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A supervising corrections officer was convicted of allowing white supremacists to attack two Black pretrial detainees and ordering another Black detainee to be stretched in restraints for criticizing how the officer ran the detention center. Matthew Ware, 53, was convicted of “willfully depriving two pretrial detainees of their right to be free from a corrections officer’s deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm and of willfully depriving a third pretrial detainee of the right to be free from a corrections officer’s use of excessive force,” according to a Department of Justice news release published on Friday. He was charged in relation to his role at the Kay County Detention Center (KCDC) in Newkirk, Oklahoma. 

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in the news release that Ware, a “high-ranking corrections official had a duty to ensure that the civil rights of pretrial detainees in his custody were not violated.” 

RELATED STORY: West Virginia inmate alleges correctional officers set him up for violent, eye-gouging attack

“The defendant abused his power and authority by ordering subordinate corrections officers to violate the constitutional rights of several pretrial detainees,” Clarke added.

Justice Department officials continued in the release:

The evidence and testimony revealed that, on May 18, 2017, while Ware served as the Lieutenant of the KCDC, he ordered lower-ranking corrections officers to move two Black pretrial detainees, D’Angelo Wilson and Marcus Miller, to a cell row housing white supremacist inmates whom Ware knew posed a danger to Wilson and Miller. Later that same day, Ware gave lower-ranking officers a second order: to unlock the jail cells of Wilson and Miller, and those other white supremacist inmates at the same time the following morning. When Ware’s orders were followed, the white supremacist inmates attacked Wilson and Miller, resulting in physical injury to both, including a facial laceration to Wilson that required seven stitches to close.

The evidence and testimony also revealed that, on Jan. 31, 2018, while Ware served as the Acting Captain of the KCDC, he ordered lower-ranking corrections officer to restrain another pretrial detainee, Christopher Davis, in a stretched-out position — with Davis’ left wrist restrained to the far-left side of the bench and his right wrist restrained to the far-right side of the bench — in retaliation for Davis sending Ware a note that criticized how Ware ran the KCDC. Davis was left restrained in this position for 90 minutes, resulting in physical injury.

Ware faces 10 years in prison, with three of them on supervised release and up to $250,000 in fines for each violation. His sentencing is expected to happen about 90 days from his conviction, according to the Department of Justice.

Special Agent in Charge Ed Gray of the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office said in the news release that Ware’s conviction is “a prompt reminder that no one is above the law.”

“If we don’t hold our very own law enforcement officials accountable, those sworn to protect and serve, what hope will the American people have,” Gray asked.

The Kay County Detention Center has long been connected to accusations of misconduct. Stephanie Wright, a former employee at the detention center filed a federal lawsuit claiming the center retaliated against her with termination because she reported sexual harassment and inmate abuse, the local news station KFOR reported in 2020. Wright’s attorney, Mark Hammons, told the news station his client had been working at the jail since 2011 when in 2017 a female officer told her she was being sexually harassed. Wright said she reported the allegation to her boss and nothing was done. She said in the suit KFOR obtained that KCDC Director Don Jones said Wright’s behavior was “unbecoming.” Wright said in the suit that months later she learned an inmate was confined to a padded cell with no source of water, a bed, or bathroom and that another inmate was handcuffed and made to hold his arms extended out for about one hour.

Wright reported her experiences to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the district attorney’s office, Hammons told KFOR.

“When the government does something wrong and someone points the finger and says, ‘you can’t do that,’ that’s essential to our checks and balances otherwise the government runs wild and they do whatever they want to do,” Hammons said.

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Congressional Democrats had apparently decided to do zip in the face of Republican attacks that they are nothing but a den of pedophiles “grooming” children for sexual abuse.

After GOP representative and MAGA enthusiast Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called Democrats the “party of pedophiles,” a member of the House Democratic leadership offered that the best response was effectively no response.

