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I’ve said this before and I’m going to keep saying it until it becomes the theme of every story that so much as touches on the antics of Sen. Rand Paul: Rand Paul is a contrarian opportunist. That’s his schtick. Whatever anyone else has got, Sen. Rand Paul will come up with a reason why he’s against it, and if you stumble into agreement with something Rand Paul previously believed then Rand Paul will declare that now he’s against that thing and the nation will unravel if people like you support it. All of this is constant, cynical experimentation by Paul as he tries his hand at creating the latest Viral Fundraising Moment, some brief moment in time when equally contrarian Americans see Paul saying something and are willing to reward his gadfly nature with five American dollars. Possibly 10, if Paul can wedge the word “filibuster” in there somewhere.

Right now the nation’s attention is focused on Russia’s military attack on Ukraine, so that is where Rand Paul’s own attention lies. Rand Paul is vaguely aware that under Donald Trump, Republicanism drifted from perennial hawkishness to international nihilism, a new belief that America owes nothing to anybody and even our closest allies are treating us like “suckers.” Rand Paul has inherited a mailing list of longtime conspiracy cranks, more than a few of them raging racists, thanks to his father’s long career as contrarian opportunist. And Rand Paul is quite certain that the Trumpian wing of Republicanism likes Vladimir Putin, does not like Vladimir Putin’s enemies, and that Ukraine is bad because they wouldn’t turn over Hunter Biden’s secret DNC server holding Italian satellite-controlled Jewish Space Laser data even though Donald Trump asked them super nicely to do that.

And that is how we get this. Keep in mind: Rand Paul is a contrarian opportunist. He does not have principles; he merely puts on little one-man plays to see what reactions might net him the most fundraising cash.

If you watch that whole clip you’ll notice a few little details, like Paul having to correct himself after saying “Russia” to say “Soviet Union,” and most notably Paul’s determination to not take full ownership of the argument he himself is making. Paul’s anti-NATO stance is one he’s actually stuck to for a while now, since it plays exceptionally well with a base forever worried about things like the United Nations coming to indoctrinate your kids or NATO being a secret conspiracy aimed at creating a “one world government.” It’s also gotten him, like numerous other House and Senate Republicans, in some tight spots as he ends up regularly being one of the American lawmakers that “coincidentally” keeps landing on the same talking points Putin’s allies are trying to sell in any given moment of time.

But Paul is arguing that the United States shouldn’t respond to a new war of conquest because the authoritarian government doing the conquesting is, after all, focusing its campaign on annexing territories that fled from their rule after their last authoritarian government ended in crisis and collapse, which is … a very odd argument! And one that, according to Rand Paul himself, he’s, uh, not making! Unless you like it, in which case he is! He’ll look at the Internets later and decide which parts to run with.

I dunno, senator. This sounds a bit like if you called the police because your neighbor got tired of you talking smack, jumped the fence and broke a few of your ribs, then when the police came they just looked at you and said, “This guy has owned the property next door for an awful long time, so we can kind of see where he’s coming from on this.”

And, scene. Once again Rand Paul has used one of the most critical issues of the day to Rand Paul-up a Senate hearing with Rand Paulisms that none of us are going to remember a few weeks from now, but which he’ll use for a new fundraising drive just as soon as his staff can clip the footage. (For the record, as I write this Paul’s Twitter feed still consists mostly of anti-mask statements, including one that claims masks to be “ineffective” and another claiming he has been “vindicated” by a far-right judge deciding that nobody’s gotta wear masks on planes anymore because FrEEdOmZ.)

Contrarian opportunism: A political tactic in which you claim to have a grievance with absolutely everything anyone else says, use that ostensible disagreement to tie up government in such a way that practically requires reporters to flock to him to have him speechify, you solicit donations based on the publicity, and then move on to the next thing. Sometimes it does require you to get rather close to Putin’s own theories that Russia is justified in invading any nation that Russians have ever had historic claims on, so it requires more courage—or at least fewer principles—than you might think.

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I don’t know if you heard: Elon Musk has spent—checks notes—$44 billion on the social media application Twitter. Where Musk is leveraging this extraordinary amount of money is predictably shrouded in mystery. That’s how our economic system works! This is something of a bummer as Musk has a long history of being like every other oligarchical wealthy person in the history of the world in regards to his intense interest in himself. The South African Musk, born and raised during the height of apartheid, has a history of running a successful avant-garde electric vehicle business you may have also heard of. That business has a very troubling history of allegedly being run like an archaic white supremacist plantation.

