Independent News

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We begin today with Ed Yong of The Atlantic writing about the continuing grief of those who loved ones died from COVID-19.

When covid grievers tell others about their loss, they tend to get the same responses. Do you know how they were exposed? Did they have a preexisting condition? Were they vaccinated? Every griever I interviewed has faced these questions, from online trolls and close friends alike, and with shocking immediacy. People regularly ask Rekha if her dead mother was vaccinated before they offer condolences or sympathies. “It’s not just one time; it’s all the time,” she said. “It’s all the time,” Kristin Urquiza echoed.  “Pretty much from every person,” says Christina Faria, who lost her mother, Viola, late last year.

In 1989, the grief expert Kenneth Doka coined the term disenfranchised grief to describe situations where people struggle to cope with losses that aren’t “socially sanctioned, openly acknowledged, or publicly mourned.” That’s exactly what many Americans who have lost someone to COVID are experiencing. The words we normally use to console grievers honor the relationships that death disrupts: I’m sorry for your loss. But the questions that COVID grievers get “reduce the person to the disease,” Rebecca Morse, who studies death and loss at Divine Mercy University and is a former president of the Association for Death Education and Counseling, told me. And they cast judgment upon the circumstances around their infection, “which makes these deaths stigmatized and shameful,” Morse said. If the deceased was unvaccinated, went to a bar, or had preexisting health problems, their life becomes devalued, and their death becomes less tragic. When hearing about Viola’s death, “everyone is like, ‘Oh, she was 76’ or ‘She had heart surgery’ or ‘She was overweight. What did you expect? Of course she was going to be the one to die,’” Christina told me. Especially after vaccines became available, COVID became lumped with causes of death such as lung cancer, liver disease, and AIDS, which society classifies as self-inflicted and therefore worthy of blame rather than sympathy. Instead of getting support, many COVID grievers have been forced to defend their loved ones and justify their grief.

I lost a first cousin to COVID-19 in October 2021 and I’ve been in most (if not all) of the various states that Yong mentions including, I think, casting a bit of judgment (for reasons that I wrote about when my cousin R. was sick).

Charles M. Blow of The New York Times notes that, perhaps, the entire country is going through severe trauma not simply because of the deaths of one million Americans due to COVID but also changing ways in which we live as a society.

There can’t be that much death and mourning without severe consequences. But the deaths are only part of the story. There was also all of the sickness — 80 million Americans have caught Covid — and all of the havoc the virus has wreaked on our lives.

Our children couldn’t go to school. We couldn’t gather to celebrate weddings or graduations or the births of new babies. We couldn’t gather to properly mourn, to lay hands on one another, to hug tight enough to make the tears flow and hold the hug until they stopped.

Human beings are social creatures. We need to gather. We need to touch and be touched. We need community. But the virus put some of our basic humanity into suspended animation.

Society is aching, grasping, acting out, sometimes violently. We see the signs all around us. Sometimes it’s just a dramatic change in the way we live our lives.

Maayan Hoffman of The Washington Post notes that because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there has been a ripple affect with Russian attempts at “vaccine diplomacy.”

Russia hoped its vaccine would be used worldwide to help stop the pandemic, that the shot would bring geopolitical and economic gains and restore its glory as a superpower, lost with the fall of the Soviet Union. The country named its vaccine Sputnik V after the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, developed in 1957, which beat out the United States in the space race.

Sputnik V has been approved in 71 countries with more than 4 billion people, and its newest jab, Sputnik Light, has gained recognition in 30 nations, according to data provided by Sputnik.

But nearly two years later, Gamaleya and RDIF have sold fewer than 300 million doses, and less than 2.5 percent of the people vaccinated worldwide have taken a Sputnik shot, according to data from the World Trade Organization.

By contrast, China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines — with lower reported efficacy — have accounted for more than 5.3 billion doses, the WTO data shows.

The Russian independent media outlet Meduza summarizes varied reporting on the evacuation of Ukrainian citizens to Russia.

Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmyla Denisova also reported that more than 700,000 Ukrainians were taken to Russia. However, the TASS source broke down this figure differently, claiming that more than 737,000 people “from Ukraine and from the Donbas” had crossed the border, including more than 200,000 Russian citizens, more than 400,000 “citizens” of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics,” and 117,000 “citizens of other countries” (apparently, this last figure includes Ukrainian nationals). Whether or not TASS and its source consider all residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine “citizens of the DNR and LNR” by default is unclear.[…]

People who were “evacuated” from Ukraine to Russia have confirmed the allegations of coercion and “filtration,” according to a number of testimonies published in the media. Accounts from refugees brought to Russia from Mariupol and surrounding areas have been published by CNN and Current Time TV, among others.