“I don’t even really pay attention to anything she says because she has nothing rational to say,” Rep. Jeffries told VICE News reporter Cameron Joseph last week. “We’re focused right now on getting things done for everyday Americans: lowering costs, addressing gas prices, and inflation. They can continue to peddle lies and conspiracy theories,” Jeffries added.

It’s kitchen table issues, stupid. That has been the Democratic mantra for years, and it worked spectacularly in 2018 when Donald Trump was a one-man wrecking ball tearing down the GOP on a daily basis from within the White House. Trump was a walking, talking human advertisement for why Americans should reevaluate their political priorities and general sense of urgency.

Fortunately, Trump remains a factor today, but his toxicity isn’t quite as omnipresent for Americans as it was when he occupied the Oval Office. That means Democrats don’t have the luxury now of focusing exclusively on kitchen table issues while Trump single-handedly dooms Republicans at the polls the way he did in 2018. Instead, Democrats must accomplish two things at once: telling people what they stand for while also indicting the GOP.

That’s where Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow’s impassioned rebuttal of GOP smears that she is grooming and sexualizing kindergartners comes in. A Republican colleague, Sen. Lana Theis, made the accusation in a fundraising email after McMorrow and two other Democrats walked out of an invocation Theis delivered on the Senate floor in which she claimed children were “under attack” from “forces.”

To put it mildly, McMorrow was on fire when she delivered a response that was anything but a bland recitation of Democratic work on pocketbook issues.

McMorrow stated who she was and what she stood for:

“I am a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom. I want my daughter to know that she is loved, supported, and seen for whoever she becomes. I want her to be curious, empathetic, and kind. … I want every child in this state to feel seen, heard, and supported, not marginalized and targeted because they are not straight white and Christian.

She named the trick Republicans are trying to play on voters:

People who are different are not the reason that our roads are in bad shape after decades of disinvestment or that health care costs are too high or that teachers are leaving the profession. … We cannot let hateful people tell you otherwise to scapegoat and deflect from the fact that they are not doing anything to fix the real issues that impact people’s lives.

She enlisted voters in her righteous cause:

Each and every single one of us bears responsibility for writing the next chapter of history. Each and every single one of us decides what happens next and how we respond to history and the world around us. … And I know that hate will only win, if people like me stand by, let it happen.

The nearly five-minute speech certainly qualifies as textbook, but frankly, it was a little piece of genius, which is why the YouTube video of it currently has more than 13.7 million views.

Sen. McMorrow told The Washington Post that the widespread interest in her speech “sends a really clear message” that Democrats have to “stand up and we can’t be afraid of going in on social issues.”

“We have to talk about hate and identify it and say it’s ugly and disgusting and what it means as a deflection of other issues,” she added.

Amen.

Congressional Democrats absolutely must walk and chew gum this election season: highlighting their successes while calling out the morally bankrupt duplicity of Republicans—who have no plan whatsoever to help Americans weather inflation along with the overall uncertainty of the times in which we live. Doing both in tandem is not only politically smart, it’s the right thing to do, and voters will reward Democrats who follow McMorrow’s lead.

On The Brief this week, messaging expert and Way to Win co-founder Jenifer Fernandez Ancona broke down why Mallory’s rebuttal was so effective. Check it out!

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While conservatives try to take away rights and basic dignities from groups they aren’t part of and (generally) know nothing about, nonprofits are out here doing important work and actually serving at-risk populations. In this case, The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ suicide prevention nonprofit, continues to release valuable data that offers insight into the lives and mental health states of extremely marginalized youth.

The latest report, issued on Tuesday, April 19, looks at respondents from more than 3,500 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) youth between the ages of 13 and 24 with a focus on the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth. As my colleague Aysha Qamar continues to cover, we know AAPI folks have faced ongoing violence and oppression in recent months, with hate crimes and horrific violence targeting even elder communities.

According to the Trevor Project’s data, as highlighted by LGBTQ+ outlet them, young AAPI people are suffering too. For example, 50% of trans AAPI respondents said they had seriously considered suicide in the past year. Just under 50% of Pacific islander youth said the same, as did 47% of Korean American youths and 41% of Filipino American youths.

