Only days after being launched to the public, Meta Platforms' new AI chatbot has been claiming that Donald Trump won the 2020 US presidential election, and repeating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. From a report: Chatbots -- artificial intelligence software that learns from interactions with the public -- have a history of taking reactionary turns. In 2016, Microsoft's Tay was taken offline within 48 hours after it started praising Adolf Hitler, amid other racist and misogynist comments it apparently picked up while interacting with Twitter users. Facebook parent company Meta released BlenderBot 3 on Friday to users in the US, who can provide feedback if they receive off-topic or unrealistic answers. A further feature of BlenderBot 3 is its ability to search the internet to talk about different topics. The company encourages adults to interact with the chatbot with "natural conversations about topics of interest" to allow it to learn to conduct naturalistic discussions on a wide range of subjects. Conversations shared on various social media accounts ranged from the humorous to the offensive. BlenderBot 3 told one user its favorite musical was Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats," and described Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as "too creepy and manipulative" to a reporter from Insider. Other conversations showed the chatbot repeating conspiracy theories.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Senate Republicans did it again: They proved how little they actually care about life once it has emerged from the womb by blocking Democrats’ efforts to make insulin affordable for all people with diabetes. Republicans, 43 of them, didn’t just vote against it—they stripped it from the bill entirely.

An estimated 7 million Americans depend on insulin to stay alive, and about 14% of them pay as much as 40% of their income remaining after housing and groceries on the drug. These are the 43 Republicans who want people with private insurance to have to pay as much as $150 and more per month for the lifesaving drug, which costs less than $10 to produce.

Donate now to give Democrats a true majority in the Senate.

A handful of Republicans did vote with Democrats, including of all people Sen. Josh Hawley, who apparently realizes that his future political ambitions might be hampered just a little bit by this exceedingly petty vote by his colleagues.

The procedure here was a little arcane, as things tend to be with budget reconciliation bills like the Inflation Reduction Act. But it’s the process that allowed the final product to be passed with just Democratic votes. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that while the cap on insulin costs for Medicare could remain in the bill, the cap for private insurance didn’t fit the rules. Democrats left it in anyway, deciding that this was a good bill to challenge. That vote required 60 to pass, and only got 57.

Three Republicans who are up for reelection this year—Marco Rubio of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Tim Scott of South Carolina—could have made the difference. They could have voted with Democrats and made sure that insulin was affordable for everyone with insurance. They didn’t, and one of them is already feeling the heat for that. 

See, it wasn’t voting against people having access to lifesaving medicine—it was Democrats trying to break the rules. That’s not going to fly with the public as long as Democrats keep up this line of attack.

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite experiencing one of the country’s largest outbreaks of monkeypox, San Francisco’s health department has pulled back on contact tracing – a standard public health practice in combating viral disease – for those who have been infected, this news organization has learned. The revelation comes amid successive declarations of public emergencies over the monkeypox virus by the federal government, the state and San Francisco Mayor London Breed, whose director of public health announced at the end of July it was “imperative that we mobilize city resources rapidly” to curb its s…

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South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has strong feelings about same-sex marriage and abortion. He’s stubborn in his belief that decisions around these personal issues should be up to individual states and that the U.S. Supreme Court should stay out of it. But when the fiery issue of interracial marriage comes up, Graham is fast to pivot to any other topic.

“I’ve been consistent. I think states should decide the issue of marriage, and states should decide the issue of abortion,” Graham told Dana Bash, host of CNN’s State of the Union, on Sunday. “I have respect for South Carolina. South Carolina voters I trust to define marriage and deal with the issue of abortion. Not nine people on the court. That’s my view.”

Of course Graham trusts South Carolina voters—Republican voters, anyway—to decide on abortion. As The Washington Post reports, the state is angling for a total ban on abortion, starting with a bill making it illegal to give “information [about how to get an abortion] to a pregnant woman, or someone seeking information on behalf of a pregnant woman, by telephone, internet, or any other mode of communication.”

RELATED STORY: State Rep. introduces amendment to anti-abortion bill that would ban erectile dysfunction drugs

When Bash pushed Graham to talk about the states deciding interracial marriage and whether or not the court should overturn Loving v. Virginia as well, Lindsey turned at breakneck speed.

“No, here’s the point. We’re talking about things that are not happening because you don’t want to talk about inflation, you don’t want to talk about crime ... This is all politics, my friends. Instead of trying to solve problems like unstable people having guns, we’re talking about constitutional decisions that are still in effect. But if you’re going to ask me to have the federal government take over defining marriage, I’m going to say no,” said Graham in his usual testy tone.

Graham has clearly said he plans to vote against the Respect for Marriage Act in the Senate to which aims to protect same-sex marriage.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who appeared with Graham on CNN Sunday, told Bash that he thinks same-sex marriage “should be codified because there’s a real danger of it being overturned by the Supreme Court.”

Blumenthal added:

“This Supreme Court has indicated it has a hit list, beginning with marriage equality, contraception, possibly others as well, Loving vs. Virginia. And I think we need to guarantee these rights to assure people that they can marry the person they love.”

Lawmakers have been fast-tracking making plans to create legislation to protect same-sex marriage ever since Justice Clarence Thomas offered that Obergefell should also be “revisited” after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Thomas, who is Black, also mentioned revisiting the court’s decisions on interracial marriage (despite the fact that his wife is white), as well as access to birth control. 

Known for his fiery temper and “get off my lawn” angry scrunched face, Graham was admonished Sunday after he accused Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, of being “deceitful” and “dishonest” when she proposed an alternative to his amendment to kill a 16.4-cent-per-barrel tax on oil products imported to the U.S., The Hill reports. Graham was warned by Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, to calm down.

Sign and send the petition: Senate must immediately pass Respect for Marriage Act.

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The Inflation Reduction Act was a legislative odyssey that only one of our two parties was capable of seeing through to the end.

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We need a thorough, deep dive into the four-year-old allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh if we’re ever to get to the bottom of what “boof” means. It would also be nice to know if the guy who voted to wrest reproductive rights away from every American with a womb is a concupiscent churl and serial sexual assaulter. But first things first.

Unfortunately, we were never going to get to the bottom of anything during the Trump administration—other than a yawning abyss of fathomless, numbing despair. But in the summer of 2018, after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford brought forth sexual assault allegations that were echoed by other women who also knew Kavanaugh, Donald Trump ordered a supplemental investigation of his nominee in order to provide cover for Republican senators who were going to vote to confirm him no matter what.

And the FBI didn’t find out much of anything! Go figure.

The reason? They didn’t really look.

During a testy exchange with FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse asked what happened to the roughly 4,500 leads received on a dedicated FBI tip line in the wake of Dr. Ford’s allegations. The answer almost certainly won’t surprise you. 

RELATED STORY: Sen. Whitehouse says allegations against Kavanaugh were ‘swept under the rug’ by FBI

Watch:

Transcript!

WHITEHOUSE: “As you know we are now entering the fourth year of a frustrating saga that began with an August 2019 letter from me and Sen. [Chris] Coons regarding the Kavanaugh supplemental background investigation, and I’d like to get that matter wrapped up. First, is it true that after Kavanaugh-related tips were separated from regular tip line traffic, they were forwarded to White House counsel without investigation?”

WRAY: “I apologize in advance that it’s been frustrating for you. We’ve tried to be clear about our process …”

WHITEHOUSE: “I won’t be frustrated if you just answer the question.”