The fact of the matter is that our media, social media, and general forms of news and communication mediums have been consolidated into the control of a few extremely wealthy and powerful hands for some time now. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter isn’t the end of the world in any specific way—just an omen of what has been happening and what will continue to happen without general intervention in our marketplaces by government.

There is a silver lining here: Musk’s continued flirtation with the libertarian-cum-conservative misguided free speech warriors has the potential of stifling an enormous swath of the consumer base that Donald Trump’s Truth Social app was hoping to pull away from the blue tweeting bird. Do I care what happens to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s assets? Only insofar as it would be nice to see those assets distributed back into the pockets of people who need it more. Other than that, I’m here for Truth Social CEO and GOP thin-skinned lapdog Devin Nunes begging for Fox News on-air personalities to join Truth Social.

RELATED STORY: Top executives jump ship, numbers down, Trump sad, Truth Social is a disaster

Nunes came on Fox News to try and remind viewers that Truth Social is still a thing and definitely not a disaster where two of the technological architects of the application have quietly resigned after the launch was a nightmare and faktriots were complaining of being “censored” within days of signing on. The CEO of Trump Media & Technology group (TMTG) told Fox host Brian Kilmeade that he was happy that Kilmeade had signed on to Truth Social, “but you need to send out some truths if you want to get more people.”

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

It seems that while many right-wing media celebrities like Steve Bannon have yet to even sign up, the ones who have are not using their accounts—or likely even looking at Truth Social ever. In fact, a big problem over at Truth Social seems to be fake right-wing accounts that Truth Social keeps verifying in the hopes of finding out that they are real accounts. This happened with a fake Fox News account on Truth Social a week or two ago.

RELATED STORY: So much for free speech: Trump’s ‘Truth Social’ Twitter rip-off already banning and censoring users

In the clip below, Nunes even references the sad state of affairs over at Truth Social, attempting to jokingly-not-jokingly implore Kilmeade to both use the app more and post things. “We’re so excited that you’re on Truth—you’re getting followers very very quickly—but you need to send some ‘truths’ out if you want to get more followers.” You see what he did there? He is pretending that Kilmeade is a big part of Truth Social while also saying Brian clearly isn’t using Truth Social. Also, if your business model is based on Kilmeade sending out “some truths out,” you’re in big trouble.

Nunes then transitioned to some MacGuffin about how now that they are on Rumble “cloud servers,” Truth Social cannot be “canceled by any tech tyrants.” This, of course, remains to be seen, as tech billionaires like Musk’s buddy Peter Thiel have spent a lot of money to support Rumble.

Circling back, Nunes reminds Kilmeade to use the app and also puts in a plea for help getting at least one of the Doocy dunces onboard. “But also, Brian, you’re on Truth, we need you to truth, but Doocy—I gotta talk to him. So, he’s got to turn his phone on and click on the app, he’s been let in. Either that or he may be a bot.”

Is there a difference?

RELATED STORY: Don’t buy a Tesla unless you’re okay with Black workers being brutalized by racist managers

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President Biden today announced he would commute the sentences of 75 nonviolent drug offenders, part of a “Second Chance Month” meant to call attention to the failures and systemic racism of the war on drugs. Three pardons were announced, including the pardon of the first Black American to ever serve as part of a presidential Secret Service detail: Abraham Boldon served several years in prison after he was accused in 1964 of trying to sell Secret Service information, but witnesses later recanted their testimony and Boldon himself always maintained the charge was retaliation against him for exposing racism in the agency.

These are the first pardons of Biden’s term. Criminal justice advocates have been hopeful that Biden would use his powers to more broadly grant clemency for those caught in the transparently racist supposed “war on drugs” that resulted in hyperaggressive policing of non-white neighborhoods while ignoring drug use in white ones, but so far Biden’s team has shied away from that sort of boldness. Seventy-five commuted sentences is still a good start, though.

Turning slightly to a media critic role: There are two bits in the reporting on this that are a bit odd and worth calling out. In The Washington Post‘s write-up, we are told:  

“Biden’s use of his sweeping clemency powers appears more targeted on righting injustices than his immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, who was known for granting pardons to celebrities and political allies who had broken the law.”

That looks conspicuously like a Post attempt at snark, but it’s probably lost on most readers. A more accurate phrasing would note that Trump notoriously used his pardon powers to immunize political allies who were involved in probes of potentially criminal behavior by Donald Trump. Trump’s pardons were not merely magnanimous attempts at celebrity toe-kissing or rewards to allies but often appeared to be squarely aimed at rewarding close associates who lied or refused to talk to federal investigators about his own acts.