Some of these eyewitnesses said that Russian forces came to the places where they were sheltering from bombardments and ordered them to evacuate; others were forced to go to Russian checkpoints because it was physically impossible for them to evacuate to Ukrainian territory. Some described coming under psychological pressure from Russian forces, who told them that “Ukraine doesn’t care about you” and “no one will evacuate you from here.” Britain’s inews claims that refugees from Mariupol were made to sign documents alleging that the Ukrainian military was shelling the city, and were then told that they could no longer return to Ukraine due to the threat of persecution (the authenticity of these documents has not been independently confirmed).

Chris York of New Lines magazine looks at the preparations that some in Ukraine have made to battle Russian disinformation.

Whereas in the West, Russian disinformation is mainly associated with specific events such as the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Brexit or the Skripal poisonings, in Ukraine there has been a yearslong and unrelenting campaign to undermine the very state itself.

“We started noticing during the revolution of dignity in 2013 that Russia was actively pursuing narratives of Ukraine being either a Nazi state or a failed state,” says a Ukrainian program manager at an international NGO who wished to remain anonymous.

In the information warfare space, aside from an uptick in disinformation, nothing much changed on Feb. 24. On the ground things were obviously very different.

“We were launching a project on [Feb.] 24, and I remember I was hearing bombing outside my apartment, and I was like, ‘OK, we have to launch it anyway,’” says Iliuk.

“Maybe it was shock,” Iliuk explains. “I love my work and it calms me down, so I knew it was the only thing I could do to be useful.

Hans von der Burchard of POLITICO Europe reports on diplomatic tensions between Ukraine and Germany because of Ukrainian President Zelensky’s decision to not welcome German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to a meeting in Kyiv.

The move was a humiliation for Steinmeier — a former foreign minister closely associated with Berlin’s previous policy of pursuing close economic and diplomatic ties with Russia — but also for Germany as a whole. As federal president, Steinmeier is the highest-ranking representative of the German state.

The fact Zelenskyy communicated his decision just hours before Steinmeier’s planned secret trip, after days of preparation between Berlin and Kyiv, and that Ukrainian officials leaked the snub to German tabloid Bild, deepened the diplomatic insult for Germany.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he found Zelenskyy‘s decision not to welcome Steinmeier “irritating.”

Reacting to a Ukrainian invitation for him to visit Ukraine himself, Scholz told RBB24 radio he was not planning any such trip in the near future. The chancellor argued that he had been to Kyiv just about a week before the outbreak of the war and that he was speaking regularly to Zelenskyy on the phone, most recently on Sunday.

Melanie Amann and Veit Medick of Der Spiegel conduct a combative interview with German President Steinmeier about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

DER SPIEGEL: Putin is waging a war in Ukraine, has apparently had civilians murdered and has threatened the use of nuclear weapons. You saw all that coming?

Steinmeier: No. I have been a witness to the changes in Russia’s political course. But, to be honest, I still hoped that Vladimir Putin possessed a remnant of rationality. I did not think that the Russian president would risk his country’s complete political, economic and moral ruin in the pursuit of an imperial delusion. The attack has shaken me.

DER SPIEGEL: What prevented you from seeing Putin’s true face?

Steinmeier: His face hasn’t always been the same. But we also aren’t able to choose with whom we must deal. I consider myself to be among those who have worked hard to ensure that war never again returns to Europe. That effort was not successful. Were the goals therefore misguided? Was it wrong to work to achieve them? That is the debate that I, that we must now hold.

Paul Krugman of The New York Times says that inflation is probably about to decline soon…but don’t get too excited about it.

Why expect inflation to come down? Surging gasoline prices accounted for half of March’s price rise, but it now appears that the world oil market overshot in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A lot of Russian oil is probably still reaching world markets, and President Biden’s million-barrel-a-day release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve makes up for much of the shortfall. As of this morning, crude oil prices were barely above their pre-Ukraine level, and the wholesale price of gasoline was down about 60 cents a gallon from its peak last month.

Beyond that, there are growing indications that the bullwhip is about to flick back.

What? The bullwhip effect is a familiar issue for products that are at the end of long supply chains: Changes at the consumer end can lead to greatly exaggerated changes farther up the chain. Suppose, to take a non-random example, that a shift to working from home — then, coronavirus panic — leads to increased purchases of supermarket toilet paper (which is a somewhat different product from the stuff used in offices). Consumers, seeing a shortage, rush to stock up; supermarkets, trying to meet the demand, overorder; distributors who supply the supermarkets overorder even more; and suddenly there are no rolls to be had.

Christian Paz of Vox writes about the return old-school homophobia to mainstream discourse.

