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Thursday’s briefing from the U.S. Defense Department spoke directly to the relationship between Russia’s logistical problems and its slow progress in Ukraine.

“The Russians have not overcome all their logistics and sustainment challenges, and we assess that they’re only able—because they still haven’t solved all their logistics problems—just from a logistics perspective alone, not counting the Ukrainian resistance, which remains active, but just from logistics alone, they’re only able to sustain several kilometers or so progress on any given day, just because they don’t want to run out too far ahead of their logistics and sustainment lines. So they’re limited not only, again, by the fighting and by Ukrainian resistance, but by their still-continued logistics problems.”

If Putin or his top generals really want to improve Russia’s odds on the ground in Ukraine, they’d be better off staying in Moscow, or sitting someone outside Belgorod, dealing with the logistical issues and keeping supplies flowing.

In the Friday briefing, it was learned that the U.S. has commenced training Ukrainian soldiers on additional “key systems” in Germany. That includes training on radar systems and armored vehicles (presumably that means the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier). Some of the training will be carried out by Florida National Guard members who had been serving in Ukraine before the invasion. U.S. National Guard forces have participated in training and joint exercises in Ukraine over the last 8 years.

In response to questions, the DOD stated that the U.S. is not planning to do any training inside Ukraine, as that would create some level of “boots on the ground.” However, they are looking at doing some virtual or remote training for systems. Making this possible, as well as reducing the time necessary for those training in Germany, is a focus on bringing people who are already familiar with similar systems. For example, the fifty Ukrainian soldiers trained on M777 howitzers were already artillerymen, not just random people pulled out of the infantry. 

Priority has also been given to systems that Ukraine can learn quickly and which can be integrated into their effort “without burdening them” with extensive training or the need for a lot of additional support. The Pentagon seems highly aware that they do not want to saddle Ukraine with difficult and complex additions to their supply chain, or keep critical forces out of the fight for an extended period. Overall, the U.S. is very aware that it not only has to get the weapons on the ground in Ukraine—which they are doing in around 72 hours following announcements—they have to make sure that when those systems reach the front lines, they are also functional and effective as quickly as possible.

One other thing that came up in the Friday briefing that was interesting: The U.S. is aware of military donations being made to Ukraine by other nations which have not been made public. The reasons for this could be varied, including nations that are dependent on Russia for fossil fuels and don’t want to endanger that access, as well as nations who feel like this may make them targets for potential attacks (not necessarily from Russia). In any case, it means that some of the equipment that turns up on the battlefield might represent something of a detective game.

Popasna

The news out of Popasna is mostly that Popasna has still not been taken. The town remains under Ukrainian control even as additional attempts to advance Russian tanks into the town’s streets have been reported. On Friday Russia also risked a Ka-52 helicopter in an effort to get at the Ukrainian positions in the town that had blocked Russian advances for over a week. None of this seems to have dislodged the Ukrainian forces.

There’s also this report that former U.S. military member “Joseph Kensel was fighting for the Ukrainian side, was killed by the Russian army in Popasna.” However, even though this has been reported in a few locations, the original source appears to be a Russian Twitter account identified as belonging to a “hero of the Soviet Union” and whose other tweets include a heavy dose of racism. So definitely consider this to be unconfirmed at this time. 

Listen to Markos and Kerry Eleveld talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

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Amid questions about whether Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter will ever be finalized, details are trickling out about how Musk has claimed he’ll make the finances work, and … they’re about as confidence-inspiring as the average Musk tweet. 

Musk tweeted that he might eliminate salaries for Twitter’s board, which would save around $3 million, or a couple days’ worth of the interest he’ll owe for the loans he’s taking out to buy the company. He has also deleted tweets floating ideas like reducing the company’s dependence on advertising. And he reportedly told the banks he would find new ways to monetize tweets, such as charging third-party organizations to embed certain tweets, a plan likely to get third-party organizations to rely less on Twitter.

RELATED STORY: Elon Musk starts encouraging abuse of Twitter executives the day after purchase deal announced

That’s not the only questionable thought Musk has floated. “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,” he tweeted, showing that he has not followed the history of moderation at Twitter and other social media platforms, where cracking down on actual hate speech and disinformation has been a major challenge—but not one that upset the far right and far left equally.