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

According to the report, more than half of AAPI youth experienced discrimination based on race in the last year. Respondents who said they experienced discrimination based on immigration status or race had a higher rate of suicide attempts in the last year when compared to those who did not, according to the data.

AAPI LGBTQ+ respondents were less likely to be out to their parents about their sexual orientation; just over 40% of respondents said they were not out to at least one of their parents, while just under 30% of the general LGBTQ+ respondent population said the same. In terms of gender identity, 17% of general trans youth respondents said they were out to the most significant people in their lives, while trans AAPI respondents said the same at a lower rate, coming in at 13%.

Nearly three-quarters of AAPI respondents reported having high levels of social support, however, which is certainly something to celebrate. Higher levels of social support correlated with lower risk for suicide—there’s still room for improvement here, though, with just 15% of trans AAPI youth saying they have high levels of support from family, and just 20% of AAPI LGBTQ+ youth say the same.

Interestingly, respondents who said their cultural identity was integral to their self-concept were less likely to report attempting suicide in the last year, coming in at 12%. Respondents who said their cultural identity wasn’t important, however, came in at just under one-quarter. 

In an interview with NBC News, Korean American trans activist Pauline Park told the outlet that most social services simply aren’t targeted at LGBTQ AAPI youth—and that needs to change. “We need more providers who speak languages of queer AAPIs,” they added. “Whose first language may not be English.”

The biggest takeaway? All youth deserve inclusive, appropriate, and culturally competent resources and support for mental health, and that includes not only the LGBTQ+ community at large but every single person who lives with multiple marginalized identities. 

Sign the petition: Demand the Senate pass the Equality Act and protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination.

If you or someone you know is in need of mental health support, don’t hesitate to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. 

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Utah Republicans may be about to change their official position on abortion to be extra punitive. Their official party platform currently reads, “We strongly oppose abortion, except to preserve the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest,” but at their state party convention, Utah Republicans will consider a measure to take out the rape, incest, and life of the mother exceptions in favor of, “and encourage adoption,” The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

Bob McEntee, the delegate who is proposing the change, offered up a stream of comments that strongly suggest he has never met a woman, let alone had a conversation with one.

RELATED STORY: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs 15-week abortion ban into law without exceptions for rape or incest

“I want people to understand that there’s a long line of people that want to adopt a baby. However hard it might be if they get through that pregnancy and give that child up for adoption, I think that would be a better solution,” McEntee said.

”However hard it might be,” he said of pregnancy and childbirth, which kill people in this country every single day. Utah’s pregnancy-related mortality ratio was 25.6 per 100,000 live births in 2019.

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

Of course, most pregnant women don’t die. But they all—every single one—experience a major and painful medical event. They all experience limitations on daily life for months at a stretch. Many find their ability to do their jobs and therefore pay their bills seriously compromised. And that’s not taking into account the major traumas of victims of rape or incest who Bob McEntee thinks should be required to live every day with pregnancies criminally forced on them. Or people who Bob McEntee thinks should be required to live every day with pregnancies that actively and predictably endanger their lives.

Bob McEntee doesn’t want to talk about any of that, though.

“It’s kind of ugly language. We don’t need to talk about rape or incest. That almost sounded like a permission slip to go get an abortion if this happens. We want to put in people’s minds adoption,” McEntee said.

It’s kind of ugly language? Gosh, imagine dealing with the ugly reality. McEntee apparently doesn’t expect he’ll have to deal with that reality, though, whereas the language is something he might just be able to ban from his life.

The Utah Republican platform in its current state, with the ugly language exceptions, reflects that of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which also has those exceptions. McEntee disapproves.

“I think the LDS Church has given kind of light value to the life of an unborn baby in this case, even though it could be distressing to the mother. We’re not asking lawmakers to outlaw abortion because of rape or incest. We just want to remind people not to forget about adoption as an alternative,” he told the Tribune.