In the span of what seemed like a week, old-school bigotry felt mainstreamed. Sitting members of Congress, cable news hosts, and conservative intellectuals coalesced around “ok, groomer” discourse as a new way to attack LGBTQ Americans — not just the teachers these bills are targeting. Their attacks come in a country that is more accepting of queer Americans than at any other time in history; about eight in 10 Americans back nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people. But suddenly, it seemed, 20th-century homophobia acquired a modern, QAnon-esque edge.

“If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children,” Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’s press secretary, tweeted at the beginning of March. On his talk radio show last week, conservative activist Charlie Kirk tied same-sex marriage and the acceptance of LGBTQ Americans to corrupting children: “We’re talking about gay stuff more than any other time. Why? Because they are not happy just having marriage. Instead, they now want to corrupt your children.”

The feedback loop of anti-LGBTQ legislation and “grooming” discourse reveals new dimensions to the conservative movement’s efforts to stymie the progress of recent years: Some members of the political right see opportunities to wield their advantages in the nation’s increasingly conservative courts against LGBTQ people — and opportunities to claw back the ground they’ve lost in the culture war as Americans’ opposition to discrimination grows.

As hurricane season approaches, Bob Berwyn of Inside Climate News reports that studies show that Atlantic hurricane seasons will continue to get more severe.

A study published on Wednesday in the journal Weather and Climate Dynamics reinforces the growing consensus that the hurricane threat to vulnerable coastal communities will keep increasing. The research shows global warming has “contributed to a decisive increase in Atlantic Ocean hurricane activity” in the last 40 years and doubled the chances for extreme seasons like 2020.

That was the most active hurricane season on record, when tropical storms started early, ended late and included 11 tropical systems hitting the United States, with seven major hurricanes and one subtropical system even making it all the way to Portugal. Every single mile of the U.S. Atlantic coastline was under a tropical storm watch or warning during the 2020 season.

The study reinforces the growing consensus that vulnerable coastal communities need to prepare more for years like 2020, said lead author Peter Pfleiderer, a research scientist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit climate science and policy think tank.

Robin Givhan of The Washington Post analyzes President Biden’s press conference on his executive order regarding “ghost guns.”

As he began his remarks, Biden emphasized that ghost guns do not look like toys and that they’re as lethal as any other weapon. He clarified to his audience that assembling one didn’t require a degree in mechanical engineering, only the most basic tools and the ability to put round pegs into round holes.

Then Biden interrupted his speech and moved away from the microphone and over to a nearby table. He kept talking and his sharp words, “Take a look. Take a look at this,” hung in the air. The ghost gun’s red case was propped open on the table and the weapon was displayed in front of it in a nature morte. Biden picked up the gun gingerly and positioned it sideways. He didn’t wrap his hands around the grip of the gun. He held it away from his body. He held it like a foreign object.

He let his audience of lawmakers, gun control advocates and folks who had suffered through gun violence — along with anyone watching remotely — get a good look at precisely the sort of weapon about which he was speaking. And his body language made plain how he felt about it.

Polly Toynbee of the Guardian says that the Tories should really care that Bojo the Clown has become the first British Prime Minister to be fined for breaking the law…but they don’t.

Breaking the law and lying about it or misleading the house would have seen any other prime minister and chancellor resign instantly. But nothing can make them go if they cling to their posts. Only their own MPs can oust them, with a flurry of those famous letters to the backbench 1922 committee chair. There should be queues forming outside Sir Graham Brady’s door right now, but don’t hold your breath. Instead, you hear calculating perplexity: without them, who would be our winning leader? But for the sake of their reputations, these MPs should only consider the probity of their party.

More sententiously, they pretend concern for the country: a war is no time to ditch a leader. Really? In both world wars, inadequate leaders were dumped unceremoniously for someone better suited for that serious and decisive role. None of them selected Boris Johnson expecting him to make a war leader. God knows how long the war in Ukraine may last, but the time may come, before long, when citizens across Nato countries will be asked to make sacrifices, in energy, in supply lines, in taxes. An immoral lawbreaker who has failed to acknowledge the grievousness of his own behaviour is hardly the man to call on others to tighten their belts in the national interest.

One of the more controversial issues in the news yesterday occurred in Minneapolis as the Minnesota Twins hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Mr. October, himself, had a few words to say on it.

I understand why Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pulled Kershaw. I’m with Mr. October on this one, though.

Finally today, Jeffrey Barg, The Grammarian writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer on the poor grammar, language, and usage contained in a “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Pennsylvania.

Just three days after Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill was signed into law, one of Pennsylvania’s own state senators announced he’s introducing his own Keystone-flavored version, which would ban library books that someone — anyone? — decides are “sexually explicit.”

Lancaster County Sen. Ryan Aument is sponsoring the legislation because, he says, “Parents must be confident that their children are receiving a quality education in our schools without being exposed to inappropriate, sexually explicit content.”

Unfortunately, judging from the poor grammar and language in Aument’s cosponsorship memo, he wouldn’t know “quality education” if it burned up in a book bonfire.