Musk also showed that, in addition to seeing himself at the absolute center of existence, he knows nothing about U.S. politics in recent years, with this:

People on Twitter had some thoughts about that one.

Who knows, maybe this kind of thing is what Musk had in mind when he tweeted, “Let’s make Twitter maximum fun!”

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Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has been absolutely relentless when it comes to attacking trans and nonbinary youth in the state of Oklahoma. On Tuesday, Stitt signed a hateful bill into law that bans nonbinary sex markers on birth certificates, as reported by CNN. The legislation insists that the sex designated on a birth certificate must be either “male” or “female.” It may not include nonbinary or any symbol related to nonbinary identity, including but not limited to “X.”

Mind you, a growing number of states (soon to be 16, in fact, plus Washington, D.C.) in the nation recognize X as a sex marker on official documents and forms of identification. It’s also permitted on U.S. passports. It’s also allowed on official government documents in a number of countries across the globe. But Republicans don’t want trans and nonbinary people to have even a shred of dignity or government recognition. After all, it becomes much easier to stop trans and nonbinary people from accessing gender-affirming health care, for example, if their gender is affirmed by the government. And that’s exactly what conservatives don’t want.

RELATED: Bisexual Brigham Young University student protests school’s anti-queer policies on graduation stage

As a refresher, you might remember that the state’s Department of Health actually did allow nonbinary markers on birth certificates back in 2021 as part of a lawsuit settlement. However, that victory was short-lived as Stitt reversed the decision via executive order.

Listen to Markos and Kerry Eleveld talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

Stitt’s new ban on nonbinary birth certificates is the first of its kind here in the United States, but follows in the footsteps of many other anti-trans measures pushed by Republicans, including efforts to keep trans people out of sports and to deny them access to safe, age-appropriate, gender-affirming health care. Stitt himself, for instance, already signed an anti-trans sports bill into law earlier this year. 

“People are free to believe whatever they want about their identity,” Republican Rep. Sheila Dills, who sponsored the House version of this anti-queer bill, said as reported by NPR. Dills went on to add that “science” determines sex at birth and that people want “clarity and truth” on official state documents. 

As we know, first of all, her take is patently incorrect as it leaves out intersex people. It’s also clearly offensive and demeaning because people’s identities are valid. Identities, including pronouns and sex designations, are not optional or preferences. Having incorrect sex designators is in fact inaccurate, just in the opposite direction of which Dills is arguing. If we want accuracy in our records, we must expand the system to allow for nonbinary and trans folks to safely show up as their authentic selves.

Adding to the harm done here in Oklahoma is the reality that the first openly nonbinary state lawmaker actually lives and serves in Oklahoma. Democratic Rep. Mauree Turner took to Twitter the day the bill was debated and said it was a “very extreme” and “grotesque” use of power to both write the law and try to pass it when none of the people involved have to face the hardships and oppression of trans and nonbinary people.

“I find it a very extreme and grotesque use of power in this body to write this law and try to pass it—when literally none of them live like us,” Turner tweeted on April 21, the day the bill was debated.

“Have you ever had your colleagues vote on your personal documentation which will ultimately affect how you show up,” they continued. “Right in front of your eyes and say nothing to you about it?”

They went on to tweet that while they’re willing to work across the aisle, as they’re often asked if they’re prepared to do, we must also keep in mind that if conservatives are this hateful publicly, what might they be like when the “cameras are off,” as they put it?

And that’s a question we all need to keep in mind—brave folks are fighting the good fight, but we have to get involved as allies and advocates and make sure we aren’t waiting for the already marginalized and vulnerable to take on the brunt of the labor.

One thing we can all do? Educate people in our lives about trans issues and why the fight for equality isn’t an option.

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President Joe Biden laid out his urgent request for $33 billion in aid to Ukraine and $10 billion for COVID-19 measures on Thursday. Republicans responded as predicted: No. Not unless they get their way.

It’s slightly more nuanced than that, but not a lot. Their position amply illustrates that the only things motivating them are racism and partisanship. Take the pandemic. They’re arguing it’s serious enough to force President Joe Biden to continue the Trump-era anti-immigrant using the public health emergency order known as Title 42 to migrants and asylum-seekers from entering the country. But the pandemic isn’t enough of a crisis to keep funding the government’s efforts to curtail it. Not that Republicans are seriously arguing that the pandemic is behind their efforts. They have no problem simply being racist about it. If that means taking urgent aid to Ukraine hostage, so be it.