Oh. You’re trying to put it in the official platform of the party that controls state government, but you’re not asking for abortion to be outlawed in those cases. While your party has outlawed it even in cases of rape or incest in state after state in recent months. This move to change the official Utah Republican platform is, what, entirely rhetorical? Despite the backdrop of Republican state after Republican state taking extremely concrete action on exactly this issue?

A 15-week abortion ban in Florida without exceptions for rape or incest. A ban in Oklahoma that not only doesn’t include rape or incest exceptions but threatens medical providers with jail. The six-week ban in Texas with copycats in Idaho, Missouri, and more. In this context, a state Republican Party eliminating exceptions from its platform is not just some reminder about adoption. (Which, news flash, everyone knows is an option. They don’t need the reminder.)

The degree of flippant waving-off of the reality of pregnancy, rape, and incest is staggering. Every single word out of this man’s mouth oozes disregard for women’s lives. But this is the mainstream Republican Party these days—the range of attitudes toward women’s bodily autonomy ranges from dismissive to actively hostile.

RELATED STORIES:

Oklahoma governor signs bill banning abortions, threatens providers with prison time and fines

Legendary reproductive justice activist advises women to start talking openly about abortion

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Organizations that advocate for LGBTQ migrant are celebrating the news that the Biden administration is set to end use of Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum policy by May 23. Title 42 is a purported public health order that’s used the novel coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to block migrants from their U.S. asylum rights.

Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project Co-director Oluchi Omeoga called the order “a racist and harmful policy,” and called the administration’s decision “a right step for many asylum seekers,” the Los Angeles Blade reports. Immigration Equality Executive Director Aaron Morris told the outlet that “[i]t’s about time,” calling the policy “the brainchild of Stephen Miller long before COVID-19 even existed.” 

That last part’s an important, and all too often forgotten, fact. A then-official with the previous administration “said the ideas about invoking public health and other emergency powers had been on a ‘wish list’ of about 50 ideas to curtail immigration that Mr. Miller crafted within the first six months of the administration,” The New York Times reported nearly two years ago.

RELATED STORY: Border state advocates say they’re ready to welcome asylum-seekers following Title 42 announcement

The New York Times report, originally published in May 2020 and noted here at Daily Kos, detailed how Miller had been itching for a public health crisis as a pretext to block migrants at the southern border, throwing everything from a flu outbreak within border facilities to the so-called migrant caravan against the wall to see what would stick.

But Miller’s suggestions repeatedly failed to get support within the insurrectionist administration, reportedly even stooping to see how he could use the tragic deaths of migrant children in U.S. custody to his advantage (it must also be noted that U.S. border officials repeatedly refused to offer detained migrants flu shots even after these preventable deaths).

“That changed with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic,” The Times reported. It notes that Miller’s scheming was “in large part repurposed from old draft executive orders and policy discussions.” Miller had already decided that he would publicly use so-called health concerns as his excuse to deport vulnerable people back to danger. He just needed the virus. Title 42, implemented under pressure by the insurrectionist White House and against the wishes of public health experts, has now been in place since March 20, 2020.

The farcical nature and history of this policy are worth remembering as some Democrats are, disappointingly, giving in to bad-faith Republican attacks over the Biden administration’s decision to end the use of this order. Once again, ending this policy’s use simply returns us to how the asylum system worked on the day before March 20, 2020. Axios also claimed the White House itself was suddenly rethinking the May 23 date, which was rebutted by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday.

Responding to the numerous reports and statements, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) said there’s “no defense for the continuation of Title 42 expulsions,” noting the consistent opposition from public health experts.

“Backpedaling the rescission of Title 42 makes the Biden administration further complicit with a racist policy that was designed as an attack on the very foundations of refugee protection policy,” said Executive Director Mary Meg McCarthy. “Once again, we call on the Biden administration and members of Congress to resume asylum processing at the border. The United States has the obligation, capacity and resources to reopen ports of entry to people seeking protection.”

