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The now-telegraphed likely end of federal abortion rights in the United States continues to send the Republican politicians who have plotted that end for decades scurrying for cover; abortion rights remain overwhelmingly popular in this country, despite decades of demonization efforts by far-right theocrats, and the party must now turn its ample hoax-crafting powers on inventing reasons the public should not blame them for the very outcome that Senate Republicans and state lawmakers have devoted their professional lives to bringing about.

National media continues to struggle as well, with political reporters spending more of their time fluffing stories about the indignity of the Supreme Court leaking the draft decision than about the bizarre nature of an Alito decision that scrubs centuries of recognized abortion rights to replace them with eugenics-premised theories and the legal musings of a ravingly misogynistic British witch-hunter.

It may be fitting that the continued constriction of American civil rights is met yet again with media befuddlement and political dissembling, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach. Some of today’s news:

• Amazon. Google. Coca-Cola. These are some of the companies that funded the end of Roe v. Wade
• Swing-state Democrats go on offense on abortion rights as Senate Republicans dive for the bunkers
• Matt Gaetz calls women upset about Roe reversal ‘over-educated, under-loved millennials’
• Alito cites racist eugenics theory to support overturn of Roe v. Wade
• Texas provides a chilling glimpse into our post-Roe future
• McConnell has never been so desperate to change the subject as with his Supreme Court gutting Roe

The ground situation in Ukraine continues to be largely stagnant, with battered Russian forces accomplishing not much while their superiors hunt for a Putin-pleasing miracle (or war crimes that could be bent to serve as such):

• Russia tries to counter Ukraine’s counterattack … and fails
• Mapping positions at the start of day 70

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

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In a sea of absolutely brutal, exhausting news, it can be truly refreshing to focus on something good—or at least, something that doesn’t involve literal human rights and freedoms. As Daily Kos covered at the time, beloved country music star (and humanitarian) Dolly Parton politely declined a nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame back in March, and the Hall rather hilariously rejected her rejection. Ballots had already gone out to voters, according to the organization, and they left it up to the people to vote. And vote they did!

As reported by CNN, Parton will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame anyway. Others who made the cut for 2022 include Lionel Richie, Carly Simon, Duran Duran, Eminem, and Pat Benatar. According to NBC News, this is the first year that six women will be inducted into one class, which is a pretty cool milestone. The induction ceremony is scheduled for November 2022.

But how does Parton feel about winning something she opted out of? Well…

RELATED STORY: Lawmakers in 19 states vow to offer legal refuge for trans youth displaced by Republican hate

We don’t actually know yet! But, Parton spoke to NPR in an interview about just that hypothetical scenario last week, saying she’ll “accept gracefully” by saying, “Thanks.” She added to the Morning Edition she would ultimately accept the win because fans vote. She also added that she initially thought the award was meant for rock musicians, though a number of non-rock artists have been inducted over the years. 

In a statement, John Sykes, who serves as chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, described the inductees as a “diverse group” with a “profound impact” on the “sound of youth culture” who ultimately helped change the course of rock and roll.

“Their music moved generations,” he continued. “And influenced so many artists that followed.”

Other awards include the Musical Excellence Award, which went to Judas Priest, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis, as well as the Early Influence Award, which went to Harry Belafonte and Elizabeth Cotten. Lastly, the Hall also offers the Ahmet Ertegun Award, which went to Allen Grubman, Sylvia Robinson, and Jimmy Iovine. 

Musicians who were nominated, but ultimately not inducted this year, included Dionne Warwick, Beck, Rage Against the Machine, A Tribe Called Quest, Kate Bush, Devo, Fela Kuti, New York Dolls, and MC5.

In an otherwise terrible news cycle, folks on Twitter found some joy and humor to celebrate Parton both for her win and lately for herself. She is just that good of a person, really.

Mind you, pretty much all of us look like angels compared to Elon Musk, but Parton especially so. What do you think about her inclusion in the Hall? 

