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The Republican mayor of a New Jersey township about 20 miles southwest of Jersey City is being asked to resign after a whistleblower allegedly recorded him calling Black people the N-word, “spooks,” and “shines,” and calling women in law enforcement “f–king disasters.” Clark Township Mayor Sal Bonaccorso, the mayor in question, refused comment to NJ.com, but the news site confirmed the legitimacy of the recordings leaked last Wednesday and found through its parent company, NJ Advance Media, that Clark officials paid the whistleblower, Lt. Antonio Manata, and his lawyer $400,000 to keep the recordings hidden. The recordings also allegedly include Police Chief Pedro Matos and Joseph Testo, a sergeant of internal affairs, spewing racial slurs, NJ.com reported.

Adrian Mapp, mayor of Plainfield, a city targeted in the recordings, told the news site he recognized the voice in the recordings immediately and there was “absolutely, no question” that it was that of six-term mayor Bonaccorso. 

RELATED: New Jersey man caught on video in racist rant attempts Olympic-worthy backpedaling

“His misogynistic and racist comments quite frankly have no place in our society and should be condemned by all people, including the people of Clark,” Mapp said. The Black Democrat demanded Bonaccorso’s resignation and called his language “despicable” and “indefensible.”

Alyana Alfaro Post, spokeswoman for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, described Bonaccorso’s alleged words as “hateful” in a statement to Daily Kos on Wednesday. “Governor Murphy is deeply disturbed by these allegations, both regarding the hateful language and subsequent misappropriation of municipal resources aimed at a misguided attempt to obscure the truth,” Post said. “There is no place in government or law enforcement for these unacceptable words and actions.” 

Although the recordings have been released recently, they are about two years old, according to a timeline NJ.com laid out from a settlement agreement between the township and Manata. In exchange for bypassing a lawsuit that would have made the recordings a matter of public record, Manata was allowed to stop working while receiving pay for more than two years, costing $289,700 for his salary alone, NJ.com reported.

Bonaccorso addressed the settlement during a township meeting NBC New York covered on Monday. “The suit that involved myself and three other people,” he said. “We wanted to vigorously fight it. Insurance company wanted to settle it on a business decision. We disagreed. Out of the $400,000, $70,000 was paid by Clark. The rest was by the insurance company.”

This isn’t the first accusation of racist rhetoric that Bonaccorso has faced. During a protest following the murder of George Floyd, he was recorded saying he was “pro-Black for all the good Black people that I know in my life.” When a protester asked what that means, he responded that he can’t say he’s for anybody he doesn’t know. “I’m for people, good people, law-abiding, hard-working, good family, good friends, people with good intentions,” the mayor said. “If you’re Black, great. If you’re white, great. If you’re Hispanic great. It doesn’t matter.”

Clark residents confronted the mayor about his rhetoric directly at the recent meeting. “I’m bringing my daughter up in this town,” resident Jessica Pizzella said. “I don’t want people when they meet her to think she’s racist cause she’s from Clark.”

Dr. LaTesha Sampson told NBC New York she was disappointed with the mayor’s response. “I guess I was really hoping for more of a heart response, something that spoke to what went out to the public, what everyone heard, those tapes that were really, really disturbing,” Sampson said. “I think in order for there to be healing, there needs to be conversations that are open, that are honest where people can express how they feel and then as a community we can move forward. To hide from that keeps the wound open and it needs to close.”

Residents in Plainfield, which has a population that is a bit less than 40% Black, have raised questions about the county that oversees Clark’s police department, Union County, and the state attorney general’s office, which has yet to complete its investigation.

Richard Rivera, an expert in internal affairs, told NJ.com it is time for the attorney general to take control. “The problem is police can’t police themselves,” Rivera said. “And the county prosecutors don’t want any part of this process, so they kick the can until it culminates in something like this.”

Former Union County Prosecutor Lindsay Ruotolo, current Union County Prosecutor William Daniel, and acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin declined comment to NJ.com, but the agencies represented by them said in a joint statement Advance Media obtained that “the investigation, once completed, will have been comprehensive, thorough, and impartial.”

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A portrait of Oregon Republicans in 2022: Three GOP candidates are given an onstage benediction by a QAnon preacher praying over them. At a local “Lincoln Day” dinner, a group of Proud Boys—including a man under indictment for felony assault—share drinks and applause for their cohort running for a state House seat. At a debate among U.S. Senate candidates, the QAnon-loving 2020 Senate nominee compares aid to Ukraine with Donald Trump’s border wall, while she and her cohorts all condemn the nonexistent teaching of “critical race theory” for “breeding racism” in Oregon schools.

So while Oregon officials grapple with an auditor’s finding that the state is at high risk for extremist violence, it’s becoming eminently clear that one of the wellsprings of the problem is the state’s own Republican Party. Even more than the GOP on the national level, Oregon’s Republicans have descended into an open embrace of the very factions that inspire and inflict that violence.

The onstage QAnon benediction occurred last month in Bend, when self-described “prophet” Johnny Enlow prayed over and “commissioned” three Oregon Republican candidates: Marc Thielman, seeking the governorship; Darin Harbick, a U.S. Senate candidate; and Patty Adair, a county commissioner seeking reelection. They were part of a Christian nationalist “Restore: Government and Economy” summit held at Eagle Mountain Apostolic Resource Center.