“Democrats have a choice,” said America’s Voice Executive Director Frank Sharry. “They can stand for an America that recognizes immigrants and refugees as foundational to the American experiment, defends a welcoming tradition that is critical to the American future, and works to build an immigration system that integrates order and justice.” Or, they can cede to the GOP, “and let the vacuum they create be filled by those intent on advancing their countermajoritarian project,” he continued.

RELATED STORIES: GOP states waste no time suing over Biden admin’s termination of anti-asylum Title 42 policy

Testimony confirms Title 42 was never about public health, it was about deporting asylum-seekers

Stephen Miller had been itching for a health crisis to usher in more of his agenda, report says

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While triggering outrage on some social media accounts, video footage of a sheriff’s deputy tackling a Black autistic teen to the floor of a Target store in upstate New York seems to have had a sadly different effect on others. Many of those who responded to a news release posted on Facebook by the office of Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo defended the unidentified sheriff deputy seen in the footage. “Parents teach your children to respect authority!” Facebook user Teresa Hammond commented.

“I’m not a cop, but I take that very seriously as well. Keep after them, Sheriff Zurlo!” local resident Loren Jenks wrote.

It’s almost as if they hadn’t seen the video—and to their credit, the sheriff’s office didn’t include the footage in its post. But for anyone who has seen the video, it’s difficult to miss that the teen being physically targeted on Monday isn’t the one who ended up being charged—it was his sister instead. It begs the question: What reason did the deputy have to put his hands on the child to begin with? That question was not answered in Zurlo’s release.

RELATED STORY: ‘They are not boys, they’re men’: Syracuse cops face intense scrutiny for encounter with 8-year-old

According to the sheriff’s office, deputies were responding to a disturbance call in Clifton Park, a city about 165 miles north of Manhattan that’s about 85% white and 3% Black.

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

The sheriff’s office release focused entirely on the sister of the teen who was brought to the ground. She can be seen in video footage cursing at deputies and demanding that they let her brother go. The 17-year-old girl was ultimately arrested and charged with felony assault and resisting arrest, a misdemeanor. The sheriff’s office alleged she hit a deputy in the face with a soap dish and injured him, although that alleged action was difficult to see in the footage. 

“We take all allegations of assault against law enforcement seriously and they will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law,” Zurlo said in the release. “It is my hope that the injuries to our deputy and the trooper were minor and that they suffer no lasting ill-effects.”

The deputy was treated and released from Ellis Medical Center, according to the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff failed to mention any lasting effects on the children who witnessed the deputy tackling the teenage boy. 

The video, recorded by a bystander, begins with the boy screaming “ouch” and the sheriff’s deputy saying he was not “getting off” and to just come to the front. At the time, the boy was upright and pulling away from the deputy, who had the teen’s hands pulled behind his back. That’s when the child’s sister turned a corner and confronted the deputy. Someone could be heard sobbing in the footage. “Yo what the f—k are you doing,” the child’s sister asked. “Get the f—k off my brother [before] I spit on you.” She also told the deputy her brother has autism.

It didn’t take long before the deputy had wrestled the teen boy to the ground, with the other children watching and crying. “These are children,” someone could be heard saying. Another person could be heard explaining that they were just being asked to leave. “These are children! These are children!” the witness yelled.

The boy on the ground responded to the deputy’s attack with: “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.” 

“I have money,” he also offered at another point in the encounter.

Warning: This video contains profanity and footage that may be triggering to some viewers.

The child is 14 years old, his mother, Chante Ware, told the Times Union. “I was in Walmart shopping and got a text message from my daughter,” she told the newspaper. “I called her and all I could hear was my oldest daughter screaming and crying, ‘He’s autistic, he’s autistic.’ I got to Target and there were nine or 10 squad cars there. … I was told my kids are suspects in a larceny.”

Ware said her children are traumatized. ”My daughter has a pulled muscle, my son has a head injury and he’s a little sore,” she told the Times Union. “He’s so confused right now. He keeps saying, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ He doesn’t want to go out of the house and wants to move.”