WRAY: “… so when it comes to the tip line, we wanted to make sure that the White House had all the information we have, so when the hundreds of calls started coming in, we gathered those up, reviewed them, and provided them to the White House ...”

WHITEHOUSE: “Without investigation ...”

WRAY: “Uh, we reviewed them and then provided them to …”

WHITEHOUSE: “You reviewed them for purposes of separating from tip line traffic, but did not further investigate the ones that related to Kavanaugh, correct?”

WRAY: “Correct.”

WHITEHOUSE: “Is it also true that in that supplemental BI [background investigation], the FBI took direction from the White House as to whom the FBI would question and even what questions the FBI could ask?”

WRAY: “So it is true that, consistent with the longstanding process that we have had going all the way back to at least the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, and continue to follow currently under the Biden administration, that in a limited supplemental BI, we take direction from the requesting entity, which in this case was the White House, as to what followup they want. That’s the direction we followed. That’s the direction we’ve consistently followed throughout the decades, frankly. You ask specifically about ‘who’ and ‘what ...’”

WHITEHOUSE: “Is it true?”

WRAY: “It is true as to the ‘who.’ I’m not sure as I sit here whether it’s true as to the ‘what’ questions, but it is true as to who we interviewed.”

In a pair of tweets following that testimony, Whitehouse summarized the exchange: 

For the nontweeters:

Wray confirms: Kavanaugh tips from tip line were sent to Trump White House without investigation; and Trump White House directed what witnesses FBI would interview.

Here’s a thought: nothing prevented Trump White House from using FBI tip line information to direct FBI investigation away from percipient or corroborating witnesses.

In other words, Trump was determined to shove Kavanaugh down our throats like a piping-hot wad of Arby’s, and he wasn’t about to let the FBI uncover any more embarrassing “gaffes.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time Whitehouse has insisted on transparency when it comes to the FBI’s (and Trump’s) sham Kavanaugh probe. In a letter sent to Wray in July 2021, Sens. Whitehouse, Coons et al. asked what the fuck the FBI was actually doing when they were supposed to be investigating Kavanaugh.  

Watch Whitehouse’s full questioning of Wray below:

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, 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. 

Another day, another jury decision against Alex Jones. The InfoWars head now owes two families of Sandy Hook victims $45.2 million in punitive damages. The judgment on Friday was handed down unanimously, as is custom of punitive damage rulings. Just the day prior, the Travis County jury had also ruled that Jones owed the parents of Sandy Hook victims $4.1 million, bringing the total amount of compensation owed to parents—who he once classified as paid actors and whose children’s existence he publicly doubted—$49.3 million.

As previously written, Jones may not be on the hook for the full amount of damages given a code in Texas capping punitive damages. Just $2 million could “sink” InfoWars and the disinformation empire Jones built, according to the conspiracist.

His troubles aren’t over, given that two years’ worth of his cellphone records are already being requested by law enforcement and the Jan. 6th committee as it continues its investigation into the Trump-led insurrection. As the New York Times notes, “the judge says she is not preventing the Sandy Hook lawyers from giving Jones’ text messages to law enforcement and the Jan. 6 House committee.”

Department of Defense deputy secretary Kathleen Hicks issued an order this week demanding that all federal employees save all data on their mobile devices, including text messages, effective immediately. 

The memo was issued in the wake of the Jan. 6 committee learning that text messages from key officials at the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense were erased. 

RELATED STORY: Army, Department of Defense officials’ messages from Jan. 6 erased

The memo emphasized that text messages are considered a record that qualifies under preservation laws stipulated in the Federal Records Act. Hicks also ordered a department-wide review in conjunction with the department’s chief information officer and other members of military leadership. This review is intended to determine whether the department has been compliant. Hicks set a 30-day deadline for assessments to come back. 

“This information provides evidence of government organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other official activities, or is of value to the Department.”

Records Management Memo Pentagon DoD by Daily Kos on Scribd

Text messages from two dozen Secret Service officials have gone missing, as well as texts from former acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and his deputy, Ken Cuccinelli. 

An investigation into missing texts from Defense Department officials, including former secretary Chris Miller, his deputy Kashyap “Kash” Patel, and former U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, among others, have been requested by the Senate Judiciary Committee and its chair, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.

The Jan. 6 committee, meanwhile, has called for the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security, Joseph Cuffari, to recuse himself from a probe into the missing Secret Service and DHS texts. 

Calls for Cuffari to step away from the investigation or remove himself entirely from his role have mounted in recent days. On Friday, The Independent reported that sources close to the Biden administration have indicated that President Joe Biden has not yet ruled out whether Cuffari should be fired. The DHS inspector general was first appointed by former President Donald Trump and is one of many federal watchdogs appointed by the former president still working in their oversight positions. 

Biden’s openness to axing Cuffari is a shift in what White House press secretary Karen-Jean Pierre said just 24 hours earlier during a press conference. 

“Look, the President has been very clear—I think I answered some of this yesterday—that he believes in the independent role of the Inspector Generals and that they serve an important function in ensuring accountability for the American people. That still stands. He believes that,” she said Thursday.

A representative for the White House did not immediately return a request for comment to Daily Kos on Friday.

RELATED STORY: New internal report shows Trump watchdog accused of misleading investigators

Republicans say we shouldn't have taken the steps that created the employment recovery. What would they have done instead?

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Republicans got what they wanted: The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Now they have to deal with the consequences, and they’re less happy about that.

The political consequences, that is. If they’re upset about a 10-year-old rape victim being forced to cross state lines for an abortion, or a woman forced to wait until a miscarriage threatens her life to get treatment, Republicans aren’t showing it beyond rote expressions of sympathy backed by absolutely no action. But how to talk about their anti-abortion stances when voters are angry about the court decision they paved the way for and the punitive abortion bans they’ve passed in many states? That’s more troubling for them.

RELATED STORY: Kansas abortion vote should 'send a cold chill up the spines' of Republicans

They’ve tried ignoring it, changing the subject from abortion to gas prices or really anything else. (Inconveniently for Republicans, falling gas prices are taking away one of their key talking points.) They’re realizing, though, that ignoring abortion won't fly.

That’s led to some interesting backpedals. Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano has recently taken the position that, as governor, he wouldn’t have any influence over abortion policy anyway, saying, ”You decide on exceptions. You decide on how early. And that’s in the hands of the people.” (The governor does, in fact, have a role in abortion policy, and during the Republican primary, Mastriano said, “That baby deserves a right to life whether it is conceived in incest or rape or there are concerns otherwise for the mom.”)

The Republican nominee for governor in Minnesota has likewise gone from saying he would “try to ban abortion” to making a big point of the exceptions he would support in an abortion ban. Republican consultants told The New York Times that was in line with their current advice: that candidates should emphasize their support for exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother; also, the consultants “have told candidates to emphasize care for women during and after their pregnancies.” Republicans oppose paid family leave and when the House voted on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act in 2021, nearly half of Republicans opposed the bill.

These recommendations are coming because Republicans are realizing that whoops, people care about this issue and just talking about gas prices probably won’t be enough. “Sarah Longwell, a Republican pollster, said in her focus groups that swing voters do bring up inflation and the economy when asked what issues are on their minds. But when prompted to discuss abortion, real passion flares. That indicates that if Democrats can prosecute a campaign to keep the issue front and center, they will find an audience, she said,” the Times reports.