In order to get both of these things done in a timely manner—i.e. by Memorial Day—Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is likely to link the two must-pass bills. The Senate is scheduled to be in most of the month (the Fridays they routinely take off excepted) but the House has planned just eight days of legislative work, with three days of committee work, in May. So timing is a problem.

Some Democrats are a problem, too, with five of them—Maggie Hassan, Mark Kelly, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jon Tester—joining Republicans in a bill to usurp Biden’s administrative authority in immigration policy. They are helping Republicans. Period. And they are complicating getting this critical work done, because whatever passes the Senate also has to pass the House, and Democrats there are not willing to endorse Republican racism.

Rep. Veronica Escobar a Democrat who actually represents a border district in Texas, explains. “We’ve tried the Republican strategy,” she told the Washington Post. “The Republican strategy has been to build walls and harden the border. That hasn’t worked. And if you look at Title 42 over the last two-and-a-half years that it’s been in place, it has not slowed migration, deterred it, or eliminated it. So we have to do something different.” She and other members, including Sen. Bob Menendez, argue that the policy does more harm than good. Menendez told the Post that Title 42 is “part of the problem, not the solution.”

For one thing, the official report showing that 1.8 million migrants have been expelled under Title 42 is misleading and inflates the numbers. Escobar explained that it reflects multiple attempts by some migrants, who have been turned back numerous times. Menendez agrees. “There is no immigration law on the books that allows people to cross the border multiple times without consequence,” he said in a statement to the Post. “Why would any lawmaker who supports border security want to preserve such a policy?”

Schumer, who has been advocating that Biden drop the policy, is now trying to find a compromise. “We’re going to be working through this to see if we can come to a position that our caucus can agree on,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “There’s divisions there now.” House Speaker Pelosi also supports an end to the policy. “President Biden did the right thing” in setting an end date for it, she told reporters Friday. She added, “we haven’t made any decision about how we go forward” in dealing with it. She also said, “I’m all for” combining the COVID-19 request with the Ukraine supplemental. “We will have to come to terms with how to do that.”

While leadership has to figure out how to deal with those Democrats, the Republicans are happy to keep obstructing. Even the “good” ones, the “bipartisan” ones. “I think what we need to do is, we need to get Ukraine taken care of and that has to be a priority,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowsk (R-AK). “We need to have a priority on getting the Ukraine assistance out. So things that slow things down—let’s not slow things down.” So some more people needlessly die from COVID-19 because we’ve run out of money to fight it. Whatever.

“I think the prospects of each being passed would be greater if they were kept separate, and if each had the potential for amendments,” said another “good” Republican, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT). He worked on the $10 billion COVID-19 relief deal with Schumer in early April. The one that hasn’t passed. The one his fellow Republicans have been fighting, but sure, it has a great chance of passing on its own with at least 10 Republican votes.

So there’s the congressional agenda for the next month, pretty much the same as the congressional agenda for all the months.

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If you really want to know the how and the why—besides a general moral imperative to help improve generations of people languishing under the weight of stagnating wages, skyrocketing education and health costs—look no further than the recent GOP response to rumors that Joe Biden may finally do something to address his campaign promise to “immediately cancel a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person.” Most recently, the Stop Reckless Student Loan Actions Act was introduced by Sens. John Thune, Bill Cassidy, Roger Marshall, Mike Braun, Richard Burr, and Sen. Mitt Romney. That bill, among other things, is set up to stop any president from using emergency powers to forgive federal loan debt.

Why so afraid of President Biden using executive powers to forgive tens of millions of Americans’ federal debt? On the one hand, conservatives believe that federal money should only go to the richest businesses that support GOP officials’ election campaigns and offer up cushy private sector jobs if and when those elected officials need to retire. On the other hand, conservatives admit that stagnating wages, skyrocketing education costs, predatory loan practices, and the like are unfair and dragging down an entire generation or two of Americans’ earnings and spending.

And on the third, most obvious hand, they are terrified that President Biden might do something that politically moves the needle by motivating young voters and Black voters who are essential to Democratic success this coming November.