Ware, who’s looking for an attorney to represent her daughter, said the child was only trying to defend her brother. “They just blatantly attacked my kids,” the mother said. “And then all they care about is the officer. The officer slapped her.”

It’s unclear how the incident started, but Tracy Sangare, the witness who took the videos, told the Times Union a manager informed her that he just wanted the children to leave the store.

“It felt so dangerous and out of control,” Sangare told the newspaper. “Everyone was standing around gawking, not knowing what to do. We were all trying to figure out, who do you call for help when the police are doing this stuff?”

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What Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Mitch McConnell said behind closed doors about President Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection and what they said to his face were in complete opposition, according to a book set to hit shelves next month.  

This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future releases May 3, and with it will come a few surprises about the conversations key GOP members reportedly had about their leader.

The New York Times exclusively reports that not only did McCarthy and McConnell believe that Trump was directly responsible for the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, but they told other GOP lawmakers they intended to ask the president to resign. “I’ve had it with this guy,” McCarthy reportedly told a group of Republican leaders. Naturally, a spokesperson for McCarthy, Mark Bednar, denied to the Times that the congressman ever “said he’d call Trump to say he should resign.”

RELATED STORY: Can Kevin McCarthy be any more gutless? Yes, he can ‘forget’ what he said to Trump on Jan. 6

The book, co-written by Jonathan Martin and  Alexander Burns, two New York Times reporters, compiles interviews and records of hundreds of lawmakers and officials, according to the Times, and lays out a timeline where McCarthy and McConnell both lost their respective chutzpah—a great Yiddish word for nerve.

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

According to the Times, before McCarthy’s spine dissolved, he reportedly suggested that several GOP lawmakers should be banned from social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook following the insurrection.

“We can’t put up with that,” McCarthy reportedly said. “Can’t they take their Twitter accounts away, too?”

Again, Bednar denied to the Times that Rep. McCarthy ever suggested any GOP leaders be banned from social media.

However, we know that McCarthy did publicly say in mid-January 2021 that Trump was at least partially responsible for the riot. “He told me personally that he does have some responsibility. I think a lot of people do.”

McCarthy also blabbed about Trump to House Republicans during a private conference call on Jan. 11. CNN obtained a copy of a transcript of that call.

“Let me be clear to you, and I have been very clear to the President. He bears responsibility for his words and actions. No if, ands, or buts,” McCarthy said. “I asked him personally today if he holds responsibility for what happened. If he feels bad about what happened. He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. But he needs to acknowledge that.”

But four days later, McCarthy conveniently forgot all that he’d said.

According to the Times, McCarthy was told by Rep. Bill Johnson of Ohio that Trump supporters did not want their president challenged on Jan. 6 events.

“I’m just telling you that that’s the kind of thing that we’re dealing with, with our base,” Johnson said.

As a result, by the end of January and after seeing that a scant 10 House Republicans would support a Trump impeachment, McCarthy reversed course and stepped away from any condemnation of HerrTrump. He shut his mouth and kept his job as the House Minority Leader.

As for McConnell, theTimes reports that he initially believed Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 were so heinous that he was convinced his GOP colleagues would surely break with the president. He reportedly even predicted a conviction vote for Trump’s impeachment.

“The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” he reportedly said during a Jan. 11 meeting with Terry Carmack and Scott Jennings, two of his advisors. “If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is,” he reportedly said.

McConnell was so convincing in his ire against Trump, the Times reports, that Senators John Thune and Rob Portman privately said they believed he’d vote to convict Trump.

But as we all know, McConnell eventually voted to acquit Trump, despite following it with a blistering speech against the president.

Then, he too, shut his mouth to keep his job and the support of a failed, twice-impeached president and his millions of supporters.