The problem for Republican consultants is that there are still a lot of Republicans who aren’t backing down. Some are trying to change the subject, like Michigan Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon, who hasn’t softened her stance on abortion but is trying to stick to the practice of deflecting and focusing on other issues. That effort is complicated, though, by the fact that members of their party keep making abortion very relevant, as when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended a state attorney who declined to prosecute violations of the state’s 15-week abortion ban. 

Indiana legislators are serving up some great material for anyone who wants to show how extreme Republicans are on abortion:

Whatever Republicans say about their positions as they campaign, this is what their party is trying to do with power—including at the federal level, where they have introduced dozens of attempts to restrict abortion rights.

RELATED STORIES:

Never forget this: Republicans own the end of Roe

Kansas voters send message to Republican Party: 'Worry about November'

About that national abortion ban congressional Republicans have been planning ...

It’s a moment producing a potent mixture of relief and irritation: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has made her demands for changes to the Inflation Reduction Act and they seem to be things other Senate Democrats are willing to swallow, so the bill is expected to move forward over the weekend. The fact that the reconciliation package had to be painstakingly worked out, and Democratic ambitions slashed, in negotiations first with Sen. Joe Manchin and then with Sinema is a reminder of how important it is to increase the Democratic Senate majority to make Manchin and Sinema less important. But under current circumstances, if this bill can get through Congress and to President Joe Biden’s desk, it will be a major, major win.

As widely predicted, Sinema demanded the removal of the provision cutting back on the carried interest loophole, which lets massively wealthy private equity and hedge fund executives treat some of their earnings as capital gains, meaning it’s taxed at 20% rather than the income tax level for people in their elevated tax bracket. Sinema laughably insisted she “look[s] forward to working with Senator Warner to enact carried interest tax reforms, protecting investments in America’s economy and encouraging continued growth while closing the most egregious loopholes that some abuse to avoid paying taxes.” Anything she and Warner come up with outside of the reconciliation package will require 10 Republican votes, which it won’t get. So nice try pretending you didn’t just entirely kill this effort to close a tax loophole exploited by multi-multi-multimillionaires, Kyrsten.

RELATED STORY: Democrats are walking a tightrope trying to get Manchin climate deal passed quickly

Sinema also demanded changes to the provision creating a 15% minimum tax on corporations to “protect advanced manufacturing,” though details aren’t clear. Some of the revenue losses from Sinema’s demands will be made up for through a 1% tax on corporate stock buybacks. That tax seems like a great idea, but in a reasonable world, Democrats would be able to do that and close the carried interest loophole.

As a senator from a drought-stricken state, Sinema also called for the addition of billions of dollars to combat drought, which is something that fits in a climate bill.

In the end, it’s not as terrible as we might have feared from Sinema. It seems that, like Manchin, she ultimately decided Democrats do need to get something done with their razor-thin Senate majority. But watching someone who not all that many years ago portrayed herself as a "Prada socialist" shoot her shot by protecting private equity and hedge fund partners from paying the income tax rate on their income is nauseating. Just as it was nauseating watching a man making $500,000 a year from extra-dirty coal get to set the terms of a climate change bill.

Speaking of nauseating, the unelected Senate parliamentarian still hasn’t been heard from, and could force further changes to the bill in line with her practice of letting Republicans do what they want while imposing much stricter limits on Democratic priorities.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is planning an initial vote on Saturday. “Vote-a-rama,” in which Republicans introduce a series of amendments intended to force Democrats into tough votes, could take up a significant chunk of the weekend, with amendments moving fairly quickly, but forcing senators to remain on the floor to vote. Schumer is delaying the start of the Senate’s extended August recess to get this done, which is excellent (and hopefully the thought of recess will give some Republicans second thoughts about how long vote-a-rama lasts). 

Although really Schumer should delay recess a little longer to force a vote on the Respect for Marriage Act.

RELATED STORY: Here's what is in that bill that Manchin agreed to support—and there are many reasons to celebrate

By David Badash Authoritarian dictator Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, was invited to speak to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. On Thursday he delivered an anti-LGBTQ attack on same-sex marriage and same-sex families, echoing the false “groomer” claims increasingly prevalent on the right by demanding same-sex couples must “leave our kids alone.” “Hungary shall protect the institution of marriage as a union of one man and one woman,” he decreed, to cheers. “Family ties shall be based on marriage or the relationship between parents and children. To sum up, the mot…

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It might be nice one day to wake up and feel serene—even hopeful—about the state of American politics. To know that all of those people who have been warning about the growing threat to democracy are way ahead of their skis. But today is not that day.

Arizona Republicans are nominating an entire cast of characters who argue not only that Donald Trump won the election in 2020, but also that the state’s results should be decertified—a process for which there is no legal basis. These Trump-endorsed candidates—Kari Lake for governor, Mark Finchem for secretary of state, Abraham Hamadeh for attorney general, Blake Masters for senator—all won their respective primaries this week and are now one election away from political power.

[Read: The Kansas abortion shocker]

Some strategists might frame these Republican wins as a gift to Democrats, and you can look at it that way. Democrats will be more competitive in the upcoming midterms than they might have been if more reasonable Republicans were on the ballot. Moderates and independents abound in Arizona, and they aren’t going to be excited to vote for a passel of kooks. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that the fundamentals are on Republicans’ side this year: Joe Biden is still unpopular; inflation is still high; America might soon be entering a recession.

“Nobody should be popping champagne,” Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and the publisher of The Bulwark, told me. “This is the most antidemocracy slate of candidates in the country. We’re in a very dangerous situation.”

“Stop the Steal” candidates are running—and winning—all over the country. But Arizona concentrates a lot of them within a single geographic area—like an ant farm of election deniers.

Lake might prove the most significant of these candidates. Lake’s lead over her top Republican opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson, had grown to nearly 3 percent when the gubernatorial primary race was finally called in her favor on Thursday night. Before becoming an enthusiastic proponent of Trump’s election lies, Lake was a local TV-news anchor, making her a household name in Arizona and giving her something that many political candidates lack: confidence in front of the camera. Like Trump, Lake has a difficult-to-describe magnetism with Republican-base voters; they simply cannot get enough of her.

Throughout her campaign, Lake has called Biden an “illegitimate president” and vowed that, if she becomes governor, she’ll be reviewing and decertifying Arizona’s 2020 election results—despite multiple audits (and even a partisan review) showing precisely zero evidence of widespread fraud. Even ahead of the primary, Lake claimed to have evidence of funny business; the NBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard tried to get Lake to share some of that evidence, but she would not. Lake and Finchem, the cowboy-hat-wearing would-be secretary of state whom I profiled last month, have been cooking up new ways supposedly to prevent fraud—by banning voting machines and early voting. Both Lake and Finchem primed voters to believe that, if they lost, only fraud would explain their losses. Of course they did. That’s the new Republican playbook, and these two know it better than anyone.

Lake’s opponent in November, Katie Hobbs, is Arizona’s former secretary of state and a run-of-the-mill Democrat who will probably try to position herself as the sane, competent foil to Lake’s wild-eyed conspiracy monger. That’s a solid strategy—maybe the only one that can work. But Hobbs is so run-of-the-mill that she’s boring. And what Hobbs lacks in personality, she makes up for in baggage, after a former staffer successfully sued last year over discrimination. For Arizonans who are still fans of democracy, though, Hobbs is the obvious choice—an apt example of the “Terrible Candidate/Important Election” scenario that my colleague Caitlin Flanagan described this week.

