Rogelio V. Solis/AP

In a stinging rebuke of today’s Supreme Court decision to allow Texas’ extreme anti-abortion law to remain in effect while local abortion providers sue state officials, Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a stark warning of long-lasting consequences. “I doubt the Court, let alone the country, is prepared for them,” she wrote in a published dissent that highlights the “catastrophic consequences” pregnant people have already endured under the law, and draws startling comparisons between the majority’s decision and Civil War–era defenses of slavery.

Joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer in her dissent, Sotomayor slammed the Texas law as “an unconstitutional scheme” enacted in “open defiance” of women’s rights—a “madness” that the Supreme Court should have put to an end to months ago. By allowing the law to continue, she argued, the court “betrays not only the citizens of Texas, but also our constitutional system of government.” (The court effectively allowed the Texas law to take effect back on September 1.)

Sotomayor, who expressed similar alarm during oral arguments in another unrelated abortion case this month, described the Texas law as a “calamitous” because it empowers bounty hunters to prey upon an extraordinary range of potential victims: “a medical provider, a receptionist, a friend who books an appointment, or a ride-share driver who takes a woman to a clinic.” Beyond that, she wrote the architects of the law went to extraordinary lengths to target people involved in offering abortion care with “uniquely punitive” measures, a catalogue of norm-breaking departures from state law that amounts to “a weapon.”

In an especially gripping section of the 13-page opinion, Sotomayor wrote that Texas’ brazen challenge to federal law “echoes the philosophy of John C. Calhoun, a virulent defender of the slaveholding South who insisted that States had the right to ‘veto’ or ‘nullif[y]’ any federal law with which they disagreed.”

“The Nation fought a Civil War over that proposition,” she argued. “But Calhoun’s theories were not extinguished.”

Read the entire dissent here.

"Handmaids" rally as the Supreme Court hears arguments over a Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks.Jeff Malet/Newscom/Zuma

Takeaways:

1) #SB8 remains in effect.

2) Although the decision is technically a win for abortion providers (and pregnant people) in Texas, it's a very narrow one, and potentially not enough to support effective relief on remand.

3) State court suits now become more important.

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) December 10, 2021

SB 8 bans abortion after six weeks’ gestation and also allows any private citizen to sue both abortion providers and anyone who “aids and abets” patients trying to obtain an abortion. As Becca Andrews wrote recently, since the law took effect this fall, it has been “causing very real harm to pregnant Texans”:

I have spent the past couple months reporting out of reproductive health clinics for a book project I’m working on, and I’ve seen Texans seeking care in Alabama, Kansas, and Tennessee. The one that sticks with me was a young woman who came to Huntsville, Alabama, after traveling to Jackson, Mississippi, where she was told she was barely over that clinic’s gestational limit. She had been traveling for almost a week and was exhausted. She told me it was only the second time in her life that she had ever left Texas.

For now, that draconian abortion law will remain in effect, but the legal fight will continue in federal courts, even though the law was designed with the intent to escape just that.

To translate, the litigation can continue against some defendants but the practical effect is abortion is still mostly banned in Texas and the public health crisis and havoc continues. #liberateabortion #BansOffOurBodies #abortionisessential

— Fatima Goss Graves (@FGossGraves) December 10, 2021

In its decision on Friday, the court ruled in two distinct but related cases, neither of which directly considered the constitutionality of the law: Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, brought by abortion providers that challenged the standing of the law and providers’ ability to sue in federal court, which the law was designed to evade; and United States v. Texas, in which the US Justice Department sued the state of Texas. While the court allows the providers in Whole Woman’s Health to move their case forward, it dismissed United States v. Texas, throwing into question its jurisdiction to intervene when individual states pass laws that affect the constitutional rights of citizens.

Later this year, the court will rule on a separate abortion rights case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which considers the constitutionality of a 2018 law that banned abortion in Mississippi after 15 weeks. (The law never went into effect—its enforcement was blocked in a federal appellate court.) This case has the power to overturn Roe, a fate that Becca wrote seems increasingly likely following oral arguments earlier this month.

God save the court, indeed.

Liz Cheney, Vice Chair, of the January 6 Committee, speaks to Rep. Jamie Raskin after a meeting. Rod Lamkey/CNP/ZUMA

On Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled against former President Donald Trump, demanding he turn over White House records to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot. 