As for CNN, their write-up commits the Trump-era sin of granting anonymity to a “senior administration official” who tells us that Biden is “committed to using his clemency power to provide relief to individuals who are serving long sentences that they could no longer receive today, because of changes in the law, including the First Step Act, which reduced mandatory minimum sentences for certain nonviolent drug offenses” and these are … not statements worth granting anonymity for! Did the reporter simply forget to ask probably-Jen-Psaki to go on the record, or some similar flub that needed to be papered over a bit?

Please, please do not continue the Trump-era habit of granting top administration officials anonymity to provide administration-flattering information that directly and 100% mirrors what the administration itself is saying, even if such information is harmless. During the Trump era it was used by gutless officials to slather Trump with implausible praise and to stovepipe ridiculous talking points without having to take responsibility for saying such intelligence-insulting things. It was essentially a method of dodging public blowback for spouting falsehoods. We don’t need to hear “anonymous” officials giving us the exact same information the White House officially wants to put out. Anonymity is meant to protect sources willing to give information their peers do not want the public to know.

This person is not going to get fired if anyone ever learns that they spilled the beans that Biden “believes that there (are) too many people serving unduly long sentences for nonviolent drug crimes.” We know that. He’s said it. Please have an editorial meeting and hash out what statements deserve anonymity and which statements are just someone in power trying to bend a story to their will without taking public responsibility for their statements. Please.

Now that we’ve gotten my intractable crabbiness out of the way, what should we make of Biden’s use of his powers here? It’s good! The pardons are meant to reward a small set of individuals whose post-conviction lives have been devoted to the public good. The commuted sentences send another clear message reminding the nation that there is a sin here that needs to be corrected. It’s a sin that destroyed American lives for no better reason than a past spate of public paranoia that, as it turned out, served much the same purposes as other race-based paranoias before and since. Let’s do this again next month, and the month after that, and so on. You’re never going to run out of people who deserve clemency when it comes to past drug possessions. Not ever.

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On Tuesday, WSOC-TV Channel 9 reported that three sources tell them Rep. Madison Cawthorn “was cited for having a gun at Charlotte Douglas International Airport Tuesday morning.” The outlet says that they were given a photo that shows a “loaded Staccato C2,” a 9 mm handgun that was taken away from Cawthorn during a TSA check inside of Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

This would not be the first time Cawthorn has tried to board a plane with a firearm. Back in 2021, Asheville Regional Airport police took away an unloaded “Glock 9mm handgun” that Cawthorn was attempting to board a plane with. At the time, Cawthorn called it a “mistake,” and no charges were filed.

As TSA spokesman Mark Howell told the Citizen Times back in July, Georgia’s gun laws are pretty loosey-goosey compared to other places, and it is reflected in how airport police deal with such offenses. “In New York they perp walk you out of the airport in handcuffs. In Georgia, you can open carry anywhere. It’s different everywhere.”

Cawthorn is clearly fond of keeping weapons on his person. All the time. Every time he violates state or federal laws, Cawthorn seems to get away with less than a slap on the wrist. In September, when Cawthorn was drumming up money by attacking school mask mandates, he was photographed with what seemed to clearly be a dagger tucked into his wheelchair. This was at a school board meeting in Henderson County, North Carolina.

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In January 2021, Cawthorn’s strange retelling of events that day made it pretty apparent to most that he had likely carried a firearm, or more than a single firearm, illegally into the House chambers on Jan. 6. He has denied that specific claim but has also been unable to square the circle of how he claimed to possess more than a single firearm that day while not having a chance to return to his office, where elected officials are legally allowed to keep firearms.

RELATED STORY: Republican rep. remains quiet when asked whether he smuggled a firearm into House chamber on Jan. 6

Cawthorn’s strange obsession with guns has extended to not simply illegally carrying them around the Capitol building—he has also been filmed inappropriately cleaning his gun during important hearings on veterans’ affairs. Cawthorn has so many reasons to be kicked out of office, and he continues to violate laws across the country while suffering none of the consequences he demands others suffer.

There has been no comment from Cawthorn about this incident.

Here’s one of three Cawthorn videos of him being pulled over for driving 89 mph without a driver’s license, and being let off with a citation.

Here’s Madison being pulled out for speeding at 87 mph—with a gun in the car.