[David A. Graham: Well, the cover-up sure isn’t making January 6 look any better]

Arizona Democrats like Hobbs do have a genuine shot at defeating this slate of extremists. The basic fact of these Republicans’ extremism makes all Democratic candidates look better by comparison. Many independent voters, who count for something like one-third of all Arizona voters, and moderate Republicans would probably have happily voted for any Republican but Lake; come November, some of them may be willing to turn that into any candidate but Lake. Plus, Democrats seem to have gotten their groove back in recent weeks. Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., reached a long-elusive deal on sweeping climate legislation; gas prices are dropping fast; and the overturning of Roe v. Wade might energize an otherwise sleepy set of Democratic voters just in time for the midterms.

And yet. Despite what hopeful Democrats might tell you, Arizona isn’t a purple state; it’s more of a lightish red. And this year remains an excellent year for Republicans—probably the best chance for any Republican extremist to make it into elected office not just in Arizona, but anywhere in the country. “When the political party in power has a president running in the mid- or upper 30s and inflation is high and people are feeling recession-y?” Longwell said. “You’re in a danger point. You just are.”

The danger of a Lake or Finchem election in November is pretty straightforward, as I’ve outlined in previous stories. State leaders can easily cast doubt on an election’s results if the outcome doesn’t suit them, and this entire slate of Arizona Republicans is clearly prepared to do that. Governors and secretaries of state can tinker with election procedures or propose absurd new requirements, such as having every voter reregister to vote, as the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, has suggested. What happens if the outcome of the 2024 presidential election comes down to a closely divided Arizona? What if such a pivotal state was run not by Democrats and Republicans who are loyal to the democratic process, but by conspiracy-drunk partisans who won’t stop until they see their candidate swearing on a Bible? There’s a reason Trump has endorsed this slate; he knows these candidates will be pulling for him no matter what.

Maybe the most important thing to note is that whatever happens to these Trump sycophants in November, they’ve demonstrated that a not-insignificant number of Republican voters want them—the cream of the conspiracy crop—to lead their party. In Tuesday’s primary, Rusty Bowers, Arizona’s Republican speaker of the house who did not cooperate with attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, lost his State Senate race to an election denier. Lake, who has become a household name in Trumpworld and raked in campaign donations from across the country, will be well positioned, whatever the coming election result, to be a MAGA superstar.

If you’re still tallying up Trump’s primary wins and losses as an indicator of his grip on the party, you’re missing the point. The man’s enduring legacy is figures like Lake and a GOP packed with cranks and conspiracy theorists. “They will be defining the next generation of Republicans, and [Lake] will be among the next generation of leaders,” Longwell said. “If she wins, or even if she loses.”

As Daily Kos has continued to cover, Republicans are going after books. Attempts to ban books are so outrageous, that they sound like satire, but they’re sadly extremely real, and so are the ramifications of young people (and adults) losing access to stories by and about marginalized people. As covered by the Salt Lake Tribune, more than fifty books by several dozen authors are set to be removed from public school libraries in the biggest school district in Utah. The texts were part of a review done for “sensitive material” that lacks “literary” merit.

Some of these books include Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Forever by Judy Bloom, and George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue. Really, these texts don’t lack literary merit, though they do contain serious themes—Nineteen Minutes, for example, is about a school shooting. But these books are important, award-winning works that clearly resonate with readers; Rupi Kaur’s poetry book, Milk and Honey, for example, is so ubiquitous it can be found in apparel store Urban Outfitters.

The real issue with these books is they highlight marginalized voices (more than 40% include LGBTQ+ characters) or that they reflect the real-life horrors young people are facing, like gun violence. So, of course, Republicans are trying to strip readers of access to empathy, compassion, and critical thinking on these subjects.

RELATED: Wisconsin school district bans teachers from wearing rainbow attire and displaying Pride flags

In terms of specific numbers, the Alpine School District reviewed 275 books in total. Parents were able to suggest books from school libraries for said review. In the end, the board removed 52 books and set aside 32 more to be evaluated more closely come fall.

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“We’ve not had a book burning or anything,” David Stephenson, who serves as a spokesperson for the district, stated, adding that they’re being “proactive” about books they’ve heard “concerns” about.

Lovely. 

The Alpine School District is the biggest school district in the state. But it’s certainly not alone. This past spring, lawmakers in Utah passed a dangerous new law, HB 374, titled “Sensitive Materials in Schools,” which, in part, allows for books in public schools from K-12 to be “immediately removed” if they meet definitions of pornography under the law. As you can imagine, conservatives are quick to find anything remotely queer, or anything about sexual abuse, to be “pornography,” and content about cisgender and heterosexual people to be the norm.

It’s scary to think about efforts to ban books in conjunction with other anti-queer movements; take, for example, the Don’t Say Gay bills popping up across the nation, as well as efforts to demonize and isolate vulnerable trans youth by barring them from participating in sports and even using the restroom. Critical race theory hysteria is another manifestation of this anti-intellectual and divisive rhetoric. With midterms coming up, Republicans are pulling out all the stops to get their voter base angry at anyone unlike them.

If literal lives didn’t hang in the balance, their transparency would be laughable.

We need your help to write 10,000,000 letters to infrequent but Democratic-leaning prospective voters in key congressional districts and Senate swing states this election, urging them to exercise their right to vote. Sign up with Vote Forward and join the most popular and effective Get Out the Vote (GOTV) activity in Daily Kos history.

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NEW YORK — Eric Adams is building his own Facebook.

The New York mayor has instructed city agencies to present him with photographs of potential hires as City Hall reviews candidates for jobs ranging from assistant commissioner to departmental press secretary.

The move — which aides say will help the mayor recognize his employees in a workforce of some 330,000, and several city officials contend is entirely a diversity push — comes as Adams’ team struggles to fill an unusually high number of vacancies.

Of nine current and past officials interviewed for this story, most voiced concern that the practice is already leading to staffing decisions based more on race and ethnicity than merit, even if they said they support a diversified workforce. And nearly all of them said it has added another obstacle to an already slow hiring process.

In two emails reviewed by POLITICO, mayoral staffers advised about a dozen high-ranking employees to submit pictures of people they want to bring on board for the mayor’s review.

“Flagging that the Mayor would love all agencies upper leadership in this type of style,” reads an email an Adams staffer sent on April 19, referring to an attached template of existing pictures and job descriptions of agency brass. “Clarifying also that the avatars in the attached should be actual photos as the Mayor likes to begin to recognize folks faces.”

The new protocol, described by officials across several agencies, is widely viewed as a measure to diversify the city’s workforce — a priority for the new mayor, whose slate of City Hall deputies predominantly comprises women and people of color.

“There’s no other way to interpret it,” said a high-ranking city official, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity to talk freely about an internal policy.

The person recalled receiving the instructions verbally, and being told by someone who works in the mayor’s office of appointments that Adams wanted agencies to hire people who “reflect the constituencies we serve.”

“Everyone knew what it was. There was no question. It was the first thing everybody said: ‘We’re going to start counting complexions now,’” one recently-departed City Hall employee said about the practice.

