This article was originally published by ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.
About a month ago, three conservative candidates for school board seats in the west Wisconsin city of Eau Claire stoked controversy about a teacher training program that they claimed could exclude parents from conversations about their children’s gender identity or sexual orientation.
When a judge writes nearly 300 pages in an order that may well be quickly overturned, they’re trying to send a message beyond the judicial action itself.
I wanted to flag this article for your attention. It’s written by an Austrian military analyst named Gustav Gressel. He’s one of the military analysts I’ve been following on Twitter. The argument is that Russia isn’t retrenching or narrowing its goals to seek a diplomatic settlement. Rather, it’s in an operational pause in which Russia is restocking men and materiel for a second offensive which will be modified and optimized based on what the Russians learned in their mostly failed original war plan. Based on this analysis Gressel says NATO/U.S. should be pouring more and more big ticket arms into Ukraine in advance of that next onslaught. I’m unable to independently analyze this argument and increasing the scale of arms transfers is a policy question more than an analytic one. But I want to put the argument in front of you because it does seem to square with what a number of these analysts and observers are saying.
Also, Kazakhstan seems to be saying more clearly it’s not taking Russia’s side over Ukraine.
TPM Reader RC thinks TS “fundamentally misunderstands what’s at stake and what it takes to win today.”
At the national and statewide levels, persuading perceived “center and center-right voters” is a waste of time at this point. The goal here is to keep the coalition together. The last two cycles have demonstrated that there is a 50+1 majority that can give Democrats political power. We need to be making sure that coalition shows up, not chasing a handful of “gettable voters”, most of whom are closet partisans.
Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, privately met with then-President Donald Trump multiple times while he was in office to personally offer whack advice on whom the loyalty-obsessed Trump should keep in his White House, the Daily Beast reports.
Ukrainians aren’t the only ones worried about giving up too much in peace talks.
Putative talks over a potential peace deal between the two countries led to an outcry among a vocal core of Russians against anything other than Ukraine’s unconditional surrender.
From TPM Reader TS on pandemic-era restrictions on asylum-seekers…
The pandemic is not over and the limits on entrants should be extended at least through 2022. The President should say no to advocates and legalistic experts pushing him to open the border to asylum claimers. CNN will be filming droves of people crossing the Rio Grande every day. They are already starting.
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
A (Fleeting?) Win For Voting Rights
Several major components of Florida’s Republican-driven restrictive voting law were gutted by a federal district judge in Tallahassee on Thursday. In a blistering opinion that pulled no punches, the judge ruled that the law intentionally targeted Black voters to hurt voter turnout for Democrats.
The judge threw out several portions of the law, including its limit on drop boxes for mail-in ballots, ban on giving food and water to people waiting in line to vote and new requirements for third party voter registration groups.
In his most dramatic move in the ruling, the judge also prohibited Florida from making changes in voting laws involving those components for the next 10 years without approval from the court.
!!! Because Florida "has repeatedly, recently, and persistently acted to deny Black Floridians access to the franchise," Walker places the state back under preclearance—requiring federal approval for any future changes to election law. https://t.co/k3FKwDBY4Fpic.twitter.com/Et2TPywk8D
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) accused the judge of “performative partisanship.” DeSantis had signed the legislation into law during a Fox News appearance.
The ruling’s likelihood of surviving appeal appears slim, however. The conservative-leaning Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court will likely overturn the district judge’s decision, as the New York Times points out.
In Newly Unearthed Video, Ginni Thomas Talks About Her Cult Phase
Newly revealed video appears to show Ginni Thomas talking about her post-cult experience not long after she left Lifespring in the ’80s. Lifespring was accused of being an abusive cult, and Thomas left to pursue anti-cult activism.
Author Steven Hassan, an expert on cults, posted a video apparently showing Thomas discussing Lifespring:
I knew Ginni Thomas. Ginni Thomas was in a cult (the large group awareness training cult, Lifespring). Here she is in 1989 speaking at an event I hosted for former members. Until today, almost NO one has seen this video. pic.twitter.com/qMX4fKboxg
A New York judge struck down the new congressional district map draw by the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature, ruling that the map had been gerrymandered to favor Democrats.