Contribute now to support abortion funds providing financial assistance to people seeking abortion care

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Chief Justice John Roberts is understandably upset about the leaking of his fellow conservative, Samuel Alito’s, wrathful, misogynistic diatribe representing the views of (apparently) the majority of the Supreme Court toward the subject of abortion. In an exceedingly rare statement following the publication of the leaked opinion, Roberts huffed about the impropriety of it all:

To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed. The work of the Court will not be affected in any way.

We at the  Court are blessed to have a workforce—permanent employees and law clerks  alike—intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law. Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court. This  was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.

Contribute now to support abortion funds providing financial assistance to people seeking abortion care.

Justice Roberts’ indignance at what will most certainly be the final nail in any perception that the operating majority of this court as currently constituted is anything but a cabal of extremist right-wing Federalist Society hacks—specifically bred and cultivated for one purpose—likely stems from his realization that, ultimately, his own incompetence will be blamed. And that’s a perfectly reasonable sentiment. This type of premature “leaking” of an opinion—let alone one carrying such magnitude—has never happened before in the history of the court, and the blame for it, whatever the facts may be, ultimately rests on his shoulders as chief justice. He senses this, or he should. And elected Republicans, adopting this same line, appear to be far more outraged at the bare fact of the “leak” rather than the actual content of what was “leaked.”

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

The irony here is inescapable. Roberts bemoans the “betrayal of confidences” displayed by the public dissemination of a judicial opinion that represents just such a betrayal. Presumably, he is complaining about this rude infringement upon the court’s prerogative to deliberate and fashion its opinions privately, without exposing its inner workings to the public (a “right of privacy” so to speak, which is particularly rich given that the entire debate about abortion centers on privacy, and the entire premise of Alito’s opinion seeks to eviscerate that right). 

But “betrayal of confidence” also means a breach of trust, and the draft majority opinion is exactly that: a betrayal of confidence in all American women and those who may become pregnant. It is a betrayal of their expectations, their convictions, and most importantly, their personal autonomy to make one of the most intimate, personal decisions imaginable. In fact, it is worse than a betrayal; it is a statement of wholehearted disrespect and disdain. That is the real essence of Alito’s hate-filled rant.

Perhaps even worse than that, it is a staggering betrayal of the very “rule of law” that Roberts leaps here to defend. It is a betrayal and disregard of the duty of adherence to prior precedent which is, in fact, the only glue that bestows any legitimacy on a judicial body. And now that this court has seen fit to abandon that duty based on political considerations and ideology, the world sees just how hollow this supposedly hallowed institution has become.

He calls it a “singular and egregious breach of that trust,” but he spares no consideration for the millions of those Americans who placed their trust in his court, their trust that the state would never become weaponized against them, now seeing their rights suddenly ripped away. And not just “any” rights: rather, the basic, visceral, biological, and personal right to make one’s own reproductive decisions, a right that had existed under the Constitution and was explicitly validated by his own forbears for half a century. He complains of an “affront” to the court’s decorum, ignoring the colossal affront his own colleagues have just perpetrated.

This is your court, Mr. Roberts. They just showed all Americans exactly what they are. So please, just spare us your paeans to propriety and “decorum.”

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On Wednesday, John Doerr announced that he and his wife Ann gave $1.1 billion to Stanford University to establish its first new school in 70 years: The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Doerr, a venture capitalist whose most recent book focuses on addressing the climate crisis, has been investing in sustainable technologies since 2006 and believes that the next generation is eager to address one of the most pressing issues to face humanity. “This is what the young people want to work on with their lives, for all the right reasons,” Doerr told The New York Times. Aside from its proximity within Silicon Valley, Doerr has plenty of good reasons to choose Stanford as the university he’s placing a big bet on: The school recently transitioned to 100% renewable energy and has supported a series of promising studies on sustainable technologies.

