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During his 2018 run for the Senate, Republican Mike Braun was getting a lot of attention for a campaign strategy that relied on self-funding, sweetheart loans from allies, and “creative” accounting to dodge federal election laws. Over three-quarters of his campaign war chest consisted of “loans” to the campaign; he’d continue to prop his campaign up with his own money until the campaign’s end.

Braun has been in the Senate for two years now, and the Federal Election Committee (FEC) has finally managed to come to some conclusions on which parts of that were illegal and which weren’t. The answer? The Braun campaign’s accounting wasn’t so much “creative” as it was outright shoddy and improper. Over $8.5 million in “loans”—a massive chunk of Braun’s total spending—that violated campaign finance laws, including $1.5 million in “loans” from Braun’s own company. Millions more in donations and disbursements were misreported, as well as six-figure repayments to Braun himself afterwards.

If it looked crooked during the campaign, surprise! The FEC agrees with you, and is demanding the Braun campaign answer further questions about all of it.

Braun is now flailing a bit in his response, as might be expected. His campaign’s defense was to claim to the FEC that their campaign treasurer, Travis Kabrick, had suddenly up and vanished on them. Sorry, he “has not been able to be located since the end of 2018.” So … sorry?

You see where this is going, right? Of course you do. The Daily Beast looked into this claim, and The Daily Beast found Travis, quote, “within minutes.” They were able to call his current place of work, find his social media accounts, and get his contact information.

“His mother said in a phone call that she would pass along a request for comment,” reports the Beast.

While it is very good news that a single news outlet was able to help out Mike Braun and his campaign after their multiyear battle to hunt down the man they’re now attempting to pin all the shenanigans on, the scope and egregiousness of the violations would seem to make the campaign’s claims nonsensical. It wasn’t the treasurer who arranged an allegedly illegal $1.5 million “loan” from Braun’s self-owned company to Braun’s political campaign. It wasn’t the treasurer who cashed checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars in reimbursements for supposed “self-funded” donations. And it wasn’t the treasurer who was making the calls when companies associated with Braun’s top allies were providing $7 million in unusual and conspicuously unsecured campaign “loans.”

So Braun himself is in more than a little hot water here, and the campaign’s going to have to answer for campaign finance “mistakes” that point not so much to accounting errors from an unskilled finance team as they suggest a truly massive improper funding operation from Braun and his political allies.

Will anything come of it? Who the hell knows. We’ve gotten used to lawmakers breaking whatever campaign finance laws they want to and, at worst, paying a few fines after the fact. But the “me and my corporate friends are going to finance the majority of my Senate campaign with corporate ‘loans’ provided with no collateral or assurance of repayment” is not an accounting error. It’s buying a Senate seat. It’s the sort of overt corruption that all of the laws were designed to prevent, and Mike Braun seems to have just waltzed right over the law to do it anyway.

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If you want to see an article so loaded with caveats and wiggle-wording that it’s nearly falling over under the strain, check out the Fox News headline about critical race theory being taught in many K-12 schools. 

First off, “Critical Race Theory taught at many of America’s 50 most elite private K-12 schools, according to new study.” Okay … those are private schools. No one is forcing anyone to send their kids there. The market, which Fox News loves so much, is fully in control there. As part of an effort to fearmonger about CRT in schools, this flops the instant you read the headline and give it a split-second of thought.

But this is Fox News, so we’re not counting on anyone doing that. In fact, the network is counting on people not doing that.

“Democrats and liberal pundits [are] claiming CRT isn’t taught or doesn’t exist,” according to the piece. That’s false: CRT absolutely exists. But it isn’t taught in public schools to children.

What are the results of this “study”?

”CriticalRace.org found that 21 of the [50 top private] schools had some form of mandatory anti-racism training for students, while a staggering 40 schools had some sort of curricular requirement change based off of anti-racism, DEI, or critical race theory.”

Mandatory anti-racism training or anti-racism, DEI, or critical race theory covers a lot of ground, guys! Isn’t it interesting how CRT is in the headline, but once you read the article, it’s one item on a list of things that includes anti-racism and diversity, equity, and inclusion? It’s almost like they’re using the right-wing buzzword to draw attention and you only learn that these schools are not necessarily teaching it if you read the fine print. Go figure.