The judge ordered the legislature to go back to the drawing board and create “bipartisanly supported maps.”
He gave lawmakers a deadline of April 11, which could delay the Empire State’s primary on June 28 if his ruling survives appeal.
Ukraine Allegedly Strikes Back At Russia Amid Kremlin’s Brutal Invasion
The Guardian: “Ukraine accused of helicopter attack on oil depot inside Russia”
The New York Times: “Ukrainian helicopters strike an oil depot in Russia, an official there says.”
Multiple Government Officials in the Belgorod Region of Western Russia are Stating that this morning 2 Ukrainian Mil Mi-24 “HIND” Attack Helicopters entered Russian Airspace and Fired Missiles on the Industrial Center of the City destroying an Oil Depot and many other Buildings. pic.twitter.com/wRrGl6QUxp
Wisconsin AG Candidate Tried To Decertify 2020 Election And Wants To Sue Docs Who Don’t Offer Horse Meds To Treat COVID
Meet Karen Mueller, a Republican attorney who thought it was possible to get the 2020 election results decertified (it’s not) and is now running for attorney general in her state on the platform of suing doctors who don’t prescribe ivermectin, an anti-parasitic generally given to horses, as treatment for COVID-19. This is in spite of the fact that the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned people not to take ivermectin to treat COVID, and a new study found that the drug doesn’t treat the virus.
The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are “liars,” according to Mueller.
Failed GOP California gubernatorial hopeful and former Olympic champion Caitlyn Jenner is now a paid contributor at Fox News because according to Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott, Jenner, who is a transgender woman, is a “trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community.”
It’s definitely not because Jenner’s usedherplatform to validate conservatives’ war on transgender female athletes who want to participate in women’s sports.
They’re definitely not bringing her on to give Republicans anti-LGBTQ+ legislation like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law a veneer of approval from a trans per-oh look, Jenner did exactly that during her first appearance on Sean Hannity’s show last night:
Several Fetuses Found In Anti-Abortion Activist’s House
The feds raided an anti-abortion activist’s home in D.C. on Thursday, where they found five fetuses, WUSA9 reports. Five.
The raid came after the activist, who calls herself a “Catholic anarchist,” had been indicted for felony conspiracy involving an incident in which she and eight other activists allegedly stormed an abortion clinic and blockaded it in October 2020.
The fetuses were apparently kept in coolers inside the house. The activist had refused to tell WUSA9, which was at the scene during the raid, what was in the coolers when the feds carried them out of her house, saying only that “people would freak out when they heard.”
Sen. Cassidy Eyeing Gubernatorial Bid
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) told Politico that he’s considering running for the governorship in his state, which is currently being held by conservative Democrat Bel Edwards, in 2023, and will make a final decision by the end of this year.
The question is, how much support would Cassidy get from his fellow Louisiana Republicans? The senator was one of the seven Republicans who convicted Trump in his second Senate impeachment trial, and he was quickly censured by the Louisiana GOP as a result.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain on Thursday took aim at former President Trump’s vocal praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin amid Russia’s unprovoked and deadly invasion of Ukraine, following the former president’s demand for Putin to help him dig up dirt on Hunter Biden.
I find myself agreeing with a lot of what TPM Reader PT says here about “Ukraine on the Verge of Defeat” …
As I mentioned, I’ve seen a fair number of different variations on the theme of “Vladimir V. Putin, SUPER-GENIUS” over the last few days; I’m sure you have as well. A thing they all seem to have in common is a presumption that Putin’s real goal in all of this was to acquire more territory in Ukraine’s east, or get a more firm grip on territory there that they already hold. I get the sense that they’re all taking a not-really-applicable analogy — making an opening bid in a negotiation that’s much bigger than what you actually expect to achieve — and applying it in a comically-inappropriate manner (specifically: ignoring the distinction that when you open with an overlarge ask it doesn’t actually cost anything to anyone, while Putin’s war in Ukraine has in fact cost Russia vastly more than if they’d just pursued additional conquest of territory in eastern Ukraine).
