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House minority leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy has gotten himself into hot water with his Republican colleagues for daring to suggest — soon after the January 6th insurrection — that he was going to tell President Trump he should resign. McCarthy denied that he ever said anything of the sort. Then, of course, an audio recording of him saying that very thing turned up.

The crazy thing is that McCarthy never actually told Trump he should resign, he only told fellow Republicans that he was going to tell Trump to resign. Nevertheless, he is getting pilloried for the mere suggestion. The Republican leader, who hopes to soon become Speaker of the House, has since done everything he can to get back on the die-hard, Trumpist side of the party. Principles? Who need ‘em!

Since this most recent dustup, McCarthy has assured everyone he is all-in with Trump and says the former president has forgiven him. All he needed to do was side with the insurrectionists, undermine democracy, kiss Trump’s ring and sell his soul.

Enjoy the cartoon — and remember, you can help support my work by joining me over on Patreon, where you’ll find prints, audio and behind-the-scene video!

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Adam Gopnik/New Yorker:

The Real Meaning of Emmanuel Macron’s Victory

The fact is that, in difficult circumstances, Macron has managed to win the Presidency twice.

[Marine] Le Pen did not get an enormous vote as a far-right extremist; she got an exceptionally large, though losing, share by pretending not to be a far-right extremist. She also benefited enormously from the presence of [Eric] Zemmour, who was so much further right and so unapologetically anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant that Le Pen seemed temperate by comparison. The whole force, and successful burden, of Macron’s remarks as the campaign ended was to remind people who Le Pen really is, and what her family legacy has been—though struggling to differentiate herself from her openly fascistic-minded father, she inherited her position mainly because of her family name—and what she really stood for. He did, and the French understood the reminder.

Walter Shapiro/TNR:

The U.S. Needs an Endgame in the Russia-Ukraine War

So far, Biden and the public are fully behind sending arms to fight Russia. But will the time come for a Putin-appeasing peace treaty?

Still, the quest for total victory in Ukraine is premised on the belief that defeat is the best deterrent. Having forged NATO unity and a surprising degree of economic sacrifice by the Europeans, Putin should be under no illusions that next time will be easier. The Ukraine war is one of those rare times when the morally right course—forcing Russia to retreat from all of Ukraine—is also the approach that appears to make the most strategic sense. There are no certainties in an irrational war seemingly brought on by Putin’s passion to restore the Soviet Union. But America should do everything in its power—short of sending troops—to bring victory parades to Kyiv.

Emily Hoge/Lawfare:

The Legacy of the Soviet Afghan War and Its Role in the Ukrainian Invasion

The unifying feature of the Afghan movement was a sense of victimization. Regardless of their politics, Afghan veterans were united by the feeling that they had been betrayed: by a government that sent them to a fight in a disastrous war, by people who now said they were murderers, by the fact that they weren’t considered heroes in the way that World War II veterans were, and by the lack of recognition and benefits they had expected and that were granted to veterans of other wars. In response, they started founding political and mutual aid organizations built around the idea that veterans of Afghanistan were and should be loyal to each other above all else. They felt they didn’t owe anything to and couldn’t rely on anyone but fellow soldiers of complicated wars—members of an international “combat brotherhood” that included them, veterans of Vietnam, and eventually veterans of the conflict in Chechnya and other “local wars.” Above all, they felt that they couldn’t rely on the state, the Soviet state or later the Russian state, to take care of their needs and would take care of each other themselves.

Yet by 2014, when I sent my email for my PTSD research, Afghan veterans’ groups had become loyal advocates of the government, frequently represented at and organizers of pro-Kremlin rallies. Afghan veterans’ groups gathered and trained volunteers to send to Crimea and the Donbas in 2014. Some Russian “volunteers” wounded there were treated in a sanatorium belonging to an Afghan veterans’ group, according to a 2014 interview with fighters published by a now-defunct Russian-language website. Veterans’ groups were some of the first Russian organizations to establish branches in Crimea after its annexation. Many Afghan veterans, even though they were mostly in their 50s and 60s, went to fight in eastern Ukraine themselves.