Enlow assured them that, win or lose, their mere candidacies were victories for “the kingdom of God”:

“Lord, you’re showing me and want me to tell them all that you’ve already won,” Enlow said. “Whatever we contend for we actually get. Whatever we contend for, we penetrate with the kingdom of God. So when you have that interest, what you’re contending for, it will leave a mark of heaven in that place, no matter what. And so if he considers it best for you to win, then you’re going to officially win out there. But it’s a win for the Kingdom of God just the fact that you have said, ‘We’re going for this position.’ He says it will be penetrated in the spirit: It will forever be a marked as kingdom territory.

“He wants you to be at ease for what’s taking place as if you already won because you have won in his eyes,” Enlow told the candidates. “He is watching over you. He’s protecting you. So I want to declare just the protection over you, the peace of God, a canopy of grace over each and every one of them, Lord, in this process. We bless them in your name.”

“All right,” said Haaby following the prayer. “Go take this state for Jesus.”

Thielman also eagerly participated in this past weekend’s ReAwaken America event in Keizer, a Salem suburb. The rally, part of a nationwide tour by far-right “alpha male” Clay Clark, featured leading QAnon figure Michael Flynn and other Trumpist media stars: Eric Trump, “My Pillow” executive Mike Lindell, notorious homophobe Sean Feucht, and a large cast of others.

It was a nonstop circus of right-wing conspiracism and Christian nationalism. At one point, Flynn introduced a video appearance from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the onetime Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., who launched into a pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine rant. Viganò told the audience (as he has done elsewhere) that the Russian military is actually preventing Deep State aggression and combating the “globalist cabal.” He also claimed that the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion were present at the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

The event drew about 4,000 attendees, with people arriving from around the Pacific Northwest. Counterprotesters also turned out. Left Coast Right Watch reports that “this was absolutely a QAnon event”:

It featured former QAnon promoters like Ann Vandersteel, Gene Ho, John Chambers, and cranks like Lori Gregory, who appeared on a QAnon show to promote antivaxx conspiracy theories. There were, in total, 38 featured speakers, at least ten of which were there specifically to promote antivaxx and COVID paranoia. It was also a highly religious event—six people on the list had “Pastor” in front of their names with other evangelical figures speaking as well.

Julianne Jackson, founder of Black Joy Oregon, told the Salem Statesman-Journal that the rally made her feel unsafe in her own community—particularly after social media postings advertised a post-rally celebration of “Anglo American identity.”

“It’s very important to read between the lines and know that means whiteness,” Jackson said. “And that means danger for people like me and people that look like me.”

Besides being present in the crowd, Thielman was publicly endorsed onstage by speaker Kevin Jenkins, and happily acknowledged the plug. Also among the crowd: Dan Tooze, the Proud Boys organizer who is running for a state House seat from Oregon City’s District 40. He took a selfie there with the Oregon Proud Boys vice president, Carl Todd.

Thielman and Tooze have a well-documented relationship of mutual avid support. Thielman, the former superintendent of schools in rural Alsea who stepped down after defying COVID-19 mask mandates, is scheduled to speak at an April 15 fundraiser for Tooze. He’ll be joined by two local Republican candidates, Clackamas County Commissioner Mark Shull and commission candidate Steve Frost.

Tooze’s Proud Boys led flag-waving protests outside Pamplin Media’s local news outlet, and then were given space on the op-ed page to promote Tooze’s organization: “When Proud Boys say, ‘I am a Western chauvinist,’ we are saying, ‘I am a proud and unabashed proponent of Western Civilization.’ That is it. It has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality or even national origin. Only love of country.”

In addition to apparently driving his pickup through groups of Portland counterprotesters in August 2020—on the same night that a right-wing compatriot was shot and killed by an antifascist following a day of harassment—Tooze gained some notoriety in 2020 for leveraging Facebook’s fundraising capabilities to promote and finance violent events in Portland.

Tooze also recently played a key role in a video shared recently on social media showing a tableful of Proud Boys drinking and flashing “OK” signs at the Feb. 12 Clackamas GOP Lincoln Day Gala banquet.

The table’s centerpiece was a Tooze campaign sign. Among the Proud Boys seated at the table was Miles Douglas Furrow, the 41-year-old man indicted in January for his role in the Proud Boys violence that occurred at an August 2021 event in northeast Portland. He raises a drink to toast with the cameraman.

“I’ve always said, Proud Boys are the new Republicans,” says the cameraman as he walks up to “the most important table” and is greeted with “OK” signs.

As it happens, Tooze himself was recorded on video (courtesy of @Johnnthelefty) at the same event engaging in violence directed at counterprotesters, though he was never indicted afterwards like his comrades.

Last December, Tooze led a group of “Patriots” to invade the local Clackamas mall in an anti-masking “protest” that was nothing more than an organized attempt to harass “liberals.” Tooze’s group, organized under the name Free Oregon, staged an anti-masking protest at the Clackamas Town Center mall in unincorporated Happy Valley, an exurban area east of Portland. The group parked their flag-festooned pickups in the parking lot of a sporting goods store and proceeded to stroll through the mall, harassing store clerks and mall security personnel who attempted to enforce the mall’s mask requirements.