Others say it has slowed the hiring process at a time of increased job vacancies — 8 percent of municipal jobs were unfilled as of April, according to data from the Citizens Budget Commission. And some city staffers questioned whether it is appropriate to make hiring decisions based on demographics.

Adams spokesperson Fabien Levy stressed the policy is “about respect for our colleagues and knowing who they are when we arrive at an event."

“City Hall reviews the resume of all final candidates for senior level positions at agencies to ensure the mayor and we at City Hall know who is point on projects when working with them,” Levy added. “The Adams administration is hiring the best people for the best jobs in the best city in the world. And we are committed to building a team that reflects the city they serve and the administration they represent. Every hire is judged on their qualifications and whether they will be able to deliver for New Yorkers day after day.”

One of the group emails reviewed by POLITICO, titled “Hiring Slide template,” instructs agency officials to submit to the mayor’s team organizational charts with the names and titles of existing staffers.

The April 15 missive states that Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi had recently met with Adams to discuss hiring and showed him a slide of her own proposed team.

“The Mayor really liked the org chart and he asked that all DM teams use this as a template moving forward as it relates to team structures," the City Hall staffer wrote. “I’ve attached a template here for all of you — I’m happy to help for slide design if you need support in this. Note, the avatar are space for you to provide a photo of the team member.”

Two agency employees who are tasked with hiring staff said they are not required to ask job candidates for photos, so long as they can provide images to the mayor. They said they often scour social media sites like LinkedIn for headshots. Once obtained, they must paste the picture into their agency’s organizational chart — which includes photographs and job descriptions of existing officials — and highlight the would-be newcomers in yellow, according to a copy of the PowerPoint reviewed by POLITICO.

“The whole hiring process this City Hall set up is difficult enough, and the photo requirement just takes it from hard to bizarre and uncomfortable,” another high-ranking agency official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A New York City-based employment attorney said no law prohibits hiring decisions based upon race and ethnicity if it furthers a goal of diversifying a workforce.

“If a company called me and said, ‘Hey listen we really want to increase the diversity at our company, especially at senior levels, do you think it would help us if we used photos in order to increase it,’ I don’t see how that would be a problem if it actually helped,” lawyer Jeanne Christensen, a partner at Wigdor Law LLP, said in an interview. “They’re entitled to take steps to try to fulfill that diversity goal, providing that in doing that they’re not running afoul of the existing law.”

Her one note of caution: Job candidates should not be required to present photographs, though there is nothing legally barring officials from searching for headshots online. “I would say you better be sure you have their permission and they’re doing this voluntarily,” she said.

In fact, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission addresses this matter, noting on its website: “Employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant. If needed for identification purposes, a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted.”

When asked about his rationale for the policy on Thursday, Adams reiterated a desire to recognize city workers' faces.

“Nothing I think is more disrespectful than when people work for you on your executive team and you don’t know who they are. I should know my employees, I should walk up to them and say thank you, I should know what they look like,” he said after an unrelated press conference in Queens, before arguing that people who believe otherwise are merely angry that he enjoys being mayor.

“Now, for those who have other reasons that I decide that I want an org chart, that’s up to them. You know, a lot of people just start their day with saying, ‘Let me see what I can think hateful about.’ You know, I start my day off saying, ‘Wow, I’m lucky to be the mayor of New York City,’” he added.

“You know, I’m amazed at how much people are upset that I’m happy that I’m mayor.”

With midterm elections rapidly approaching, Republicans are doing their best to demonize LGBTQ+ people—and this includes, among other efforts, banning books from public schools and libraries. Why? Because books are an accessible way for young readers (and adults, for that matter) to learn about themselves and others and to develop empathy and compassion. No matter one’s identity, readers can gain an enormous amount of perspective and context just by sitting down with a book. Suddenly people who have been presented as scary or “other” are… just like you. And really, that’s exactly what conservatives are afraid of. 

A recent horrifying example of the book ban hysteria comes to us out of Michigan. Residents in Jamestown Township voted 67 to 32% to defund the Patmos Library over its inclusion of LGBTQ+ books for youth.

RELATED: Utah school district removes more than 50 books from public school libraries, thanks to new law

How did this happen? Folks voted against renewing a millage (a share of property taxes that provides the majority of the library’s operating budget) for the 2023 fiscal year. Library staff recently refused to pull a handful of queer texts from the library (including Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir Gender Queer) and have faced hysterical efforts to defund the library ever since.

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"I wasn't expecting anything like this,” Patmos Library Board President Larry Walton told local outlet Bridge Michigan after the vote. They added that individuals being so “short-sighted” to close down a library, which they describe as a center of the community, over LGBTQ+ issues is “very disappointing.”

“Disappointing” puts it lightly. It’s downright scary. First of all, to be so hateful toward LGBTQ+ folks that you’re willing to lose public resources for the entire community is intense. It worries me for openly queer folks who live or work in that area in terms of discrimination as well as violence.

In addition to young readers losing out on valuable books, everyone is losing out on access to precious public resources. Libraries provide what so many people struggle to access—free internet, free books, free movies, free audiobooks, and ebooks.

Libraries also provide free bathrooms and free air conditioning. They provide a free space to simply sit without having to buy anything. Libraries are precious, and their value to any given community can simply not be overstated. 

And for the library staff? Well, at least two have already resigned due to alleged harassment stemming around, you guessed it, queer books. As covered by LGBTQ Nation, library director Amber McLain resigned after folks not only sent disparaging messages to her personal Facebook account, but someone allegedly entered the library asking for the ‘pedophile librarian.” Yikes!

Interim director Matthew Lawrence replaced McLain before resigning shortly after as well, adding that what’s happening with book bans is violating the First Amendment. He added that children are those who need the library the most, and they can’t even vote because they are, again, kids.

But that didn’t stop conservatives from pushing anti-queer “grooming” rhetoric, as evidenced in this photo. 

This hate is downright scary—and dangerous for everyone. 

Between remote teaching and COVID-19; being chronically underpaid; and being attacked by parents, school boards, and lawmakers over what they teach in terms of race, history, and the LGBTQ+ community, U.S. teachers have left the profession in droves. Who can blame them?

Since there’s no database, no one knows exactly how many districts are without teachers, but according to The Washington Post, it’s between hundreds to thousands of gaps in staffing.

Rebeka McIntosh, an alternative school educator for 25 years from south Kansas City and the Missouri National Education Association vice president, told the Missouri Independent that getting and keeping teachers “is literally the train coming at us through the tunnel.”

RELATED STORY: Nancy Thompson’s MAGA train—Mothers Against Greg Abbott—may just run down the Texas governor

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Salary is one of the largest elephants in the room when it comes to teacher dissatisfaction.

Starting salaries for teachers in Missouri are among the lowest in the nation, at $25,000 to start and $33,000 for teachers with a master’s degree and at least 10 years of experience, the Independent reports.

Schools across the nation are using stopgap measures to meet the needs of their school districts.

The Post reports that due to limited staffing, some Texas schools in rural districts are moving to four-day weeks.

According to Florida Politics, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is encouraging military veterans to get their teaching credentials amid the state’s rampant teaching shortage.

“You give me somebody who has four years of experience as a Devil Dog over somebody who has four years of experience at Shoehorn U, and I will take the Marine every day of the week and twice on Sunday,” DeSantis said.

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, responded to DeSantis with a different take: “I think we all appreciate what our military veterans have done for our country in terms of protecting our freedoms both here and abroad,” he said. “But just because you were in the military does not mean you will be a great teacher.”