William Saletan/Bulwark:

The Most Damning Part of the Meadows Texts

He knew the president was lying. And he kept helping to spread the lies anyway.

We’ve known for a long time, based on audits, investigations, and court reviews, that Donald Trump’s allegations about massive fraud in the 2020 presidential election are false. We also know, based on firsthand accounts from Trump’s former aides, attorneys, and political allies, that Trump’s advisers repeatedly told him the allegations were false. That leaves two possibilities: Either Trump is lying, or he’s trying to overthrow the government based on an impenetrable delusion. Take your pick.

Now we’re compiling similar evidence against Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s chief of staff during the election. He, too, knew Trump’s accusations were false. And instead of telling the truth, Meadows helped spread the lies.

The latest evidence comes from a batch of more than 2,000 text messages, revealed by CNN that were sent to or from Meadows between November 3, 2020, and January 20, 2021. Three of the exchanges are particularly instructive: one in early November of that year, another in late November, and a third in early December.

Politico:

Multiple RNC staffers have spoken to Jan. 6 panel, sources say
House investigators have questions about the party’s messaging and fundraising in the weeks after the 2020 election.

Most of the officials who have spoken with investigators are former employees who worked during the 2020 election cycle, including the fraught period between Election Day and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, one of the people said.

That means the committee has more insight than previously known into the Republican Party’s activity in the lead-up to January 6. The interviews underscore the select committee’s interest in how political messaging by the national GOP apparatus — which partnered with the Trump campaign on digital fundraising efforts — may have stoked falsehoods about the 2020 election.

They also want to know just how successful one particular email campaign was at getting users to click through to donation websites. Those emails prompted people to give money based on false claims the election was stolen, the select committee has emphasized.

Committee investigators have said they’re interested in who authorized the RNC’s specific messaging about the election outcome and whether it played a role in stoking the violent mob that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Mark Liebovitch/Atlantic:

Just Call Trump a Loser

His record is clear. Some nervy Republican challenger should say so.

But if Trump does decide to inflict himself on another race, he will enter as the clear Republican favorite, enjoying a presumption of invincibility inside the GOP. This has engendered a belief that anyone who challenges Trump must tread lightly, or end up like the roadkill that his primary opponents became in 2016.

That notion is outdated.

Trump’s bizarre and enduring hold over his party has made it verboten for many Republicans to even utter publicly the unpleasant fact of his defeat—something they will readily acknowledge in private. I caught up recently with several Trump-opposing Republican strategists and former associates of the president who argued this restraint should end. The best way for a Republican to depose Trump in 2024, they said, will be to call Trump a loser, as early and as brutally as possible—and keep pointing out the absurdity of treating a one-term, twice-impeached, 75-year-old former president like a kingmaker and heir apparent. In other words, don’t worry about hurting Special Boy’s feelings.

Morning Consult:

Most Governors Facing Re-Election This Year Are Quite Popular
Democrats in Rhode Island, Wisconsin and New Mexico have the weakest job approval ratings of governors up in 2022

Most governors facing re-election in November are beginning the year popular with voters in their states, according to Morning Consult Political Intelligence quarterly tracking. And despite declines over the past year, a handful of Republicans among them are some of the most-liked governors in the country

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New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján said he’s close to making a full recovery from his stroke this past January. “I’m feeling strong,” he said, according to the Associated Press. Luján made the remarks during a visit last week to a local high school to discuss mental health support. “I’m still not 100%, but I think I’m over 90%.”

Luján was out for roughly a month following his stroke, saying in mid-February that he planned to complete his recovery at an in-patient rehabilitation facility following his discharge from the University of New Mexico Hospital. The junior senator had also undergone surgery to ease swelling on his brain.

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

”Now, rest assured, New Mexicans can know they will have a voice and a vote during this process,” he said at the time. “That has never changed. Now throughout my recovery, my Senate office has remained open, and we’ve been working to provide constituent services throughout New Mexico during this entire time.” 

Luján had also pledged to return in time to consider the nomination of President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee. He made it back on March 3, to a standing ovation from the Senate Commerce Committee. An emotional Luján thanked his Senate colleagues for their prayers, saying “it worked.”