The absorption of radical-right actors into the GOP mainstream has been occurring in nearly all regions of the state. In Corvallis this past weekend, a debate among six of the seven Republicans running to be the nominee for Oregon’s contested U.S. Senate seat turned into an almost predictable conspiracism and disinformation carnival led by the presence of Jo Ann Perkins, the QAnon enthusiast who was the GOP’s nominee for the Senate in 2020.

Perkins disparagingly compared aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia to Donald Trump’s wall along the Mexico border. “If our government, including Mitch McConnell, can vote to send $14 billion to Ukraine, but we can’t spend $15 billion on our fences to secure our country, we have a problem,” Perkins said.

She and other Republicans railed against the Enviromental Protection Agency and blamed critical race theory for “breeding racism” in schools. Prineville Mayor Jason Beebe said the theory (which is not taught in K-12 classrooms in Oregon) is grossly unnecessary.

“I teach my kids to be respectful to everyone,” Beebe said. “You do not treat someone badly, no matter what they are, who they are, what they believe and anything that they choose to do.”

Motel owner Darin Harbick from Blue River and Grant County Commissioner Sam Palmer have been the top two fundraisers in the race so far, having outraised Perkins several times over. But Perkins enjoys a huge populist following in the state, particularly among its Patriot constituents.

Mainstream Republicans have been wrestling with the far-right takeover of the party apparatus for over a year now, following the vote by the party faithful in February 2021 to unseat Chairman Bill Currier, a vocal Trump supporter, and replace him with state Sen. Dallas Heard, a Republican from Myrtle Creek notorious for aligning with far-right causes. Heard led a pro-Trump protest at the Oregon Capitol in Salem on Jan. 6, 2021, at the same time as the U.S. Capitol insurrection—and had previously led a rally on Dec. 21, 2020 in which Patriots attacked and successfully breached the Oregon Capitol.

It has been, as OPB’s Sergio Olmos observed, a gradual process taking place in incremental steps over several years: “Small militant groups like the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer and various militias have at times acted as muscle for conservative rallies throughout Oregon and Washington,” he writes. “But the frequency with which the party has embraced once fringe characters did not slow in the time before or since Jan. 6, as heated talk spilled into violent actions.”

Heard stepped down as party chair in early March, accusing his fellow Republicans of “communist psychological warfare tactics” intended to “destroy anyone of true character.” His letter explained that he can no longer “survive exposure to the toxicity that can be found in this community.”

“The endless slander, gossip, conspiracies, sabotage, lies, hatred, pointless criticism, blocking of ideas, and mutiny brought against my administration has done what I once never thought possible,” Heard wrote. “They have broken my spirit. I can face the Democrats with courage and conviction, but I can’t fight my own people too.”

The bizarro world takeover has begun driving out ordinary mainstream Republicans, including the party’s 2018 gubernatorial nominee, Kent Buehler. His final straw came in February 2021 after party officials passed a resolution claiming that the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection was a “false flag” intended to smear Trump.

“I don’t know what the Republican Party stands for,” he said. “It’s almost become a cult of personality. Is it possible to re-correct? Absolutely.”

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After initially reporting on Apr. 1 about a bizarre case in Washington, D.C., where police discovered five fetuses in the home of an anti-abortion activist, now we learn that the fetuses came from a box filled with 115 fetuses that a truck driver allegedly allowed the activists to take.

The home was occupied by Lauren Handy, the director of activism for the group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU).

RELATED STORY: Police find five fetuses in home allegedly occupied by ‘director of activism’ with pro-life group

During a news conference Tuesday led by Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, along with Handy, PAAU founder and executive director Terrisa Bukovinac, and others, the activists claimed that a driver with Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services allowed them to take a box they would later learn was filled with 115 fetuses. 

“During the five days they were under my stewardship, the 115 victims of abortion violence were given a funeral mass for unbaptized children and 110 were given a proper burial in a private cemetery by a priest,” Handy said.

Handy and Bukovinac claim they were at the Washington Surgi-Clinic on Mar. 25 for a protest when they saw the Curtis Bay truck driver with the boxes.

“We asked him [the driver] if he knew what was in the boxes,” Bukovinac said at the news conference. “He said no. So, we told him, ‘dead babies.’”

Bukovinac says after the driver “confirmed the boxes were from Washington Surgi,” she then asked the driver if he would “get in trouble” if they “took one of these boxes.” The driver asked what they would do with them, and “Lauren said, ‘We’ll give them a proper burial and a funeral,’” Bukovinac said.

“The driver said ‘okay,’ and gestured toward the box. Lauren immediately grabbed the box off of the dolly and we brought it back to her apartment,” Bukovinac said.

Bukovinac claimed when they opened the box “in the presence of a Catholic deacon,” they found the “remains of 110, mostly first-trimester aborted children.” She says they also found another plastic bag inside the box, which they claim contained the “remains of a beautiful intact and nearly full-term baby boy.”

Bukonivac says she and Handy found three more “full-term babies” and that they “alerted D.C. homicide” and gave them the location of the five fetuses, demanding an investigation and a “proper burial for the remaining five children,” she said.

