Seth Wenig/AP

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo refused to resign on Friday, even after a majority of the state’s Democratic congressional delegation called for him to step down amid mounting allegations of sexual harassment and assault and ongoing investigations into his administration’s orchestrated effort to undercount nursing home deaths from the coronavirus. 

“Wait for the facts, then you can have an opinion,” Cuomo told reporters in a conference call, expressing confidence that New Yorkers would stand by him once results from the state’s attorney general investigations into both scandals is completed. Cuomo suggested that those calling for him to resign were surrendering to so-called “cancel culture” and at another point, appeared to question the motivations of his accusers.

“People know the difference between playing politics, bowing to cancel culture, and the truth,” Cuomo said. “Let the review proceed, I am not going to resign.”

“I did not do what has been alleged, period,” he added. “I will not speculate about people’s alleged motives but there are often many motivations for making an allegation and that is why you need to know the facts before you made a decision.” The remark is likely to fuel conspiracy theories that Cuomo’s troubles have somehow been orchestrated by former President Donald Trump, with whom Cuomo regularly butted heads.

The growing calls for his resignation, which rang out in rapid-fire succession earlier on Friday, come on the heels of accusations against the third-term Democrat that, in the last week alone, include groping a female aide and ordering a retaliation campaign against one of his accusers.

Ron Adar/ZUMA

In a remarkable display of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s quickly vanishing support among Democrats amid mounting allegations of his sexual harassment of women and his cover-up of nursing home deaths from the coronavirus, ten House Democrats on Friday issued a series of statements within minutes of each other calling for his resignation.

The Democrats include House Judiciary chair Rep. Jerry Nadler and House Oversight chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney, as well as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Grace Meng, Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, Nydia Velázquez, Yvette Clark, and Adriano Espaillat. That brings the total to 11 members of the state’s Democratic delegation to Congress to call for Cuomo to step down after Rep. Kathleen Rice became the first earlier this month. 

“The bravery individuals have shown in coming forward to share their experiences with Governor Cuomo is inspiring, and I stand in support with them,” Nadler’s statement read. “The repeated accusations against the Governor, and the manner in which he has responded to them, have made it impossible for him to continue to govern at this point.”

After two accounts of sexual assault, four accounts of harassment, the Attorney General’s investigation finding the Governor’s admin hid nursing home data from the legislature & public, we agree with the 55+ members of the New York State legislature that the Governor must resign. pic.twitter.com/jV5dwtuVPr

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 12, 2021

The statements come one day after state lawmakers opened an impeachment investigation into the mounting scandals engulfing Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, which include new groping charges by an aide that were reported to Albany police. The latest charges appear to be the most serious involving what the Times Union described as Cuomo allegedly “aggressively groping her in a sexually charged manner” inside the state’s executive mansion. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, the state’s two Democratic senators, have yet to join the calls for the resignation, instead backing an investigation into the claims.

A parent protests in South Dakota.Stephen Groves/AP

On Thursday, the governor of Mississippi signed into law a bill that prohibits transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams, making it the only state with such a law in effect. According to the Human Rights Campaign, there are more than 100 anti-LGBTQ state-level bills up for debate this year. At least 44 of those would bar trans women from sports.

As I previously reported:

Though the Mississippi proposal isn’t explicit about how it’d be enforced, other states’ bills call for athletes to undergo blood tests and examinations of primary and secondary sexual organs to prove they belong on the women’s team. Not only is this discriminatory against trans athletes, advocates say it could lead to invasive genital exams being forced upon any female athlete who doesn’t look “feminine” enough. 

Gillian Branstetter, media manager for the National Women’s Law Center, says cisgender women with naturally higher testosterone levels could be targeted (case in point: Caster Semenya). Tall women could be targeted. Black and Brown women who don’t fall within the western aesthetic of femininity could be targeted. “It’s all in the name of hurting trans people for a perceived political gain,” Branstetter says. But “there is no crisis that these bills are seeking to address.”

A similar sports ban is currently sitting on the governor’s desk in South Dakota. On Wednesday, Gov. Kristi Noem signed a “religious freedom” bill into law, which critics say is likely to be used as a shield for the religious right to discriminate against the LGBTQ community. There’s little doubt she’ll also sign the sports ban.

In South Dakota, we're celebrating #InternationalWomensDay by defending women's sports! I'm excited to sign this bill very soon. https://t.co/OU15HOwp2r

— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) March 8, 2021

Idaho passed its own law banning trans kids from athletics last year, which was promptly challenged in court. A federal court has temporarily blocked the law, while lawyers on both sides debate its constitutionality. LGBTQ advocates, nearly 200 athletes, and the NCAA are all vocal opponents of the law, arguing that it’s discriminatory toward transgender athletes. 