Over the 2021 summer, the Jan. 6 committee filed a request for a range of documents related to the riot from the period between December 1, 2020 and January 20, 2021. For the last few months, Trump and his lawyers have been waging a frantic legal battle to prevent their release. 

Trump previously lost the first round before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who rejected his lawyers’ argument that the documents were protected by executive privilege and ordered that he turn them over to the committee. Current president Joe Biden declined to back Trump’s claims, which would’ve thrown more weight behind his argument, and waived privilege over the documents. 

Trump quickly appealed the decision to the DC Circuit, and asked Chutkan to issue a stay on her own decision. She declined, forcing Trump’s legal team to file an emergency motion with the Appeals Court, which issued a temporary injunction halting the documents’ release.

But the injunction was short lived, and the three-judge Appeals Court panel composed of two Obama appointees and one Biden appointee, ruled 3-0 that Trump was obliged to turn over the documents.

“On the record before us, former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the Political Branches over these documents,” read the opinion. 

This is almost certainly not the end of the legal battle. Trump now has 14 days to petition the Supreme Court to take up the case. 

Joshua Bessex/AP

In a watershed moment for the recent wave of pandemic-inspired labor organizing, workers at a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, voted today to form the coffee chain’s first union in the United States.

Despite months of opposition from company leadership, 19 workers at the Elmwood location in Buffalo voted in favor of unionizing in the election, conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Only eight opposed.

Workers at a second Buffalo location, however, voted 8–12 against unionizing. At a third local store, workers voted 15–9 to unionize, but the outcome remains unclear pending seven challenged ballots.

Among the unionizing staffers’ major demands are steady pay increases for longtime employees and better training and staffing. The employees will join the Workers United union.

Watch workers at the Elmwood location the moment they realized they’d won:

BREAKING: Starbucks location on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo has voted to become Starbucks’ first unionized store in the U.S., by vote of 19-8.

Here was the moment workers realized they had enough votes. @WBFO pic.twitter.com/tHYY495Wjb

— Tom Dinki (@tomdinki) December 9, 2021

This post has been updated.

David Perdue getting the MAGA rally treatment during his reelection campaignRobin Rayne/Zuma

Remember that cult of personality who selfishly had his supporters commit an almost-coup about a year ago because he couldn’t accept that he lost? Well, it seems he’s still the de facto leader of the Republican party.

As Georgia heads for a gubernatorial election, a new poll of likely Republican voters suggests that former President Trump’s endorsement could sway the primary.

An initial survey of 500 Georgians found that 41 percent would vote for incumbent Brian Kemp, while 22 percent favored former Sen. David Perdue, who lost reelection to Senator Jon Ossoff earlier this year.

Then, respondents were then informed that Trump had endorsed Perdue—after that, many potential voters changed their tune. The knowledge of Trump’s endorsement tied Kemp and Perdue at 34 percent.

GA GOP Gov primary poll (Fox5/InsiderAdvantage)

Brian Kemp 41%
David Perdue 22%
Vernon Jones 11%
Kandiss Taylor 4%

Respondents were *then* told Perdue has Trump's support and were asked their preference again:

Kemp 34%
Perdue 34%
Jones 10%
Taylor 4%https://t.co/5Lb67fhVWa

— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 8, 2021

The survey is far from definitive, but it does suggest that many Republican voters remain beholden to Trump and his opinions.

As I pointed out last week, Kemp is a staunch conservative who enacted laws suppressing voting rights and banning abortions as early as six weeks (though the latter legislation hasn’t gone into effect, pending a federal appeals court decision). But Kemp’s loyalty to Trump faltered when he refused to overturn the results of the presidential election in Georgia, and Trump has retaliated by promoting a senator whose failed campaign was roiled by controversy.

The slow death of democracy is dumber than I thought it’d be: A series of Trump press releases denouncing anyone who didn’t agree he won in 2020.

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Zuma

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is leaving the US House of Representatives to take on a position as CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group, the former president’s latest nebulous enterprise.