Handy, who identified herself as a “devout Catholic,” claimed that the “five children” were “advanced in their gestational age” and had suffered from “wounds” suggesting “violent federal crimes.” She says she arranged for the medical examiner to pick up “the children.”

At the time the fetuses were removed from Handy’s home, D.C. Police Executive Assistant Chief of Police Ashan M. Benedict informed reporters that the fetuses were aborted legally, according to D.C. law. “There doesn’t appear to be anything criminal about that—except for how they got into that house,” Benedict said.

Handy was indicted by a federal grand jury on Mar. 31 along with eight others after breaking into and blocking access to the entrance of a D.C. abortion clinic in Oct. 2020.

In a statement sent to The New York Times, Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services denies all of the allegations made by PAAU.

“On March 25, a Curtis Bay employee took custody of three packages from the Washington Surgery Center [Washington Surgi-Clinic] and delivered all of them to Curtis Bay’s incineration facility,” the statement reads.

Curtis Bay additionally denied that the driver handed packages over to the protesters. “Any allegations made otherwise are false,” the company’s statement asserts.

Melissa Fowler, chief program officer with the National Abortion Federation, told the Times in a statement that “Anti-abortion individuals and groups are increasingly resorting to extreme and illegal antics to attempt to intimidate clinic workers and patients, and stop them from seeking or providing abortion care.”

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The Border Patrol’s union has consistently been up to no good. In just a couple of examples, it records its podcast in a studio owned by white supremacist rag Breitbart. The two actually enjoy quite a cozy relationship, with a local chapter of the union awarding the racist outlet for its “reporting” back in 2015. 

But the union also makes no secrets of its despicable views, after union president Brandon Judd went onto Fox News to openly promote racist “replacement theory.”

RELATED STORY: After Carlson spouts white nationalist ‘replacement theory,’ ADL chief says: ‘Tucker must go’

In the clip, both Fox News host Bill Hemmer and Judd are fuming over the Biden administration’s decision to terminate the Stephen Miller Title 42 order that for more than two years now has effectively stomped on U.S. asylum law. 

“Sir, why do you think this administration has allowed virtually an open border?” Hemmer asks Judd, once again exposing the conundrum Republicans have created for themselves. Literally from the start of the Biden administration, they’ve lied and declared “open borders” as a political attack. But now that the administration is moving to restore asylum access—a just decision that we should celebrate—they’re acknowledging the presence of Title 42 as a border control measure (though the policy has been a failure in multiple ways, see why here).

But I digress. “I believe that they’re trying to change the demographics of the electorate, that’s what I believe they’re doing” Judd responds to Hemmer. “They want to stay in power and the only way to stay in power is to continue to get elected.”

My colleague David Neiwert has previously described this “replacement” talk as “a conspiracy theory claiming that white people are selectively ‘replaced’ by nonwhite immigrants.” It’s white supremacist conspiracy theory, and it’s being promoted by the president of the union for border agents. This is, to say the least, very worrying.

But it’s not like Judd hasn’t already exhibited worrying behavior, earlier this year appearing in an ad where a right-wing candidate from Arizona shot at actors portraying the president, Speaker Pelosi, and Sen. Mark Kelly.

Let’s also not pretend the white supremacist “replacement theory” spouted during this interview was an aberration. Tucker Carlson has been a longtime fan, and has been echoed by top Republicans like Elise Stefanik. National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Rick Scott has gotten very close to it, after claiming that he’s eager to welcome “immigrants who want to be Americans, not change America.”

Nor are they one bit sorry about running on racism. I mean, it’s all they have. “After national press attention condemning Stefanik’s use of the white nationalist ‘replacement theory’ in her Fbook ads warning of an ‘election insurrection’ … she has doubled down and is STILL running these ads,” America’s Voice Political Director Zachary Mueller noted last fall.

RELATED STORIES: 

Arizona GOP candidate revels in outrage after releasing vile ad depicting political violence

Stefanik pushes racist ad that also claims undocumented immigrants are the real insurrectionists

GOP teeing up racist ads going into midterms. Democrats can fight back by championing immigrants

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Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs said Wednesday that he was ending his re-election bid for Ohio’s 7th Congressional District, a surprising announcement that came well after candidate filing closed and days following the start of early voting for the state’s May 3 primary. The six-term congressman’s abrupt retirement leaves former Trump aide Max Miller as the frontrunner to claim a seat in the Canton area and Akron suburbs that Trump would have carried 54-45. Gibbs’ name will remain on the ballot, but the secretary of state’s office says that any votes cast for him will not be counted.

Gibbs used his departure announcement to express his anger at the state Supreme Court, which is not scheduled to rule on the fate of the new GOP-drawn congressional map until well after the primary. “It is irresponsible to effectively confirm the congressional map for this election cycle seven days before voting begins,” said the incumbent, “especially in the Seventh Congressional District, where almost 90 percent of the electorate is new and nearly two-thirds is an area primarily from another district, foreign to any expectations or connection to the current Seventh District.” To put it another way, a mere 9% of the residents of the new 7th are already Gibbs’ constituents, so he would have been campaigning in largely unfamiliar turf.

