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The Republican Party is running a slate of “Big Lie” proponents for every available electable position in every state of the Union. The Colorado GOP has a real whose who of MAGA-supporters including suspected election fraud criminal Tina Peters. Peters is the Mesa County Clerk who broke security protocols and likely the law, by allowing Dominion voting machines under her purview to be tampered with. In between times being arrested, Peters is running for the secretary of state job in the hopes of hijacking the office that is investigating her election malfeasance.

But Peters isn’t the only piece of work running in Colorado on the MAGA-GOP ticket. Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez wants Coloradans to know that he too believes the election was stolen from Donald Trump, and has also pledged to pardon Tina Peters for all of her crimes, because what’s law and democracy got to do with anything in the GOP platform these days, anyway? Lopez is running against University of Colorado Regent Heidi Ganahl in the GOP primary, the winner will face off against Democratic incumbent Jared Polis.

On Tuesday, Next 9News’ Kyle Clark released his interview with candidate Lopez. Clark decided to ask real questions about Lopez’s apparent hypocrisy about almost everything he says and does, and boy, was the interview a doozy.

The interview opened with a question about the leaked Supreme Court decision set to overturn Roe v. Wade, and Lopez predictably said he agreed that the decision should be left up to the states to decide. When Clark followed that up by asking what that means to Lopez who is running to be the governor of the state, Lopez was vague saying that the state seemed to be making decisions, based on what Coloradans wanted. And while the decisions that have been made have been to try and codify the protection of a person’s reproductive rights, Lopez stayed as vague as a cowardly GOP politician can when asked hard, pre-election questions.

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats must do now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

Clark does a good job here of gently asking Lopez to clarify what the hell his position is in a state that has long supported the reproductive rights of its citizens. Clark then does a little two-step: while the overwhelming poll numbers and the democratically elected legislature have passed and continue to press for laws supporting reproductive rights, he thinks that might be a mirage. He would like to see a “conversation” about taking away abortion rights. Asked if he would like a state-side referendum where Coloradans vote on the subject, Clark quickly walks that wildly unpopular position back and says he would like a “statewide conversation” about what to do with these people and their wombs.

Lopez’s opponent, Ganahl, has already staked out the position that the recently passed and signed law protecting a citizen’s right to choose what to do with their body should be overturned. Lopez agrees but wanted to point out that the big problem is the language that life does not exist in “the womb of a female.” That’s how he put it. He then went on a circular semantic roller coaster when asked whether he would sign “an abortion ban” were he to become governor. After a long-winded pointless response, he said he would sign an abortion ban. That’s all Clark asked.

Clark followed that up with a reminder of the time Lopez was arrested for assaulting his then-pregnant wife.

Everybody deserves a second chance, yada yada yada. That’s fine, but don’t pretend that taking away a person’s right to govern their own body isn’t exactly what it sounds like.

Lopez then went on to make the claim that cutting taxes would be the best thing for Colorado. How would he make up the money in lost tax revenue? He wouldn’t need it, because “30% of the budget is fraud and waste,” and social programs and educational programs were a scam. Clark asked about the large education budget; Lopez pointed to outcomes being lackluster and proof of waste. You might wonder how cutting teachers’ budgets might help to increase the educational outcomes Lopez claims he wants. Easy: Bootstraps!

Lopez literally says that, “By allowing teachers to be creative.” He then goes on to say that the teachers’ unions need to be destroyed in order to free teachers from the oppression of unions. It’s such a gross set of statements about education it is hard to even watch.

From there, Lopez diagnoses the epidemic of fentanyl and opioid addiction with people being soft on crime. That’s it. It’s also because we don’t have a heavily Christian society anymore. “What,” you ask? Exactly. Writing out Lopez’s half-statements is sort of like watching a dog with a dog whistle in its mouth trying to play a song.

After pressing Lopez on how having more police on the street to end drug addiction is truly preposterous, Clark wants to know why Mr. Lopez is against mail-in voting—something Coloradans have been doing since well before the COVID-19 pandemic. Lopez starts blathering about how Americans wait in line for a baseball game and how he’s proud to wait in line to vote. Clark then reminds Mr. Lopez that for the last 10 years, he, Greg Lopez, has voted by mail. Personally. Mr. Lopez has voted by mail for the last 10 years.