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GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s disastrous stunt targeting local and international businesses cost Texas more than $4 billion in damages, an economic consulting firm in the state has estimated. The Perryman Group estimates that Abbott’s now-rescinded policy forcing commercial vehicles to undergo redundant checks that actually didn’t do much of any checking “will cost the equivalent of 77,000 job years for the country and 36,300 for Texas’ economy,” The Dallas Morning News reports.

The city of Pharr is singled out in the article as the site of one of the busiest land crossings in the country. Abbott’s stunt cost the area roughly $200 million every single day in losses. The Perryman Group estimates that Abbott caused the nation roughly $9 billion in lost gross domestic product, the report said.

RELATED STORY: Greg Abbott ends disastrous stunt that cost fruit and vegetable producers an estimated $240 million

“The biggest losses were to the manufacturing sector, which took about 50% of the hit, followed by retail trade, wholesale trade and financial activities,” The Dallas Morning News reported. “Manufacturing and retail made up the bulk of the job losses. That doesn’t even account for the slowdown in shopping on the U.S. side of the border.” 

Border businesses had last fall welcomed the easing of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, which severely hurt the region’s economy. El Paso Matters reported in October that dozens of small businesses in the El Paso that depend on international traffic had closed. “It’s been really hard,” one business owner told the outlet. “It’s been hard for a year and a half.” Now Abbott is single-handedly trying to out-COVID COVID.

The right-wing governor has also remained at the center of international ire over his failure of a policy, with Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador calling it “a very despicable way to act.” He further questioned whether Abbott had any authority to engage in international agreements. “Instead of thinking—and I say this respectfully—‘How will I fix the problem of inflation?’ He is politicizing and even violating international rights,” the president said.

The truly shameless Abbott then responded to López Obrador’s remarks by threatening to reinstate his unpopular policy, claiming he has “the capability at any time” to resume his unnecessary secondary inspections, Houston Chronicle reported. 

There’s are two possible outcomes here: all hat and no cattle, Abbott is bluffing. Recall his redundant checks were so unpopular he got attacks from state officials even more right-wing than him. GOP Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller complained to NPR that “[y]ou’re already seeing things like bananas, avocados, lemons and limes” go up in price because of this stunt.

The second possible outcome is he actually does it and then keeps trying to blame Joe Biden. When The Dallas Morning News questioned Abbott about his policy’s economic damage, he did exactly what we thought he’d do: falsely blame the president. 

“A 5-hour average delay for enhanced vehicle inspections is hardly equivalent to President Biden’s 15-month delay to secure our border,” a spokesperson told the outlet. So many lies, though there is a grain of truth in there, which is Abbott’s office acknowledging his failed policy’s delays. But even that truth has been twisted, because commercial truckers caught in Abbott’s stunt saw delays of up to 30 hours.

But ending the policy isn’t like a light switch, because the Perryman Group said that it could take weeks for businesses to get back to normal. “Abbott just single-handedly cost us more than $4 billion as he jacked up inflation across this state,” tweeted Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke. “Let’s make sure every Texan sees this.”

RELATED STORIES: Mexican president calls Abbott’s disastrous stunt ‘a very despicable way to act’

Abbott’s increased truck inspections in response to Biden admin leading to huge delays, rotting food

Texas remains secretive about actual results of expensive border theatrics because they didn’t work

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In 2020, when a reporter asked Utah Senator Mike Lee about the extent of his involvement in then President Donald Trump’s push to overturn that year’s election results, Lee chalked up his own investment in the president’s scheme to a benign curiosity. 

His recently published text messages to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows at the time, however, tell a far different story. The texts appear to show Lee pledging himself to find every “legal and constitutional remedy” to assist Trump’s mission. He was quick with a suggestion—like an audit of ballots in swing states—and stumped for Trump to use conspiracy theory peddling lawyer Sidney Powell to take up the cause in court.

And when Lee received a copy of John Eastman’s memo laying out a scheme to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election just four days before the insurrection, he publicly derided it as “ridiculous.”

Yet in private, Lee appeared to strongly advocate for that strategy and lamented the hours he otherwise spent searching for ways to “unravel” a pathway to victory for a clearly defeated president. 