Other bills currently working their way through state legislatures are seeking to prohibit transgender kids from accessing gender-affirming health care, such as hormone therapy or puberty blockers. At least two states are still considering “bathroom bills,” which were largely defeated in the wake of North Carolina’s ill-fated 2016 bill. 

Sasha Buchert, senior attorney and co-director of Lambda Legal’s Transgender Rights Project, described the spate of anti-trans legislation as “the latest in a vicious and unending campaign to strip our communities of their rights and dignity. Having failed to ban us from bathrooms and to deny us equal protection in the workplace, they now have turned to going after transgender children, a new, but sadly unsurprising, low.”

You can read more about these bills, their origins, and the folks most affected by them, here.

Damian Dovarganes/AP

All American adults will be eligible for coronavirus vaccines by May 1, President Biden is set to announce in his Thursday night primetime address.

The news will be an improvement on earlier estimates. On March 2, Biden had predicted that the United States would have enough vaccines for every American adult by the end of May. The president is expected to say that society could return to a “more normal” state by the Fourth of July.

See you (I hope) at the cookout.

Caroline Brehman/Congressional Quarterly/Zuma

The Senate overwhelmingly voted to confirm longtime federal judge Merrick Garland as US attorney general on Wednesday.

Garland was appointed to the Supreme Court by former President Barack Obama five years ago, but then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to bring his confirmation to a vote in the Senate, claiming that it was too close to the end of Obama’s term. (That logic did not extend to the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney-Barrett after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in the final months of Trump’s term.)

Today, McConnell was one of 70 senators to vote to approve Garland to lead the Justice Department. Among Garland’s first tasks could be investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol—and former President Donald Trump’s role in inciting it. As my colleague Kara Voght reported last month, he’s also setting his sights on police reform and combating domestic terrorism.

Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Zuma

The House voted Wednesday to approve a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, paving the way for President Joe Biden to sign the bill into law later in the week.

The stimulus package, one of the largest in US history, provides for $1,400 checks to be sent to individuals making up to $75,000 per year; extends additional $300 unemployment benefits through September; and designates billions of dollars to fighting the coronavirus through testing, contact tracing, and vaccine distribution.

The Senate already approved the bill, and Biden is expected to sign it into law on Friday.

Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto/Zuma

Former President Jimmy Carter issued a statement on Tuesday condemning Georgia Republicans’ efforts to “turn back the clock” and make it harder for people to vote.

Cater spoke out after Georgia Republicans passed some of the most restrictive voting laws since Jim Crow. The state Senate passed a bill that would end no-excuse absentee voting. Its state House passed legislation that, as my colleague Ari Berman reported yesterday, “restricts the use of mail ballot drop boxes, prevents counties from accepting grants from nonprofits to improve their elections, adds new voter ID requirements for mail ballots, gives election officials less time to send out mail ballots and voters less time to return them, and even makes it a crime to distribute food and water to voters waiting in line.”

“I am disheartened, saddened, and angry,” Carter wrote in a statement released by his nonprofit, the Carter Center. “Many of the proposed changes are reactions to allegations of fraud for which no evidence was produced—allegations that were, in fact, refuted through various audits, recounts, and other measures. The proposed changes appear to be rooted in partisan interests, not in the interests of all Georgia voters.”

Carter also expressed his disappointment that people seeking to limit the vote in Georgia often cited a 2005 report he helped prepare on mail voting practices. “In the 16 years since the report’s release, vote-by-mail practices have progressed significantly as new technologies have been developed,” he wrote. “In light of these advances, I believe that voting by mail can be conducted in a manner that ensures election integrity.”

“American democracy means every eligible person has the right to vote in an election that is fair, open, and secure,” he concluded. “Our goal always should be to increase, not decrease, voter participation.”

Read the full statement here.

AIex Todd/ZUMA

As viewers around the world tuned in for Oprah Winfrey’s much-anticipated interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on Sunday, the reaction stateside was one of instant shock and fury. How could a family, particularly one that experienced a strikingly similar scenario nearly 25 years ago, be so relentlessly cruel? For Americans, every turn of the two-hour conversation seemed to torpedo years of public rehabilitation efforts and revealed, once more, that the royal family is an undeniably racist and outdated institution. 

Over in the United Kingdom, where officially the interview wouldn’t air for another 24 hours, those with a reliable VPN were able to participate in the much-watch television event as it aired in the US. But for Brits who had tuned in to CBS at 2 in the morning local time, a horror unrelated to the couple’s raw pain quickly emerged.