Nunes, an ardent Trumper, has spent 10 terms in Congress. His main social media qualification seems to be that he likes to hold a petty grudge. During his tenure as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he released an eponymous memo alleging that the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia was politically motivated. After his district’s biggest newspaper, the Fresno Bee, called him a “Trump stooge” in 2018 (they had endorsed him in every election from 1996 to that point), he waged war on them. Solid stuff—none of which stopped him from continuing to be reelected. But nothing shows that Nunes has the aggrieved mentality of the chronically online quite like the issue of a certain fake cow.

In 2019, Nunes took offense to a number of satirical Twitter accounts, including one purporting to be his cow, and sued both the platform and several individual users for defamation.

That’s the stuff.

Now, Nunes will lead Trump’s social media company, despite having no previous experience in tech. His departure from the House comes on the heels of new draft maps of California congressional districts that would have likely made his reelection campaign much more competitive.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick GarlandSarah Silbiger/Pool/CNP/Zuma

Months after Texas Republicans approved gerrymandered redistricting maps that diluted the voting power of communities of color, the Justice Department is suing the state for violating the Voting Rights Act.

As my colleague Ari Berman wrote, Texas’ new election maps increase the number of districts with white majorities—even though 95 percent of the state’s population growth in the last decade has come from communities of color.

This gerrymandering is a brazen attempt to cement Republican dominance in the state despite demographic change:

The maps consolidate white power as the white population is shrinking as a percentage of the state, and eliminate political competition at a time when longtime GOP strongholds are trending blue. The number of safe GOP seats would double in the new congressional maps, from 11 to 22, and the number of competitive districts would fall from 12 to just one. GOP candidates for Congress received 53 percent of the statewide vote in 2020, but are forecasted to control 65 percent of US House seats under the new map.

The suit came after the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court in 2013. For the first time in nearly 50 years, the federal government did not have to approve the redistricting maps before they went into effect. The only option for Justice Department was to sue, using the parts of the VRA left intact.

“The complaint that we filed today alleges that Texas violated Section 2 by creating redistricting plans that deny or abridge the rights of Latino and Black voters to vote on account of their race, color or membership in a language or minority group,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said of the suit on Monday.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said that some aspects of the maps signaled “discriminatory intent.” “The Justice Department will not stand idly by in the face of unlawful attempts to restrict access to the ballot,” she said.

Garland also called on Congress to pass legislation reinstating the government’s ability to review redistricting maps before they’re enacted.

Read the full suit here.

Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/ZUMA

The legal assault on democracy will be—barely—punished, after all.

In 2020, attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, among others, brought baseless lawsuits against several states accusing them of election fraud in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Today, it was announced that these pro-Trump lawyers have been ordered to pay $175,250.37 in sanctions in Michigan. A federal judge called their actions a “historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”

A federal judge has ordered the lawyers behind the failed "Kraken" election-overturning lawsuit to pay $175,250.37 in sanctions.

"This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process." https://t.co/AUUXubBA8N pic.twitter.com/2yZHi3tVye

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) December 2, 2021

Until a federal judge in Michigan sanctioned Powell and Wood in August, it seemed unlikely that the lawyers would face any repercussions. But now, the attorneys’ misconduct has a number. Powell, Wood, and others owe $21,964.75 to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and $153,285.62 to the city of Detroit.

And, with ethics complaints pending in Arizona and a sanctions request underway in Wisconsin, the Michigan ruling could be just the tip of the iceberg.

Tasos Katopodis/AP

On Thursday afternoon, the House passed a bill temporarily funding the government through the middle of February.

The 221–212 vote comes after several days of concern that Democrats and Republicans in Congress would be unable to agree on a funding package ahead of the midnight Friday deadline, pushing the federal government into a shutdown that would furlough thousands of government workers, upend some federally funded services, and derail the economy just a few weeks before the holidays.

While the House vote makes this less likely, the threat is not gone. The bill now moves to the Senate, where it will require unanimous agreement to quickly pass ahead of the government funding deadline on Friday. A few Republican senators, including Ted Cruz, have threatened to derail the funding bill unless it includes a measure to undo President Joe Biden’s business vaccine mandate. If they make good on this threat, they’ll tank the economy for hundreds of thousands of Americans just as they enter the holiday season. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned on Thursday that if this happens, it will be a “Republican anti-vaccine shutdown.”