“The response from the mainstream media and Democrats to this parents’ movement has been to ramp up denial that CRT is taught, but that is just a word game. The principles of CRT, primarily the focus on race and skin color as the decisive and pervasive features of society, increasingly pervade K-12,” William Jacobson, the Cornell law professor who did this very reliable study, told Fox News, playing word games himself while showing that he either doesn’t know what critical race theory is or is happy to misrepresent it for a Fox News audience.

So why should people who aren’t planning to send their kids to one of the top 50 private schools in the country care what those schools do? Because, according to Jacobson, those schools are the ”proverbial canary in the coal mine” for other K-12 schools. You know, like how public schools have followed the lead of expensive private schools on having small class sizes and lavish libraries and athletic fields and student centers. (I’m not a fan of emojis, but sometimes I do wish Daily Kos provided me with an eye-roll emoji.)

Jacobson explained further, “The economic elites who send their children to these schools at great expense have voluntarily surrendered their children to an activist and consultant educational class that sees exploiting race as a way to power and riches.” This doesn’t make any sense. He threw some buzzwords into a bag, shook it up, and came up with this jumble, any given three words of which will doubtless make Fox News viewers angry and paranoid but … rich people who are choosing which schools to spend a lot of money sending their kids to are then just kind of giving up on their children and letting other people get rich off of leading them astray? And therefore public school parents should be worried that the same thing will happen in their kids’ schools, even though no one is getting rich off of those?

But none of it matters. Fox News got “critical race theory” and “K-12 schools” into a headline, and that’s enough to keep the fear simmering for people whose real objections are to schools teaching about Martin Luther King Jr. and Ruby Bridges—and, crucially, about the white people who fought to keep them and other Black people from the most basic civil or human rights.

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It’s been over a week since 50-year-old Black cyclist Elliot Reed was mercilessly beaten by a racist white man while riding through his neighborhood in Seabrook, Texas, a suburb of Houston. 

The white man has been identified as 25-year-old Colin Fries, who according to Reed, stopped his car next to Reed on Oct. 29 at a stop sign and began to berate him, telling Reed he didn’t belong in there. 

“He’s just looking at me at the stop sign,” Reed told KPRC2. “He said, ‘You need to get out of this neighborhood because you’re making a lot of people nervous.’ He said, ‘You don’t live here, and if I catch you, I’m gonna do something to you,’” Reed says. 

Reed tried to ignore Fries, but when Fries got out of his pickup truck, Reed took out his cell phone to record the encounter. 

“I asked him, ‘Are you the law, sir? What’s going on?’ He said, ‘You’re just making people nervous,’” Reed said. When Fries got out of the car he began using the N-word, Reed says. 

Bystanders reported to police that Fries began chasing Reed, and when he caught up to him on the sidewalk, he started punching him until he passed out. According to witnesses, Fries punched Reed over a dozen times, even after he fell unconscious. 

The savage attack left Reed with cuts on his face, a broken tooth, a fractured cheekbone, and a burst blood vessel in his eye.

But, of course, this is Texas, so the Harris County District Attorney’s office has only charged Fries with a misdemeanor for aggravated assault. 

Reed’s wife, Angie Reed, says she believes her husband was attacked for one reason and one reason only: “because he Black.”

She says when went to see her husband after the attack and walked into the hospital room, “I started crying and the nurses started crying.” She says her husband will need surgery to repair the damage to his eye and the attack could have cost him his life. 

“It was the witnesses who told the police that he was hit about 12 times after he was already unconscious,” she said.

She added, “I don’t care where you live, you don’t deserve to be disrespected by the color of your skin.” Fries reportedly was arrested and released on a bond of $100 after being charged with misdemeanor aggravated assault, a charge Angie Reed called “insulting and disrespectful.”

A representative from the attorney general’s office said in a statement, “We are still in the initial stages of reviewing this incident … What happens in relation to an increase in the charge or an addition to a hate crime will depend on the entirety of the evidence.”

According to KPCR2, Seabrook Police Chief Sean Wright said the incident didn’t appear to be a hate crime, citing previous “conflict” between neighbors. 

The Reeds say they don’t know Fries. They never met the man. 

“I don’t feel safe in my own neighborhood where I pay taxes and am a law-abiding citizen of Seabrook,” Reed said.

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Among the first set of subpoenas issued by the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 back in September, the one issued to Trump advisor and professional fascist Steve Bannon has gotten the most attention. That’s because Bannon’s refusal to testify was followed by a vote, first in the committee and later before the full House, to hold him in contempt of Congress. A motion to that effect was referred to the Department of Justice on October 21, and then waiting for the DOJ to do something became the nation’s most frustrating pastime. 