It’s not just DeSantis’ ongoing attack on critical race theory or acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ people on school grounds. His latest attack on teachers comes in the form of a three-day mandatory “Civics Excellence” training program. Florida teachers are now fighting back against it.

Barbara Segal, a Broward County teacher who attended one of DeSantis’ courses, told NBC News the course was “unsettling.”

One slide presented by the Florida Board of Education during the training read:

“Misconception: The Founders desired strict separation of church and state and Founders only wanted to protect Freedom of worship.”

Another slide titled “Opposition to Slavery” had quotes from President George Washington and President Thomas Jefferson opposing slavery. Both owned enslaved people.

And in July, Arizona’s Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill removing the bachelor’s degree requirement so college students could teach in classrooms, K-12 Dive reports.  

Dawn Etcheverry, president of the Nevada State Education Association, told the Post that the new teacher staffing measures could ultimately hurt students.

“When you start to double classes, teachers don’t have that one-on-one with the students, that personal ability to understand what the student needs,” Etcheverry said. 

At least one school district is tackling the issue by starting with raising teachers' salaries.

Nevada’s Clark County School District (CCSD) released a statement that reads in part:

“The new starting licensed teacher salary was increased to $50,115; the previous starting salary was $43,011. CCSD also raised the starting pay for bus drivers to $22.74. Previously, starting pay for a bus driver was $15.36. New teachers moving from out of state or moving more than 100 miles are also eligible for a $4,000 relocation bonus. Those eligible must agree to work for CCSD for three years.”

But Jeff Horn, executive director of the Clark County Association of School Administrators, told the Post, “Band-aid-wise, I think they’re doing whatever they can,” but “it’s a mess.”

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The fascist assembly known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is underway, and the featured guest of the nation's most fervent coup supporters and white nationalist allies this time around is authoritarian-minded Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. Orban is a favorite of Fox News' Tucker Carlson, who has promoted him heavily to the conservative base. Orban is an anti-press, anti-democracy hard-right racist notorious for statements like the one he made just days ago declaring that Hungarians "are not a mixed race and we do not want to become a mixed race."

Orban's speech to the assembled Republican audience repeatedly warned of "globalist" enemies, a commonplace antisemitic trope, and was riddled with thinly veiled hate speech. The speech and the ecstatic reactions of the assembled Republican crowd speak for themselves.

Republicanism is a fascist, racist, antisemitic movement that celebrates corruption and glorifies fraudulent hoaxes.

Among the others who will be speaking alongside the likes of the fascist and brazenly corrupt Orban are: Sean Hannity. Sen. Ted Cruz. Glenn Beck. Coup plotter and crook Steve Bannon. Reps. Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Ronny Jackson, and Jim Jordan. Kimberly Guilfoyle. Michigan gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon.

And, of course, the orchestrator of the first coup attempt in United States history: traitor Donald Trump.

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Yes, Republicans really are moving us toward full-blown fascism

This past spring, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott captured headlines for his plan to bus migrants to Washington, D.C. He said he was concerned that there would be an influx of migrants crossing the state’s border with Mexico in light of President Biden’s decision to cease a public-health order from 2020 authorizing federal officials to turn away migrants at the border — even those seeking asylum.

Many, including the Biden administration, chalked up Abbott’s actions to a publicity stunt. After all, illegal immigration is something that has long motivated Republican voters, especially when a Democrat is in the White House. The fact, though, that so much attention is paid to illegal immigration misses how the debate on immigration policy is changing in the U.S. — namely, Republican politicians are increasingly blurring the lines between illegal and legal immigration and targeting not just illegal immigration, but legal immigration too.

Over the past two decades, support for increasing legal immigration has climbed steadily overall, although Democrats have primarily driven that uptick, as the chart below shows. In fact, per 2019 polling from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Republicans are not only less likely to support increasing legal immigration but also more likely to support reducing legal immigration. Almost half of Republicans (47 percent) said legal immigration should be decreased, compared with just 16 percent of Democrats. 

The distinction between legal immigration and illegal immigration is often not clear-cut, though. Consider that only a minority of unauthorized immigrants, 38 percent, entered the country without proper documentation in 2016, according to research conducted by the Center for Migration Studies. Instead, the majority of unauthorized immigrants who entered the U.S. that year, 62 percent, overstayed their temporary visas, meaning they initially arrived in the U.S. legally but proceeded to remain illegally with expired paperwork. Moreover, the Pew Research Center looked at 2017 data from the Department of Homeland Security and found that almost 90 percent of those who overstayed their visas were from neither Mexico nor Central America.

Regardless, this doesn’t change the fact that a lot of media attention remains focused on illegal immigration, especially in the context of the southern border. Republicans are also still probably more concerned over illegal immigration than over legal immigration. When Gallup asked Americans in March how personally worried they were about illegal immigration, 68 percent of Republicans said “a great deal” — 27 percentage points higher than the overall share of Americans who said they were worried a great deal and 50 points higher than the share of Democrats who said the same.

And it’s this overwhelming concern around illegal immigration — regardless of its accuracy — that helps explain why Republican politicians still give the topic so much oxygen in their campaign materials. They know illegal immigration is a huge flash point for their voters — at the very least, this is something I’ve found in researching the platforms of various Republican primary candidates running for state and federal office. And yet, I’ve also found that when you look at the actual immigration policies Republican politicians have successfully enacted, efforts to curb legal immigration have been much more successful than policies meant to restrict illegal immigration.

Take former President Donald Trump. While illegal immigration was a central pillar of his campaign, especially in 2016, his administration proved much more adept at implementing policies that limited legal immigration than illegal immigration. A week after he took office, he notoriously signed an executive order that initially limited immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. Moreover, throughout his four years in office, Trump also pursued a number of measures to uproot the process for asylum seekers, from banning certain situations in which people were eligible for asylum to introducing new protocols that made the asylum process longer. And later, the coronavirus pandemic unleashed a series of travel restrictions from the Trump administration in early 2020 that contributed to an 18 percent decrease in the average number of monthly green cards and a 28 percent decrease in non-immigrant visas compared with President Barack Obama’s second term. Meanwhile, Trump’s early campaign promises to collect and deport all undocumented immigrants never panned out, and his infamous wall — at least how he envisioned it — has yet to be built.

Trump’s policies may present obvious examples, but the former president is not the only one proposing policies that limit legal immigration. Republicans in Congress have also started to take up legislation that whittles down such pathways. For instance, when Republicans controlled the Senate in 2019, Sens. Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley and then-Sen. David Perdue reintroduced the RAISE Act, which proposed restricting family-based immigration policies in addition to instituting a host of other caps. (An earlier version, which specifically outlined halving the number of green cards issued annually, had previously failed to come to a vote in 2017, when Cotton and Perdue first proposed it.)

The bill also explicitly linked legal immigration to the economy with its focus on highly skilled immigrants, which it defined as immigrants who could help with “improving the fiscal health of the United States” without jeopardizing jobs that could otherwise be held by American citizens or as “protecting or increasing the wages of working Americans.”

Mark Hugo Lopez, the director of race and ethnicity research at Pew, told me that America’s immigrant population has changed significantly since the 1980s and 1990s, which in turn, has influenced immigration policy debates. Lopez said that for a long time, immigration policy focused on security at the border and illegal immigration but that “now it’s also about employers, student visas [and] attracting certain workers in agriculture or tech.” 