First, there’s the memo’s lack of precision. It reads in part: “parents have identified books and assignments provided to their children that contain sexually explicit content that adults would be prohibited from viewing while at work.” That regulation depends on where those adults work — how many people have jobs where they can sit around reading for pleasure? — but “sexually explicit,” we’ve learned, means different things to different people. Effective writing, not to mention effective laws, must be precise to convey the proper meaning.

I think that imprecise grammar and language is the point of these bills to encourage the broadest and most bigoted of interpretations.

Everyone have a great day!

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For many of us, “throwing your life away” might look like refusing a safe and effective vaccine that keeps your lungs from turning into turbid sacks of wet cement. But Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has other ideas. To her way of thinking, military service really is for losers and suckers.

In an April 9 interview with once-and-future DJT rectal parasite Lou Dobbs, Greene disparaged our military, concluding that joining the U.S. armed forces is pretty much the worst thing you can do with your life.

How much longer will we let these Potemkin patriots claim they love freedom, democracy, and America more than they love off-white pr*sidents who disrespectfully dry-hump flags at Hitler Goof rallies?

Citing the chaos that erupted after Donald Trump’s surrender agreement with the Taliban inevitably led to the group’s rapid takeover of the country, Dobbs openly wondered why anyone would want to join the military these days. And Greene was right there blathering along with him.

Newsweek:

“Can you imagine explaining to a recruit, you’re gonna be just fine, just like those Marines in Kabul,” Dobbs said in reference to the 13 service members who were killed in Afghanistan’s capital airport in August 2021 while the U.S. was withdrawing from the country prior to the Taliban takeover.

“We may not have time to come back and get you. But you know, it’ll work out all right […] We’re going to fight a third world country for two decades and walk out with our tail between our legs,” Dobbs added. “Who in his or her right mind would say ‘sign me up for that, Sarge?’”

In response, Greene said: “Not my son and I know a lot of young people don’t want to have anything to do with that. It’s like throwing your life away.”

Thirteen service members, huh? So how many American lives were wasted in George W. Bush’s vainglorious overseas adventures? I’ll wait.

Greene is also horrified that President Joe Biden has “forced” military personnel to take a safe, effective, and life-saving vaccine against the coronavirus—in addition to the nine vaccines already long-required. 

“Not to mention how they’ve been forced to take the vaccine, and the ones that didn’t want to take it have been discharged,” said Greene. “Who wants to be treated that way?”

Well, anyone who signs up for the military, really. It’s a distinctly rules-based organization. That’s the impression I got from playing Call of Duty and watching Full Metal Jacket, anyway. Honestly, if taking a vaccine were the worst thing I was forced to do in the U.S. Army, I might have joined long ago. But as an effete Starbucks-slurping liberal, I’m kind of squeamish about blood—unless I’m doing one of my mandatory weekend shifts at George Soros’ secret baby plasma-harvesting facility in Wuhan, that is. But they wipe your memory afterward, so no big deal.

Not everyone appreciated a duly elected congresswoman’s blatant attempts to undermine our nation’s—and other NATO countries’—security in the middle of a raging military crisis.

In a statement, VoteVets, a group of progressive veterans, was unsparing in its criticism.

“For a United States representative to say that military service is ‘throwing your life away,’ is reprehensible. Let me be extraordinarily clear about this: Marjorie Taylor Greene hates this country. She hates the rule of law we have and the entire concept of free and fair elections. She also apparently thinks a higher calling of putting on the uniform to defend that way of life, and our Constitution, is a waste of someone’s life.”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who’s part of the vanishingly small coterie of Republicans who still care about American democracy, was even more blunt.

For the nontweeters:

“Just an absolute idiot. Yet still will be praised by people like ⁦@GOPLeader because, well, money and speakership

“Marjorie Taylor Greene Says Joining Military Is ‘Throwing Your Life Away’”

Honestly, he’s being kind. 

The episode of Dobbs’ great American surrender podcast featuring Greene can be found here, if you think you can stomach it. 

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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Tuesday was a truly chaotic day in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for governor that began with ​​Donald Trump urging voters, “Do not vote for Bill McSwain, a coward, who let our Country down.” Multiple media sources reported minutes later that state Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman was about to drop out of the race, but while Corman himself essentially confirmed those stories in the afternoon by asking that his name be removed from the May 17 ballot, there was one last twist left: Corman announced in the early evening that he’d decided to stay in the contest because of “President Trump’s statement on the race and my conversation directly with the president.”

We’ll start with McSwain, who appeared to be in a good position until Trump declared he’d never endorse the man he’d once appointed as U.S. attorney for the eastern portion of the state. Trump reiterated the Big Lie to pummel the candidate, claiming that McSwain “did absolutely nothing on the massive Election Fraud that took place in Philadelphia and throughout the commonwealth.”