But Bannon wasn’t the only recipient in round one. The other members of the un-fabulous four were Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, and former  Devin Nunes aide operating way above his abilities as Pentagon chief of staff, Kash Patel. Since these folks haven’t had their name run up the line to set in queue behind Bannon, it may seem that nothing is happening and that the odds of their ever appearing before the Committee are decidedly on the “none” side of a scale running up to “slim.”

According to The Washington Post, that’s not the case. In particular, Meadows has been “engaged” with the committee’s staff in an effort to “negotiate the terms of his deposition and turning over of documents.” Which sounds like something … until it’s immediately followed by concerns about  “the pace of these discussions.” That makes it seem less like Meadows is attempting to negotiate in good faith and much more like he’s merely playing with the committee in an attempt to stop them from taking even the ineffective steps so far applied to Bannon.

On Thursday evening, White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su made it exceedingly clear that in no way would President Joe Biden be stepping in to shield Meadows with some form of executive privilege.

“Consistent with President Biden’s determination that an assertion of privilege is not justified with respect to testimony and documents relating to these particular subjects, he has determined that he will not assert executive privilege with respect to your client’s deposition testimony on these subjects, or any documents your client may possess that bear on them.”

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Tomorrow marks the close of the climate summit COP26 and, with that, a final agreement—hopefully—adopted by all 197 parties who’ve helped draft the document. At its present stage, the agreement has already faced pushback from countries like Saudi Arabia and a coalition of nations known as the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC), including China and India.

Unsurprisingly, many countries that prioritize oil and gas’ profitability are reticent to phase out fossil fuels. For instance, LMDC takes issue with the entire mitigation section of the agreement, which explicitly calls for accelerated phasing out of “coal and subsidies for fossil fuels.” Though the group claims the section places an undue burden on developing countries, two of its 22 members are responsible for the world’s most and third-most carbon emissions.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres doesn’t appear at all hopeful about what will be included in the final language of the agreement. Speaking with the Associated Press on Thursday, Guterres warned of a worst-case scenario of a watered-down agreement being adopted for the sake of adoption. According to Guterres, the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is “on life support.”

“When you are on the verge of the abyss, it’s not important to discuss what will be your fourth or fifth step,” Guterres told AP. “What’s important to discuss is what will be your first step. Because if your first step is the wrong step, you will not have the chance to do a search to make a second or third one.”

The COP26 agreement fails to reinforce the conference’s goals of requiring rich countries to pledge billions in climate aid for developing nations and those most impacted by climate change and halving emissions by 2030. During a speech on Thursday, Guterres praised some of the progress made throughout the conference, including deforestation pledges and work from non-state actors. Still, Guterres said the efforts were “far from enough.”

Guterres also announced the establishment of an expert group meant to oversee the work of companies combatting climate change. “We need actions if commitments are to pass the credibility test,” the UN Secretary-General said. “We need to hold each other accountable—governments, non-state actors, and the civil society—because only together can we keep 1.5 degrees within reach and the equitable and resilient world we live.”

Activists agree that world cooperation is key, but feel that COP26 is far from enacting meaningful steps to combat climate change. The youth-led grassroots group “Fridays for Future” and others have called for the adoption of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty—which 17 cities and regional governments have already endorsed, along with hundreds of organizations and more than 132,000 individuals—far more than the 500 lobbyists sent to COP26 on behalf of dozens of fossil fuel companies. The treaty calls for ending oil, gas, and coal production expansion, phasing out the existing production of fossil fuels, and ensuring equitable solutions are adopted that “enable people and communities across the globe to flourish.”

Guterres, for his part, is on board with many of the demands of activists, especially when it comes to treating this issue like the pressing existential threat that it is. “For me, it is clear it is a climate emergency. I have asked all member states to declare it, and I will be making sure that we mobilize the whole of the UN system based on the concept of a climate emergency,” he told AP.

A key way the US can respond to climate change with the same sense of urgency is by passing the Build Back Better Act, which allows for sweeping investments in green and renewable initiatives as well as programs that work to protect and reinforce the ecosystems we hold dear. Call on lawmakers to do the right thing and pass the Build Back Better Act before it’s too late.

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Nearly 4,500 current and former U.S. military service members, as well as family members, will be sworn in as U.S. citizens as part of Veterans Day 2021. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in a statement that it’s holding more than 90 ceremonies this week, including a Maryland ceremony presided over by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“They’re all veterans or active-duty members of the military representing all services,” WMAR Baltimore reported. “They come from Cameroon, China, El Salvador, Germany, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal. and South Korea.”