“American adverts make me feel like I’m in some post-apocalyptic world,” read one tweet. “American medical adverts are some real dystopian shit how you gonna tell me I might die,” read another. Similar sentiments, many of them captured by writer Ayesha A. Siddiqi in a remarkable thread, echoed across a country unfamiliar with the simple act of watching television in the United States, where prescription drugs are heavily advertised. For Brits watching from afar, the strange deluge of pharma adverts treated the people they were addressing not as people but as vulnerable consumers to be preyed upon. “If these medicine ads are what it’s like to not have an NHS I never want to experience that.”

https://t.co/WQc0iiXasL

— Ayesha A. Siddiqi (@AyeshaASiddiqi) March 8, 2021

Of course, that ghoulish experience is an almost uniquely American one, in the same way, that a monarchy having any hold on the public’s attention is a uniquely British affair. Other than New Zealand, the US is the only country in the world that permits direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, causing companies to promote expensive, designer drugs, oftentimes inappropriately or even dangerously to patients, just as experts have warned. In the UK, where strict rules block such adverts and prescription medicine rarely costs you more than £9, or roughly $12, thanks to the National Health Service, the notion of spending $1,200 a year for everyday drugs and life-depending medicine, as is the American way, is downright absurd. It’s no surprise then that the NHS is the one institution that is more beloved than the queen herself.

I’m an American who has lived in London for just over two years now. The practice of never having to present a form of ID, a copayment, or an insurance card upon visiting the doctor has been an equally absurd one for me. Somehow, some way, I initially suspected, I would get boned with a surprise charge down the road, as happened after too many doctor trips in New York. Though I eventually realized that those fears were unfounded, the sheer wonder at a health care system that is centralized and free at the point of use has not ceased. And I’ve felt it intensely in the past month alone after two trips to the emergency room: the first after four days of sudden and excruciating leg pain, initially suspected to be a blood clot (my GP’s fears, not mine; I had simply suspected that lockdown was finally coming for my physical well-being). Then days later, after an ultrasound failed to detect such a clot, I returned to St. Thomas’s Hospital with a new pattern of grotesque bumps that had started to accompany the leg pain overnight. (Shingles! Are! Fucking! Disgusting!) Each visit required four to five different tests; not once did I need to think about what this would cost me. The medicine I was eventually prescribed came out to a mere £4. 

It’s been an interesting thing over the past 36 hours to watch two cultures absorb the same televised event and identify deeply nefarious systems in each other. For Americans, it’s an institution that has enshrined the values of colonialism, one that wouldn’t think twice about leaving the family’s first woman of color to feel profoundly, even suicidally abandoned. For Brits, it’s an immoral and inhumane health care system that continues to rule the richest country in the world. These moral abominations are such unremarkable features of either country’s landscape that people have grown comfortably numb to them. It helps to look at them again through fresh eyes. You quickly see the same solution should be applied to both: abolish the monarchy, abolish the US health care system.

Jim Cole/AP

New Hampshire has more college students per capita than any other state. Some 167,705 students, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center—spread among the University of New Hampshire, Dartmouth College, Keene State, and others—make up about 12 percent of the state’s overall population. But, in an effort that could suppress that young, left-leaning voting bloc, Republican lawmakers have introduced a series of bills in the state legislature that would make it harder for students to cast their ballots.

After Republicans took control of the state’s legislature in 2020, House lawmakers introduced three bills restricting student voting: HB 554, HB 362, and HB 429. HB 554 prevents people from voting in New Hampshire if they maintained a domicile address in another state; HB 362 forbids students from registering to vote at their college address; and HB 429 prohibits the use of a college ID as a voter ID.

The rationale for disallowing students from voting in the state where they go to school is about as nonsensical as you’d expect. Ensuring the rights of college students to vote “diminishes the rights of all the rest of our citizens,” says Republican state Rep. Normal Silber. “Why don’t we have a special provision that says blue-eyed people get a special right to vote?”

While most of the bills are straightforward attempts at preventing out-of-state students from casting ballots in the state where they may spend nine months of the year, HB 429 provides for any student registered to vote in New Hampshire to pay in-state tuition at public universities and community colleges. “We believe that it’s kind of an underhanded way of suppressing the vote,” Alex Leichenger, a strategic communications manager at the progressive nonprofit NexGen America, told me, “because then colleges are not necessarily going to want to offer in state tuition to everyone, and then aren’t going to be as active, potentially, about encouraging people to vote on their campuses.”

The fate of the bills remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: The state will not permit permanent no-excuse absentee voting anytime soon. The House Election Law Committee voted along party lines yesterday to tell the full House to kill the Democratic-sponsored legislation.

Dozen of Venezuelans in DC protest against Maduro.Lenin Nolly/Sipa USA/AP

In a significant policy change, the Biden administration will allow Venezuelans in the United States to apply for temporary protected status for a period of 18 months, effective tomorrow. TPS provides relief from deportation and work authorization to citizens of countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or extraordinary conditions that compromise their safety. An estimated 320,000 people from Venezuela living in the US as of March 8, 2021 could benefit from the program. The Los Angeles Times first reported the shift regarding the status of Venezuelans, citing information from congressional sources.