On Thursday, right-wing wraith Laura Ingraham went to Twitter to give her two cents about student loan forgiveness. Spoiler alert: She is not for it. Trigger warning: Laura Ingraham gave the most ludicrous story of all time supporting her millionaire’s position, writing: “My mom worked as a waitress until she was 73 to help pay for our college, even helped with loan repayment. Loan forgiveness just another insult to those who play by the rules.”

Listen to Markos and Kerry Eleveld talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

Obviously, this statement brings to mind all kinds of questions. For example, what was Laura doing after college that her “waitress” mom, in her senior years, was paying for Laura’s bootstraps? Ingraham graduated with a B.A. from Dartmouth college in 1985 when she was 22 years old. Ingraham’s mother died in 1999 at the age of 79. Using my fancy calculator (remember all of those hands in the opening of this story?) this would mean that, as Laura tells it, from 1985 until around 1993, while Ingraham worked at New York law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and also worked as a speechwriter for the Reagan administration, her waitress mother paid for Dartmouth college.

Okay. Maybe. Whether or not Laura Ingraham tells the truth about anything that ever comes out of her mouth or is written onto a page in the public sphere is hard to say. Most of the time, she seems to lie in service of the current GOP talking point.

The responses to this were predictably awesome.

Wait. I said that! Let’s go to the “good book.”

And from another “Good Book.”

Maybe we are coming at this all wrong?

Maybe we should come at another way.

And boy, that was fast.

RELATED STORY: Senate Republicans want to ban Biden from canceling student debt

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While people in Ukraine are concerned about a brutal war with Russia, Politico is suffering in the battle against a different kind of opponent. It seems that transparency, truthfulness, and a daily process in which White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stands there and actually answers questions with facts and competence are seriously screwing with their ability to pose as crusading journalists.

According to Politico, there’s just no opportunity to become a “star” by being a White House reporter these days. Sure, the nation has been dealing with a pandemic where the number of official deaths is about to crack 1 million, the administration launched an ambitious legislative agenda that has largely been stifled by the egos of just two senators, the United States is moving desperately to support an allied nation engaged in the biggest war in Europe since World War II, and the January 6 committee is regularly cranking out information that shows deep involvement of Republican officials from top to bottom in an attempted coup. A White House reporter just might be able to wring a narrative out of one of those little items. But only if that reporter was interested in doing 10 minutes’ worth of work.

During the age of Biden, a perch inside the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room has become something altogether different. It’s become a bore.

It’s almost as if now that no one is standing in front of the room sputtering out a string of nonsense syllables or handing out a list of easily punctured lies, journalists in the White House have to do journalism. They need to research, and write, and actually do word stuff. All of which seems a lot harder than deciding which part of their visit with Donald Trump/Mark Meadows/William Barr/Peter Navarro/Kellyanne Conway/Hope Hicks/Sarah Sanders/etc. they would simply hold back until they got that seven-figure book deal. 

Listen to Markos and Kerry Eleveld talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

Perhaps nothing can sum up this whole deeply felt concern better than this single paragraph.

“Jen [Psaki] is very good at her job, which is unfortunate,” one reporter who has covered the past two administrations from the room said. “And the work is a lot less rewarding, because you’re no longer saving democracy from Sean Spicer and his Men’s Warehouse suit. Jawing with Jen just makes you look like an asshole.”

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The Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol will launch its public hearings beginning June 9 and will commence eight sessions that will be aired during the daytime and primetime hours,

The committee’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said Thursday that after the panel rounds out its final interviews with witnesses through the end of this month and May, the hearings will kick off and effectively resume what the probe started in July 2021 when officers from the U.S. Capitol and Metropolitan Police Department offered gut-wrenching testimony to Congress for the first time. 

RELATED STORY: Exclusive USCP Officer Harry Dunn shares notes, personal artifacts of the insurrection

“Eight is the number at this point and we’re moving forward for June hearings… We will tell the story about what happened. We will use a combination of exhibits, staff testimony, outside witnesses,” Thompson told press gathered outside of the Capitol early Thursday evening. 

As of Friday, some 478 days have passed since former President Donald Trump incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The committee was formed just under a year ago and only after facing steep resistance from the overwhelming majority of Republicans led by House Leader Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy, in this months-long process, has emerged as a stubborn figure in the investigation; starting first with his refusal to voluntarily cooperate and leading more recently to his blanket denials and walk-backs after being caught on tape acknowledging the need for Trump to resign in the aftermath of the assault.