“The willingness to serve in our armed forces before you become U.S. citizens is truly a remarkable example of devotion to country and our highest ideals,” Mayorkas wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. “On the eve of #VeteransDay, we congratulate you for everything that you have done and continue to do for all of us.” Among the new citizens this week was Godson Vondee, originally from Ghana. 

“Becoming a citizen means so much to me because it puts me in a position to give back to the country,” Vondee said in a VA post. “I decided to join the Army to advance in my career and to serve this great country. Also, to be a better example to my daughter to let her know she can be anything as long as she puts her mind to it since I joined at a later age.”

The New American Economy Research Fund said in 2019 that nearly 900,000 immigrants have served or are currently serving in the U.S. military. The organization estimated that more than 190,000 were active members as of 2017. “The United States has a long history of encouraging non-citizens to join its Armed Forces. From the Revolutionary War through the 1840s, half of the U.S. military’s recruits were foreign-born.”

Thousands of current and former military service members were welcomed as new U.S. citizens as the Biden administration has also announced formal plans to return deported veterans and family members to the U.S.

“Together with our partner the Department of Veterans Affairs, we are committed to bringing back military service members, veterans, and their immediate family members who were unjustly removed and ensuring they receive the benefits to which they may be entitled,” Mayorkas said this past summer. “Today we are taking important steps to make that a reality.” Some deported veterans have since been able to briefly cross into the U.S. to access the novel coronavirus vaccine. Others, like Agustín Abarca, have come back for good. Deported nearly a decade ago, he became a U.S. citizen last month.

“Once I was approved for citizenship, I left the office in shock. I screamed and my family hugged me; my friends, my lawyer. It was a historic day in my life,” Abarca told Arizona Republic. 

This week, California U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla introduced legislation to prevent the deportation of noncitizen veterans. Support for and passage of that bill should be a no-brainer. But so was COVID-19 relief, and every single Republican still voted against it. It’s also unknown exactly how many veterans have been deported because Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials haven’t properly tracked it, a nonpartisan government watchdog said in 2019. Abhorrent. Bring them back home—and make them the U.S. citizens they deserve to be.

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A 10-year-old Black girl with autism took her own life on Saturday after the child allegedly dealt with prolonged bullying by both students and teachers at a majority-white Utah school, her family told Deseret News. Isabella Faith Tichenor, who her family called “Izzy,” was bullied for being Black and autistic at Foxboro Elementary School in North Salt Lake, the child’s family attorney Tyler Ayres told the newspaper. Ayres said Isabella’s mother, Brittany Tichenor-Cox, reported the bullying “multiple times, and no action was taken.” He added that the child’s siblings have been called the N-word this year. “The offending student was not disciplined in any way,” Ayres said.

The family said in a statement that Isabella was an “easy target” at the school, a preschool through sixth-grade campus with some 824 students—only 2% of whom are Black, according to data from the Utah State Board of Education. Isabella’s family said she was especially a target “after a teacher joined in mocking” the child. “As any parent would, we reported this abuse to her teachers, the school administration, and the district administration. Nothing. Nothing was done to protect Izzy,” the family said. “Children did not have their behavior corrected, so the torment of this child continued day after day.”

Tichenor-Cox told The Salt Lake Tribune that, just after the school year started, she asked her daughter how school was going. Izzy told her she didn’t think her teacher liked her. “She doesn’t say ‘hi’ to me. She says ‘hi’ to all the other kids,” the mother recounted her daughter saying. When Tichenor-Cox called the school, she said she didn’t get a response. 

In the next incident, Izzy’s teacher told the class that some students smelled bad. Tichenor-Cox said Izzy’s classmates used that comment to target Izzy, threatening her on the playground and telling her she stunk because of the color of her skin. Tichenor-Cox cried as she recounted her daughter taking air freshener to school as perfume. She again called the school district, and eventually got to talk to the teacher who said: “I’m not going to work it out for them. I let them work it out.”

The Davis School District said in a statement obtained by Deseret News that it is investigating bullying at the school. “We, like everyone, are devastated by the death of this child,” the district said.

“Our hearts go out to the family. Foxboro Elementary has worked extensively with the family and will continue to provide help to them and others impacted by this tragedy. We take all incidents and reports of bullying seriously.