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Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed a bill that would automatically restore voting rights to those who lost them as a result of a constitutional provision penned to disenfranchise Black would-be voters in the Jim Crow era, according to Mississippi Today.

House Judiciary Chair Nick Bain, a Republican legislator, actually drafted the bill the Republican governor has refused to back. Bain told Mississippi Today that courts are already restoring voting rights to people who have had their criminal records expunged and that his bill just “clarified” that judges should be doing so.

That, however, is not how Reeves apparently sees the change. As he put it in a tweet on Friday: “I have vetoed two bills—automatically returning voting rights to criminals and weakening the state’s ethics commission.”

RELATED STORY: Jim Crow-era law to guard against ‘negro rule’ still making criminals of black N.C. voters

The second bill Reeves mentioned, Senate bill No. 2306, would give the Mississippi secretary of state the ability to assess fines to a politician or political committee that failed to make the proper campaign finance disclosure, according to the SuperTalk Mississippi radio network. That power currently rests with the Mississippi Ethics Commission.

“I believed then, as I believe now, that the assessment of penalties for violations of campaign finance disclosure laws should be made by an appointed public body not subject to such laws, as opposed to a single elected official who is subject to such laws,” Reeves reportedly stated in his veto message.

Regarding the proposed voting rights legislation, Senate bill No. 2536, he wrote:

Felony disenfranchisement is an animating principle of the social contract at the heart of every great republic dating back to the founding of ancient Greece and Rome.

In America, such laws date back to the colonies and the eventual founding of our Republic. Since statehood, in one form or another, Mississippi law has recognized felony disenfranchisement.

In filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s 2016 documentary 13th, she portrayed the prison system in America as a natural continuation of slavery following the 13th Amendment, which made slavery unconstitutional in 1865 for all people—except those convicted of crimes. “If you have that embedded in the structure, in this constitutional language, then it’s there to be used as a tool for whichever purposes one wants to use it,” author Kevin Gannon said in the documentary.

Disenfranchisement has certainly been a popular tool, especially targeting the formerly incarcerated.

People convicted of felonies lose the right to vote at least temporarily in every state except Maine and Vermont. Mississippi is one of 11 states that require additional actions after the completion of any jail time and added waiting periods for a formerly incarcerated person to have their right to vote restored, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The organization cited state law in explaining exactly how the rights of Mississippians are stripped from them when they are incarcerated:

A person convicted of murder, rape, bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement or bigamy is no longer considered a qualified elector” (Miss. Const. Art. 12, § 241). If an individual hasn’t committed one of these offenses, rights are automatically restored. If an individual has been convicted of one of these, he or she can still receive a pardon from the governor to restore voting rights (Miss. Code Ann. § 47-7-41) or by a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature (Miss. Const. Art. 12, § 253).

Mississippi Today writer Bobby Harrison wrote that Mississippi has never allowed the public to vote on a less convoluted process to restore voting rights, and the news service found in 2018 that Black Mississippians represent 61% of those who have been disenfranchised, although they only represent 38% of the state’s population that is of voting age.

“It will be up to the Senate leadership to decide whether to try to overturn the gubernatorial veto during the 2023 session,” Harrison wrote.

RELATED STORY: ‘Slavery, that wretched institution, shaped the Capitol,’ Booker says. It shaped the country

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The Biden administration’s attempt to end use of Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum Title 42 order by the end of next month appears to have suffered a legal setback following a not unexpected ruling from a federal judge appointed by the insurrectionist president.

Louisiana Judge Robert Summerhays on Monday sided with a number of GOP states that had sued the administration earlier this month (not to be confused with Texas’ lawsuit from last Friday). CBS News reports that the judge intends to stop the administration from winding down the policy before the scheduled May 23 date.

“It’s not yet clear if the order will block the administration from ending Title 42 on May 23, or if it will only prohibit them from starting to wind down the policy before then,” the report said. There’s some confusion among advocates and experts because no actual order has been released as of yet, and CBS News reported the hearing was closed to press.

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

But Arizona attorney Mark Brnovich, who sued alongside the noted border states of Louisiana and Missouri, wasted no time celebrating. “We applaud the Court for approving our request for a Temporary Restraining Order to keep Title 42 in place,” a release said. “The Biden administration cannot continue in flagrant disregard for existing laws and required administrative procedures.”