He is also recorded saying that Trump’s actions were “putting people in jeopardy.”

RELATED STORY: McCarthy does damage control with House Republicans over leaked recordings

Nonetheless, the probe has amassed a huge wealth of information about what transpired on Jan. 6, interviewing a procession of Trump administration aides and staff, high ranking and low. 

They have elicited key testimony about the strategy deployed by Trump to stage what investigator Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland defined to Daily Kos recently as “a coup that was orchestrated by the president against the vice president and against the Congress,” 

RELATED STORY: ‘Prepare to be mesmerized’: An interview with Jan. 6 probe investigator Jamie Raskin

And for those that have patently refused to cooperate, like Steve Bannon, Trump’s onetime adviser, the committee has doled out contempt of Congress referrals with the backing of the U.S. House.

So far, the Justice Department has acted only on Bannon’s referral; his trial is expected to begin later this year.

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was also referred for contempt after he abruptly reversed course on his cooperation. He provided thousands of text messages and records before bailing, however, and many of those materials have already come to expose the breadth and depth of the push by Trump and his allies to stop or delay the certification on Jan. 6 so that Trump could remain in office despite his loss.

Meadows is currently under investigation by the state of North Carolina for voter fraud and has since been removed from the rolls there. 

RELATED STORY: Not one, not two, but three states Mark Meadows registered to vote in

There has been no clear indication from the Justice Department on how they might proceed with Meadows. 

The committee has also approved and voted out of the House contempt referrals for Trump’s former communications adviser Dan Scavino and onetime trade adviser Peter Navarro. Both former White House officials were subpoenaed and both refused to cooperate. Navarro called the committee a group of “domestic terrorists” and insisted that executive privilege would shield him from answering questions about a strategy. 

Trump, however, has not invoked executive privilege over Navarro’s testimony and President Joe Biden has waived it, anyway. 

For now, the committee is keeping details about who will appear at the hearings under wraps. When asked Thursday, Rep. Raskin told CBS News that a witness such as former Vice President Mike Pence—who was integral, if not the key to Trump’s scheme—was unlikely to appear. 

“I think we have what we need from him,” Raskin said.

Members of Pence’s staff, like chief of staff Marc Short and national security adviser Keith Kellogg, were subpoenaed by the probe and ultimately provided some of the more disturbing details yet to emerge, including insight into Trump’s obstinance and sheer idleness on Jan. 6 as rioters actively swarmed the Capitol and the vice president inside. 

Almost 1,000 depositions and interviews have been taken by the committee and there are still people investigators will continue to “engage” with, Thompson said Thursday. That would include figures like Donald Trump Jr., CBS reported.

Details, for now, are also sparing on how the committee will specifically present its findings although Raskin has said it will be presented like chapters of a book.

Through the committee’s successful legal battles for records from the Trump White House and from attorney John Eastman—who wrote a six-point memo for Trump strategizing how to overthrow the election by utilizing Pence unconstitutionally—the panel has been able to piece together information about Trump’s orchestrated efforts to defraud the United States by way of his “Big Lie” about voter fraud.

The sprawl of the committee’s work has been so extensive that it broke up its research into multiple teams that would then home their focus on a specific angle. One group followed the money, for example, assessing the fundraising for the Jan. 6 rallies by Trump’s organizers and campaign staff. 

Other teams, with a fine-tooth comb, pored over the involvement and coordination of domestic extremist groups and activists involved in the assault like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Others drilled down on the pressure strategy targeting Pence. There were also breakaway groups reviewing evidence of how members of congress may have been directly pressured by Trump and more. 

Lack of cooperation from some figures subpoenaed already has not stymied the probe entirely though members are reportedly still weighing what legal recourse they have to compel testimony from fellow legislators like GOP leader McCarthy. 

Chairman Thompson indicated that by the end of this week the panel would send an “invitation” for McCarthy again. He has not been formally subpoenaed. The California Republican and House Speaker-aspirant has dubbed the investigation a sham and has, in recent months, said he would not cooperate. 

That was a change of tune from May 2021 when McCarthy responded “sure” when asked by CNN if he would testify about his conversations with Trump.