“Democrats and most Republicans, including the Republican leader, have said they don’t want to see a Republican shutdown,” he said from the Senate floor. “We hope cooler heads will prevail.”

The last time the government shut down was in January 2019, when President Donald Trump refused to sign a budget that lacked funding for his plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. That shutdown’s economic impacts were enormous: It cost the US economy at least $11 billion, according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, and more than 800,000 government workers went weeks without pay. Food banks around the country saw jumps in demand of as much as 20 percent, and furloughed federal workers turned to GoFundMe campaigns and shifts at McDonald’s to make ends meet.

If the government shuts down this weekend, similar results are likely. S&P Global Ratings estimated on Thursday that the shutdown would cost the US economy $1.8 billion for every week that it continues. 

Sarah Silbiger/ Zuma

Remember when Republican Sen. Susan Collins broke the tie to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s to the Supreme Court in 2018?

At the time, Collins was just one of two undecided senators. Her vote of support was pivotal to putting Kavanaugh in the highest court despite many scandals, including an accusation of sexual assault. A large piece of this was that Collins—who supports abortion rights—told the public that Kavanaugh wasn’t likely to overturn Roe v. Wade; that, in fact, she would not support a nominee who “demonstrates hostility” to the precedent. In a meeting, Collins said Kavanaugh had assuaged this fear by saying Roe was “settled law.” 

Well, that was three years ago and a lot has changed.

During today’s oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson on Mississippi’s law banning abortions after 15 weeks, Kavanaugh didn’t sound like the person who Collins described.

He asked Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart to clarify whether his state was “not arguing that the Court somehow has the authority to itself prohibit abortion…” Or, to put it in layperson terms, that if the court repeals Roe, that doesn’t mean it is outlawing abortion. Um, Brett, nobody is asking the Supreme Court to mandate an abortion ban. We’re talking about the fact that there is a fundamental right to abortion not being upheld for people in states intent on infringing upon it.

That wasn’t the end. Kavanaugh went on to list major court cases, such as Brown v. Board of Education, that overruled precedent. He said this was to show that “if we think that the prior precedents are seriously wrong,” it’s fine to overturn them. “Doesn’t the history of this court’s practice…tell us that the right answer is actually a return to the position of neutrality?” he continued.

Kavanaugh says some of the important cases in history overruled precedent.

"If we think that the prior precedents are seriously wrong … why then doesn't the history of this court's practice … tell us that the right answer is actually a return to the position of neutrality?" pic.twitter.com/axizPLJK22

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) December 1, 2021

Well, we know that a “position of neutrality” wouldn’t exactly be neutral. It would reverse Roe, overturning nearly 50 years of abortion rights for pregnant people.

Again, Collins, this isn’t sounding very “settled”! Her thoughts? Well, she told a reporter that she did not listen to the oral arguments.

“I did not see his questioning or hear any of the arguments. I hope to later tonight play them so I have first-hand knowledge…but so can’t comment about what I didn’t see,” she said, adding that she was “for” Roe.

Susan Collins on abortion hearing and Kavanaugh:

“I did not see his questioning or hear any of the arguments. I hope to later tonight play them so I have first hand knowledge…but so can’t comment about what I didn’t see.”

“I’m for Roe,” she said when asked about its future

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) December 1, 2021

This has frustrated colleagues. “I don’t know where she got that reassurance,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told Mother Jones on Wednesday about Collins’ position, sounding exasperated. She cited Kavanaugh’s decision during his time as a DC Circuit judge that would have forced an undocumented minor further into pregnancy had a federal court not intervened to grant an abortion. “I have no assurances that he’s going to do much to protect a woman’s right to choose,” Hirono said. “He basically does not consider any regulatory burden so burdensome on a woman [that it should not legally exist].”

The three justices appointed under Trump—Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett—all appeared to signal support for Mississippi’s ban. A decision is expected next summer.

Donald Trump speaks to supporters in Pennsylvania on September 26, 2020, shortly after he reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus. Ron Adar/SOPA/ZUMA

Evidence is mounting that Donald Trump received a positive COVID-19 test shortly before attending his first debate with Joe Biden.