Though the three senators’ legislation had Trump’s backing, the bill did not pass. But notably, evidence suggests that at least some parts of the idea were popular among Republicans. For instance, 42 percent of Republicans, including those who lean Republican, told Pew in a 2020 survey that immigrants living legally in the U.S. mostly fill jobs that U.S. citizens would want to take on, which was 10 points higher than the share of Americans overall who said the same.

Looking ahead to the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election, both legal and illegal immigration continue to be important Republican talking points with a number of high-profile GOP figures — from Abbott to GOP Senate nominees like J.D. Vance and 2024 aspirants like former Vice President Mike Pence — doubling down on immigration in their campaign rhetoric and platforms. And it’s once again a blurring of messages, with legal and illegal immigration often used interchangeably and Mexico blamed as the source of all illegal immigration. 

For instance, Vance, Trump’s endorsee for Ohio’s open Senate seat, buckets all of his immigration policy — legal and illegal — under “Solve Southern Border Crisis” on his campaign website. He also has leaned into especially inflammatory rhetoric, running an ad ahead of his primary in which he asked voters: “Are you a racist? Do you hate Mexicans?” as a way to suggest it is the media responsible for such perceptions — although in the same ad, Vance said immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border were primarily responsible for illegal drugs “pouring into the country.”

Meanwhile, Katie Britt, another Trump endorsee who won the Republican nomination for Alabama’s Senate race, splits up legal and illegal immigration in her campaign materials — at least more so than Vance, but she still often muddles the two by suggesting, for example, that all visa issues fall under legal immigration reform and by treating Mexico as the primary source for illegal immigration in the U.S. Moreover, Britt also calls for reducing legal immigration and blames a major immigration bill from 1965 that ended discriminatory practices, like regional immigration preferences and quotas, as responsible for driving down the wages of Alabamians. This is notable, because it marks a huge shift in how GOP politicians have historically talked about legal immigration.

Pence, who has not-so-secret 2024 ambitions, has also talked about immigration in recent speeches. Notably, too, despite having had a fraught relationship with Trump since the end of their term, Pence recently said in a speech in Arizona that he supported curbing family-based migration — or the legal framework that allows American citizens to sponsor visas for extended family members — while also championing a crackdown on illegal immigration at the southern border. Other presidential hopefuls who, similar to Pence, aren’t fully in Trump’s inner circle have also made immigration a part of their pitch, like former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. While those more squarely in Trump’s orbit, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, continue to lean into the illegal immigration rhetoric.

As The Washington Post’s David Byler noted on Wednesday, how Republicans talk about immigration has changed dramatically post-Trump, and that’s made it harder to distinguish the differences between legal and illegal immigration, which, in turn, has obscured the nuances of immigration issues. As Lopez told me, the immigrant population in the U.S. is just really diverse, with a lot of different components comprising legal immigration versus illegal immigration. “These broad umbrellas are helpful in some ways to think about broad categories,” he said. “But there’s so much diversity within each one that they end up masking a lot of what is happening around immigration policy, as well as the experiences of people who come to the U.S. as immigrants navigating either one of these pathways.”

Don't weep for Peter Meijer. Republicans are getting the candidates they want, and the voters are seeing the real stakes.

Senate Republicans are trying to get Democrats to water down the Respect for Marriage Act, the bill codifying marriage equality to keep the Supreme Court’s extremist hands off that right. This was an inevitable step in the process of Republicans trying to avoid a hard vote, and yet Democrats appear to be falling into the trap.

Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican Sen. Susan Collins are supposedly working to “build more support with Republicans,” including by adding language with “more clarity that the legislation would not take away any religious liberty or conscience protections.” This on a bill that got the support of 47 Republicans when it passed the House, and with limited time to get it passed before the annual fall crunch of funding the government. Changing the bill would involve getting it through the House again, adding even more time on top of what negotiating new language would require. And once Democrats start changing the legislation, Republicans are virtually guaranteed to move the goalposts repeatedly.

Democrats must not let Republicans run down the clock on a vote to protect a fundamental right.

RELATED STORY: GOP senators have a plan to avoid a marriage equality vote. Are Democrats really falling for it?

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The first Republican avoidance strategy was to refuse to say how they would vote while Democrats chased their votes. Democrats didn’t want to bring the bill to the Senate floor until they had 10 Republicans lined up, and many Republicans didn’t want to publicly admit that they would oppose it, so they said things like “I'll see if it comes up, and then I'll make a decision,” and Democrats didn’t call that bluff.

Then Collins said that the Democratic deal on a completely separate issue, the Inflation Reduction Act, was "a very unfortunate move that destroys the many bipartisan efforts that are under way."

And now Republicans want changes to the bill, lest they might have to acknowledge someone else’s marriage as real and valid violate religious freedom.

At Talking Points Memo, Sarah Posner explains why Republicans are so reluctant to get to a vote on marriage equality: On the one hand, Gallup finds 71% support for same-sex marriage. But on the other hand, the single major religious group that opposes marriage equality is evangelical Christians, also known as the Republican base, and right-wing organizations have been lobbying hard and issuing threats. These organizations have a long-term goal of getting the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, and they’re not going to sit back while Congress ruins that.

Republicans are between a rock and a hard place, and it’s time for Democrats to start pressing that rock closer to the hard place. Consider this: According to Gallup, support for same-sex marriage is substantially higher than opposition to overturning Roe was. It’s higher than self-identification as pro-choice. This is a winning issue for Democrats in addition to being the right policy move. If Republicans are going to oppose it, make them show themselves in a vote. Don’t let them weasel and squirm their way out of having a vote at all.

We need your help to write 10,000,000 letters to infrequent but Democratic-leaning prospective voters in key congressional districts and Senate swing states this election, urging them to exercise their right to vote. Sign up with Vote Forward and join the most popular and effective Get Out the Vote (GOTV) activity in Daily Kos history.

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Kansas abortion vote should 'send a cold chill up the spines' of Republicans

The Kansas abortion rights vote dramatically shifted how political strategists from both parties are looking at the November elections—although Republicans are eager to downplay the shift in perceptions.

Top Republicans have been trying to avoid talking about abortion since shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, correctly seeing that as a weak point and wanting instead to focus on inflation and gas prices. Democrats, on the other hand, have been more conflicted, with some arguing that they should seize on abortion—and marriage equality and birth control—and hammer Republicans, while others have wanted to emphasize good economic news.

Kansas offered an answer: Democrats should definitely be hammering Republicans on abortion. (Yes, they should keep talking about the economy, emphasizing the work being done by the infrastructure bill, and pushing for the Inflation Reduction Act. But they must not be shy about abortion.)

RELATED STORY: Republicans aren't worried about the midterms ... as long as no one says the word 'abortion'

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Publicly, most prominent Republicans say it’s not that they’re avoiding abortion; it’s that they’re sticking with the real issues of concern to voters. Except that high turnout in Kansas for a normally low-turnout primary election shows that voters are concerned about abortion. Privately, some Republicans admit that they may have a problem, with one telling The Washington Post that Kansas should “send a cold chill up the spines” of many Republicans.

”The base of the GOP is definitely ahead of where the voters are in wanting to restrict abortion,” an Iowa Republican operative told The New York Times. “That’s the main lesson of Kansas.” No kidding. A New York Times analysis extends the Kansas vote across the country in an estimate using state demographics, suggesting that voters in around 40 states would vote to protect abortion rights.