Since 2014, more than 5 million Venezuelans have fled political turmoil, economic instability, and an ongoing humanitarian crisis under Nicolás Maduro’s socialist regime in what has become the largest exodus in Latin America’s recent history. Most have settled in neighboring South American countries, with Colombia‘s government being noteworthy for its welcoming policy. In February, President Iván Duque announced that the government will provide legal status to 1.7 million migrants from Venezuela for 10 years, a move that has been lauded as an example not only for the region, but the world.

During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to extend TPS to Venezuelans living in the US. Between 2017 and 2019, Venezuela ranked among the top five countries of origin for asylum seekers coming to the United States. 

Today’s decree will mark a departure from former President Donald Trump’s approach of pressuring Maduro—by imposing sanctions and showing support to the opposition leader Juan Gauidó—while denying temporary status to those fleeing widespread hunger, violence, and persecution. During his final hours in office, Trump did sign an executive order halting the deportation of thousands of Venezuelans for 18 months. But critics described it as “a political act, not a humanitarian one.”

Although the lesser-known Deferred Enforced Departure program offered similar relief to TPS, it still left many in a legal limbo to apply for work authorization and at the discretion of the next administration. The United States deported hundreds of Venezuelans back to their home country under Trump. Democrats have continued to push for TPS, a more secure form of protection.

“After years of empty rhetoric from the previous administration, today’s decision to provide Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans in the United States marks a major victory in our efforts to build a fair and humane immigration system,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who has pushed for legislation to grant temporary status to Venezuelans. “To keep deporting Venezuelans back to Maduro’s tragedy would be to tell them they are a burden on our communities, a menace to our national security, and an unwelcome guest in our country. Reality and our national interest are precisely the opposite.” 

BREAKING: President Biden will give TPS for Venezuelans for 18 months until September 22!!

We worked for years in the House for TPS for Venezuelans.

Now, thanks to @POTUS tens of thousands of Venezuelans will be able to legally work and live without fear. #VenezuelaLibre 🇻🇪 pic.twitter.com/EPnSb8J7Wt

— Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (@DebbieforFL) March 8, 2021

Biden speaks to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault in 2014Saul Loeb/Getty

President Joe Biden has taken the first step toward dismantling former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ controversial overhaul of federal rules for how schools should handle allegations of sexual violence and harassment, issuing an executive order on Monday morning that lays the groundwork for newly confirmed Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to roll back the Trump administration’s actions. 

The executive order specifically calls out DeVos’ Title IX regulations, which took effect last August, to be reviewed for potential suspension, revision, or rescission. It also directs Cardonas and the attorney general to review any regulations, policies, and agency actions that that might run counter to the goal of eliminating sex discrimination in schools—including discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation—within the next 100 days. 

In 2011, the Obama administration had issued Title IX guidance that expanded protections for student survivors who reported assault or harassment to their schools. During her tenure, DeVos rolled back the Obama-era guidance and issued new rules, which she portrayed as a way of making school discipline fairer by expanding the due process rights of students accused of sexual misconduct. Her changes were celebrated by Republicans as well as organizations promoting men’s rights or free speech, which had claimed men accused of sexual misconduct were frequently railroaded in anti-male “kangaroo courts.” (Men’s rights activists had a hand in drafting DeVos’ regulations, an investigation by the Nation revealed last year.)

Student sexual assault survivors say DeVos’ actions have pushed them into courtroom-like campus hearings and narrowed schools’ responsibility to respond to their reports. Women’s rights and anti-rape advocacy groups have fiercely opposed the regulations, organizing campaigns and filing federal lawsuits that argue the rules actually promote discrimination and violate the spirit of Title IX. They were joined by more than a dozen attorneys general who sued the Education Department before the DeVos’ rule took effect. Last week, more than 100 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Cardona urging him to work with the Department of Justice to put the DeVos rule on hold because of the pending lawsuits. 

“The policy of this administration is that every individual, every student, is entitled to a fair education, free of sexual violence, and that all involved have access to a fair process,” Jennifer Klein, the co-chair of Biden’s newly established Gender Policy Council, said during a press briefing on Monday. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the notion that everybody involved, accused or accuser, should have a fair and full process. That’s exactly what the policy of this administration is, and the secretary of education will look at the regulations with that in mind.”

“Sexual harassment and assault have no place in our schools, yet Betsy DeVos created a double standard that allows schools to ignore reports of harassment based on sex where similar reports based on race, national origin, or religion would require an appropriate response,” said Ria Tabacco Mar, director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, in a statement on Monday. “While the DeVos rule included important provisions to promote fairness of disciplinary procedures, it offered no justification for imposing a double standard. We urge the Department of Education to withdraw Besty DeVos’ damaging double standard and replace it with stronger protections against sexual harassment and ensure fair processes for all students.”