Lopez says he’s done “both.” And while he was fine using mail-in ballots for the last 10 YEARS, now he believes that “standing in line is more appropriate.” Listen, Mr. Lopez is a piece of shit. This is clear. But if you feel like that language is too strong, Clark reads a quote from Lopez that is a clear homophobic slam against Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, who is gay and married to another man.

“It’s time Colorado had a real First Lady again,” Clark reads. [There’s a good chance Lopez has made this similar statement more than once, but there’s also this version of the statement from a few weeks ago: “I think it’s time we had a real First Lady, don’t you?”] Clark asks Lopez why he “would introduce homophobia into the race for governor.” It is here that you really get to see the true cowardice of a craven Christian conservative.

Lopez: “It’s interesting that you would even mention that word, because I didn’t use it. I don’t know how you connected my words to that sentiment that’s the problem.” Let that sit there. This is a “man” who wants to pretend that there are defined gender attributes and God-given types of responsibilities for those genders, and yet by “his” own homophobic and sexist standards, he cannot even be “a man.”

It’s all hogwash of course, as the only gender anyone needs to worry about is whether or not a person has integrity or not. But, Lopez, like many operatives in his political party, only manifests the deepest levels of cowardice, hypocrisy, and lack of integrity. Lopez then follows up his cowardly display by hiding behind his wife, saying something about how long they have been married and how great he thinks she is.

Clark does a good job of telling Lopez that his response is at best disingenuous and everybody watching and everybody at the rally where Lopez gave his homophobic speech knew exactly what he meant. Lopez, on his heels, probably slipping in the metaphysical swamp of hell where he dropped his soul, attempts a weak attack on Clark for misleading the audience.

Like the rest of the country, Colorado has its work cut out in the fight to save our democracy from theocratic conmen like Lopez.

Support Colorado Democrats running against the anti-democracy MAGAness by contributing here

You can watch the whole 20-minute interview below.

RELATED STORY: Colorado governor signs bill guaranteeing the right to an abortion regardless of SCOTUS decision

RELATED STORY: Tina Peters was arrested twice last week. Now she’s running to control Colorado’s elections

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Tucker Carlson is dangerous, and The New York Times has collected the receipts and put them in easily accessible form for everyone to see. A two-part deep dive on Carlson’s career and how he built his strength at Fox News in recent years has a lot to offer, but the really critical thing to check out is a major interactive feature on how Carlson convinces his viewers that they are besieged and endangered and that he is here to stick up for them against the “ruling class” (of Democrats), the immigrants, the shadowy forces destroying masculinity, the anti-white racists.

In multiple graphs, the Times interactive team represents each one of the 1,150 episodes they analyzed from late 2016 through 2021 as a square, showing in how many episodes Carlson invoked each specific dangerous idea: the “ruling class,” replacement theory, falling birthrates and threats to masculinity as he defines it, and discrimination against white people or what he depicted as exaggerated allegations of racism against Black people.

RELATED STORY: Penn professor Amy Wax lays her racism bare on Tucker Carlson’s show for all the world to see

In more than 800 episodes, Carlson invoked the “ruling class,” a “they” trying to keep “you,” the Fox News viewer, down, saying things like:

• “Why are people who have taxpayer-funded bodyguards demanding that the rest of us disarm immediately?”
• “Our ruling class is obsessed with denying biology, because when you’re God, there is no objective reality.” 
• “The point of the exercise is to humiliate the rest of us by forcing us to obey transparently absurd orders.”

In more than 400 episodes, Carlson promoted replacement theory, the idea that Democrats or other shadowy groups are trying to replace the “us” of white U.S.-born people—what Carlson has referred to as “legacy Americans”—through immigration. 

• “In order to win and maintain power, Democrats plan to change the population of the country.”
• “I don’t want to live in a country that looks nothing the country I grew up in.”
• “As with illegal immigration, the long-term agenda of refugee resettlement is to bring in future Democratic voters.”

In more than 200 episodes, Carlson warned against changing gender roles, threats to masculinity as he defines it, or falling birthrates.

• “Well, American men are in deep trouble.”
• “If you destroy men, or complete the destruction of men, they’re pretty close to being destroyed, I would say how does that help women, exactly?”
• “What they’re trying to suppress is masculinity itself.”

