abortions will be banned in 26 states. Now Democrats have a state to look to as a model: Connecticut.

The Connecticut state House has passed a bill that should have Democratic lawmakers in states like California, Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and more opening their eyes, asking for a copy, and introducing it in their states as soon as possible. HB 5414 doesn’t just ensure that people will have access to abortion in Connecticut, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern reports. Once signed into law, it will protect them from the efforts of Republicans in other states to come after them for it.

RELATED STORY: Maryland lawmakers override Republican governor’s veto to expand abortion access

The Connecticut bill would bar state courts from enforcing out-of-state penalties against people who’ve obeyed Connecticut abortion laws. But more than that, it allows people who are sued in other states for abortions they aided or abetted in Connecticut to counter-sue. Someone tries to use Texas SB 8 or the Missouri plan to copy the Texas enforcement mechanism to prevent people from leaving the state for an abortion against a Connecticut medical provider? Boom, the Connecticut provider can sue in Connecticut for damages and attorneys’ fees.

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But it’s not just providers in Connecticut, Stern explains. “This provision applies with equal force to any individual who ‘abets’ an abortion, like a mother who takes her daughter to Connecticut to terminate a pregnancy. The new crop of vigilante laws would subject that mother to private lawsuits. Under HB 5414, she could countersue in Connecticut court. If she prevails, she can collect damages and attorneys’ fees—not only the fees spent defending herself in her home state, but also the fees spent bringing suit in Connecticut.”

And no Connecticut state agency could participate in the enforcement of out-of-state abortion bans—not with investigations or subpoenas or extraditions.

It’s brilliant, and every state in which Democrats have both the governor and the state legislature, or in which a Democratic state legislature can override a Republican governor’s veto, should make it law. Unfortunately, people who cannot afford to travel to other states will still be deeply harmed by vigilante bans. But the Missouri bill trying to block people from leaving the state for abortions was squarely aimed at neighboring Illinois. It only makes sense for Illinois to take up a version of HB 5414. Idaho passed a copy of SB 8, increasing the amount vigilantes could pursue from the $10,000 of the Texas law to $20,000. Idaho’s neighbors, Oregon and Washington, should be in a race to see which can pass a Connecticut-style law first. Few of Texas’s neighbors are likely to do anything but pass their own punitive abortion bans, but New Mexico has possibilities. Colorado, just through the Oklahoma panhandle from Texas, recently put the rights of Roe v. Wade into state law. Why not take the next step?

Creating abortion sanctuary states won’t reach everyone—far from it, in an economy in which paying just the cost of an abortion and getting a single day off work is a hardship for many. But Democrats need to have strategies to combat Republican efforts to extend their bans into states where abortion is legal. Connecticut’s HB 5414 is an important tool in that fight.

RELATED STORIES:

The forced birthers who’ve taken over the Supreme Court, Republican Party are not ‘pro-life’

Missouri Republican bill would block the option of leaving the state for an abortion

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Just when you think Republicans can’t get any crueler, they manage to outdo themselves. Our latest example comes out of Michigan, where state Sen. Tom Barrett, who is in the running for a seat serving the 7th Congressional District, reportedly sent disturbing, inaccurate texts suggesting people’s children’s “gender reassignment surgery” has been “booked,” as reported by the Michigan Advance. 

 “CONFIRMED,” the texts read, according to a screenshot that has since gone viral on Twitter. “Your child’s gender reassignment surgery has been booked.” The text goes on to say, “If you have any issues with this operation, please view the objectives of Biden’s National Transgender Strategy here.” There’s also a link to a Republican fundraising site because of course there is. That page reads: “STOP BIDEN FROM DOING THIS TO OUR KIDS!”

Newsflash: Biden isn’t “booking” anyone for surgeries—not even safe, age-appropriate, gender-affirming ones. 

RELATED: Florida releases examples of banned math textbooks that include lessons in … empathy?

“President Biden is forcing 5-year-olds to learn about gender reassignment surgeries, gender identities, and other radical ideas,” the fundraising page reads in part. “American needs to step up TODAY and stop this sick and twisted ideology from poisoning our children. If we fail, our children are doomed.”

“Democrats are HELLBENT on destroying our faith,” further texts reportedly read. “Removing God from the center of our nation, and pushing transgender ideology on young children.”

Vivian Topping, director of advocacy and civic engagement at the Equality Federation, and Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights

Obviously, there’s a lot wrong here. First of all, safe, gender-affirming health care is life-saving health care. We know this. We also know children are not waltzing into operating rooms and demanding surgeries; gender-affirming health care can be as simple and non-intrusive as having a trusted medical professional support a young person’s pronoun use or gender presentation, for example. In many states, youth under 16 can’t access certain care, like hormonal therapies, as it is. And while conservatives love to stir misinformation about some treatments, like puberty blockers, those decisions are personal medical calls that should be made between the person and their physician, not any of us. 

Now, about the texts. I have sincere concern that messages like these are going to result in a youth being harmed, if not killed. If someone is actually trans, they could inadvertently be outed and face serious abuse, violence, or become homeless. They could be sent to conversion therapy, an archaic, heinous medical practice that has not yet been banned in the entire nation. This sort of messaging can also harm cisgender youth, too, especially if they are remotely non-gender-conforming in the way they present or dress themselves or the sort of activities they enjoy. 

The language and framing also feed into the Republican talking point about grooming and groomers—imagine how many parents will get a text like that and immediately interrogate the young people in their home to figure out if a neighbor, teacher, or coach “booked” this surgery or talked their adolescent into it? Again, that’s not how any of this works. But if you’re intentionally fanning the fire, you’re going to get some explosions.

And that could cost vulnerable youth their lives. 

As of now, Barrett is serving his second term in the Michigan State Senate. Previously, he served two terms in the state’s House of Representatives. He’s now campaigning for the Republican nomination to represent Michigan’s 7th in the House. That primary takes place on Aug. 2 and the general election is held on Nov. 8, where the winner of the Republican primary will be up against Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin. 

You can check out footage from Barrett where he again waxes hysteria about small businesses closing because Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tried her best to save lives during the pandemic.