Other lawmakers, like Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, are expected to receive new requests to appear soon, too. Both men heavily promoted Trump’s lie that election fraud was rampant.

Text messages obtained by the committee and otherwise made public have put both Jordan and Perry at the heart of the push to stop the certification on Jan. 6. 

Once the hearings conclude, the committee will issue a public report. 

Raskin told Daily Kos that report would not be a dry, perfunctory rehashing of the mountain of information obtained. Instead, Raskin said he hoped it would be a “multimedia report” to better encapsulate the gravity of what was at stake on Jan. 6, lay everything out for the record visually, and make it accessible to all.

Though the committee indicated in court this March that it found enough criminal evidence to refer Trump to the DOJ, as of early April, members were reportedly split on how to proceed. 

Despite the criticism from those who have stood opposed to the committee from its inception, the panel has strived to keep the contours of its probe clearly delineated from the Justice Department’s own investigation.

The DOJ has now charged more than 800 people for crimes connected to the insurrection at the Capitol. 

And while separation of powers undergirds so much of what has driven the committee for these many months, members have also made clear: if in the course of their investigation they unearth evidence of a crime, it will, of course, not go ignored. 

RELATED STORY: Jan. 6 probe weighs criminal referral for ex-president

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The city I grew up in was once referred to as “Chocolate City.” That has changed. Today, Washington, D.C., is less than 50% Black, so, when I read a recent study finding that Black birthing people in D.C. make up 90% of birth-related deaths, I was understandably shocked.

But, the real shocker was that of the 90%, no white residents in my hometown reported pregnancy-related deaths, yet this group made up 30% of the births.

If you know D.C., you won’t be surprised to learn that Wards 7 and 8, east of Anacostia River, are where the remainder of the city’s “chocolate”—aka, Black and lower-income—residents live. These neighborhoods comprised 70% of the pregnancy-associated deaths.

While Wards 2 and 3, neighborhoods home to such tony spots in the city as Georgetown, Chevy Chase, and Dupont Circle, are mostly where white, wealthy residents live. The study found no pregnancy-associated deaths in these areas.

RELATED STORY: White principal sues school district claiming she was ‘forced out’ over racist ‘slip of the tongue’

The study conducted by the Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC) looked at deaths associated with pregnancy in D.C. between 2014 and 2018. During this period, 36 D.C. residents died in pregnancy.

“Eleven were maternal deaths, 10 were pregnancy-related deaths occurring 43 days to one year following the termination of a pregnancy, and 15 were deaths occurring within one year of the termination of pregnancy due to accidental or incidental causes,” the report reads.

The report defines pregnancy-related death as “a death during or within one year of pregnancy, from a pregnancy complication, a chain of events initiated by pregnancy, or the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiologic effects of pregnancy,” and this includes “maternal deaths within 42 days and pregnancy-related deaths 43 days to one year following the termination of a pregnancy.”

Dr. Christina Marea, a cofounder of MMRC, told DCist, “The disparities and the statistics are very real and very concerning, and they are very much along racial lines—racial lines that are underlined by these social and structural causes. … There’s nothing about Black birthing people that makes them more likely to die, it’s the environments to which they’re exposed in our social, environmental, and health systems.”

According to DCist, the committee reviewed D.C.’s maternal and pregnancy-related deaths and how the issue aligned with the health issues that disproportionately impact the city’s Black residents—illnesses such as heart disease and hypertension—all related to systemic racism such as access to health care and quality education, environmental issues, housing, and bias, according to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP).

“Yes, there are increased rates of pre-existing and pregnancy-related cardiovascular diseases that contribute to mortality,” Marea told DCist. “But let’s go farther upstream than that, and say ‘why are young women at such high risk of developing heart disease or other cardiometabolic disorders at such a young age?’ Well, we look at these social and structural factors that increase the chronic stress that their bodies are under.”

Since the formation of the committee, several initiatives and a budget for 2022 were put into place.  

“When I introduced the Maternal Health Resources and Access Act, I knew it was the first step in a necessary expansion of insurance benefits and supports for expecting mothers enrolled in the District’s Medicaid and Alliance health plans,” D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson said in June 2021.

“These investments include increased access to doula services and subsidized transportation to prenatal and postpartum appointments. When you combine these changes with other important measures the Committee funded today, like the Postpartum Coverage Act of 2019 and the Certified Midwife Credential Amendment Act of 2020, we begin to make real movement toward reducing the disparate maternal health outcomes across the District.”