In at least 600 episodes, Carlson insisted white people were being discriminated against or downplayed racism against Black people.

• “So, anti-white racism is exploding across the country.”
• “They hate white men more than they hate global warming.”
• “Businesses are receiving favorable treatment based solely on the skin color of their owners.”

He also stitches all these themes together in warnings that the United States is on the verge of collapse, doing that nearly 600 times.

• “America isn’t falling to foreign invaders—it is rotting from within because the people in charge don’t think it’s worth preserving.”
• “What we’re watching is a full-scale invasion from within on the West itself.”
• “Western civilization is our birthright. It makes all good things possible.”
• “If we care about our families and our civilization, about the future of our descendants, we have got to fight them like everything depended on it, because everything does depend on it.”

Carlson’s invocations of the ruling class and racism and his warnings about the imminent collapse of the nation have become more common through the run of his show, to a degree clearly visible in the graphs. This lines up with a process Nicholas Confessore traces out in the articles about Carlson’s career, in which, early in the Trump years, Carlson decided to stand for Trumpism but not Donald Trump himself. Over time, as he’s claimed that mantle, at times essentially depicting Trump as a squish who can’t be trusted to protect Trumpism, Carlson’s rhetoric has gotten more and more dangerous.

And as Carlson has gone all in on that message, Fox News, now largely controlled by Lachlan Murdoch, has gone all in on Carlson. Carlson’s value to the network comes not just in his high ratings—which he uses minute-by-minute viewership data to optimize—but in the dedication of his followers, who will spend extra money to see him on the streaming service Fox Nation. “Executives talk openly about Fox Nation as a boycott-proof version of Fox News — a walled garden where Fox can collect revenue directly from its viewers as carriage fees from cable providers decline,” Confessore reports.

Over time, he has virtually stopped having guests on his show who might disagree with him, creating a closed environment in which dissent doesn’t even exist as a thing to be shouted down, as it was in 2017 and 2018—and again, he is doing this with attention to his detailed ratings, concluding that his audience would rather see Carlson screaming about Democrats and immigrants and Black people who are never given any chance to respond than to see him screaming over a liberal Black woman’s efforts to speak. Carlson is further closing the world he offers his guests a view into by dramatically expanding the length of his monologues.

Tucker Carlson is telling his 92% white audience to be afraid of the non-white other, encouraging them in paranoia that there is a conspiracy against them—and, at least by implication, that if they lose this battle, they will be treated as poorly by the victors as they have treated people of color and immigrants and women and LGBT people. (Truly something to fear.) It’s a white nationalist message—white nationalism being something Carlson mocks as a term even as he embraces its substance—and Carlson has shown its appeal to a large audience.

Check out the full interactive, if you have a strong stomach.

RELATED STORIES:

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Tucker Carlson shows Ted Cruz who’s boss on how Republicans should talk about Jan. 6

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From Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 coup attempt to GOP-led book bans to unbridled attacks on voting rights, grassroots Democrats have been waiting for leaders in Washington to actually take Republicans head-on on something—anything, really.

Instead, congressional Democrats have continually stuck with milquetoasty talking points about kitchen-table issues as Republicans hand them issue after issue on a silver platter. A federal judge ruling that Trump likely committed crimes on Jan. 6 comes to mind, for instance.

But the draft Supreme Court opinion gutting Roe v. Wade may have changed all that. The impending demise of Roe—a monumental disruption of modern American life—has organically captured the political spotlight. It’s an issue so foundational and synonymous with the women’s movement that it needs no introduction into the political mainstream.

Which makes it a perfect issue for Democrats leery of straying from their kitchen table talking points. As Christine Pelosi told us on The Brief when asked whether Democrats were ready for this moment: “I think the base of the party is ready for the moment. I think the American people are ready for the moment. And I think the Democrats will rise to the moment.”

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

In other words, this isn’t a top-down moment, it’s a bottom-up moment. That means it will be led by protesters and politicians alike that are outside of Washington. It’s an uprising we are already witnessing among swing-state Democrats who are taking the issue head-on because it’s both the right thing to do and good politics.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, for instance, promised to “fight like hell” to preserve abortion rights in her state.

At the same time, Republicans are telegraphing their weakness on the issue as they dodge any substantive discussion of the ruling.