According to the Times, the school will include academic departments focused on planetary science, energy technology, and resource security, along with interdisciplinary institutes and a policy and technology solutions development center, which somewhat goes hand-in-hand with Doerr’s guide to reaching net-zero by 2050. Doerr’s “Speed and Scale” includes conversations with other billionaires seemingly invested in the climate crisis, including Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, though some of the world’s richest people barely invest in climate change compared with their overall worth. They also are some of the biggest individual culprits driving climate change. Their emissions, of course, are nothing compared with major fossil fuel companies, but it’s kind of frustrating that the rich talk a big game but do little to actually move the needle on reaching net-zero when the clock is ticking and they’re only getting richer.

Inside Philanthropy founder David Callahan seems to echo my fears, telling The New York Times that it’s difficult to imagine one of the most selective, costly schools in the country establishing a climate and sustainability program isn’t exactly doing a whole lot for the common good, unless you’re only concerned with those privileged enough to attend. “I don’t see how giving a billion dollars to a rich university is going to move the needle on this issue in a near-term time frame,” Callahan told the paper. “It’s nice that he’s parting with his money, but that billion dollars could be better spent trying to move this up on the scale of public opinion. Until the public sees this as a top-tier issue, politicians are not going to act.”

In terms of solutions, Doerr’s own book argues that the top way to “accelerate the transition” is to “win politics and policy.” “Speed and Scale” presents nine policies in hopes that the top five global emitters—China, the U.S., the E.U., the U.K., and India—adhere to them, with net-zero commitments at the top of the list. Doerr does offer some good suggestions on how to appeal to the decision-makers who may make a difference in reducing emissions, such as holding regional utilities more accountable and building voting coalitions, but throwing money at Stanford can only do so much. In Doerr’s own words, “no tool is more powerful or accessible than civic involvement at the local level.” Were he to practice what he preached and instead offer support for on-the-ground organizers and groups, he’d likely see a far higher return on investment in communities that are the most severely impacted by climate change.

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Let’s face it: This Republican-packed Supreme Court was always going to overturn Roe v. Wade. The only question was which B.S. justification it was going to use to do it. I was a little worried they’d cite Godzilla vs. Mothra or one of Ginni Thomas’ texts as precedent just to shove it in our faces, but what actually happened is arguably worse.

The GOP’s decades-long campaign to turn all childbearing-aged women into agency-free Easy-Bake Ovens has now reached its stunning denouement with the leak of Slimin’ Sammy Alito’s draft majority opinion eviscerating 1973’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Alito’s opinion is horrifying on its face, but it’s even more problematic upon closer inspection, what with its name-dropping of an old-timey English dude best known for executing witches and blithely defending rape.

From Jezebel:

In case you needed any further proof that the modern anti-abortion movement is an outgrowth of many centuries of virulent misogyny and violence against women, Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked opinion draft striking down Roe v. Wade relies heavily on a 17th century English jurist who had two women executed for “witchcraft,” wrote in defense of marital rape, and believed capital punishment should extend to kids as young as 14.

“Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale,” Alito wrote in his argument to end legal abortion across America, “described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision.’ See M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown.”

So how many of you woke up this morning thinking you were guilty of “great misprisions”? Not many, I’ll wager. But clearly, a great many of you are up to your blowsy neck wattles in them. 

How interesting that Alito would cite Pleas of the Crown! That’s the text, published in 1736, 60 years after Hale’s death, that defended and laid the foundation for the marital rape exemption across the world.

Pleas of the Crown? Were there no relevant passages from Archie Comics? Honestly, at this point, I’d trust Mr. Weatherbee’s legal judgment far more than Clarence Thomas’. 

For instance, there’s this kernel of homespun wisdom from the noble Sir Hale’s full-throated defense of rape: “For the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract.”

Now there’s a moral paragon for you! Say, is this kind of thing actually supposed to convince anyone, or is this just the “fuck you, we can do what we want” sort of message we all expected from Boof Kavanaugh and his band of merry Squees? I used to think Supreme Court decisions needed to be based on sound arguments from unimpeachable sources, but after seeing Alito’s big bowl of bonkers I kind of want to drop Hitler’s plum strudel recipe into my next loan application just to see what happens. I mean, why not? We’re just making it all up as we go now, right?

Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that Hale also sentenced two women to death following “one of the most notorious of the 17th century English witchcraft trials.” And now his desiccated antediluvian finger is wagging at witchy women from beyond the grave, thanks to Sam Alito and his personal Wayback Machine. 

So maybe it’s time to do something about it. In the wake of all this, it may be hard to decide whether to donate to Democratic candidates, Planned Parenthood, or choice advocacy groups. I can’t answer that for you, of course, but ActBlue is a good place start, as is EMILY’s List. 

You know what to do.

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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A fired Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a 12-year-old boy was arrested and charged with murder, the district attorney’s office announced on Monday. In fact, the officer, Edsaul Mendoza, was being held without bond, charged with first degree murder, third degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, and possession of an instrument of crime in the death of Thomas “TJ” Siderio, according to the office of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.

Krasner said in an initial statement that Siderio was killed on March 1 in the Girard Estates section of the city. What he didn’t confirm at the time—the heartbreaking details of the case—he later released at a news conference on Monday and with an unsealed jury presentation from the investigating grand jury.

RELATED STORY: Three officers finally charged in shooting death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility after months of protests

Siderio was with a 17-year-old friend, NK, on the day of his death, and they were riding their bikes at about 7:30 PM when Philadelphia officers in an unmarked car and plain clothes “initiated a pedestrian stop” on the boys because they suspected NK was connected to a stolen firearm investigation involving someone named Santo Primerano, according to a summary in the jury presentation. Kwaku Sarpong, the officer driving the undercover car on the scene that day, pulled over and activated emergency lights and as he did so a shot was fired, hitting the rear window of the car.

Siderio and his friend took off running, eventually separating, the grand jury found. Mendoza was chasing Siderio, who was initially carrying a gun, according to the jury presentation, but it was the officer who fired at Siderio. “He fired at Thomas Siderio a total of three times,” the grand jury wrote. “His first shot was at the bottom of the block, near the intersection of 18th and Barbara Streets. He fired his second shot, mid-block, after Thomas Siderio had discarded his gun.

“Unarmed, Thomas Siderio then stopped running, and either fell or dove to the ground. PO Mendoza then fired his third shot from less than ten feet away from the child, and fatally wounded him.”

After the shooting, Mendoza’s partner asked him where the gun the child was carrying was, and Mendoza responded, “somewhere around there,” the grand jury wrote.

“When Officer Mendoza fired the third and fatal shot, he knew the 12-year-old, five-foot-tall, 111-pound Thomas Siderio no longer had a gun and no ability to harm him,” Krasner said during his news conference. “But he fired a shot through his back nonetheless that killed him.”

Thomas was not the subject of the officers’ investigation, according to the grand jury. They stopped him despite department directives requiring that “police officers in plainclothes and detectives will not routinely make traffic stops unless the actions of the violator are a clear danger to pedestrian or vehicular traffic and no marked unit is readily available.”

“None of the CIU Officers had seen either of the boys in possession of a gun when they made the decision to conduct the pedestrian stop and none of them saw the boys involved in any criminal activity,” the grand jury found. “Nothing either boy did, before the initiation of the stop, required the CIU Officers to initiate the stop in an unmarked car with officers in plainclothes.”

Officers even cited conflicting reasons for initiating the stop. Alexander Camacho and Robert Cucinelli, who were riding in the unmarked car with Sarpong and Mendoza, testified that they were making the stop in relation to the stolen firearm investigation. Sarpong and Sgt. Vincent Butler testified that the officers stopped the boys for riding their bikes in the wrong direction on the street, according to the grand jury.

Attorney and legal analyst Rebecca Kavanagh called Thomas’ death, which was captured on neighbors’ doorbell cameras, an execution. Officers weren’t wearing body cameras, Kavanagh said.

“If ever there were a case that warranted the word execution, this is it,” she tweeted. “Mendoza didn’t just shoot 12-year-old TJ in the back as he was running away [altho he did that]; when TJ fell to the ground, he stopped, stood over him and shot him dead.”

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House Homeland Security chair Bennie Thompson is urging Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release one of the hundreds of workers swept up during the largest workplace raids in a decade. 