Miller, by contrast, began the cycle by running against Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who has since announced his own retirement, in the old 16th District, which makes up 65% of the new 7th. Miller, who was one of Trump’s favorite aides (an unnamed source told Politico that the two “had … kind of a unique ‘bro’ relationship”) received his old boss’ backing last year against Gonzalez, who voted for impeachment.

Miller ended up taking on Gibbs after redistricting led them to seek the same seat, and Trump’s spokesperson said last month that the endorsement carried over to Miller’s new campaign against the far-more loyal incumbent. Miller last year also filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend, former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, after she accused him of physically attacking her in 2020.

Gibbs himself got his start in elected office in 2002 when he won a seat in the Ohio state House, and he won a promotion six years later to the state Senate. Gibbs in 2009 set his sights on challenging Democratic Rep. Zack Space in the now-defunct 18th Congressional District, a historically red area in the eastern part of the state that had favored John McCain 52-45, but he had to get past seven fellow Republicans in the following year’s primary first.

Gibbs (who happened to share a name with the Obama White House’s press secretary), had the support of the party establishment, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, and he benefited after tea party activists failed to back a single alternative. The state senator ultimately beat 2008 nominee Fred Dailey, who had lost to Space 60-40, in a 20.9-20.7 squeaker, though it took another month to confirm Gibbs’ 156-vote victory.

The general election turned out to be a far easier contest for Gibbs in what was rapidly turning into a GOP wave year. Space went on the offensive early by portraying his opponent as a tax hiker and a supporter of free trade agreements, but Gibbs ended up unseating him in a 54-40 landslide. Redistricting two years later left the new congressman with a new district, now numbered the 7th, that was largely unfamiliar to him, but unlike in 2022, he faced no serious intra-party opposition in this red constituency. Democrats in 2018 hoped that well-funded Navy veteran Ken Harbaugh could give Gibbs a serious fight, but the congressman decisively turned him back 59-41.

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A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that 63% of Americans agree with the statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” with only 14% disagreeing and another 23% who were uncertain.

The statement matches exactly what President Joe Biden said late last month as he expressed what he later called his “moral outrage” at the savagery of Putin’s unprovoked invasion and the suffering it has heaped on Ukrainian civilians, especially women and children.

“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said in Warsaw, Poland, at the end of a forceful speech seeking to steel the global community for the fight ahead.

Although many within the Beltway were quick to seize on Biden’s remark as a gaffe, the new polling conducted March 31 to April 4 shows that Biden was in fact in step with the sentiment of roughly two-thirds of the American public.

The president, however, didn’t fare as well when the survey attached his name to the statement.

Even though 63% agreed with the unattributed statement, that number shrank to a plurality of 48% when respondents were asked whether Biden was “right or wrong” to have made the statement; 29% said Biden was “wrong” to make the remark. But even then, Biden’s statement was in net-plus territory by 19 points.

Naturally, Republicans accounted for most of the cohort that turned on a dime once they found out President Biden had made the statement. At first, Republicans agreed with the statement 57%-21%, a 36-point margin. But as soon as Biden’s name was injected, Republicans said he was wrong by 9 points, 46%-37%. That’s a net shift of 45 points.

Biden also lost 13 points among Democrats, with 83% originally supporting the statement but 70% ultimately saying Biden was wrong to say it.

The White House sought to clarify the unscripted statement almost immediately after Biden uttered it. The president was not endorsing “regime change,” a spokesperson noted at the time.

But when reporters later peppered the president with questions about the remark, he was defiant.

“I’m not walking anything back,” Biden said at a White House press conference. “I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing and the actions of this man—just the brutality of it, half the children in Ukraine. I had just come from being with those families.”

Political polarization aside, the fact remains that the American public is largely in agreement with the U.S. effort to flow as much weaponry and aid to Ukraine as possible without igniting World War III.

The poll suggests President Biden has a lot of latitude to bolster Ukraine’s valiant resistance and its right to self-determination. Whatever Americans might tell a pollster, their hearts are with Ukraine. That sentiment has likely only deepened after several days of horrifying revelations about mass graves of civilians, point-blank executions, and other unimaginable Russian atrocities.  

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Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Western nations were extremely careful about the types of military hardware they sent to Kyiv. Food and supplies? Check. Small arms and ammo? Okay. Weapons designed specifically to take out tanks and other armored vehicles? That last one took a few years worth of thinking. Even something like body armor was the subject of deep discussion, as the U.S., NATO, and other members of the EU pondered just what did, and what didn’t, fit under the ill-defined oxymoron of “defensive weapon.”

Over the last month, it became clear that the Russian army was definitely not going to just roll into Kyiv to a welcoming parade. Over that same month, the Ukrainian military showcased how modern weaponry could take apart armored convoys deployed in a way that was either overconfident, or just plain sloppy. It also became increasingly obvious that not only does Ukraine have a chance to win this war outright, but that seeing Russia lose decisively benefits something like 194 out of the world’s 195 nations.

Add in images of maternity hospitals being shelled and shelters being bombed; and even before the revelations of atrocities that came with the Russian withdrawal from the area around Kyiv, many nations began to quickly move the markers on what weapons were acceptable to give to Ukraine. It’s safe to say that items which would never have been considered on Feb 24—like a trainload of Czech T-72M1 tanks—are now on their way to being used by Ukrainian forces.