On social media, advocates for student sexual assault survivors are cheering the news of Biden’s executive order:

For the last four years, student survivors have watched as the federal government did everything in their power to roll back our right to an education free from violence.

Today is the first step to undoing the harm of the Betsy DeVos' attacks on student survivors.

— Know Your IX (@knowyourIX) March 8, 2021

Major #TitleIX news! And it’s the first in a series of measures to undue the harm of the previous administration on college campuses.

Students have a right to an education free of sexual violence. #ItsOnUs, all of us, including the Education Department.https://t.co/cedaGhWMNG

— It's On Us (@ItsOnUs) March 8, 2021

GOOD NEWS: President Biden will sign a new executive order that will review changes made to Title IX by the Trump administration. This is an important win towards undoing the harm that Betsy DeVos has done to student survivors. https://t.co/tDO9MV6DrQ

— National Women's Law Center (@nwlc) March 8, 2021

During his presidential campaign, Biden had promised a “quick end” to the Trump administration’s Title IX rule. But changing the regulation will be an arduous and complicated process, because DeVos issued it using a formal rule-making procedure. Even if the Biden administration puts the regulation on hold, it will still need to use the same lengthy, formal procedure to rescind it. Otherwise, a federal judge could potentially order it to be enforced again.

In a second executive order issued on Monday, Biden also established a Gender Policy Council to shape domestic and foreign policy. According to the New York Times, the council’s work is expected to be wide-ranging, working with nearly every cabinet secretary and touching on issues like women’s economic security, racial equity, and health care. Along with Klein, a longtime gender policy expert and the chief policy and strategy officer at Time’s Up, the council will be co-chaired by Julissa Reynoso, Jill Biden’s chief of staff.

“This is not just a council,” Klein told the Times. “It’s a plan to take a governmentwide approach to gender equity and equality.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) speaking on the Senate floor.C-Span

Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an anthropomorphic talk-radio microphone that no one has noticed is no longer plugged into the wall, failed in his attempt to use the COVID-19 relief bill on Saturday to target trans high school athletes.

But still, a near-majority of senators voted for it.

With the Senate in the closing stretch of votes on the stimulus bill—which includes $1,400 checks for millions of Americans, extended unemployment benefits, and hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for cash-strapped state governments—Tuberville forced a vote on an amendment that would, in his words, block educational institutions from “receiving funding if biological males are allowed to compete in women’s athletics.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) introduces an amendment to the COVID relief bill about … trans athletes in sports?

"Under this amendment, educational institutions would prohibit from receiving funding if by biological males are allowed to compete in women's athletics." pic.twitter.com/p4wawhHI7Z

— The Recount (@therecount) March 6, 2021

It’s the sort of contribution—off-topic, retrograde—you would expect from Tuberville, a former college football coach who during his 2020 campaign once misidentified the three branches of government. But Tuberville was hardly off on an island here. His amendment was supported by all but one Senate Republican (that would be Lisa Murkowski of Alaska), plus Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat. It needed 60 votes for passage, but passage wasn’t really the point.

As my colleague Abigail Weinberg has noted, attacking trans athletes has increasingly become a core part of national Republicans’ messaging. In response to the House’s recent passage of the Equality Act, which bars discrimination on sexual orientation and identity, conservatives on Capitol Hill warned that, in the words of one California congressman, it “destroys women’s sports and renders parents powerless to protect their own children.”

Tuberville’s stunt drew sharp pushback from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “For the love of God,” she said in a floor speech. “Can’t we just have a little bit of heart and compassion in this world for someone who doesn’t look or live exactly like you?”

“For the love of god, can’t we just have a little bit of heart and compassion in this world for someone who doesn't look or live exactly like you? Instead of focusing on discriminatory policies, we should be examining the REAL issues with gender parity in sports.” –@PattyMurray pic.twitter.com/GL8fIdxa75

— The Leadership Conference (@civilrightsorg) March 6, 2021

In their effort to pass a $1.9 trillion stimulus, senators are getting hung up on unemployment benefits.

The stimulus bill passed in the House would increase weekly unemployment payments from $300 to $400 and extend their duration through August. (They’re currently set to lapse on March 14.) But Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), a crucial vote in a divided Senate, opposes higher unemployment payments. So Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) came up with a compromise: Keep the payments at $300, extend them through September, and make the first $10,200 in benefits nontaxable.

Sounds great, right? Not so fast.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) had another idea, which Manchin seems to be considering: Ditch the tax break, keep the payments at $300, and halt the payments at the end of July. Either amendment would require the House to pass the bill again, and progressives in the chamber might not want to approve Portman’s changes. But the clock is ticking—again, current unemployment benefits lapse on the 14th.