ICE initially detained Lladi Ambrocio-Garcia in 2019, following cruel and retaliatory raids targeting food processing plants across Mississippi. While hundreds of immigrants with roots in the U.S. were deported, no high-level corporation executive faced charges. Ambrocio-Garcia reentered the U.S. to reunite with loved ones but has now been detained by ICE for months. The Mississippi lawmaker is among those urging her release.

“I welcome the administration’s decision to end mass worksite enforcement operations and prioritize workplace enforcement against unscrupulous employers,” Thompson said in a letter last month. “I ask that ICE also consider providing relief to victims of previous mass worksite enforcement operations that targeted exploited workers.”

RELATED STORY: 230 workers deported, hundreds of others remain in limbo two years after Mississippi ICE raids

Thompson is pointing to a welcomed memo by the Biden administration last fall that announced an end to ICE’s workplace raids. This practice disproportionately punished undocumented workers while, again, leaving many abusive employers relatively unscathed. But while this practice of workplace sweeps has stopped, ICE is clearly still punishing victims of these raids.

”In a letter, Ambrocio-Garcia’s advocates described her health plight since her imprisonment,” Mississippi Free Press reported last month. “They wrote that Ambrocio-Garcia had suffered from COVID 19, as well as kidney infections on two separate occasions. ‘Today—as a direct result of ICE’s wrongful and retaliatory workplace raids—Lladi is detained at ICE’s Stewart Detention Center in Georgia.’”

Lumpkin’s Stewart facility has been called one of the brutal detention centers in the nation. Prism reported last year that four people at the prison had died of COVID-19 within the span of a few months, and disabled immigrants have said they’ve been hurled to the floor from their wheelchairs by abusive guards.

The fact is that Ambrocio-Garcia should have never been targeted by immigration officials in the first place. Southern Poverty Law Center has been among advocates noting that the raids were a retaliatory tactic against immigrant workers who had spoken out about workplace abuses. “Rather than screening and protecting them though, ICE arrested and deported potential worker victims and witnesses,” SPLC said. 

Mississippi Free Press reported that advocates have repeatedly rallied outside Thompson’s office, in hopes he can “intervene to get Ambrocio-Garcia freed from ICE detention since he is the House Committee on Homeland Security chairman.” Thompson held a hearing the fall after the sweeps, noting at the time that children came home from school to find their parents were gone. When lawmakers pressed an ICE official on how many families were separated by the raids, he said he had no idea. “Do you realize how indicting that answer is?” Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee responded.

“We were out there; we were standing in front of the office,” Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity Labor Rights organizer Miranda Bolef told the Mississippi Free Press in advocating for Ambrocio-Garcia. “With our signs, we were showing that Lladi is still detained; this is still an injustice that’s happening right now.”

The Mississippi Center for Justice (MCJ) said in a 2021 report that 230 workers were deported and hundreds more remained in limbo two years after the raids. “Many don’t have access to work permits,” MCJ’s Amelia McGowan told WLOX. “Many don’t have jobs. Many have suffered from COVID.” IAJE and NDLON said at the time that a worker who had been deported, Edgar Lopez, was horrifically kidnapped and killed attempting to return back to his own family in the U.S.

Mississippi Free Press reports that was initially detained for more than a year before she was deported in 2020. “In those eight months, Lladi suffered through contracting COVID and is reliving the trauma of her previous arrest and detention in Mississippi,” her sister Aura Ambrocio-Garcia said in the report. “Meanwhile, she faces serious threats on her life in Guatemala and is extremely afraid of returning.” Her advocates have collected thousands of signatures in her support. Click here to add your name and demand Lladi Ambrocio-Garcia’s release.

RELATED STORIES: ICE’s workplace raids have devastated workers for years. Biden admin says these sweeps will now end

Mississippi families call for family reunification, defunding ICE on anniversary of workplace raids

11-year-old who cried for dad’s release after Mississippi raids reunited after months of separation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can watch the whole 20-minute interview below.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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