According to a report in the Guardian, Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, reveals in his forthcoming book that Trump tested positive for the virus on September 26, 2020, three days before the debate. Shortly after that test, Meadows writes, Trump also received a negative result from a different test and decided to press on with a rally in Pennsylvania, a maskless event for Gold Star families where he spoke about the “value of sacrifice,” an indoor press conference, and then the debate with the 77-year-old Democratic nominee. 

“Nothing was going to stop [Trump] from going out there,” Meadows reportedly writes.

Two anonymous former Trump officials have confirmed to the New York Times that Meadows timeline is accurate.

In a statement Wednesday, Trump complained about “fake news” but didn’t really deny his former chief of staff’s claim about the September 26 positive test. Instead, Trump asserted that he did not have COVID-19 “prior to, or during, the first debate” and that he received a negative test at some point before the debate. Days after the debate, Trump disclosed that he had the disease and he was eventually hospitalized, but at the time the White House infamously refused to say when he had last received a negative test.

At one point, Trump appeared to blame the Gold Star families he met with for exposing him to the virus.

“They come within an inch of my face sometimes, they want to hug me and they want to kiss me. And they do. And frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it, but obviously it’s a dangerous thing, I guess, if you go by the COVID thing,” he told Fox Business. 

That meeting, it now turns out, took place a day after Meadows says Trump first tested positive.

Michael Brochstein/ Zuma

This morning, as the Supreme Court heard the most serious challenge to abortion rights in decades, Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered a stirring series of questions challenging the attempt to upend a person’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy.

It came as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. Newly rammed full of conservative Trump appointees, the court is overseeing a challenge that poses a serious risk for abortion rights across the country. Sotomayor seemed eager to make clear how such a decision could harm pregnant persons and the court—especially with Texas eager to implement its abortion ban. 

“The right of a woman to choose, the right to control her own body, has been clearly set since Casey and never challenged,” Justice Sotomayor said, referencing the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which affirmed Roe, in response to comments by Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart. “You want us to reject that line of viability and adopt something different.”

The “viability line”—drawn in 1973 by Roe and which does not allow states to ban abortions before a fetus could survive outside the womb—hasn’t been an issue for 30 years. In fact, Sotomayor goes on to say that 15 justices of varying political backgrounds have affirmed that basic viability line since 1992. Her point is that this is not a question of case law, but politics.

“Will this institution survive the stench this creates in the public perception that the constitution and its reading are just political acts?…If people actually believe it’s all political, how will the court survive?” 

“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?”

— Justice Sonia Sotomayor on #DobbsvJackson abortion case before SOCTUS today. pic.twitter.com/coj5Gs9EWp

— The Recount (@therecount) December 1, 2021

This was one one of the big moments in which Sotomayor dismantled the arguments of Stewart and conservative colleagues on the bench. But there were others.

“How is your interest anything but a religious view?” Sotomayor asked of the state’s attempt to define when life begins. Sotomayor also fought back against Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s comments on precedent. And she asked Stewart when the life of a woman and the risk she endures come into the calculus: “The state is saying to these women that we can choose to not only physically complicate your existence, put you at medical risk, make you poorer by the choice, because we believe…what?” 

When she was interrupted, this happened:

Sotomayor now asks if she can finish her line of inquiry and I can feel that look back to Roberts IN MY BONES

— Jessica Mason Pieklo (@Hegemommy) December 1, 2021

It’s too early to say what will become of Mississippi’s abortion law, which was blocked by lower courts in 2019. But Justice Sotomayor was firm in articulating the widespread ramifications of the law if the Court allows it to take effect.

Sotomayor at this point is totally not talking to her colleagues. This is preparation for a dissent.

— Mary Ziegler (@maryrziegler) December 1, 2021

Jay Reeves/AP

Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, who tried unsuccessfully to unionize earlier this year, will likely have another shot at a union election thanks to an order by a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board. The order said the company acted with “flagrant disregard” for certain policies that keep elections fair.

In April, after an aggressive anti-union campaign from Amazon, warehouse workers in Bessemer overwhelmingly voted not to authorize a union. As my colleague Noah Lanard wrote at the time, people voted not to unionize in part because Amazon provided relatively solid wages and benefits in economically depressed areas. But that wasn’t the only reason:

On top of those economic realities, Amazon fought unionization at every turn. It forced employees to attend anti-union meetings on company time, hired union-busting consultants, sent out barrages of texts urging workers to vote no, and launched a website called doitwithoutdues.com.