Naturally, this unemployment negotiation, and the necessity of winning over Manchin, has stalled the Senate for five hours and counting.

This post was brought to you by the Mother Jones Daily newsletter, which hits inboxes every weekday and is written by Inae Oh and Abigail Weinberg. It regularly features guest contributions by our much smarter colleagues. Sign up for it here.

Supporters of US President Donald Trump clash with the US Capitol police during a riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty

When most Senate Republicans voted to acquit former President Donald Trump of inciting the deadly riot at the US Capitol on January 6, a few offered a different avenue for justice: the courts. On Friday, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who served as one of the impeachment managers, filed suit in federal court in DC to answer that call and hold Trump and three close associates accountable for the attack.

The complaint itself quotes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement that Trump is “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day” and that “[w]e have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.” Other Republicans echoed this sentiment.

Philip Andonian, a DC-based attorney and one of the lawyers who filed the case, tells me they’re taking action because Trump “has not been held officially liable… A federal judge saying that would be a very powerful and necessary statement.”

The new lawsuit takes aim at four individuals—former president Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., his attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)—alleging that they violated federal civil rights law and local DC laws by inciting the insurrection. “The horrific events of January 6 were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the Defendants’ unlawful actions,” the complaint states. “As such, the Defendants are responsible for the injury and destruction that followed.”

It claims the group conspired to violate the civil rights of members of Congress gathered to do their official duty in certifying the November election. “We’ve alleged the conspiracy to interfere with Congress’ certification vote,” says  Andonian. “That much is, in our view, crystal clear.” 

This particular allegation is similar to those in another lawsuit recently brought against Trump and Giuliani, as well as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers—two of the violent groups involved in the riot—by the NAACP on behalf of Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS). While Thompson’s case includes those who perpetrated the violence on January 6, Swalwell’s case focuses more on the allegations of conspiracy among Trump’s inner circle. Andonian says not including those who partook in the actual violence is not weakness in the case. “As a general matter of conspiracy liability, if you form an illegal agreement and it’s carried out and things happen in the course of carrying it out that are reasonably foreseeable, then you’re on the hook for it even if you didn’t do it,” he says.

Friday’s case also charges Trump, Trump Jr., Giuliani, and Brooks under local DC laws against inciting rioting and terrorism. “We also think it’s equally clear that what these four defendants in particular did at the rally was directly incite the violence right before it happened,” says Andonian. “And that is unlawful.”

Mother Jones illustration; Getty; Unsplash

A good night out used to mean draping a silver chain around my neck, tending to the melodrama of a friend spotting their crush at the club, and finishing perched over a taco stand in downtown Los Angeles. Those nights are sadly gone. Now the signs of a pandemic pleasant evening reside in the digital sphere—in group chat and DMs—where my friends and I fire off messages about the elaborate dinner parties we wish we could throw. More often than not, we dwell on what we should have for dessert. In recent months we’ve become increasingly obsessed with a certain genre of heavily adorned, pastel-colored cakes.

The first time I saw this style of cake was when my friend Maddie sent me block.them’s Instagram page. A Chicago-based cake account, the page features cakes overloaded with fig halves, kumquats, ruby pomegranate jewels, yellow and pink dragon fruit, sprigs of rosemary and red roses. In the caption of one particular delight, the baker Ken Folk says the inside contains a vanilla-and-black-pepper base with a “tamarind cream cheese frosting.” I was smitten.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ken folk (@block.them)

@block.them isn’t the only baker working toward extreme adornment. Since the beginning of the pandemic, dozens of unconventional cake accounts have spawned over Instagram, from @nommel_gobble’s drippy watercolor cakes dressed with flowers and unusual plants to @eatnunchi’s dreamy translucent jelly cakes (which take on transcendent shapes like that of a snail or an ear of corn) to @dreamcaketestkitchen’s carefully fruit polka dotted cake mounds.

But what do we call them? How do we categorize them? One friend of mine, Caitlan, suggested these were of the “soft core” variety. Another friend said they’re “internet cakes.” Earlier in the pandemic, the New York Times wondered if these cakes might be classified in the woodsy goblincore or the pastoral utopia cottagecore aesthetic. In many ways, these desserts follow in a long line of queer food culture, questioning what a cake is and can be. Just look at the gilded grotesque dinner parties put on in the past by New York–based queer food collective @spiral_theory_testkitchen for reference. One of the test kitchen’s co-founders and chefs, poet Precious Okoyomon, told Vogue, “When people taste our food, they’re like, ‘What the fuck is in my mouth?’”