That was dismaying news for McSwain, who had in fact tried to use the Big Lie to gain, rather than lose, Trump’s support. His efforts included a letter to Trump last year claiming that his office had “received various allegations of voter fraud and election irregularities” and alleging that “Attorney General Barr, however, instructed me not to make any public statements or put out any press releases regarding possible election irregularities.”

Trump was all too happy at the time to use McSwain’s missive to back up his own lies and bludgeon Barr, who responded by saying his old subordinate “wanted to not do the business of the department, which is to investigate cases, but instead go out and flap his gums about what he didn’t like about the election overall.” On Tuesday, though, McSwain got to be the victim of his own words when Trump claimed he “knew what was happening and let it go. It was there for the taking and he failed so badly.”

All of this drama inspired Corman to continue a once-promising campaign that he was about to end after several major setbacks. Corman was arguably the primary frontrunner when he entered the race to succeed termed-out Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf back in November, and he raised more money than any of his intra-party rivals in 2021. However, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that his team initially believed they would bring in considerably more during that time: The state Senate leader seemed to agree as he soon went through an intense staff shakeup, but he never managed to fix things.

Corman ended late March with just over $270,000 left in his campaign coffers, and McSwain ominously didn’t even bother to mention him in a recent ad targeting three other opponents. Corman himself seemed to recognize he was doomed on Tuesday when he formally sought to have a state court remove his name from the ballot, but hours later he filed a new petition asking the body to ignore that first request. He explained that he’d spoken to Trump, who “encouraged me to keep fighting, and that’s what I’m going to do – keep fighting for the people of Pennsylvania.” This saga may not be quite over, though, as ABC27 writes, “It is not guaranteed Corman will be able to remain in the race after his first petition was filed.”

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Voters are currently bemoaning the high inflation rates that have bedeviled them over the last year or so. Hey, who can blame them? No one wants to pay more for all the same stuff. Last year at this time it cost $20 to get Scott Baio to wash your car, and now he’ll do it for $10 and the unlicked portion of your Arby’s Melt wrapper. Okay, so that’s a bad example. Most things are more expensive these days—unless Kevin Sorbo is holding a bake sale in his garage to raise cash for his next Pure Flix movie. But other than that, we’re seeing high prices. That’s just a fact.

But there are several other facts that Republicans are conveniently missing these days.

For example:

• The last three Republican administrations ended in either recession or some other form of economic chaos. 
• Donald Trump has the worst jobs record among presidents in modern American history. 
• Conversely, President Joe Biden’s jobs record has been stellar. Since Biden’s inauguration, the economy has created a robust 7.9 million jobs, far outstripping Trump’s minus-3 million. 
• Democratic presidents’ economic performance since World War II far outpaces that of their Republican counterparts. 
• Republicans continue to block legislation that would both help middle-class Americans pay for necessities and, according to 17 Nobel laureates, “ease longer-term inflationary pressures.”
• Inflation is currently a global phenomenon, and the U.S. economy’s recovery under Biden has been faster than that of its competitors. 

Of course, Republicans will squeal that Trump faced significant economic headwinds as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic—and that’s true. But 1) how does it make sense to let Trump off the hook for the impacts of a global economic downturn while simultaneously flogging Biden for today’s pandemic-related global inflation? And 2) I’m supposed to believe that Trump—who doesn’t know who pays for tariffs, once called his national security adviser in the middle of the night to ask what a strong dollar does, and thought he could eliminate the entire national debt in eight years—is some sort of macroeconomic savant?

So, yeah, most Republicans screeching about so-called “Bidenflation” probably know better, but they’re depending on voters’ short memories to return the party of perpetual economic failure to power in 2022 and 2024.

But not all Democrats are sitting still for this nonsense. Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, for example, is now castigating Senate Minority Bleater Mitch McConnell over his serial fiscal foolishness. 

For the nontweeters:

NEW: Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) just shut down Mitch McConnell at a press conference: “There was $7 trillion in new debt and 2.6 million jobs lost during Trump. But when McConnell comes to this podium, all he does is complain that we’re not cleaning up their mess fast enough.”

Yes. Thank you.

Listen and subscribe to Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

Now, if this cynical GOP sleight-of-hand feels familiar, there’s a very good reason for that. After George W. Bush walked away from the heap of smoldering goat entrails he’d conjured from the remains of the U.S. economy, Republicans spent the next eight years obstructing everything President Barack Obama tried to do to create jobs and lift us out of the abyss. Meanwhile, they whined nonstop that the recovery wasn’t progressing fast enough. At the time I remarked that this was a bit like Exxon complaining that the residents of Valdez, Alaska, were really mediocre at cleaning oil off ducks. And now here they go again.