But in authorizing an end to the policy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave officials the May 23 date so there would be “time to implement coronavirus mitigation measures,” CBS News reported at the beginning of the month. So the CDC is allowed to implement an unsound policy … but apparently can’t end the policy it implemented?

None of it makes sense because it’s not supposed to make sense, it’s just about using right-wing judges to implement an anti-immigrant (and anti-Biden) agenda. It’s why Arizona, Louisiana, and Missouri wasted no time suing. Brnovich has made his xenophobic credentials pretty clear all on his own, previously adopting white supremacist rhetoric to describe asylum-seeking families as an “invasion.”

Texas launched its own lawsuit against Title 42 last Friday, which very corrupt Attorney General Ken Paxton eagerly touted as the state’s 10th immigration-related lawsuit against the administration. While there is no decision on that at the moment, the Remain in Mexico policy was back in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday after it was forcibly reinstated under a lawsuit launched by Paxton and other Republicans. They know they can use the courts to sabotage the president, and they’re not afraid of using that power.

On the same day that Summerhays said he was siding with the GOP states, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with President Biden to discuss priorities for the Latino community, including the need to end Miller’s order.

The Hispanic Caucus “made it very clear that the Title 42 policy is a public health emergency policy that was instituted under the Trump administration during his hate and fear anti-immigrant agenda,” Chair Raul Ruiz said in a statement reported by CNN’s Eva McKend. We’ll keep you updated once we know more about Summerhays’ order.

RELATED STORIES: Texas’ corrupt attorney general hopes the courts can yet again help him sabotage Biden’s agenda

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

LGBTQ advocates remind us that Stephen Miller was scheming policy ‘long before’ COVID ‘even existed’

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States like Florida and Texas are (rightfully) earning a deep amount of outrage over anti-queer and anti-trans legislation—some signed into law by Republican governors, some simply proposed, and some actually not law but based on legal analysis—a growing number of states are, and have been, pushing discriminatory and hateful legislation. One such state is Missouri, where efforts to demonize and discriminate against LGBTQ+ youth and adults are well underway and aren’t showing any signs of slowing down.

As of Tuesday, we’ve seen two separate efforts to legally exclude and disparage LGBTQ+ folks thrive with state lawmakers. These legislations include HB 1973, which bars trans youth from participating in public school sports teams that align with their gender identity, and an attempt to pass a version of the Missouri Nondiscrimination Act, which would ban discrimination in hiring and firing against LGBTQ+ public school teachers, as reported by the Springfield News-Leader.

RELATED STORY: Watch openly gay Democrat tell anti-trans Republican colleague exactly what he needs to hear

Some background on trans sports in Missouri: Right now, only two openly trans girls participated on girls’ sports teams in the entire state in the last decade, per local outlet KTLO. Yes, two. The current rules from the Missouri State High School Activities Association mandate that trans girls show consistent documentation of hormone therapy. Trans boys are allowed to participate on the boys’ teams. These rules apply for kindergarten through 12th grade in public schools. 

Republican Rep. Ron Copeland sponsored the latest amendment to this bill and said he personally doesn’t care if trans boys participate on boys’ sports teams, but his amendment actually bans that, too. His argument is the same transphobia that we’ve seen from countless Republicans in these discussions: He argues it’s about protecting fairness in girls’ sports and goes out of his way to misgender trans girls as boys. 

You might remember that openly gay Democratic Rep. Ian Mackey recently sizzled a Republican colleague, Rep. Chuck Basye, over Republicans’ stance on trans rights and LGBTQ+ allyship in general. On Monday, Mackey reminded conservatives that how they vote on trans issues will be on their records forever.

“Your vote on the record will last forever,” Mackey warned colleagues. “And I can guarantee you that while not all of you will regret it, I know that some of you looking at me right now, will. Do the right thing.”

Ultimately, the House voted 93-41 to mandate that students must participate in the sports team that aligns with the sex listed on their birth certificate.

In terms of giving LGBTQ+ teachers a shred of dignity in the state, that didn’t fly, either. Republican Rep. Shamed Dogan proposed an amendment that would prevent public schools in the state from hiring or firing a person because of their gender identity or sexual orientation, saying, “We shouldn’t be firing people because they’re gay in 2022.” They also pointed out that the state needs talented teachers regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. I am reluctant to give a Republican any credit in general, but they are correct here. 

Unfortunately, the amendment was voted down 60-77. Why? Among other hateful arguments, Republican Rep. Ben Baker argued it would essentially allow pedophiles to teach.