“My advice would be for Republicans to stick with their winning messages about the runaway costs of inflation and energy costs and continue to largely avoid discussing the abortion debate,” one Republican communications strategist told Insider, in a view echoed by another Republican strategist. The problem for them on that front is that gas prices are dropping—and Kansas showed that people really do care about abortion rights. It will be easier to change the subject as voters consider the totality of a candidate rather than a single issue, but predictions that abortion would not drive turnout are clearly wrong.

Some Democrats are urging their party to seize on the issue. “The energy is on the side of abortion rights,” Sen. Brian Schatz said. “For decades, that hasn’t been true, so it’s difficult for some people who have been through lots of tough battles and lots of tough states to recognize that the ground has shifted under them. But it has.”

“The Republicans who are running for office are quite open about their support for banning abortion,” according to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “It’s critical that Democrats make equally clear that this is a key difference, and Democrats will stand up for letting the pregnant person make the decision, not the government.”

Happily, some key Democratic leaders are getting the point, too. “It’s a game changer,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney told The Washington Post. “Kansas is the earthquake that is going to rattle every assumption about what is going to happen this fall.”

As Warren pointed out, Republicans can only run so far away from the issue, given extremist candidates like Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Tudor Dixon in Michigan, both of whom have said they oppose exceptions for rape and incest in abortion bans. But even Republicans who might rather downplay it now have a history. Their positions are not hard to identify, their role in overturning Roe is not hypothetical, and the threat of a federal abortion ban is real.

Democrats have pulled even in generic ballot polling after having trailed Republicans throughout 2022. Whether you call it the ground shifting or an earthquake or a game changer, the course of action is clear: Take advantage of the momentum shift.

UPDATE:

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly is out with an ad letting voters know what Republican nominee Blake Masters believes on abortion, and in Michigan:

Abortion rights, gun safety, and the our planet are all at stake in this election. We must persuade Democratic voters to turn out in November. Click here to volunteer with Vote Forward and write personalized letters to targeted voters on your own schedule from the comfort of your own home, without ever having to talk to anyone.

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About that national abortion ban congressional Republicans have been planning ...

Republicans spent years working to overturn Roe v. Wade and criminalize abortion in the states they control. They own—they must be made to own—their success. 

When the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization came out, Republican Senate candidates were thrilled. It was a “huge victory.” A “great day.” They were ready to pass anti-abortion legislation in the U.S. Senate. They can’t be allowed to run from that.

Let’s not forget another key part of what got us to Dobbs, though, a part that most current Republican senators own: The McConnell-Trump packing of the Supreme Court. The court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending or sharply restricting abortion rights in dozens of states, because then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held Justice Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat open for nearly a year of then-President Barack Obama’s second term, supposedly on the principle that it would be wrong to fill a seat in a presidential election year, before then rushing to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat after early voting had started in the 2020 election in some states. McConnell was able to do this because he had the backing of Republican senators.

RELATED STORY: Key Republican Senate candidates called Dobbs decision a 'huge victory'

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson was enthusiastically on board with the packing of the court. “I strongly agree that the American people should decide the future direction of the Supreme Court by their votes for president and the majority party in the U.S. Senate,” he said in 2016 of replacing Scalia. In the same year he also said, “In the politicized atmosphere of an election year, you probably shouldn't even nominate someone.”

In 2020, he insisted things were completely different. Those were two of the votes for overturning Roe v. Wade. Another, of course, was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who Johnson supported despite credible allegations of sexual assault.

In 2016, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio publicly opposed replacing Scalia during the last 10 months of Obama’s term even before McConnell made that his official strategy.

”I don’t think we should be moving forward with a nominee in the last year of this president’s term,” he said, insisting, “I would say that even if it was a Republican president.” In 2020 Rubio may have recognized the slippery spot he was in, because it took him a couple of days to go public with his new logic. 

“In 2016, President Obama exercised his Constitutional duty and nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and the Senate exercised its Constitutional obligation and decided not to consent,” Rubio said. “Now, President Trump should exercise his duty to name a nominee. And the Senate should once again exercise its Constitutional obligation and decide whether or not to consent to his choice.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley was actually chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2016 when Republicans refused to even hold hearings or a vote on replacing Scalia. He didn’t just participate, he was a leader in the blockade, insisting it was a principled move. In 2020, no longer the committee chair, he had no problem voting on a rushed replacement for Ginsburg.

Johnson, Rubio, and Grassley played a critical role in creating the Supreme Court that overturned Roe. They own this. 

Also on the ballot in battleground state Senate elections this November will be several candidates endorsed by Trump, who personally chose three of the justices who ended abortion rights in this country. Trump’s endorsement played a key role in making J.D. Vance and Mehmet Oz the Republican nominees in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He endorsed Rep. Ted Budd very early on in the North Carolina Senate primary. These candidates owe their current standing to Trump.

Overturning Roe v. Wade and banning abortion in state after state—and ultimately the nation as a whole—has been a Republican goal for a long time. Virtually every Republican currently in the Senate has played a part in making that happen, and the nominees running for open seats are looking for their chance to play a part in the next step, and the one after that. In some states, like Kansas, Kentucky, and Michigan, voters get a chance to directly and specifically set state policy on abortion. But in every state with a competitive Senate race, and every district with a competitive House race, voters get a chance to choose between candidates who will restrict abortion rights or candidates who will work to protect them.

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An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via NPR: When a group of engineers and researchers gathered in a warehouse in Mukilteo, Wash., 10 years ago, they knew they were onto something big. They scrounged up tables and chairs, cleared out space in the parking lot for experiments and got to work. They were building a battery -- a vanadium redox flow battery -- based on a design created by two dozen U.S. scientists at a government lab. The batteries were about the size of a refrigerator, held enough energy to power a house, and could be used for decades. The engineers pictured people plunking them down next to their air conditioners, attaching solar panels to them, and everyone living happily ever after off the grid. "It was beyond promise," said Chris Howard, one of the engineers who worked there for a U.S. company called UniEnergy. "We were seeing it functioning as designed, as expected." But that's not what happened. Instead of the batteries becoming the next great American success story, the warehouse is now shuttered and empty. All the employees who worked there were laid off. And more than 5,200 miles away, a Chinese company is hard at work making the batteries in Dalian, China. The Chinese company didn't steal this technology. It was given to them -- by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer. An investigation by NPR and the Northwest News Network found the federal agency allowed the technology and jobs to move overseas, violating its own licensing rules while failing to intervene on behalf of U.S. workers in multiple instances. Now, China has forged ahead, investing millions into the cutting-edge green technology that was supposed to help keep the U.S. and its economy out front. Department of Energy officials declined NPR's request for an interview to explain how the technology that cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars ended up in China. After NPR sent department officials written questions outlining the timeline of events, the federal agency terminated the license with the Chinese company, Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. "DOE takes America's manufacturing obligations within its contracts extremely seriously," the department said in a written statement. "If DOE determines that a contractor who owns a DOE-funded patent or downstream licensee is in violation of its U.S. manufacturing obligations, DOE will explore all legal remedies." The department is now conducting an internal review of the licensing of vanadium battery technology and whether this license -- and others -- have violated U.S. manufacturing requirements, the statement said.

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