The U.S. might not be sending any tanks or F-16 fighter jets (for all the reasons that Markos laid out), but it has definitely backed way they hell away from debates of the past. The U.S. has issued two new packages of military hardware to Ukraine since the invasion began, including a heavy dose of Javelin anti-tank weapons and Stinger anti-aircraft weapons.

In the last big package that President Biden put together, Ukraine was allocated 800 more Stingers, 2,000 Javelins, 1,000 missiles for hitting lightly armored vehicles, and a whopping 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems. Like the Javelin or Stinger, the AT-4 is a soldier-carried weapon, and it’s definitely capable of taking out a tank. It’s actually a Swedish weapon, one that the Ukrainian forces have already been using with some success.  They seem to like them.

For the U.S., that was on top of 600 Stingers and 2,600 Javelins that had already been sent. There are now far more anti-tank weapons in Ukraine than there are tanks. Which is just the way it should be. Those weapons are going to keep coming.

However, both advocates and skeptics of proving Ukraine with better weaponry were surprised when the $800 million package that Biden signed onto contained “100 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems.” These turned out to be not some form of observation drone — though those are far more useful and deadly than they may seem — but sets of AeroVironment’s Switchblade drone.  

There are two types of Switchblades, the 300 and the newer 600. Both are “loitering munitions,” in other words, drones that can be launched and circle an area for several minutes before finding their target, locking in, and driving home. Unlike a larger Turkish Bayraktar, the Switchblade doesn’t fire a missile. It is a missile. One with good cameras and a lot of smarts.

The reaction in Ukraine, and among those supporting Ukraine, was one of considerable excitement. This class of weaponry is become more common, and it can be extremely effective in tasks like taking out artillery that is sitting back to shell a city safely out of reach of counter-fire.

There may be no better way to see how important this system is than to check in with Clint Erhlich. If you’ve forgotten who Erhlich is, he’s a favorite of Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk, and right wing media in general. Ehrlich frequently pops up on television, radio, and podcasts as a “military analyst” or “Russia expert”.

That expertise brought Erhlich these amazing insights:

Feb 15: “I’ll put my reputation on the line: There is now zero chance that Russia suddenly invades Ukraine.”

Feb 23: “Many people are predicting that a Russian invasion of Ukraine will look like the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They’re wrong. The world will be shocked by the swiftness of Russian victory. We’re about to witness a Sputnik moment.”

Feb 24: “Before this conflict, many people were speculating that Ukrainian troops would have a morale advantage, since they’d be defending their homeland. As we’re seeing, that overlooked the role that Russian shock and awe would play. I’m not blaming the Ukrainians. Just being honest.”

Erhlich then went on to explain, at length, in many tweets, why everyone should be cheering for a “swift Russian victory” to minimize Ukrainian casualties. You know, like how the casualties were minimized in Russian-occupied Bucha.

So, with that background of accuracy behind him, what did Erhlich think of sending Ukrainians some Switchblade drones? Well, he thinks it’s really bad news … for Joe Biden.

Mar 30: “If it’s only delivering Switchblade 300s to Ukraine, it’s not fighting the proxy war effectively. And if it thinks Russia won’t react to a covert delivery of Switchblade 600s, it’s dead wrong.”

Notice that over the last month Erhlich has continued to swim in the Russian propaganda tank and is calling this a “proxy war” for the United States. And notice that the only good Switchblade, in his opinion, is no Switchblade at all. 

That’s how you know they’re good.

Both the Switchblade 300 and 600 have their potential targets. How this type of weapon will work out in Ukraine isn’t clear, but we did learn one thing on Wednesday. Not only have the first examples of this weapon arrived in Ukraine for a trial, but when defense officials let slip that Ukrainian military were in the U.S. for training, at least some of that was being trained on how to use the Switchblade system, likely in connection with the Puma observation drone, which the U.S. is also sending.

It’s very possible that in the next few days we’ll see the first results of a Switchblade system being used in Ukraine. While any new class of weapons becoming involved in a war is never anything that should generate a lot of excitement, after Bucha, and Borodyanka, and what we already know has happened in Mariupol, that feeling seems a lot more justified.

Erlich was right about one thing — the faster this war is over, the better. So long as Russia loses.

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It’s unclear how a GOP candidate could be so bold as to contact the daughter of a civil rights legend like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at all, let alone to do so claiming he knows more about her father’s legacy than she does. But hey, there’s a reason they call it white privilege. Josh Mandel is a former Ohio state representative and state treasurer recently endorsed in the Ohio Senate race by Sen. Ted Cruz.

Instead of focusing on his race or perhaps in service to racist supporters, Mandel tweeted Bernice King on Tuesday that her father, who an assassin shot and killed on April 4, 1968 on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, “knew the importance of the Second Amendment.”

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Mandel claimed Martin Luther King Jr. “tried to exercise his right to self-defense and was wrongly denied a gun permit by anti-gun racists … Firearms ≠ violence. Study your history better @BerniceKing,” Mandel added in the tweet.