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As Medicaid Awareness Month draws to a close, health advocates are warning about a very big cliff as many as 15 million people could fall off in a few months. Those millions, including as many as 6 million children, got coverage on Medicaid during the COVID-19 public health emergency. In the early days of the pandemic, Congress passed a “continuous coverage” provision under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, one of the first pandemic response bills. It prohibits states from kicking people off the program during the public health emergency.

The emergency was extended earlier this month and is now set to expire in mid-July. When it ends, Medicaid coverage won’t be the only thing that goes. Expanded SNAP (or food stamp) eligibility will end, too. There are plenty of other health-related programs that will go with it.

There are nearly 77 million non-elderly people who have health coverage through Medicaid, the federal/state partnership program to provide coverage to disabled Americans, and low-income Americans and their children. Something like 17 million people have enrolled during the COVID-19 pandemic, the result of job loss or long-term disability from the disease.

One of the real issues is for states, which have to determine Medicaid eligibility on a regular basis. States have been feeling their way through this, going extension to extension but dealing with a great deal of uncertainty because these extensions last just three months at a time, and because it looks like Congress isn’t going to do anything to respond with a permanent fix like the provision in the Build Back Better Act to ease the process for states.

There’s traditionally a lot of churn in Medicaid rolls, as people lose coverage because their income increases and they are no longer eligible, or they fail to provide the documentation required to continue their eligibility when they’re up for review. Because of the emergency, states haven’t been through this process in two years. It means that the data they have—people’s addresses, income, eligibility information—hasn’t been updated. So there are going to be added difficulties in the whole process. On top of that is the messiness of so many new enrollees from the COVID-19 crisis. Many of these people will be entirely new to the process of renewing their eligibility, and millions could end up being removed without even knowing it.

There are solutions other than just renewing the public health emergency every few months. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities details how Congress could do that.

That includes federal legislation to close the Medicaid gap in the 12 states that refused to take the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. The gap is those people who don’t qualify for traditional Medicaid under those states’ rules because they make too much to qualify—in Texas, making $3,733 annually counts as too much—or age out of it, and don’t have enough income to purchase insurance through the ACA marketplace.

That leads to another thing Congress can do—make the temporary premium tax enhancements in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) permanent. They’re not going to expire in July, but at the end of the year, when people’s Obamacare health insurance premiums go up, with notices going out in October. Just before the election. And lower-income people who can’t get Medicaid won’t be able to afford these new private health insurance costs. The Urban Institute estimates that about a third of the people who are going to lose Medicaid eligibility when the public health emergency ends could qualify for premium tax credits, but won’t be able to afford it without the ARP enhancements.

Congress could also make sure that all children in the program have 12 months of continuous eligibility as well as require all states to provide 12 months of postpartum coverage. Those provisions were passed by the House in Build Back Better, and as CBBP says have proven to be important “mechanisms for keeping eligible children and postpartum people enrolled, reducing unnecessary and potentially harmful coverage gaps, and reducing paperwork burdens on both states and families.”

Protect Our Care has a new fact sheet, as part of its efforts for Medicaid Awareness Month, outlining just how critical Medicaid is for women. It’s done similar analyses for how Medicaid has reduced disparities for communities of color, people living with disabilities, rural Americans, women, children, and seniors and older Americans.

Medicaid covers 31% of adult women, which in 2020 was 16% of women under age 65, and is particularly helpful to people of color: about “33% of Black Americans, 30% of Hispanic or Latino individuals, nearly 15% of Asian and Pacific Islanders, and 34% of American Indian and Alaska Native individuals are enrolled in Medicaid, compared with 15% of white individuals.” It also covers more than 44% of women with mental and physical disabilities. The program is also the largest payer for reproductive health care, including birth control, cancer screenings, and maternity care.

There is just so much at stake, as always, with health care, and so many threats in yet another election year and one in which it’s entirely possible that Republicans regain at least one chamber of Congress. They’re already plotting against us, with the latest iteration of “repeal and replace,” the anti-Obamacare mantra of the last decade. That makes getting this done now all the more critical. Democrats should be focusing on these issues with as much focus and zeal as they have on Obamacare in the past.

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