The president had the week prior announced that he’d selected Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to replace associate justice Stephen Breyer. On April 7, Luján voted to confirm her.

“Over the course of Judge Jackson’s historic confirmation hearings, she carried herself with poise, dignity, and resolve,” he said. “Even Republican Senators recognized Judge Jackson as a deeply qualified and knowledgeable jurist, as seen in their remarks and the bipartisan confirmation vote today.” He said that “as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, I know that she will continue to serve as an inspiration to countless Americans.”

Luján made the remarks on his recovery during a joint visit with Education Sec. Miguel Cardona. Luján called the spike in mental health distress among youth “heartbreaking,” but told students “how inspired I am by your strength and courage—and that it’s okay to ask for help or reach out to someone who may be struggling.”

“The Senator also discussed the COVID-19 relief funding he delivered through the American Rescue Plan and other legislation that increased federal support for schools to meet students’ mental health needs and respond to the pandemic,” his office said.

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Thanks to Republicans, you can bring guns just about anywhere these days. “Good guys” with guns are ubiquitous, as are bad guys with guns. And morally ambiguous guys with guns. And teenagers. And toddlers. And dudes in windowless white vans who’ll give you a discount on a George Foreman grill if you’ll have just one beer with them. And maybe just a skosh of black tar heroin. Come on, you know you want to.

Of course, ours is arguably the last country on Earth that should be awash in guns. We’re a little on edge, in case you hadn’t noticed. And yet we’ve become so blasé about gun ownership, we’ve started to see a rash of gun seizures at airports—and not just among Republican congressmen.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or getting all your information from Fox News (granted, those two are functionally equivalent), you know that North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn was recently cited for bringing a loaded handgun to the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. It was his second such offense. He’s also scheduled to appear in court next month for allegedly driving with a revoked license.

Madison Cawthorn is facing a primary this coming month. Listen to a breakdown of the May primaries on Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard

As a serial lawbreaker, one might think Cawthorn would face the same kind of heat as the lowly plebs who have also conveniently “forgotten” about the guns in their meticulously curated carryons and found themselves in handcuffs. Like this guy. Or this one. Or this one. Or this lady. Or this one. And those are just from this month.

Or maybe, since Cawthorn is in Congress, the klieg lights should be trained upon his and his compatriots’ relentless efforts to turn our country into a giant Insane Clown Posse mosh pit with unlimited ordnance.

In fact, one political party is extrapolating exactly that lesson from Cawthorn’s latest misadventures. I’ll give you one guess which one.

CNBC:

A pair of House Democrats urged the Transportation Security Administration on Thursday to crack down on the growing threat of firearms at airports, days after a Republican congressman was caught bringing a gun to a TSA checkpoint.

[…]

“Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle agree that those who break the law and endanger the safety of other passengers — and especially repeat offenders such as Rep. Cawthorn — must be held to account,” read the letter from Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and transportation subcommittee Chairwoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.

“TSA must pursue appropriate action without fear or favor against all such offenders, regardless of whether they are public figures such as Rep. Cawthorn,” they wrote.

While policies on whether or not to arrest these offenders vary by state, and even city, one lawyer CNBC spoke with hinted that Cawthorn did receive the kid-glove treatment in the wake of his alleged violation. Brad Smith, a Charlotte, North Carolina, criminal defense attorney, said at Charlotte Douglas, such violators are typically arrested at the scene.

“More often than not you’re taken to jail, and booked,” Smith said. “The DA’s office absolutely prosecutes those cases.” 

And they should prosecute this one, too; if they do, Cawthorn faces up to 60 days in jail for his misdemeanor charge. But even more important than prosecuting offenders like Cawthorn is rousting him and his fellow gun fetishists from Congress. Because until we do, we’re going to continue to see alarming news items—like this one from February:

With a surge in guns being discovered at airport checkpoints, some security experts are suggesting higher fines and even putting violators on a no-fly list to prevent firearms from getting on planes.