All of that is legal. We live in a country long wedded to union busting. But one of Amazon’s actions crossed a line.

During the election, Amazon had the Postal Service install a post office box in the parking lot to make voting in the union election “convenient, safe and private.” Labor organizers disagreed, arguing that the box’s location near a security camera—and inside of an Amazon-branded tent—tainted the election. The regional NLRB agreed and granted a do-over.

“Today’s decision confirms what we were saying all along—that Amazon’s intimidation and interference prevented workers from having a fair say in whether they wanted a union in their workplace,” Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union—which the Amazon voters were voting to join—said in a statement. “Amazon workers deserve to have a voice at work, which can only come from a union.”

Amazon can still appeal the decision, and a union win in a second vote is far from certain.

Read the full decision here.

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via ZUMA

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) called Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Monday after Boebert was caught on video likening the Minnesota congresswoman to a terrorist. The conversation went about as well as you’d expect. 

The video of Boebert made the rounds on social media over the holiday weekend, drawing condemnation from Democrats and even a Republican or two. In the footage, Boebert claims that she and Omar, who is Muslim, were sharing an elevator in the Capitol when a police officer approached them. Then comes the bigoted punchline: “I look to my left, and there she is, Ilhan Omar. I said, ‘Well she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine.’”

Ha! Islamophobia! 

Last Friday, Boebert issued a kinda-sorta apology via tweet, noting that she’d reached out to Omar’s office to speak with her directly. That conversation—which House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy claims to have helped facilitate—took place today, but, according to both Boebert and Omar, it only made things worse. 

Omar’s and Boebert’s accounts of what happened don’t really differ. According to public statements issued by the two congresswomen, Omar pressed Boebert to make a public apology for her comments, only for Boebert to demand that Omar make a public apology to the American people for “anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-police rhetoric.”

This led Omar to end the call. “I believe in engaging with those we disagree with respectfully, but not when that disagreement is rooted in outright bigotry and hate,” she wrote in a public statement, calling on McCarthy to hold members of his party accountable for mainstreaming anti-Muslim harassment. 

In an Instagram video posted after the call, Boebert returned to voicing the racist tropes that had gotten her in trouble in the first place, implying that Omar sympathized with terrorists. Boebert also claimed, ridiculously, that Omar had “cancelled” her by ending the call. “Rejecting an apology and hanging up on someone is part of cancel culture 101,” she fumed.  

What’s surprising about this sorry affair isn’t that Boebert doubled down on her Islamophobic rhetoric, but that she ever expressed even an ounce of contrition. At the same event where she implied Omar was a terrorist, Boebert also made homophobic comments about Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, saying that he was trying to “chest feed” the twins he recently adopted. She’s yet to apologize for those remarks. 

Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via AP

Great news! At long last, Republicans in the House of Representatives are taking a courageous stand against the wing of their party that traffics in bigotry and outlandish conspiracy theories and that tried to end America democracy. Just look at the exciting headline on this scoop CNN published yesterday: “Moderate House Republican warns McCarthy over embracing far-right members.”

A GOP lawmaker said a number of moderates are upset with how House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has embraced some fringe members in the GOP conference and warned it could hurt the party https://t.co/lVGwUoB1et

— CNN (@CNN) November 27, 2021

Wow! So who is this brave lawmaker—this statesman who is willing to fight back against GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and the Trump acolytes McCarthy has spent years appeasing?

A moderate House Republican is firing off a warning shot at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as he caters to his right flank in a quest for the speaker’s gavel.

“He’s taking the middle of the conference for granted,” the GOP lawmaker told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal conference dynamics. “McCarthy could have a bigger math problem with the moderates.”

Specifically, the lawmaker said a number of moderates are upset with how McCarthy, of California, has embraced some of the extremists in the GOP conference and warned it could hurt the party in swing districts and undermine their chances of winning back the majority.

Oh.

The story, which was not published by The Onion, adds that this courageously unnamed public servant “predicted other moderate lawmakers would start speaking out publicly if McCarthy doesn’t do more to rein in the fringe members in the party.”