The amendment would have “prohibited firing someone for being a pedophile,” he claimed. Latent here is the same messaging we’re hearing from conservatives all over the country when it comes to Don’t Say Gay bills and book bans: the idea that LGBTQ+ adults (and especially teachers, counselors, and coaches) are just waiting to “groom” or “turn” young people LGBTQ+.

It’s also the idea that being LGBTQ+ is essentially sexual and inappropriate for young people to be exposed to in any way, including reading about it or learning about the identity in the classroom. We can actually see another example of this happening, also in Missouri, when it comes to “safe space” stickers.

Depending on your generation, these stickers might be very familiar to you. These stickers usually appear with a rainbow background or in a rainbow font and are hung on the doors of classrooms or offices to signal that the adult is a “safe” person for youth to come to for support or questions concerning LGBTQ+ issues or identity. It doesn’t necessarily signal the adult is actually LGBTQ+ (though they could be), but more that they’re not hateful. Basically, a minimum level of allyship.

According to local outlet KCTV 5, the Grain Valley School Board recently told administrators to get rid of these stickers and cards in high schools in the district, with the logic being that all classrooms should be a safe space, not just those with the sign or sticker hanging up. Now, on the one hand, that makes sense—students should be able to talk to trusted adults in their lives and be met with support and acceptance.

But the sad reality is that no matter where you live or where you attend school, not all adults are going to be allies or advocates for LGBTQ+ people. Not all adults will be educated on the subject and not all will have the skills (or choose to use the schools) that students deserve. Is this right? No. Do students deserve better? Yes. But students also deserve the chance to at least try and choose the best person who is actually willing and open to hearing them out rather than come out to someone who is actually hateful. 

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The Senate stalemate on, well, everything legislative received a bit of a shake up Monday when an anti-immigrant right-wing judge once again preempted the co-equal executive branch, temporarily blocking President Joe Biden from ending the Trump-imposed pandemic restriction on migrants, including asylum-seekers, from entering the country. That might help break a stalemate in the Senate on providing more COVID-19 funding. And Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) just ended the prospects for Biden and fellow Democrats to make headway on climate issues, or much else, before the midterm elections.

That’s the situation as the Senate resumes real, post-recess work Tuesday as the House trickles back in to do some late afternoon housekeeping. Before Easter recess, Republicans in the Senate derailed a $10 billion funding package for COVID-19 prevention and treatment measures, funding the Biden administration is increasingly anxious to get. The administration originally asked for $22.5 billion, but congressional Republicans nixed that one right off the bat and got it whittled down by more than half, then refused to pass even that unless they got a simple majority vote on an amendment to block Biden from lifting that immigration restriction.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer does not want that vote because there are five Democrats who would probably vote with Republicans, and he doesn’t want that embarrassment. Now that the courts have stepped in, Republicans might drop it. Or not.

Because they really, really want to embarrass Biden and divide Democrats. The White House is continuing the drumbeat for the COVID-19 funding, arguing that the delay in funding is causing the U.S. to lose out on securing both booster doses and the antiviral medications. Other places—including Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Hong Kong—are ahead of the U.S. in line to get the supplies.

“We know companies are working on additional, promising life-saving treatments that could protect the American people, and without additional funding from Congress, we risk losing out on accessing these treatments, as well as tests and vaccines, while other countries get in front of us in line,” said White House spokesman Kevin Munoz. “Congress must act urgently upon return from recess to provide the funding needed to secure new treatments for the American people and to avoid this dangerous outcome.”

One of the issues is the long lead time it takes for these antiviral and antibody treatments to be produced by manufacturers. The U.S. stockpile is diminishing—the administration has already had to cut back free treatment for the uninsured and start rationing monoclonal antibody treatments. By the time the funding is actually passed, we could be behind the curve in securing the treatments. (Yay, us.) Schumer has talked about trying to tie this funding to the Ukraine aid package that’s coming up so that one can’t pass without the other, but how quickly that is going to happen is unclear.

Schumer promised “swift bipartisan cooperation” in getting the next package of Ukraine aid out, but the administration has not yet made the formal request. Sen. Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that the figure under discussion is around $5 billion in new funding on top of the $13.6 approved in March.

The administration is also considering attaching global food aid to its Ukraine ask because of the disruption in exports of wheat, corn, sunflower oil, and other products from both Ukraine—a major producer, particularly of wheat—and Russia. Aid organizations are warning of a “massive, immediate food crisis” because of ongoing effects of the pandemic and of the war.