Since we’ve been at home, we’ve graduated beyond growing scallions in our windowsills and dabbling in sourdough starter. The pandemic has ushered in a new kind of play and abstraction in the kitchen, a ripe ground for spontaneity and surprise in a time when the days all start to blend together.

View this post on Instagram

Were she alive today, I think Susan Sontag would say these cakes demonstrate the epitome of camp. In her 1964 essay “Notes on Camp,” the philosopher and critic argued that camp art lies in the intense juxtaposition between “extravagant” and “rich form.” It must, in part, contain a fiction; it is a “vision of the world in terms of style…the love of the exaggerated.” These desserts are “cakes” in quotations marks in the best way.

Now in the absence of physical queer gathering spaces—the club, dinner party, community center, cafe—this genre of sweet delight has become a salient terrain for celebration and exploration for me and my friends. It isn’t just about the cakes themselves, it’s about the weird artistic community they foster, their inherent connection with botany and the natural world, and their insistence on play and imperfection. I dream one day of foraging through my neighborhood with my friends, collecting fresh figs and lavender flowers, dehydrating, emulsifying, brûlée-ing. I look forward to the disaster of baking, of making a messy cake mound and trying hopelessly to catch it in its best light. Those days still feel and are far away. But until then, we have the cake—in all its dreamy forms—as our disco.

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the baker @block.them. They are based in Chicago.

Image credits: Brooke Lark/Unsplash, Holly Stratton/Unsplash, American Heritage Chocolate/Unsplash, May Lawrence/Unsplash; Getty

Terry Miller (center) was one of two transgender sprinters sued last year for participating in the women's division.Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media/AP

Mississippi legislators on Wednesday sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would bar trans girls from playing on girls sports teams. If Gov. Tate Reeves signs the bill, Mississippi would be the only state in the country with such a ban in effect, though 25 other states are considering similar legislation. 

Though the Mississippi proposal isn’t explicit about how it’d be enforced, other states’ bills call for athletes to undergo blood tests and examinations of primary and secondary sexual organs to prove they belong on the women’s team. Not only is this discriminatory against trans athletes, advocates say it could lead to invasive genital exams being forced upon any female athlete who doesn’t look “feminine” enough. 

Gillian Branstetter, media manager for the National Women’s Law Center, says cisgender women with naturally higher testosterone levels could be targeted (case in point: Caster Semenya). Tall women could be targeted. Black and Brown women who don’t fall within the western aesthetic of femininity could be targeted. “It’s all in the name of hurting trans people for a perceived political gain,” Branstetter says. But “there is no crisis that these bills are seeking to address.”

Proponents of these bills—namely Republican lawmakers and advocacy groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom—argue that trans girls are likely to be stronger or faster than their cisgender peers. A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in December found that, among elite athletes, trans women maintain an athletic edge for up to two years after medically transitioning. But the study’s author, a pediatrician from Missouri named Dr. Timothy Roberts, is the first to say lawmakers shouldn’t use his study to justify bullying trans kids.

“I’m definitely coming out and saying, ‘Hey, this doesn’t apply to recreational athletes, doesn’t apply to youth athletics,'” he told NBC News.

But science aside, the Mississippi bill is entirely hypothetical: There is no evidence that cisgender girls in Mississippi are facing obstacles in sports due to the presence of trans athletes. In fact, the lawmakers that are sounding the alarm on the issue don’t appear to have any idea how many trans student athletes are competing in the state. The Associated Press recently reached out to two dozen lawmakers across the country who had sponsored similar bills and found that, of those who responded to their query, the vast majority couldn’t cite a single example of a trans girl causing problems in women’s athletics. From the AP:

[Lawmakers] in places like Mississippi and Montana largely brushed aside the question or pointed to a pair of runners in Connecticut. Between 2017 and 2019, transgender sprinters Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood combined to win 15 championship races, prompting a lawsuit.

Supporters of transgender rights say the Connecticut case gets so much attention from conservatives because it’s the only example of its kind.

Cathryn Oakley, the Human Rights Campaign’s state legislative director and senior counsel, says these bills are really about one thing: hate. “These bills are about discrimination, that is all that they are about,” she says. “They are not about addressing a real problem. They are not about trying to create a real solution. What they are doing is creating a problem and harming trans kids in the process.”

Tom Williams/ZUMA

On Wednesday, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co.) appeared on Steve Bannon’s show to fear-monger about the Equality Act. Or, in her words: “The so-called Equality Act.” For Boebert the name was a “play on words.” Because, she said, “there is nothing about equality in that act! If anything, it’s supremacy—of gays, lesbians, and—uh.” Boebert then pauses before saying a slur for transgender people.