Of course, fecklessly complaining is what Republicans are best at. Helping struggling Americans is way down their list of priorities, somewhere behind preventing white children from ever hearing about slavery and keeping Mr. Potato Head’s tuberous todger intact.

So why don’t people know that Democrats’ economic track record is so much better than Republicans’? Maybe we haven’t been telling them loudly enough—and maybe the media have simply decided to lean into a false narrative for God knows what reason.

It’s outrageous, and it has to stop. So spread the word, if you can.

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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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania has announced that it has settled a 2019 lawsuit that alleged state police ethnically profiled Latino residents, who were then illegally detained for questioning by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). One person targeted by Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) was a U.S. citizen, PBS affiliate WHYY reported in 2019. 

These were not isolated incidents: While ten plaintiffs were ultimately part of the litigation, the ACLU of Pennsylvania said the ensuing investigation in fact revealed “a larger pattern and practice of PSP troopers acting as enforcers of the complex system of federal civil immigration laws.”

“The reason we filed this lawsuit is because we don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” said Rebecca Castro, the U.S. citizen harassed by police. “The police don’t know how many lives they affect on a daily basis. We hope our victory means that this will never happen again.”

RELATED STORY: These local agreements between ICE and sheriffs continue to terrorize immigrant communities

“In 2018, Ms. Castro was driving with her now-husband and a co-worker in York County when a Pennsylvania State Police trooper pulled over the vehicle and began to interrogate the group because the vehicle ‘looked suspicious,’” the ACLU of Pennsylvania said. “The trooper wrongfully detained Ms. Castro and her passengers for several hours, interrogating them on the side of the road about their immigration status and detaining them until ICE officers arrived.“

While it appears that Castro was able to go home, WHYY reported that both her husband and coworker were put into deportation proceedings. 

Under the settlement, PSP will pay the plaintiffs $865,000, which advocates said includes compensation and attorneys’ fees. But the settlement will also implement policy changes to help prevent further racial profiling, the ACLU of Pennsylvania said. Under the new PSP policy, “prolonging stops for the purposes of civil immigration enforcement is prohibited,” “running immigration checks when verifying a driver’s or passenger’s identification is no longer permitted,” and immigration detainers not signed by a judge “cannot legally justify extending a traffic stop.”

”PSP also agreed to implement more robust reporting and data-collection requirements, which will allow us to ensure they are in fact following the new policy,” ACLU of Pennsylvania continued.

“Police officers who take it upon themselves to try and enforce immigration law are continuing a long legacy of harmful policing that must be challenged at every turn,” said ACLU of Pennsylvania Executive Director Reggie Shuford. “We are pleased that the state police will be addressing the problem, but other Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies should be on notice that, if they violate the law and attempt to enforce civil immigration law, they too can count on getting sued.”

The lawsuit and settlement (at cost to state taxpayers) add to the case for why the Biden administration should end 287(g) agreements, which only encourage racial profiling by allowing local law enforcement to act as mass deportation agents.

“An investigation by the Department of Justice concluded that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona engaged in a pattern and practice of constitutional violations, including racial profiling of Latinos, after entering a 287(g) agreement,” the American Immigration Council wrote in a 2020 report. Maricopa County, of course, was ground zero of former sheriff Joe Arpaio’s racist campaign against brown and Black people.

Sheriffs have in fact campaigned on, and won, on ending these racist 287(g) agreements. Advocates in Georgia said that in the time since Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens ended the area’s agreement, immigrant families “have been able to breathe easier,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

RELATED STORIES: Over two dozen House Democrats are calling for the defunding of this flawed and racist ICE program

‘I am proud to be bilingual’: US-born Latinas detained by CBP after speaking Spanish settle lawsuit

Legislators demand answers after report reveals ‘blatant’ racial profiling by Michigan border agents

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After hundreds gathered to protest the shooting of Patrick Lyoya, police officials from Grand Rapids, Michigan, said they would release footage of the incident. Lyoya was fatally shot on April 4, after his vehicle was stopped by Grand Rapids officers for having an unregistered license plate issue, the Associated Press reported. Lyoya leaves behind two small children, a two-year-old and a three-month-old.

Requests for the video ensued after Police Chief Eric Winstrom said Lyoya tried running away and was fatally shot during a “lengthy struggle” with the officer. Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker first suggested police not release any evidence, including video, until the investigation is complete. However, officials opted to share footage upon demand.

“There are still many questions which remain unanswered,” Becker wrote in a press release. “As is our policy with any ongoing investigation, we do not release any material for public consumption.”

The unedited footage released by Grand Rapids Police Department depicts the 26-year-old Black man moments before he died.  In the video, Lyoya can be seen lying face down on the ground when an officer shoots him in the back of the head. The shooting was described by a representative of the family who saw it as “execution-style,” CNN reported.