The White House reportedly also views the ruling, once it actually drops, as a “galvanizing moment” for the Democratic base, according to Politico.

The White House quickly circulated a statement Tuesday from President Biden about the draft ruling stating that his team has been prepping internally for a variety of outcomes at the Supreme Court.

“We will be ready when any ruling is issued,” read the statement.

Biden has also commented on the draft extemporaneously, noting that the decision as written would immediately call into question a whole host of other rulings on privacy issues—rulings that have become part of the fabric of modern American living.

“It would mean that every other decision relating to the notion of privacy is thrown into question,” Biden told reporters, calling the opinion “radical.”

“If what is written is what remains, it goes far beyond the concern of whether or not there is the right to choose. It goes to other basic rights … who you marry, whether or not you decide to conceive a child or not, whether or not you can have an abortion, a range of other decisions.”

Biden also suggested that such a decision could be weaponized at the state level to tear down other Supreme Court precedents.

“Does this mean that in Florida they can decide they’re going to pass a law saying that same sex marriage is not permissible? It’s against the law in Florida?” Biden asked. “It’s a fundamental shift in American jurisprudence.”

The nightmare scenario on abortion that absolutely none of us hoped for appears to be coming to fruition. But now that it has been forced upon us, perhaps it can help Democrats weather the midterms and save our democracy. The grassroots seem to get it. Swing-state Democrats seem to get it. And perhaps, even the White House gets it.

Now, we just need congressional Democrats to follow along.

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It’s Teacher Appreciation Day, also known as National Teachers Day, and for teachers throughout the country, it’s a time when they get both the figurative and (in some cases) literal flowers they’ve long been due. The freebies in abundance from businesses offering teachers extra savings this week don’t hurt, either.

RELATED STORY: ‘My son loves school because of her’: There are no words for how wonderful teachers are, but we try

Office Depot and OfficeMax is offering teachers 20% off regularly priced items and 20% back in rewards now through June 25. Staples is gifting teachers free gift boxes, plus 20% back in classroom rewards now through Friday.

And if more classroom supplies aren’t exactly exciting, restaurants are getting in on the fun too. Zaxby’s is offering a buy-one-get-one deal on its Boneless Wings Meal Tuesday for teachers and nurses, being that National Nurses Week starts on Friday.

“We are grateful to all teachers and nurses for the heroic and important work they do every day,” Zaxby’s Chief Marketing Officer Joel Bulger said in a news release. “In a show of appreciation to them, we want to serve up an extra order of our delicious wings as a way to show our gratitude.

“Whether you give the second meal to yourself, or share it with your favorite teacher or nurse as a way to say thank you, is entirely up to you.”

Barnes & Noble is gifting teachers free hot or iced coffee with a valid teacher’s ID, and Buffalo Wild Wings is offering educators and other school staff members a 20% discount when dining in or picking up orders, USA Today reports.

If you’ve already taken to Google in your search for deals, you also probably noticed a special Teacher Appreciation Day Doodle on Tuesday.

Google is celebrating Teacher Appreciation Day with a special Doodle Tuesday.

“Today’s Doodle honors all the resilient teachers who have worked tirelessly to shape our future generations,” Google said in a post. “Teachers today wear so many different hats—they are community builders, mentors, mediators, and even tech support for virtual and in-person learners.

“Finding innovative ways to connect with, motivate, and inspire students in this ever-changing environment, educators are going above and beyond to empower every student. ”

Artist Erich Nagler, who created the artwork said in the Google post that he was inspired by educators awarded the 2022 State Teachers of the Year honor. 

He said:

“Teachers have guided, challenged, and encouraged me all throughout my journey, and my art teachers especially.

It was a treat to meet with such a passionate and insightful group of teachers as part of the Doodle development process. The State Teachers of the Year shared overarching themes of their roles and specific examples from their classrooms to inform the Doodle illustration. They even took pencil to paper themselves to sketch their ideas for what the artwork could look like. One quote from our brainstorm that stuck with me was, ‘Teachers empower students with tools to share their ideas.’ So I tried to create a still-life of all these various tools of learning around the teacher’s desk and chalkboard.

I hope that teachers who see this Doodle feel recognized and appreciated, and I hope that the Doodle might encourage more people to take up teaching in their own communities.”

Do you know of any great freebies or offers for educators this week? Share them in the comments!