Airport screeners found 5,972 guns at checkpoints last year, easily breaking a record set in 2019 despite a drop in air travel, and 86% of those guns were loaded, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

Guns seizures are rising as airlines report record numbers of disruptive passengers on flights. Together, that “makes for a toxic combination,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., said Tuesday.

Since travelers caught with guns tend to claim they “forgot” they had loaded weapons tucked in with their tiny toiletries, TSA leaders continue to point out how irresponsible that is, from the Garden State—

“Claiming to forget that you have a gun with you is inexcusable,” Thomas Carter, TSA’s Federal Security Director for New Jersey, said in a statement. “If you own a gun you need to know where it is at all times.”

—to the Old Dominion.

“The regulation preventing the carrying of guns onto planes has been in place for decades, so this is nothing new,” said Robin “Chuck” Burke, TSA’s Federal Security Director for the [Norfolk, Virginia] airport.

[…]

“Forgetting that you have a loaded handgun in your possession is a careless mistake to make, especially when you are headed to the airport for a flight,” said Burke.

Sadly, Republicans are more likely to impeach President Joe Biden for trying to sneak through airport security in a tan suit than pass sensible gun-control laws, even if those laws would be vital to maintaining airport security. 

Then again, when was the last time Republicans came out for anything other than chaos?

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE. 

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Sometimes you get confirmation of something you already knew and it still makes you want to vomit your small intestines down a storm sewer. Ever wonder why there are so many racist, homophobic, antisemitic, and transphobic GOP candidates? Because GOP voters love ‘em, that’s why! Occam’s razor cuts pretty deep sometimes, doesn’t it?

The latest Morning Consult/Politico poll surveyed voters of all stripes and found, among other horrors, that a full 62% of Republicans are more or less cool with candidates who are accused of making racist remarks.

And that’s not all! They’re also bigger fans of domestic violence, sexual misconduct, homophobia, and antisemitism than Democrats and independents are. 

Here’s a quick summary.

For the nontweeters:

Morning Consult/Politico

If a candidate is accused of ___ is it a major problem?

Sexual misconduct:
83% of Dems say yes
77% Ind
66% Republicans

Domestic violence:
81 D
74 I
67 R

Racist remarks:
80 D
59 I
38 R

Homophobic remarks
71 D
50 I
25 R

Antisemitism
71 D
61 I
47 R

The party of personal responsibility and family values, right?

Of course, judging by Donald Trump’s vote totals in the past two presidential elections, it’s safe to assume that at least 98% of the 38% of Republicans who claim to be bothered by racist remarks also told Morning Consult their favorite pastime is lying to pollsters.

It would also be interesting to see what these numbers were before Trump decided to start devouring old-school Republicans’ souls like so much Fiddle Faddle. Perhaps the cognitive dissonance was simply too much for the 34% of Republicans who think sexual misconduct is no biggie, and they decided to be honest for once. But wait, you’re telling me racism may actually be a selling point for GOP candidates? Here I thought all those white Rust Belt voters were flocking to Trump because of Kanye West. 

By the way, you’ll be shocked to learn that only 26% of Republicans would consider it a major problem if a candidate was accused of making transphobic remarks. I’m surprised it’s that high, honestly.

They say it’s important to know your enemy. I’d like to amend that slightly: It’s important to know your enemies, but not so well that you can’t control your vomit reflex when you’re driving to the polls to vote them out. I sincerely hope this news hasn’t pushed you over that edge, because we need your vote. 

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE. 

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Watching responses to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the case of United States v. Vaello Madero, where the only dissent came from Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, was painful. While legal scholars wrote a raft of opinion pieces on why or why not the decision was or wasn’t correct, all I could think of was the 1899 illustration from Puck, posted above, which I used to show my students back when I was still teaching a college course on the Caribbean. 

The Library of Congress description of the graphic describes the scene:

“Print shows Uncle Sam as a teacher, standing behind a desk in front of his new students who are labeled “Cuba, Porto [i.e. Puerto] Rico, Hawaii, [and] Philippines”; they do not look happy to be there. At the rear of the classroom are students holding books labeled “California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, [and] Alaska”. At the far left, an African American boy cleans the windows, and in the background, a Native boy sits by himself, reading an upside-down book labeled “ABC”, and a Chinese boy stands just outside the door. A book on Uncle Sam’s desk is titled “U.S. First Lessons in Self-Government.”