Released Wednesday, the video is made of footage from the officer’s body camera, dashboard camera, a cellphone, and a home surveillance system. According to the police department, neither the videos nor audio released will be edited, although “some video images may have been redacted/blurred to ensure privacy.”

Pastor Israel Siku, serving as an interpreter for the Lyoyas, who speak Swahili, told CNN he was with Lyoya’s father just days after the shooting when they were invited by police to review the footage.

Describing the father’s reaction, Siku said: “He melt(ed) down, he didn’t have anything to say. He almost passed out.”

Siku also said he “could not sleep” himself after viewing it. “The boy was on the floor, the cop as he lays on him, pulls up the gun and shoots him in the head and back up. Patrick did not move.”

The Lyoya family has retained civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who also pushed for the video’s release. ”We are once again reminded of how swiftly a police interaction can turn deadly for Black men in America, and just how far we have to go to change that,” Crump said.

In the roughly 20-minute long video, Lyoya can be seen struggling with the officer who at one point tells him “stop resisting,” as body footage shows him knee Lyoya. The footage also depicts the officer pulling out a Taser.

While Daily Kos will not be sharing the video in this post, you can watch the press conference that includes the video on the city of Grand Rapid’s YouTube channel.

“Because of the sensitive and graphic content of the video, the footage will stream as part of a presentation on the City’s YouTube channel with age restrictions in place. The video contains strong language as well as graphic images resulting in the loss of life. Viewer discretion is advised. Following the press conference, we will provide a public link with the nine source videos that was used to compile the presentation video,” Winstrom said in a statement released Tuesday.

Winstrom, who has been the police chief for 37 days, noted that the investigation is still in its early stages. Investigations into the shooting have also been handed over to the Michigan State Police, as standard procedure for anytime a local officer uses deadly force.

The officer who shot Lyoya was white. At this time, his name has not been released, but he has been placed on administrative duty pending an investigation by the Michigan State Police.

The autopsy report has not been available to the public, as the medical examiner is awaiting toxicology and tissue test results. Results can take up to 60 days, but a full report won’t be released until after the police investigation is finished.

“This is the standard operating procedure to ensure the integrity of the investigative process,” Kent County Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Cohle said Wednesday. He added that Lyoya’s body is still being held pending instructions from the family on whether to release it to a funeral home or an independent agency for another autopsy.

“My office understands that the families we work with are grieving,” Cohle’s statement said. “We strive to ensure every family is treated with dignity and respect and is supported with compassion and honest information to help them make appropriate arrangements. I have personally spoken with Mr. Lyoya’s father (via interpreter), and my office stands ready to assist him with the release of his son’s body when the family has reached a decision on the arrangements.”

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If the government makes one thing complicated, it’s paying taxes. That’s especially true if you rely on tips, are a gig worker (like through DoorDash or Uber), or if you have non-traditional or multiple forms of income. No one wants to mess up their taxes and be penalized with fines or headaches later, so many people use software to make the process easier. One issue, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), however, is that not all of these software companies are upfront about the costs of these services, as covered by Market Watch.

According to the FTC, TurboTax allegedly misleads customers into believing they can file income taxes for free when in reality, there are caveats as to who is eligible for the free service. Customers with certain incomes are eligible to file their taxes for free, both with TurboTax and in general, but the FTC wants to see an end to TurboTax’s use of words like “free” in advertising. 

According to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, though, the picture needs to be bigger. As she explains in the video below, Warren wants to see the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offer free and easy-to-use tax filing tools for all people, period, instead of lining the pockets of corporations to do it for them.

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Here is that clip.

“So, here’s something that tax prep companies don’t want you to know,” Warren begins. “You could be filing your taxes for free. We just need a fully-funded IRS to make it happen. So let me break it down.”

Warren explains that when we receive our W-2s and 1099s in the mail, our employers have already sent copies to the government. (If you’re a freelancer or self-employed, this process is a little different, but I digress.) 

“The government already knows how much you make before you file your taxes,” Warren continues, adding that it’s no secret. Because the IRS already has this information, the government could just lessen a whole lot of work and stress for us and send us pre-filled tax forms instead, which we could review and then send back. Sounds simple.

“So,” Warren poses. “Why hasn’t it already been done?”

Like most things in our capitalist hellscape, it comes down to lining the pockets of big business. According to Warren, big companies like H&R Block and TurboTax lobbied the government to stop the IRS from doing just that. Republicans got on board and corporations basically got a nice deal that would make them money… but promised they’d have options for low-income filers, and thusly (allegedly) we wouldn’t need free options from the government.

Warren alleges that these free options are “flimsy,” difficult to find, and not easy or useful. 

“Tax filing is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States,” Warren says, adding that pretty much everywhere else in the world does have a pre-filing option. 