RELATED STORY: Support teachers and Black-owned businesses with these gift ideas

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Right-wing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s taxpayer-funded border stunt that has illegally detained asylum-seekers for weeks and months at a time with no official charges is facing its first legal challenge at the federal level. While migrants targeted under Abbott’s racist Operation Lone Star scheme have previously sued at the state level, a lawsuit filed this week “appears to be the first time attorneys are opposing it in federal court,” The Texas Tribune reports. Plaintiffs targeted by Abbott are also seeking $5 million in damages.

“Under the guise of state criminal trespass law but with the explicit, stated goal of punishing migrants based on their immigration status, Texas officials are targeting migrants,” the lawsuit states. “Hundreds of those arrested have waited in jail for weeks or months without a lawyer, or without charges, or without bond, or without a legitimate detention hold or without a court date.”

RELATED STORY: ‘Fuels the flames of racist, anti-immigrant sentiment’: Coalition urges DOJ probe into Texas scheme

Advocates have been ringing the alarm about Abbott violating state law by jailing migrants without any formal changes since at least the fall. Many of those illegally detained were subsequently released by a court, where legal advocates had challenged “widespread violations of state law and constitutional rights to due process,” The Texas Tribune reported in September. But a shameless Abbott has only continued to illegally detain people.

”Under the program, [Texas Department of Public Safety] officers collaborate with the Texas National Guard and county sheriff’s offices to arrest Black and brown migrants on state misdemeanor criminal trespass charges,” the filing said. Some migrants who have faced trespassing charges have then seen those charges dropped, after they revealed officers zip-tied their hands, forced them to climb 10-foot-fencing onto private property, and then arrested them for trespassing.

“Virtually all of those arrested on trespass charges are Black or brown, the overwhelming majority of whom are Latino, and virtually all of those arrested are migrants,” the filing continued. “State troopers’ affidavits evidence racial profiling: they describe observing groups of ‘undocumented migrants’ and note Latino ethnicity as apparently relevant to arrest.”

A participating county named in the filing, Kinney County, was also listed in a Title VI discrimination complaint to the Justice Department last year for “undertaking additional efforts to target migrants,” including “repeatedly” seeking to “partner with vigilante actors,” including Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Daily Kos’ Dave Neiwert also noted last year that Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe is “a 30-year Border Patrol veteran who keeps Donald Trump stickers on his desk.”

The lawsuit warns that without intervention, Texas plans to continue terrorizing Black and brown migrants through this racist program for several more years (or at least until a Republican is president again). State GOP officials just raided federal coronavirus funds in order to keep the operation funded, ballooning the scheme by another $500 million.

“The program is set up to continue for years, and state officials have repeatedly stated and followed through on expanding it beyond Val Verde and Kinney Counties to other counties in Texas,” the lawsuit said. We have already seen how Republicans have copied forced birth bills and anti-LGBTQ bills from state legislature to state legislature.“Absent federal intervention, it provides a blueprint for other Texas localities and other states to join in similar use of the criminal system to discriminate against Black and brown migrants and seek to effectuate a separate, punitive state immigration system.”

RELATED STORIES: This court ruling could begin to dismantle Greg Abbott’s racist border scheme, legal advocates say

Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border stunt balloons by another $500 million

Dozens of soldiers deployed under Abbott’s border scheme were sent to ranches owned by rich Texans

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Each passing day is reminding us how important elections are on every level. Despite being new to politics and having several negative press pieces about him, a Trump-supporting, QAnon-affiliated Republican won the Republican primary for Ohio’s 9th district on Tuesday. Identified as J.R. Majewski, the vocal Trump supporter not only made headlines for painting a banner across his yard in support of Trump, but also for gloating about attending the Capitol riots.

Despite his lack of experience in politics, he was able to beat his opponents for the Republican nomination, including two previously elected to the state legislature, with 36% of the vote, The New York Times reported. He will now face Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat from Cleveland, in the general election.

According to the American Independent, Majewski has several “political liabilities.” After painting a pro-Trump mural on his lawn prior to the 2020 election Majewski bragged about attending the Capitol Riots and how he broke into the building and attacked law enforcement officials. Media Matters reported he even helped organize travel for a group of Trump supporters to Washington for the “Stop the Steal” rally that occurred moments from the attack.