“Our side isn’t going to take this much longer,” the anonymous lawmaker valiantly concludes.

The absurdity here is self-evident. I don’t really blame CNN for publishing it—it’s a pretty useful window into how ineffective the non-authoritarian faction of the House GOP has become. Just a handful of Republicans voted for Trump’s second impeachment, or for the January 6 investigation, or even for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Many of them are either retiring or in serious danger of losing to a MAGA primary challenger. The rest of the GOP caucus has spent the last five years desperately trying not to do the right thing, and they certainly aren’t interested in speaking out publicly now.

In his new book, Betrayal, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl recounts a remarkable conversation he had with McCarthy in the shadow of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial on January 2—just days before McCarthy joined most House Republicans in voting to throw out Joe Biden’s victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Karl noted that day that McCarthy had an opportunity to push back on the increasingly unhinged and dangerous rhetoric coming from the right. But McCarthy made it clear his priority was to avoid angering Trump:

Exaggerating to make a point about the historical weight of the moment, I nodded toward the monuments along the National Mall—memorials to political leaders remembered precisely because they did things that were both important and difficult to do.

“Who knows,” I said, “if you do the right thing, maybe there will be a statue of you out here someday.”

McCarthy laughed.

“Where’s the statue for Jeff Flake? Where the statue for that guy from Tennessee?” he said, referring to the former Republican Senator Bob Corker who, like former Republican Senator Jeff Flake, had stood up to Trump during Trump’s first two years in office. As McCarthy saw it, both men gave big speeches condemning Trump’s actions and were rewarded with political obscurity. They became pariahs within the Republican Party. Nobody talks much of Flake and Corker anymore. McCarthy believed they ultimately accomplished little by taking on Trump. Their speeches didn’t change Trump’s behavior—in fact, they may have egged him on to be more outrageous.

So, in his quest to be speaker of the House, McCarthy can vote to overturn the election. He can promise to give influential committee assignments to Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), whose extremist rhetoric got them kicked off their committees this year. And he can back the ouster of Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) from GOP leadership in the wake of her outspoken condemnation of Trump’s coup attempt. But maybe if McCarthy crosses any more lines, other Republican lawmakers will “start speaking out publicly.” Perhaps they will even use their real names.

Andrew Harnik/AP

After a video of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) making anti-Muslims comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) went viral over the holiday weekend, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, is calling on House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy to condemn Boebert’s actions.

“I think whenever, even in our own caucus, our own members, if they go the wrong direction, I mean, it has to be called out, it has to be dealt with,” Hutchinson said on CNN’s State of the Union after viewing a clip of the comments, “particularly whenever it is breaching the civility, whenever it is crossing the line, in terms of violence or increasing the divide in our country.”

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson says House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy should condemn GOP Rep. Boebert’s anti-Muslim remarks.

“In our own caucus, our own members, if they go the wrong direction, I mean, it has to be called out,” Hutchinson says. https://t.co/cGRLsaztOA #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/5bYZpyz6Vt

— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) November 28, 2021

In the clip, Boebert likened Omar to a terrorist and referred to her as part of the “jihad squad.” Omar responded with a tweet and Boebert issued a quasi-apology the day after the video spread on social media. 

This latest incident comes at a time when multiple members of the Republican Party are under fire for being unable to behave professionally. Earlier this year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was stripped of her committee assignments after old social media posts in which she appeared to indicate support for killing her political enemies went viral. Then, last week, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) was censured and removed from his committee seats after he posted an anime video that depicted him murdering Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). 

“One of the things that’s really important to us in the future is increasing the civil debate and civil discourse,” Hutchinson said on Sunday. “And we have got to look for ways that we can bring people together, and not divide, and certainly along racial lines.”

It doesn’t appear that McCarthy will heed Hutchinson’s advice, though. In a statement, the GOP leader said only that he had spoken with Boebert and acknowledged her so-called apology. McCarthy said he had tried to help set up a meeting between Boebert and Omar, but he did not publicly condemn her statement. 