While that’s being worked out in the immediate term (immediate being defined as before Congress leaves again for the Memorial Day recess at the end of May), slightly more long-term discussions are supposedly happening with Manchin on resurrecting something of Biden’s Build Back Better plan. Now Manchin has essentially scuttled any chance of that happening by declaring he’s going to do his own climate and energy package and it’s going to be bipartisan.

We’ve been here before. Remember when Manchin was the lone Democratic holdout on voting rights, and he promised that he could get it done with “10 good people” from the Republican side? And no Republicans helped? Here we go again.

“If I can find something bipartisan, we don’t need reconciliation,” Manchin said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday. Democrats have been pursuing a budget reconciliation bill to pass Biden’s priorities because that process is filibuster-proof. It can pass with a simple majority vote provided by all Democratic senators and Vice President Kamala Harris to break the tie.

Of course, what Manchin is looking at is not combatting climate change. It’s increasing oil production, including making companies use the public lands they’ve secured oil and gas leases for and penalizing them when they don’t. “You’re going to have to have a leasing program that works, O.K., and making sure that leases are fair, and people are not sitting on leases,” Manchin said. “We need to look at all that,” he said. “We haven’t done that.”

His theory is increasing production now will set up a system of incentives for protecting the climate later. For now, a person with knowledge of the talks Manchin has been having told Bloomberg that they’re also discussing “a potential package could include revisions to federal land policy, aid for domestic pipelines, efforts to bolster production of both liquefied natural gas at home and abroad and critical minerals.” That might come with new and expanded tax credits for renewables.

Not only would Manchin have to find 10 Republicans for this to work, it would also have to pass muster with enough House Democrats to pass. Those two things being simultaneously achieved seems pretty darned impossible.

The areas Manchin has talked about resurrecting from that larger package he killed last December were tax reform, lowering prescription drug costs, some health insurance affordability measures, and climate change and energy. Now he wants to take that big chunk out of the mix. Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has pretty much nixed anything happening to reform taxes and has been problematic on prescription drugs, too. So what Manchin might have just done by rejecting the reconciliation process on climate is to finally kill off the whole effort.

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On Monday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made it clear that the U.S. has a broader goal in assisting Ukraine against the invasion by Russian forces. “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” said Austin.

The secretary of defence’s words have generated a good deal of faux outrage and blustering from those who claim this represents some sort of change from the mission of seeing Ukraine preserve its nation against an illegal and brutal invasion. It’s not. This is that same goal, elevated. 

In 1987, historian Barbara Fields said this about of the importance of battles and tactics when discussing the American Civil War: “It’s not about soldiers except to the extent that weapons and soldiers at that crucial moment joined a discussion about something higher, about humanity, about human dignity, about human freedom.”

That’s where we are in Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is, as Fields said then, not about “battles and glory and carnage.” If that’s all there was to it, this would be a very ugly story, no matter which side we were on. For this story to mean something, for the cost of the war in both blood and money to be redeemed, requires a greater goal. The weakening of Russian power under Vladimir Putin might not have the same incalculable good as equality and freedom, but it is an almost unsullied good.

Decades ago, Putin turned his back on joining the family of nations and recreated Russia as an engine of destruction. He has used that engine in disrupting democracies and furthering authoritarian governments, not just in Russia, but around the world—including the United States. He’s used the Russian military to expand his own power by systematically attacking civilian populations in Georgia, Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere. He’s turned his own nation into a crime-driven and criminal-obsessed parody of what it could be.

Reducing Russia’s ability to conduct more invasions like the one underway in Ukraine isn’t just a side note, it’s a noble goal. It’s a goal that elevates both the contributions we are making to this cause, and the suffering and sacrifice by the Ukrainian people. 

Weapons and soldiers are once more in a discussion about something that can’t be measured in the number of tanks destroyed or the acres of land under control. We’re not just obligated to take part in that conversation, we are privileged to do so.

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The same conservative evangelical “churches” that decided habitual liar and lifelong sex predator Donald Trump was, at long last, the American savior they were looking for have not—and this should come as no surprise—dulled in their fascist support for ending democracy rather than abide Trump’s very real election shellacking. That’s the news from a New York Times piece checking in with the Colorado Springs crowd, where hard-right pastors are inviting in hard-right election conspiracy theorists who continue to declare that “fraud” cheated Trump out of a win because … well, because nothing, that’s why.