Listen to a breakdown of the May primaries on Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard

But that’s not all, of course. He is also a supporter of QAnon conspiracy theories and is not ashamed of it. During an interview with Fox & Friends about the Trump sign he painted in his yard, he wore a QAnon-supporting shirt. According to Media Matters, he also uses QAnon phrases in his social media posts, alongside hashtags affiliated with QAnon conspiracy theories, including #WWG1WGA, #thegreatawakeningworldwide, and #qanon.

The outlet added that he is closely linked to RedPill78, a well-known QAnon influencer who has been banned from multiple major social media platforms. Together, the two reportedly hosted “MAGA Meetups” online and on-site.

According to The Times, Majewski portrays himself as “the America First candidate” and has received support from Trump himself. His campaign website says he served in the U.S. Air Force for several years and has also had a career in the nuclear industry. Among his campaign priorities, he says he is passionately against abortion rights.

Although he identifies as a Republican, he also likes to shit on them. “The Republican Party is raunch with lifetime politicians who are spineless and seek to serve themselves and the members of their exclusive ‘club.’ We must fight to eradicate those within our party that seek to destroy it. We must hold them accountable to our Conservative principles and call them out when they cease to deliver,” a message on his website reads.

The list of red flags Majewski has are endless. Not only does he refer to himself as a Trump surrogate, but he even went as far as to make a “music video” of himself rapping “let’s go, Brandon,” a phrase Republicans were using in a sly attempt to tell Biden to go fuck himself.

After the results were announced Tuesday, Democrats noted the extreme views Majewski shares and how dangerous it would be to have him elected.

Majewski is clearly not good news. Every vote in Ohio is going to count.

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New York Attorney General Letitia James gave a rousing speech at a pro-choice rally in Manhattan Tuesday. She candidly shared with the crowd her personal experience terminating a pregnancy and told protesters she made “no apologies” for her decision.

“I’m here to say we will not go backward; back into those days when we used wire hangers. Not now, not ever,” James said. She added: “The right to control our bodies is a fundamental right enshrined in the 14th Amendment. And if they go after this right, who’s next?”

Crowds gathered to denounce the recently leaked draft opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, indicating that the Court would reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

RELATED STORY: Newsmax host has the caucasity to accuse Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson of leaking Alito opinion

In 2013, James, 63, was elected the public advocate for the City of New York—the first woman of color to hold citywide office. A Democrat, she became the 67th attorney general for the state in 2018, making her the first woman and first woman of color to hold the office.

“As a former city council member, many moons ago, I came to this issue in a very personal way. I was in this place, I was just elected, and I was faced with a decision about whether to have an abortion or not. And I chose to have an abortion and I walked proudly into Planned Parenthood,” James said.

“And I make no apologies to anyone. To no one. And all of you also know that I am a woman of faith, I go to church. But my God teaches me all about love and acceptance. And my God teaches me about privacy. And my God says that you’ve got to make the best decisions for your body and your life,” she added.

The Associated Press reports that James has advocated for funding to help underwrite abortion care for people who need it, and recently joined other attorneys general in filing briefs against states with restrictive abortion laws in place.

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

“I will not allow Justice Alito or any other judge on the Supreme Court to dictate to me or to you how to use your body. I will not allow Justice Alito to dictate to me my future, my destiny. It is not in the hands of the United States Supreme Court, it’s in our hands,” James said.

The 98-page draft opinion is a defiant indictment of the 1973 ruling promising federal protections for abortion. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled… It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

If all that isn’t enough, Alito pivots to the white savior role, actually attempting to argue that the removal of reproductive rights somehow aligns with a fight against racism—even citing the same misrepresented statistics used by pro-choice activists advocating for eugenics.

In another passage, Alito writes that societal norms around pregnancy when parents aren’t married “have changed drastically” since Roe v. Wade was enacted and argues there’s now a higher demand for adoption.

Adoption numbers are actually declining. Creating a Family reports that the number of children adopted via public child welfare was 57,881 in 2020. 

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Potentially hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are facing expiring work permits, or whose work permits have recently expired, can continue to use this documentation for a period of up to nearly 18 months, the Biden administration announced this week.

While many immigrants receive an automatic 180-day extension when their work permits expire, immense immigration backlogs have still put some out of work. Under the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) change announced on Tuesday, the automatic extension period will now be lengthened to up to 540 days.