Rod Lamkey/AP

The new coronavirus variant, Omicron—which was first detected by virologists in South Africa—has sparked concerns among public health experts. The United States quickly imposed travel restrictions on certain African countries. Scientists say that much about the new variant remains unknown. But it’s apparently not too soon for members of the US Congress to begin spouting ridiculous conspiracy theories about it.

In a tweet Saturday, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who served as White House physician for Barack Obama and Donald Trump before running for office on a hard-MAGA platform, dubbed the new strain “the Midterm Election Variant.”

Here comes the MEV – the Midterm Election Variant! They NEED a reason to push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots. Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during an election – but we're not going to let them!

— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) November 27, 2021

According to this latest crackpot theory, Democrats are going to use Omicron to “push” mail-in ballots during the midterm elections, which will supposedly enable massive amounts to cheating. 

There’s a lot to unpack here. When does Jackson think the midterm elections are? How could the Democrats be using a new variant discovered in November 2021 to impact elections that are a full year away? Are the South African doctors who reported it to the World Health Organization also part of Democrats’ plan to steal the elections? What about the other countries Omicron has been detected in? What role do they play?

Jackson’s tweet manages to hit on two conspiracy theories popular among far right: that the pandemic is somehow being manipulated by Democrats for political gain, and that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. It should go without saying that both of these theories are false. But as we approach the two-year mark in the pandemic, much of the world remains unvaccinated and patience is wearing thin. Ignorant tweets like Jackson’s will only fuel more conspiracy theories about the virus and endanger more lives. 

AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

It turns out not even Rudy Giuliani’s bar tab could save the Trump International Hotel. The Trump Organization lost at least $70 million since its opening in 2016, even as the grand hotel became a fixture of Trump-era Washington, a place where the president’s loyalists and sycophants alike could gather in a cozy bubble safely away from the fake news and impeachment managers and sip champagne from a spoon and imbibe cocktails starting at $24 a pop. 

The Trump family has been threatening to sell it for the past few years, and now it seems they finally have: The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that a Miami-based investment firm, CGI Merchant Group, intends to assume the lease with the federal government for $375 million and turn the Trump Hotel into a Waldorf Astoria. 

The hotel had become a liability for a family company that no longer had a steady stream of lobbyists and influence-seekers willing to pay inflated prices for rooms in a hotel that many businesses wouldn’t come near because of the association with Trump. It was by far one of the former president’s biggest conflicts of interest—he refused to relinquish control of the company that ran it. Trump had won the contract to lease the former Old Post Office Pavilion from the federal government by wildly overpaying, and then sinking $200 million into renovations, paid for with $170 million borrowed from Deutsche Bank. That loan, and others, comes due in 2024. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee is continuing to probe how Trump handled hotel-related conflicts of interest, and the DC attorney general is currently suing the Trump Organization, alleging that the nonprofit created to manage Trump’s inauguration improperly misused charitable funds by grossly overpaying the Trump Hotel for event space to enrich the Trump family. Those investigations are likely to continue regardless of who owns the hotel.

For a look back on the brief but sordid history of the DC Trump Hotel, check out this Mother Jones story by Zach Everson, who rode out the Trump years in the lobby of the famous hotel, reporting daily on the who’s who of MAGA-world, foreign nationals, tourists, and outright criminals who populated its bars and restaurants hoping to win favor with the 45th president. 

Christoph Soeder/AP

After two weeks of negotiations, representatives from almost 200 countries at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow hammered out an agreement Saturday, laying out measures the world could take to prevent a cataclysmic rise in global temperatures.

As the New York Times reported:

The new deal will not, on its own, solve global warming, despite the urgent demands of many of the thousands of politicians and activists gathered at the climate summit here. It leaves unresolved the crucial question of how much and how quickly each nation should cut its emissions over the next decade. And it still leaves many developing countries far short of the funds they need to build cleaner energy and cope with increasingly extreme weather disasters.

The talks underscored the complexity of trying to steer scores of countries, each with their particular economic interests and domestic politics, to act in unison for the greater good.

But the agreement established a clear consensus that all nations need to do much more, immediately, to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. It outlined specific steps the world should take, from slashing global carbon dioxide emissions nearly in half by 2030 to curbing methane, another potent greenhouse gas. And it sets up new rules to hold countries accountable for the progress they make — or fail to make.

Read the full 10-page agreement here.