The social media post was part of a thread started by Mandel when he thanked Bernice King and the King Center, a nonprofit dedicated to nonviolent social change, for motivating his latest campaign ad. In the ad, Mandel is shown walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the historic landmark King led more than 2,000 Black and white protesters across in Selma, Alabama, to advocate for the federal Voting Rights Act. The response from Southern racists and law enforcement at the Edmund Pettus Bridge was repeated beatings, teargas bombings, and deadly encounters so violent that the scene televised for the country to witness on Sunday, March 7, 1965 was dubbed Bloody Sunday. Mandel evoked the memory to vocalize opposition to critical race theory.

A framework for interpreting law that maintains racism has an undeniable effect on the legal foundation of American society, the theory would be pretty exclusively confined to law schools if not for Republicans attempting to redefine it as anything that makes white people feel bad about racism.

“Martin Luther King marched right here so skin color wouldn’t matter,” Mandel said erroneously. “I didn’t do two tours in Anbar Province fighting alongside Marines of every color to come home and be called a racist.”

No, apparently he “did two tours in Anbar Province fighting alongside Marines of every color to come home” and be a racist.

“Josh: Regretfully, I do not believe that I or @TheKingCenter legitimately motivated you to film this ad, as it is in opposition to nonviolence and to much of what my father taught,” Bernice King responded on Twitter. “I encourage you to study my father/nonviolence in full.”

She included a link to nonviolence training at the King Center Institute.

Kevin Kruse, a historian and New York Times bestselling author, posted a thread on Twitter giving Mandel exactly the history lesson he so desperately needs. “I know everyone’s aghast at Mandel having the gall to lecture MLK’s own daughter @BerniceKing about MLK’s legacy, but I want to focus on the second part here, about how MLK was ‘wrongly denied a gun permit by anti-gun racists,'” Kruse tweeted.

He added, citing King Institute research:

Early in the Montgomery campaign, when King was still formulating a philosophy of nonviolence, his house was bombed. In that brief moment, King asked the local sheriff to approve gun permits for the men guarding him, but the sheriff denied the request.

…

It turned out to be a fortunate decision, because it deepened King’s commitment to nonviolent direct action as the best path to progress. As he later put it, “I was much more afraid in Montgomery when I had a gun in the house.”

…

So, no, King was not some kind of strong supporter of the Second Amendment and, given the fact that he was assassinated by a firearm, it seems bizarre — and almost willfully mean-spirited — to insist to his daughter that he was.

Kruse tweeted that Martin Luther King Jr.’s requests for gun permits were denied “not because the sheriff was anti-gun, but because he was a racist … And when racists are in charge of administering seemingly race-neutral laws, they often apply them in uneven ways that reflect their racism,” Kruse said in the tweet. “That’s what Critical Race Theory stresses!”

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In a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Monday, Trump Justice Amy Coney Barrett previewed the horrors to come from the extremist Supreme Court majority. She attempted to posit that the increasingly destructive opinions the majority has issued and will issue are not aimed at imposing a “policy result,” and that Americans should wait and “read the opinion” to learn why the court took those controversial actions.

Two days later, from the shadow docket, Barrett and four of her colleagues gutted states’ ability to protect their own waters, and with it put the 1972 Clean Water Act in jeopardy. Without issuing an opinion for any of us to read. The shadow docket ruling comprises one paragraph reinstating a Trump environmental rule that limits states’ ability to block projects that could pollute rivers and streams pending an appeals court hearing. There is no decision to read in the policymaking move by five conservative justices.

RELATED STORY:  The conservative Supreme Court majority is issuing some of its most extreme rulings in the shadows

That it is five justices instead of six is notable because Chief Justice John Roberts was not in the majority. What’s even more notable is that Roberts signed onto Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent, blasting the court’s majority for using the shadow docket to issue a momentous decision on the flimsiest of grounds. “The request for a stay rests on simple assertions—on conjectures, unsupported by any present-day evidence, about what States will now feel free to do,” Kagan wrote.

That the court issued this stay—when the applicants showed no harm and there was no “emergency” that required the Supreme Court to intervene—shows the “Court goes astray,” Kagan wrote. “It
provides a stay pending appeal, and thus signals its view of the merits, even though the applicants have failed to make the irreparable harm showing we have traditionally required.” The court just spoiled the case in the appeals process. It just told the lower court what it is going to do when the case ultimately reaches it.

“That renders the Court’s emergency docket not for emergencies at all,” Kagan says. “The docket becomes only another place for merits determinations—except made without full briefing and argument.”

What is so significant is that this is the first instance of Roberts opposing the tactic. “Although Chief Justice Roberts has joined the Democratic appointees in prior shadow docket dissents (Roman Catholic Diocese; Tandon; SB8), this is the first time he’s joined an opinion criticizing the majority for abusing what Kagan here calls ‘the emergency docket,’” Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, tweeted.

In fact, he told The Washington Post, “This is the ninth time that Chief Justice Roberts has publicly been on the short side of a 5-4 ruling since Justice Barrett’s confirmation. … Seven of the nine have been from shadow docket rulings. This is the first time, though, that he’s endorsed criticism of the shadow docket itself.”