The racism encapsulated in the illustration is patently obvious. While Uncle Sam is portrayed as adult white father and teacher, colonized people are depicted as squirming and uncomfortable children, with racial stereotypes including menial labor, pigtails, bare feet, and feathers thrown in for good measure. 

Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.

I don’t remember ever being taught about the Insular Cases in school. I learned about them when studying Puerto Rican history outside of the classroom, as an activist for Puerto Rican independence. I wonder if readers here had the same schoolroom experience I did.

Back in 2017, Doug Mack wrote this story for Slate which describes the Insular Cases’ history.

How a series of racist Supreme Court decisions cemented the island’s second-class status.

The devastation wrought by Hurricanes Irma and Maria has reawakened many Americans to the existence of Puerto Rico as well as the archaic laws and domineering bureaucracies that continue to burden the island. News outlets have scrambled to explain the Jones Act, the 1920 law that restricts shipping between U.S. ports, the PROMESA board that Congress set up last year to oversee Puerto Rico’s finances, and the fact that territory residents can’t vote for president.

But beneath these data points lurks something deeper and more problematic, yet rarely discussed: the Insular Cases, a series of Supreme Court decisions from the early 20th century. When we talk about the differences between states and territories—and when we ask why the United States even has territories in 2017—we’re really talking about the legacy of the Insular Cases. The recent controversies are, in fact, the latest iteration of a conversation about American empire that goes back more than a century.

The earliest Insular Cases were decided by the same Supreme Court that allowed “separate but equal” segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. That case was overturned, but the Insular Cases, which are built on the same racist worldview, still stand today. Legal scholars disagree about how many Insular Cases there are—some say six; others include more than two dozen—but the general view is that they begin with Downes v. Bidwell in 1901. Up to then, the U.S. government considered territories to have the complete protection of the Constitution and a clear, straightforward path to statehood. This was true for all of the territories that existed on the North American continent at the time—Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and Alaska. But as the new century dawned, the federal government’s definition of what it meant to be a territory was shifting rapidly, as manifest destiny morphed into empire-building. President William McKinley and other leaders of the day aimed to bolster U.S. global stature by following the template of European powers: controlling the oceans by controlling islands, holding them not as equals but as colonies, as possessions.

Social justice activist Debbie Pérez conducted the following hour-long interview with attorney, activist, and co-host of the Radio Independencia podcast Andrés González Berdecía last year. This interview was conducted in English; much of the information and discussions around Puerto Rico, from a Puerto Rican perspective, are in Spanish. This essentially limits the information to only Spanish speakers, but many Puerto Ricans in the diaspora don’t speak the language, much like a vast majority of mainland citizens.

Berdecía explains the history of not only the Insular Cases, but the Jones Act, which granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship. He also points out that some of the best constitutional lawyers both here and in Puerto Rico haven’t studied or been taught about the Insular Cases in depth. 

When I was teaching, most of my students didn’t think of the U.S. as a colonial power; our “colonies” are dubbed “territories,” further obfuscating the political reality. Yet most of us here in the U.S. who have been watching the the disastrous Caribbean tours of the British royals—like this one covered here last month—have no problem describing the nations visited as “former British colonies.”

Now if only Americans could only get used to using “colony”—and understanding what that means—when we talk about our government’s relationship to Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam, not to mention the rarely mentioned Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.

Erica Gonzalez, director of Power 4 Puerto Rico, which bills itself as “a national coalition of the Puerto Rican Diaspora and allies working full-time and year-round for federal policies and legislation that will support Puerto Rico’s just recovery, economic growth and self-sufficiency,” has no problem using the “C” word.

It’s often assumed that all Puerto Ricans are clamoring for U.S. statehood. That’s simply not true; as Gonzalez notes below, that’s a “colonizer mindset.”

Puerto Rico and its citizens should get to choose for themselves what happens next—known as self-determination. Activist Maricarmen Gutiérrez of CASA wrote about it just this week in a Daily Kos Community story. 