RELATED STORY: Texts show they were all for Trump overturning the election—until a lack of key evidence got in the way

Samuel Benson over at Utah’s Deseret News published an article on Wednesday raising questions—and rightly so—over Lee’s track record of conflicting positions. Benson interviewed Lee at length before and after the assault on the Capitol. 

And when CNN published the text messages, Benson followed up, asking for an interview. Where once Lee was willing to speak on the subject at length, he has now clammed up. Instead, he dispatched his spokesman, Lee Lonsberry, to do damage control. 

Lonsberry told Benson: 

“When Senator Lee reviewed evidence and legal arguments related to the 2020 presidential election, his principal concern was for the law, the Constitution, and especially the more than 150 million Americans who voted in that election. From the moment the electoral college cast its votes in mid-December, he made clear that Joe Biden had won, and would within weeks become the 46th president of the United States absent a court order or state legislative action invalidating electoral votes.”

Further, “once it became clear” to Lee that no states would be rescinding their electoral slates, he told Meadows any effort to reverse the election results would “end badly.” 

Lee, Lonsberry said, just wanted to “let the country move on.”

Lee publicly acknowledged that Biden won the Electoral College on Dec. 14, the final deadline for states to send their slate of electors to the National Archives. But he also delicately couched his statement with a nod to Trump’s “fraud” claims.

There were still  “concerns regarding fraud and irregularities in this election remain active in multiple states,” Lee said at the time.

Then-Attorney General Bill Barr had already declared two weeks earlier there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Trump too had been on a losing streak in various courts around the U.S.  as his team of attorneys bumbled through lawsuits demanding election results be thrown out or electors decertified. 

Nevertheless, in the two days after Lee proclaimed Biden was the rightful winner, in a text to Meadows, the Utah Republican was still exploring alternatives. 

“Also, if you want senators to object, we need to hear from you on that ideally getting some guidance on what arguments to raise,” Lee wrote on Dec. 16. 

Right up to Jan. 4, the senator was “calling state legislators for hours” and planning to do the same, or so he told Mark Meadows, on Jan. 5. 

“We need something from state legislatures to make this legitimate and to have any hope of winning. Even if they can’t convene, it might be enough if a majority of them are willing to sign a statement indicating how they would vote,” Lee fretted to Meadows just a day before.

In the end, but only after Trump incited a mob that stormed the Capitol and hundreds of police officers—including those sworn to protect Lee and others—were violently assaulted and one woman was killed, Lee voted to certify Biden as the winner. 

In his remarks from the House floor on Jan. 6, Lee said his initial speech for proceedings had looked a little different. But, he said, he would keep his message mostly the same. 

“Our job is open and then count. Open, then count. That’s it. That’s all there is to it,” Lee said of electoral college votes.

He noted how he spent “the last few weeks” meeting with lawyers representing “both sides of the issue” and representing the Trump campaign. 

“I didn’t initially declare my position because I didn’t yet have one,” he added. “I wanted to get the facts first and I wanted to understand what was happening.”

However, when Trump was impeached for incitement of insurrection, Lee voted against it. He could not “condone the horrific violence” of Jan. 6, he said. Lee also said he could not condone Trump’s “words, actions or commissions on that day.” 

“But the fact is that the word incitement has a very specific meaning in the law, and Donald Trump’s words and actions on Jan. 6 fell short of that standard,” Lee remarked before also calling the impeachment a “politically suspicious process.”

Less than six months after the insurrection, Lee also opposed to the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack. He voted against a bill for a bipartisan commission that was equally divided between five Republicans and five Democrats. Both sides, according to the resolution he opposed, would have had equal subpoena power. 

Lee opposed the bill 24 hours after meeting privately with U.S. Capitol Police officers who were attacked as well as Gladys Sicknick, the mother of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. Sicknick died one day after the insurrection. A coroner’s office said Sicknick, 42, experienced multiple strokes.