Return to Kagans’ dissent: The emergency docket, the shadow docket, “becomes only another place for merits determination—except without full briefing and argument.” That’s a remarkable departure for the court. It flies in the face of Barrett’s assertion that the majority is carefully weighing the cases before it, reasoning through the process.

The fact that Roberts, the conservative chief justice, signed onto Kagan’s dissent criticizing the majority proves one thing: The court’s legitimacy isn’t just in question, it’s lost. If the institution is going to be saved, it has to be wrested from the control of the extremist ideologues. It has to be expanded.

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Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is no ally of the LGBTQ+ community. DeSantis recently signed the hateful, discriminatory “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law (while surrounded by young children, but I digress) effective July 1. DeSantis, and the Republicans who bolstered the bill up to his desk, have continued to allege it’s not about being anti-queer, but about being appropriate with minors. Now, we know children are exposed to cisgender, heterosexual norms essentially from birth, and this includes norms in the classroom—whether it’s concerning history lessons, pronouns, or even teachers talking about their families. It’s only when a teacher references their same-sex partner, for example, or the role of LGBTQ+ activists in a historical movement comes up, that conservatives get outraged.

DeSantis has referenced January Littlejohn, a resident of Leon County, Florida, to defend why he needed to sign hate into law. DeSantis has claimed that Littlejohn was not appropriately consulted about a public school’s approach to gender-affirming care for her child, including their name and pronouns. According to CNN, however, emails from public records suggest DeSantis’ presentation of the situation is far from the full story.

RELATED: And Republicans say queer people are the groomers …

Before we get into the email conversation as reported by CNN, let’s review some of how DeSantis has presented this situation. At a recent press conference, for example, DeSantis referred to a mother from the county who said her child was attending school and experiencing “some people” at the school changing their child’s name and clothing without telling the mother or getting her consent. 

“First of all, they shouldn’t be doing that at all,” DeSantis said. “But to do these things behind the parents’ back and to say that the parents should be shut out. That is wrong.”

The clothing allegation is notably weird, but it’s actually wonderful for a school to be supportive of a child’s name and pronouns. No need to have a parent give consent in order to have their child be treated with affirmation and respect in the classroom…. Because children are actually their own people, not just little dolls and pets for parents to project their entire being onto.

But, again, this doesn’t even seem to be the full story. According to emails obtained by CNN, Littlejohn reached out to the school back in 2020 and let a teacher know her child wanted to use different pronouns. In the email, Littlejohn said she was not trying to prevent her child from using different pronouns or a different name. 

In the email to the teacher, Littlejohn stressed that it’s been a “difficult” situation but that both parents are trying to be as “supportive” as they can. Littlejohn went on to detail their child’s gender identity and pronouns and shared that while they aren’t using their updated name at home, they gave her permission to use her updated name while at school.

When the teacher asked if parents wanted them to share the child’s updates with other teachers, Littlejohn noted again it was a difficult and confusing situation, but that the teacher could do what they thought was “best” or the child could decide themselves. 

Littlejohn shared in another email with the same teacher that the situation has “thrown us for a loop” and expressed sincere appreciation for the teacher’s support. They added, “I’m going to let [] take the lead on this.”

Nice. While I raise my eyebrows at any parent or guardian who isn’t using a child’s name or pronouns as requested at home, this parent certainly doesn’t seem against the school being supportive, and that is definitely more than many other folks can say.

According to CNN, however, about two months after these emails happened, Littlejohn and her husband filed a lawsuit against the school board over how the school handled their child’s gender identity. The parents claimed officials at the school created a student support plan with their child which includes things like their new pronouns, bathroom usage, and “expectations” for overnight trip housing. Again, sounds reasonable and affirming. But Littlejohn says the school denied parents access to these meetings. They’ve since hired legal representation from Child & Parental Rights Campaign, which seems to exist to do exactly what its name implies.

And for the school district? In a statement to CNN, the district communications coordinator Chris Petley said that “the family clearly instructed the school staff via email to allow their child to ‘take the lead on this’ and to do ‘whatever you think is the best.” They went on to claim the superintendent did meet with the family and pledged to amend any “vague or unclear” policy language.

In the very big picture, this all comes down to the conservative rallying cry about parental “rights.” Whether it’s trying to get books by and about LGBTQ+ people pulled from school libraries and classrooms, trying to bar youth from accessing potentially life-saving gender-affirming health care, or trans youth being able to play sports, the real rationale from Republicans is to stomp out LGBTQ+ youth by allowing their parents to effectively keep them in the closet as long as possible, or punish and control them if they dare to step out. 

The role of teachers is not to appease parents. Teachers do not exist to parrot what parents or guardians say in the home. Teachers (and other staff at schools) should prioritize the comfort and safety of the student, period, especially when we know gender-affirming actions like respecting names and pronouns can significantly improve a young person’s mental health.

Republicans like to stir controversy by talking about gender-affirming health care as simply surgeries, but that’s far from the case. In fact, many medical professionals agree that (especially for younger ages) gender-affirming health care can be as simple as honoring a child’s pronouns or name. Nothing irreversible about that, and yet conservatives can’t agree to that, either, because suddenly it’s all about the “rights” of parents.

It’s almost as if Republicans don’t see minors as people unless they’re trying to marry them. Funny how that works.