”At this point, the incident we are aware of involved another student. The teacher and administration responded quickly and appropriately. As with all allegations of bullying, our investigation will continue.”

Foxboro Elementary School is part of the Davis School District, which was the subject of a federal probe revealing “serious and widespread racial harassment” by students and staff. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reviewed more than 200 incident files containing allegations of racial harassment and other discrimination, according to findings the DOJ released in September. “The Department’s investigation uncovered systemic failures in the District’s handling of complaints of racial student-on-student and staff-on-student harassment, discipline of Black students, and refusal to allow Black students to form student groups,” the DOJ wrote. 

The agency reported that the district was “deliberately indifferent to known racial harassment,” including white students repeatedly calling Black students the N-word. “We learned of incidents in which white students referred to Black students as dirty, asked why they did not wash their skin, and commented that their skin looked like feces,” the DOJ reported. “White students also called Asian-American students pejorative slurs, such as ‘yellow’ and ‘squinty’ and told them to ‘Go back to China.’”

Asian American students also account for 2% of the student population, while white students account for 70%. Hispanic students represent 17% of students.

The DOJ added in its report:

Our investigation found that the District responded to these incidents in a manner that was clearly unreasonable in light of known circumstances. The Department found that the District disregarded student witnesses who corroborated allegations and took no or minimal action to eliminate the hostile environment. For example, one school received a complaint that a teacher constantly ridiculed a Hispanic student and taunted him for working at a taco truck (though the student did not). An administrator interviewed other students who confirmed that the teacher “openly picks on certain students.” Yet, the administrator took no steps to remedy the hostile environment. Where there was a response to harassment or retaliation for reporting harassment, it was “minimalist,” Spencer, 2016 WL10592223 at *4, and staff remained in charge of educating or supervising the very students they degraded through racial harassment. In response to one incident, the District’s “investigation” was designed to vindicate its staff rather than identify and respond to harassment.

Read the full report below:

It is unclear if Isabella’s family is planning a lawsuit against the school. “We are investigating the school’s lack of response but cannot say more about it at this time,” Ayres said.

Brittany Tichenor-Cox, sobbing through a news conference covered Monday by Deseret News, said that she and other family members would stand up for children who, like Izzy, have been bullied. “Even though my baby is gone, I’m going to make sure that I stand for Izzy and I’m going to make sure for voices that can’t be heard like hers, that this will never happen again to any kid that is her age, teenager or adult,” Tichenor-Cox said. “I don’t care who this is for. Nobody should have to go through that.”

If you or someone else is in crisis, call the 24-hour national suicide prevention lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. 

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Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial appears on the verge of wrapping up, but on Thursday—Veterans Day—as criticism over the propriety and impartiality of presiding Judge Bruce Schroeder reached a fever pitch, Schroeder kicked off proceedings by instructing jurors to clap for the only veteran in the room: an expert called by Rittenhouse’s defense.

The exchange unfolded when the 18-year-old’s defense attorney called Dr. John Black to testify as a use of force expert.

Rittenhouse is accused of shooting three men—Gaige Grosskreutz, Joseph Rosenbaum, and Anthony Huber—with a Smith & Wesson AR-15 style .223 rifle as protests unfolded last August in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Only Grosskreutz survived the contact with Rittenhouse. Huber and Rosenbaum died.

The protests were a response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, who after taking seven bullets to the back from white Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey, is now paralyzed.

Rittenhouse has maintained he shot Huber, Rosenbaum, and Grosskreutz in self-defense. Prosecutors say the Antioch, Illinois, native was effectively acting as a vigilante.

Rittenhouse stalked the streets of Kenosha last August with other armed men, video evidence has shown. Though curfew had come and gone on that fateful night, prosecutors say Rittenhouse was still out and got into a clash with people gathered at a nearby car dealership.

Rosenbaum was unarmed but moved toward the teenager, throwing an object at him—a plastic bag—before Rittenhouse opened fire. In court Wednesday, as Rittenhouse testified on his own behalf between animated sobs, he said he thought the item thrown by Rosenbaum was a chain.

As Rosenbaum lay dying, a journalist told prosecutors in a court filing last year that Rittenhouse made a call on his cellphone and was heard saying “I just killed somebody” before running from the scene.

After the shooting and before Rittenhouse could get far, a group began to chase him. Rittenhouse tripped and fell and at that time, prosecutors say, Anthony Huber had approached Rittenhouse in an attempt to take the AR-15 style rifle away from the teenager. Huber did so with one hand while holding his skateboard in the other. Video appears to show the skateboard hitting Rittenhouse in the shoulder during the exchange. Rittenhouse then shot Huber.