RELATED STORY: USCIS announces new measures to help reduce huge backlog

“As USCIS works to address pending [Employment Authorization Documents] caseloads, the agency has determined that the current 180-day automatic extension for employment authorization is currently insufficient,” USCIS Director Ur Jaddou said. “This temporary rule will provide those noncitizens otherwise eligible for the automatic extension an opportunity to maintain employment and provide critical support for their families, while avoiding further disruption for U.S. employers.”

What can Biden do? listen to immigration activist Juan Escalante on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

The new policy should aid asylum-seekers like Biraj Nepal and their employers. He told Vox in February that he had to take an unpaid leave from his job of four years because USCIS hadn’t yet processed his renewal. “It only takes about 12 minutes for an official to review an application for a work permit, but an overstretched USCIS still hasn’t been able to keep up,” the report said. Nepal called the delays “a critical situation.”

“I’m in a financial crisis,” he said in the report. “We are being punished by the government without doing any crime.”

The Migration Policy Institute said that USCIS’ backlog “has surged from 5.7 million applications at the end of FY 2019 to about 9.5 million as of February,” worsened by both the previous administration’s anti-immigrant hatred and the pandemic. USCIS is an agency that helps facilitate legal immigration, so of course the insurrectionist Trump administration was determined to burn it to the ground. It also saw COVID-19 as a way to aid that effort.

The current administration said the lengthened extension for some “will allow USCIS an opportunity to address staffing shortages, implement additional efficiencies, and meet Director Jaddou’s recently announced goal of achieving a three-month cycle time for EAD applications (generally comparable to a median three-month processing time) by the end of FY23.”

The change goes into effect today, May 4. In a related change, the administration announced last summer that it was expanding access to work permits for some immigrants who are in the process of applying for a U-visa, which aids the undocumented victims of crime who work with law enforcement. Because of bureaucratic delays, applicants had also faced significant waits. Dream Big Nevada deputy director and U-visa recipient Dulce Valencia called the administration’s expansion of work permits “tremendous news,” citing the long process she endured.

 “My U-Visa has been life changing but the process itself took many years. This news renews my faith that times are changing for the better and gives me hope that the hundreds of thousands of immigrants currently waiting will soon be able to benefit from this life changing programs,” she said a the time. 

More recently, USCIS said it was also expanding which applications can be more quickly processed for an additional fee (though the higher costs may shut out lower-income immigrants).

RELATED STORIES: 

Advocacy groups outline how President Biden can protect immigrant families on his own

Biden administration readies new policy intended to speed up asylum process

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Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is currently under investigation for having sex with a 17-year-old girl, has big thoughts on women who are upset about Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court. 

Good time to remember that Matt Gaetz was also “the only member of Congress to vote against a law boosting the government’s human trafficking investigatory powers” in 2017. 

Gaetz seems to be doing little more than using his soapbox to try out for a future media gig and using his power as a congressman to belittle women. Republicans like him seem to think their full-time job is trolling the libz, which is far easier to do than coming up with actual policy ideas around pressing issues like climate change, health care, and election integrity. 

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats must do now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

Needless to say, there were a number of stinging responses on Twitter.

Now that we know Republicans are launching a full-scale assault on abortion rights, are you more motivated to organize and donate to Democrats as we head toward the November midterms?

This post was originally published on this site

At this morning’s press event at the U.S. Department of Defense, Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Hilbert quoted Ukrainian sources in saying that, “The worst thing the Russians did was give us eight years to prepare.” During that time, Ukrainian forces worked closely with the American military, including seeing numerous National Guard forces who spent extensive time in Ukraine training and working with the military there.

Through that association, the Ukrainian military took the U.S. focus on training (and training, and more training) “strongly to heart.” Ukrainian forces also saw something in the way U.S. forces were structured—especially  something that kos has talked about several times, the value of non-commissioned officers. 

Russia continued a top heavy command layout, based their strategy around an army of untrained conscripts, and reshaped their military structure around small, fragile battalion tactical groups. Ukraine implemented a program to insert and retain NCOs, doubled down on training that included training on complex strategies, and beefed up their brigade structure to improve redundancy and strength in depth. 