Even though slavery was abolished in the 19th century in the United States, it is dismaying to know that here in the 21st century, an entire country – my country – can be a possession of another country. That we can’t decide our destiny. No matter how many local governments you choose, your sovereignty is kidnapped.

To our surprise, there is a bill in Congress, HR2070, to decolonize Puerto Rico. This bill binds Congress in that process. It is not a perfect bill, but it has achieved the approval of important sectors in Puerto Rico, including all the existing political parties. The United States Congress denies that Puerto Rico is a colony. The existence of such a project – a new law to be passed which would allow Puerto Ricans to control their own political destiny – exposes this lie. This bill gives us hope, but we’ve seen sparks of hope fail to catch fire before.

If you are wondering what you can do to support the movement for self-determination for Puerto Rico, consider sending emails to Congress.

The Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act (introduced in both the House and the Senate) has diverse support.

Join me in the comments section below for more on Puerto Rico and for the weekly Caribbean Twitter Roundup.

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Journalist Spenser Mestel tweeted a photo on Wednesday of South Dakota Democrat Rueben Engelhart holding a 2018 ballot measure petition that stretched from his chin to his shins. “Per a new law in South Dakota, canvassers must collect signatures on the same single sheet of paper as the full text of the initiative — and the font can be no smaller than size 14,” Mestel said in the tweet. “It’s part of a wider Republican-led war on ballot initiatives.”

Gov. Kristi Noem signed legislation requiring the larger font size into law last year, and South Dakota Republicans as well as those in about a dozen other states are hardly stopping there when it comes to restricting the ballot initiative process. 

RELATED STORY: Explainer: What is a ballot initiative?

Last year alone, 146 bills were introduced to restrict that process, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a liberal advocacy organization. “After progressive issues like #MinimumWage won at the ballot in 2016 and 2018, you started to see an increase in state legislatures trying to make them less accessible,” Chris Melody Fields, executive director of the organization, tweeted.

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

In 2016, voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Washington pushed through ballot measures to raise the minimum wage by such a degree that at least 2 million Americans were due raises by 2020, The Atlantic reported. Major win.

A ballot measure to lower the minimum wage for employees in South Dakota under the age of 18 who do not receive tips was rejected by more than 70% of voters in 2016, the Associated Press reported. Another win.

The GOP didn’t, however, take the losses silently.

The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center is monitoring 87 bills that aim “to change the ballot measure process or block ballot measure implementation in 13 states,” the organization reported. The organization identified Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, and South Dakota as “top states to watch.”

This year, Arizona voters will consider imposing both a “single subject rule” requiring each ballot initiative to address only one topic, and a repeal of the Voter Protection Act, “a 24 year old law which protects ballot measures from being altered by legislators after they are approved by voters,” according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center.

Here’s what the center reported on Florida and Missouri:

Florida: Following the trend of their 2021 legislative session, Florida legislators have introduced bills intended to dilute direct democracy from a few different angles: (a) by making the signature collection process more onerous and more confusing, (b) by severely limiting the subjects voters can consider at the ballot, and by limiting campaign contributions during the signature gathering process.

Missouri: The legislature has introduced nearly two dozen attacks on the initiative process as of March 1, 2022. These attacks are designed to curtail Missourian’s initiative and referendum rights in a variety of ways, including raising the voter approval threshold, increasing the signature collection requirements, expanding the geographic signature collection requirements,  increasing the fees to file signatures, creating new ways signatures can be invalidated, and even making the processes indirect by giving the legislature say over what voters propose. After failing to pass attacks last year, Missouri legislators are even more determined to undermine the people’s tool this year.

Mestel tweeted that legislators are trying to raise the threshold for a measure to pass to 60% in Arizona and 66% in Missouri. “And when initiatives succeed, lawmakers don’t always listen,” he continued. “After FL voters raised the minimum wage, legislators tried to create a ‘sub-minimum’ wage for service workers.”

That bill failed, but a vital takeaway remains: Where there is a Republican will, there will be a suppressive way. The only real, long-term solution is to vote them out of office.