Rittenhouse put Grosskreutz, who was holding a handgun, in his sights just moments later and shot him in the arm. Grosskreutz fled, screaming out for a medic as Rittenhouse walked away.

During Thursday’s proceedings, Black testified it took roughly two and three quarters of a second from the time a man at the protests, Joshua Ziminski, fired a gun into the air and Rittenhouse discharged his weapon.

Defense attorney Corey Chirafisi also called eyewitness Drew Hernandez to testify Thursday. Hernandez is a self-described “professional commentator” who now works for the right-wing outlet Real America’s Voice. He captured footage on the night of the shootings and has regularly characterized protesters as “violent rioters” online; he did so again in court Thursday.

At one point, lead prosecutor Thomas Binger asked if Real America’s Voice was biased. The defense objected, prompting Schroeder to nix the question altogether. Binger proceeded to ask if the video captured by Hernandez could be biased against protesters since he perceived them as “violent rioters.”

This story is developing.

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There can’t be a Republican panic/cynical fearmongering campaign these days without Texas Gov. Greg Abbott getting involved, and book-banning is no exception. On Wednesday, Abbott released his third letter of the month on the issue of what he’s calling “pornography” in schools. Unsurprisingly, his examples of pornography have been focused on LGBTQ content.

Abbott first directed the Texas Association of School Boards to find out how much “pornography or other inappropriate content” is in public schools, and to purge it. When the Texas Association of School Boards let him know that it doesn’t have the authority to do that, Abbott turned to the Texas Education Agency, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, and State Board of Education. 

”The Texas Association of School Boards has attempted to wash its hands clean of the issue by abdicating any and all responsibility in the matter,” Abbott wrote on Nov. 8. “Given this negligence, the State of Texas now calls on you to do what the Texas Association of School Boards refuses to do.” (He couldn’t just admit that he asked a group with no censorship authority to do his censorship for him.)

Abbott called on the Texas Education Agency, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, and State Board of Education “to immediately develop statewide standards to prevent the presence of pornography and other obscene content in Texas public schools, including in school libraries.” Providing pornography to children under 18, he wrote, is illegal. What he didn’t offer was any evidence that there is pornography in Texas schools, if we follow the generally accepted definition that pornography is material made for sexual stimulation, let alone that there is obscene content in the schools—obscenity has a legal meaning, and that includes that it is not just lewd or offensive but lacks literary, artistic, or other merit.

Abbott did offer two examples of content he objects to, and what do you know, both of them are LGBTQ books. One, Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, is a memoir about an abusive lesbian relationship. The other, Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, is a memoir in graphic novel form. As Gender Queer has become a frequent target in the right’s attacks on books in schools, Kobabe wrote in The Washington Post that the audience e originally wrote the book for was eir parents, who didn’t understand eir gender identity.

But there’s another important audience, Kobabe wrote: “Queer youth are often forced to look outside their own homes, and outside the education system, to find information on who they are. Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth, who might not yet even know what terms to ask Google to find out more about their own identities, bodies, and health.”

That is, of course, part of the point. The Republican push to remove LGBTQ books and books by authors of color from schools is about limiting who kids see as fully human, what kids understand about justice and U.S. history, and what identities kids come to understand are available to them.

Abbott wasn’t done with two letters, though. On November 10, he followed up by directing the Texas Education Association to “investigate any criminal activity in our public schools involving the availability of pornography. During this investigation, I ask the agency to refer any instance of pornography being provided to minors under the age of 18 for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Texas Education Association does not have police to investigate this alleged crime. And while Abbott is correct that showing kids pornography is illegal in Texas, one defense against prosecution is “having scientific, educational, governmental, or other similar justification” for doing so. We’re not talking about pornography here by any means, but if we were, teachers and librarians offering educational material would be safe.

Both Gender Queer and In the Dream House are critically acclaimed books that have won awards. That definitely doesn’t matter to Republicans purging books. In Virginia, Glenn Youngkin’s successful gubernatorial campaign was powered partly by an ad that never admitted it was targeting Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved. In Kansas, one of the books the Goddard school district is pulling off library shelves is August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Fences. There is no award, no critical acclaim enough to prevent Republicans from wanting to see it removed from schools, with howls of “pornography” and even threats of book-burning if the book in question doesn’t line up with far-right views of whose life deserves to be written about, to be understood, to be valued.