And now? Warren describes the Biden administration’s mission to give the IRS an $80 million boost over the next decade. Congress could authorize it, and, according to Warren, the investment would pay for itself, as well as help fund progressive goals like paid family leave and child care, in addition to finally having free, easy-to-use tax services for all people. Obviously, everyone wants to save money, but this could also save people stress and guessing games when it comes to making sure their taxes are accurate—something that can be especially useful for low-income folks or people who have multiple jobs, or are in school, or live with disabilities. From that perspective, this is an equity issue.

There is no reason to spend money on stressful activity when the government already knows what they need to know—we should just be able to confirm (or amend) it. 

You can catch the same video below via YouTube.

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Big Tech is freaking out over a Senate anti-trust bill that would block the biggest firms—especially Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook—from using their power to give themselves major advantages over other companies, to the detriment of consumers as well. The American Innovation and Choice Online Act was introduced by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and received bipartisan support in a January committee vote.

In a Monday speech in Kentucky, Klobuchar detailed the opposition from tech companies. “They have spent $70 million against us in this effort and that doesn’t even count the advertising, that’s just the lobbying from last year,” she said. “And there’s 2,700 lobbyists from those four companies now roaming the halls of Congress.”

When an industry is that upset about legislation, it’s often a sign that it’s going to be effective at cracking down on that industry’s favored abuses, and that’s absolutely the case with this bill. But some advocates for reining in the power of these massive tech companies say there’s one scary provision in the current bill that needs to come out.

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The overarching intent of the bill is good: to prevent a company that controls a marketplace from giving itself advantages over competitors who have to use that marketplace. Amazon shouldn’t be able to put its own products at the top of the search results every time. Amazon also shouldn’t be able to force sellers to use its own fulfillment system to qualify for Prime, if the sellers can provide the needed fulfillment standards independently. Google shouldn’t respond to every video search with a YouTube link. Apple shouldn’t privilege its own apps over other equally relevant ones.

Again: That’s good. But the advocacy organization Free Press has warned that one provision in the bill could make it more difficult for companies to deplatform hate speech, through language that “isn’t merely a ban on big platforms giving their own products an advantage over those of companies that want to compete with the likes of Google, Facebook and Apple,” Free Press Action’s Carmen Scurato said in a statement at the time the bill was in committee.

“This provision could require platforms to host hate speech and other harmful content targeting Black and Brown people, the LGBTQIA+ community, women, immigrants, Indigenous people and other targeted populations. It opens the door to arguments that covered platforms are unlawfully discriminating against hate-and-disinformation purveyors by taking them down. State AGs and future FTC officials charged with enforcing this bill could easily but falsely paint apps like Parler or businesses like Infowars as ‘similarly situated’ to other apps and sites that remain available on the covered platforms,” she continued.

The specific concern Free Press cites is that state attorneys general—like the ones who contributed money to the January 6 planning—could sue, “arguing that those terms of service themselves discriminate against certain viewpoints, claiming that what tech companies rightly define as hate speech, incitements to violence, or vaccine disinformation is really just competing political or health information that must stay up,” according to Scurato.

Other groups in favor of anti-trust legislation in tech, like Accountable Tech, are less concerned, because the anti-discrimination provision only applies to businesses, not individuals. (Though that’s a distinction that can be blurry when you’re talking about, say, Alex Jones the individual and Infowars the business.) Citing worries about losing Republican support for the bill, someone from a group that supports it told Protocol in February, “This is a concern about lawsuits that aren’t going to actually be successful.”

But lawsuits themselves can be deterrents from enforcing rules. If Facebook knows that the attorney general of Texas or Mississippi (or whichever one is looking to make a splash and smooth the way up to senator or governor) is going to sue if the company deplatforms a purveyor of hate speech, it’s probably going to be less likely to deplatform them to begin with. Sen. Ted Cruz voted for the bill as a whole in committee—after he tried to expand this language to allow for private lawsuits, saying, “I am more than happy to unleash the trial lawyers.”

This came after years of Cruz attacking social media platforms repeatedly for limiting the platform they give to conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones and COVID promoters like Dennis Prager. His angle on any bill having to do with big tech is going to be a serious problem—and his support is a red flag.

Sen. Alex Padilla—who it should be said is from California, where several of the most affected companies are headquartered—raised the concern during committee that, “This provision can be a gift to bad actors seeking to prevent platforms from blocking business users that peddle hate speech or … election disinformation.”

Anti-trust powers should be a more frequently used tool against corporate abuses, and big tech is absolutely ripe for it. But we also don’t want an anti-trust bill that gives Republican attorneys general or regulators a way to protect hate speech and disinformation. In the current Senate there may be a real tension between those two things. But it at least needs to be part of the conversation.

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