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Roger Stone is back! Nope. I spoke too soon! It seems that Roger Stone created a new Twitter account on Thursday morning, announcing he was back from his lifetime suspension. Stone seems to have been under the impression that Elon Musk’s impending take over of Twitter and all of the solipsism Musk represents meant that “free speech” speech talk included him coming back onto the social media platform that banned him back in 2017.

According to the Daily Beast, Stone took to Telegram to write, “Well bitches I’m back on Twitter.” He added, “I’m anxious to see how strong Elon Musk’s commitment to free speech is.” It took Twitter a little while to make sure that @RogerStoneUSA was indeed connected to the odiously pardoned criminal. After they did that, Twitter banned Roger Stone again.

Reporter Zachary Petrizzo followed the fastest story in the West today.

A Twitter spokesperson told the Beast: “The account referenced was permanently suspended for violations of the Twitter Rules, specifically our ban evasion policy.”

Stone told the outlet, “I posted a new account to prove a point. I look forward to whoever made the decision to suspend my account getting fired. Attn: Elon Musk.” Only the best people.

Star Wars!

Don’t let the door …

And a classic.

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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In addition to his “dry mist” COVID-19 spray, Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker has had other health products he’s promoted over the years. The problem is, the science-based health community—and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—have doubts about their efficacy.

The Daily Beast found an August 2020 interview in which Walker told right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck about the new FDA-approved “spray” that kills COVID on contact.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you,” Walker says. “Do you know right now, I have something that [you can bring] into a building, that will clean you of COVID, as you walk through this, this dry mist?”

But the COVID-curing spray isn’t the only product the former Heisman Trophy winner has touted. There’s also Aloe-Lu-Ya, an aloe vera-based health drink launched via Walmart in 1999, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It was deemed a “commercial failure,” as reported in an SEC filing.

RELATED STORY: No big shocker to learn that Herschel Walker hawked ‘dry mist’ spray to ‘clean’ you of COVID-19

AS reported by the AJC, when Aloe-Lu-Ya failed, Walker rebranded through another company with a plant extract drink called Sunutra. This time the claims were that the “phytonutrients” in the drink could ward off a slew of diseases, “including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, urinary tract infections and more,” the SEC filing reads.

Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos Elections’ The Downballot podcast with David Nir and David Beard

The company was also forced to admit to the SEC that these “beliefs” were “not supported by medical evidence generally accepted by the medical community.”

Maureen Meister, a registered dietician and lab researcher at Georgia State University, told the AJC: “It certainly isn’t going to prevent disease. … Certainly, it can slow it, but it won’t be a magic pill.”

In 2014, Walker partnered with multi-level marketing-based company Livio International as a spokesperson for an anti-aging creme, AJC reports.

Four years later, Walker was hawking Novagen, a testosterone-building supplement to help “push back time against time” in the “locker room,” the “boardroom,” or “even the bedroom.”

Then there’s the latest COVID-19 spray.

“When you leave—it will kill the virus as you leave, this here product,” Walker told Beck, adding that he has a second unspecified miracle product, a “spray” possibly indicated for use after the dry mist treatment.

“They don’t want to talk about that. They don’t want to hear about that,” Walker says. “And I’m serious.”

The two-time Pro Bowl champion running back refused to say whether or not he’s been vaccinated or boosted, but of course, he continues to poll high among Republicans.

According to an April 7 The Hill/Emerson College poll, Walker is leading Sen. Raphael Warnock 49% to 45%.

Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) has reported that Walker’s personal financial disclosures continue to be murky.

Walker’s net worth is between $29 million and $65 million, GPB reports. And his income from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021 was reportedly $4 million.

One example of Walker’s possibly opaque reporting comes from Stephen Spaulding, a senior adviser at Common Cause, a government watchdog organization.

“According to this candidate’s financial disclosure form, no person or entity paid more than $5,000 for any services provided by him—at the same time, he disclosed an interest in an LLC valued at more than $25 million and that provides ‘business consulting and professional services,’” Spaulding told GPB. “This may raise questions for voters trying to screen for conflicts of interest who want to know more about who got what from the consulting and professional consulting firm that bears his name and pays him millions in shareholder income.”