All of that took time, which is why Ukrainian officials are glad that this invasion, if it had to come, came in 2022, not 2016, or 2018. There is no good time for a war, but the interval between Russia’s first and second advantage was time Ukraine spent preparing themselves at every level to do what they’re doing right now.

At the afternoon session, reporters expressed concern about the missiles that Russia has been firing into western Ukraine, including at cities that had previously been spared bombardment. Many of those missiles have been directed at electrical substations, at rail infrastructure, and at factories connected with Ukraine’s defense. The Pentagon agrees that the intention of these missiles is to disrupt the flow of weapons entering the country and decrease Ukraine’s ability to “replenish and reinforce” their positions. On Tuesday, two of the missiles fired were reportedly the high speed Kalibr missiles launched from a Russian ship in the Black Sea.

The missile attacks are continuing on Wednesday. The total number of missiles Russia has launched since the invasion began is now over 2,300.

However, the U.S. notes that Russia still has a poor record when it comes to precisely hitting targets, that Russia’s “ability to target with precision has been less than advertised”, and they’ve had a lack of accuracy over the last 70 days. Without giving details, the spokesperson hinted that Russia may still not be making contact with the targets it really wants to hit.

Though they would not give any numbers to tie it down, the DOD insists that Ukraine is still seeing new weapons and supplies come into the country at “an incredible pace” and that those weapons are still reaching the front on a timely basis. The Pentagon also indicated that some of the U.S. M777 howitzers sent to Ukraine are now in use.

Also in the afternoon session, the Pentagon noted that both Army and National Guard units were involved with training Ukrainian forces in Germany (along with possible use of Air Force units to train on the new Phoenix Ghost, details of which are still obscure). While discussing this, the Pentagon stated that Ukrainian forces had also been trained on the use of “unmanned surface vessels”  — in other words, drone ships. 

Finally, while assessing that Russia is not making the progress that they want, the Pentagon said it believes Russia is still having problems with command, unit coordination, unit cohesion, and morale. Even so, Russia still has “a lot of firepower left to them to continue this fight. This could be a prolonged battle in the Donbas.”

That remark matches some coming from of Ukrainian officials this week, who appear to be warning their nation to prepare for an extended war.

Kharkiv

For the last week, Ukrainian forces have been conducting a steady counterattack in the area north and east of Kharkiv. At the start of this offensive, Russian forces were right on the boundaries of the city, but Ukraine pushed those forces out of the suburbs, out of the nearby towns, and back through a series of villages to open a 40 km (25 mile) corridor around the battered city. The Ukrainian counterattack took them into Staryi Saltiv earlier in the week and has largely cleared forces east of the city to the Siverskyi Donets River.

Ukraine’s attempts to clear Russian forces, which apparently include a lot of Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) militia, hasn’t gone off without a hitch. On Monday, Ukrainian forces attempting to enter the town of Kozacha Lopan ran into stiff resistance, losing several vehicles in the process. However, Ukrainian forces remain just a short distance away, but at the moment the biggest area of combat seems to be over on the east end of this line — where it seems, as of Wednesday evening, Ukraine has succeeded in driving Russian forces completely from Staryi Saltiv. There are also some statements that Ukraine has taken the town of Shestakove, which would go a long way to clear the main road between Staryi Saltiv and Kharkiv, but this is currently unconfirmed.

However, also on Wednesday, Russia apparently attempted to counter-counterattack. The location isn’t clear, though it seems to be back at the northwest end of the area, once again near that town of Kozacha Lopan, where Ukrainian forces were pushed back earlier. However, Russia’s attempt to recapture territory from Ukraine in this area has reportedly failed.

How Russian tanks are dictated by Russian strategy, and vice versa

As of Wednesday, Oryx is reporting more than 3,400 pieces of Russian equipment that have been lost. Over 600 of those are lost tanks, and a huge chunk of those is some form of T-72.  Just as with the structure of their army, the nature of their tanks is defined by the expectation of Russian leaderships. And then the nature of what the army can do, is defined by those tanks.

“The biggest advantage with the T-72 is also its biggest weakness. Because this vehicle was designed to be used by a conscript army. So it’s easy to operate. But that’s also its biggest weakness, because a conscript army cannot pull off sophisticated tank tactics. It’s supposed to be easy to maintain, but that’s not the case if all of your corrupt generals are stealing the funds that are meant to be used for maintaining the vehicles.”