It’s the same nonsensical claims and the same known-crooked actors. Still, Republicans eat this stuff up because Republican media has been “grooming” the base to accept ridiculous lies about whatever needs to be lied about. Evangelical conservatism has more than flirted with fascism as a counter to American democracy, which hasn’t been going their way for a lot longer than that.

When you’ve got a movement already wedded to the notion that Americans should abide by hard-right evangelical beliefs by force of law, it’s not hard to sell them on theories that voting itself has become illegitimate. They don’t want to know the facts. They just want someone to tell them “facts” sufficient for smashing the place up and rebuilding America as a palace of their own personal prejudices.

The quote around which the Times builds up the rest of its story is from a “one-time Republican congressional candidate” presenting his PowerPoint slides about “Socialism.” William Federer announces that it’s the failure of the January coup to overturn the election that means “lo and behold, an anti-Christian spirit’s been released across the country and the world.”

Showing people a slide deck to explain why historic “socialism” means you need to erase our nation’s democracy is a niche approach. Most of the street thugs who want to end democracy, like the Proud Boys, aren’t about to sit through a slide show. Most of the rich financiers of such schemes have no interest in hearing somebody else’s opinions on why democracy should end—if you were rich enough to have opinions that matter, they already would have heard them.

Slap some references to an Antichrist in there, however, and the Colorado Springs church circuit will eat that up. These are people who already believe the devil controls animals they don’t like, weather patterns, and certain traffic lights—tell them that all of the Americans voting against them are merely demon-possessed puppets whose votes shouldn’t be counted to begin with, and you will get a lot of gray heads nodding along and posting your thoughts to their Facebook feeds.

Now comes the part where I’m supposed to come up with some pithy observation about this, and to be honest? I’m at a loss. You’ve got a whole movement here that would not exist if any of its participants could tell hucksters from huckleberries. Once you have decided to hoist the banner of a bunch of criminal weirdos (Michael Flynn; Tina Peters) because you are so convinced that a reality television host infamous for dishonesty, cruelty, perversions, and general maliciousness is your path to Jesus—and that all of this necessitates nullifying democracy and arresting all the “libs” who oppose you—then, at some point, the rest of the nation is allowed to give up on trying to understand you.

The televangelists who flocked to Trump early in his term were all of the most maudlin grifters, the gilded weirdos with private jets who never did a speck of genuine good for anyone in their whole damn sorry lives, and it made perfect sense because any American gullible enough to be drawn to one of them would be gullible enough to laud the other.

You want pithy? Yeah, you and me both.

I will continue to maintain, however, that humanity has long obsessed over its most brilliant members, devoting books to every physicist or mathematician or artist or researcher whose contributions upend the world and make it a better place. Still, hardly anyone is willing to point out that those people are such outliers because the majority of our species has always been sluggish, prone to delusions, and prone to worse than delusions. At least 80% of us are teetering on the edge of our evolutionary limits in learning how to use a toaster oven. Our technology has evolved around us, but we ourselves, as creatures of meat, are still wired with the same brains that see the outlines of human faces in tree bark and get frightened from it.

Fascism is an irrational movement that has contempt for reality, substituting whatever outlandish fictions are necessary in order for the paranoid to justify oppression or the outright murder of whoever is not them, and nobody involved here gives the slightest damn about whether there is evidence of election fraud. The “evidence” of the Republican conspiracy theorist is that they lost when they wanted to win, which means their enemies did something, which means it’s time for erasing everything and starting over with new rules to make sure such insults no longer happen.

Oh, and also, these assholes are almost certainly complete racists, just to throw that out there. As our Times kicker, we get the casual aside that one of the Colorado Springs pastors hosting these delusion-hoisting frauds is also anti-COVID-safety and anti-“gender identity,” but that “critical race theory” is “a hill for me to die on.”

Of all the paranoias that walk into these people’s heads, it’s the new far-right hoax supposing that “critical race theory” is now an omnipresent force working to oppress The White Folk that hits home the hardest, eh? How very intriguing.

There does seem to be quite the overlap between Americans who believe democracy needs to be overthrown so that conservatives can properly lead and Americans who believe that books by Black authors need to be removed from public schools and libraries, but the Times does not dwell on that. As is usual with these stories from middle America, someone being interviewed invariably pipes up with a clue that it is white nationalism that animates them, not the nuances of zoning laws or a genuine belief in election fraud by space laser, and as proper zoologists studying this ecosystem, we’re just going to write that down in the margins somewhere. Just a little tidbit, apropos of nothing else.

And yet it seems to come up every damn time.