In which Lauren Boebert makes up the word "transvexhikes" pic.twitter.com/HbOhw7hNSw

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 3, 2021

Boebert here is dim. She is railing against a piece of legislation that, if passed, would amend civil rights laws to extend protections for LGBTQ+ people in all sorts of sectors. My colleague Abigail Weinberg explained the details:

[It will] ensure protections for LGBTQ people in areas including housing, employment, and “public accommodations” such as retail stores. Proponents call it a necessary extension of the Civil Rights Act, while opponents have argued that the bill would infringe on religious rights.

This is not a “play on words.” And so-called culture war battles aren’t severed from the real, material conditions of our lives. The case of trans rights makes this obvious. My colleague Laura Thompson has detailed that in reporting on Trump’s transgender military ban and how even children aren’t safe from the GOP’s war on LGTBQ+ people.

Boebert is parading as anti-woke by using a slur in a half giggle. She knows what she’s saying is hurtful, it seems; she pauses before saying the word and then squeaks it out. The other explanation, maybe, for the pause is that saying “transgender” has been so normalized to such a degree that it’s hard to even recall how to be offensive. Still, she pulls it off.

James D. DeCamp/Zuma

Donald Trump wasn’t inaugurated on January 20. Joe Biden was. While that should have quelled the belief of QAnon conspiracy theorists that Trump would rein supreme for another term, deluded hope finds ways to live on.

And that’s why some Q devotees still seem to believe Trump will be sworn in as the 19th president in March 4, the date that a president’s term began prior to 1933, when passage of the 20th amendment shortened the lame duck period and made January 20 Inauguration Day. (March 4, interestingly, is also the date Facebook chose to lift its ban on political advertising.)

It seemed there was less support for the March 4 conspiracy theory than for the January 6 insurrection. The House Sergeant-at-Arms said in a security bulletin on Monday that Capitol Police had “no indication that groups will travel to Washington D.C. to protest or commit acts of violence,” according to DCist.

But the threat is serious enough that Capitol Police announced today that they will be bolstering security on Thursday because of a “possible plot to breach the Capitol by an identified militia group.” Notably, the House is scrapping its plans for a Thursday session and moving its scheduled votes up to this evening.

These actions don’t seem entirely unfounded. I called the Trump Hotel in DC and asked why room rates were so much higher on March 4 than on subsequent days. The receptionist said simply that rates are based on occupancy: “The higher the occupancy, the higher the rates go.”

For what it’s worth, the National Guard remains deployed in DC, and the Senate will be going about its business as planned.

AP

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday said that he would not step down amid calls for his resignation after three women have come forward with sexual harassment allegations against him.

“I will not step down,” Cuomo told reporters in his first press conference since the allegations surfaced. “I work for the people of the State of New York. They elected me and I’m going to serve.”

Addressing the claims, Cuomo repeatedly apologized for making his accusers feel uncomfortable or hurt by his actions. But he vehemently denied ever touching anyone inappropriately and urged people to wait for the results of the state’s independent investigation into the allegations before making a judgment. “This is what I want you to know: I never touched anyone inappropriately,” Cuomo said. “I never touched anyone inappropriately. I never knew at the time that I was making anyone feel uncomfortable and I certainly never meant to offend anyone or hurt anyone or cause anyone any pain.”

Cuomo continued by characterizing some of his behavior, which includes kissing and hugging his greeters, as “customary” for him. That comes after Anna Ruch, a former Obama administration member, told the New York Times on Monday that Cuomo, at a September 2019 wedding where they first met, touched her back before grabbing her face to ask if he could kiss her. A friend captured the moment in a cell phone photo.

“You can find hundreds of pictures of me making the same gesture with hundreds of people,” Cuomo continued. “Women, men, children. You can go find hundreds of pictures of me kissing people. It’s my usual and customary way of greeting.” Cuomo declined to answer when asked if he expected more accusers to come forward but said that he would continue to apologize. 

The New York governor notably did not address charges that he covered up data on the state’s nursing home deaths from the coronavirus—a scandal that preceded the current crisis over the sexual harassment allegations against him. 

Doug Mills/Zumapress

President Biden has struck a deal with Senate Democrats to tighten the income threshold for the proposed $1,400 stimulus checks, as his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill faces opposition in the Senate, and amid a push to pass the legislation before March 14—when several key pieces of December’s stimulus, including extended unemployment benefits, are set to expire.

Several news outlets report that the new limits won’t change who is eligible for the full $1,400: individual filers earning up to $75,000 and joint filers earning up to $150,000 would still receive full checks. However, eligibility will tap out at much lower amounts than originally proposed: Individuals making more than $80,000 won’t receive anything, nor will joint filers with incomes in excess of $160,000. The bill passed by House Democrats last week contained higher cut-offs, with incrementally smaller payments for individuals earning between $75,000 and $100,000—and between $150,000 and $200,000 for couples. 

The deal comes after weeks of back and forth about whether to lower the thresholds, and by how much. Last month, Republicans proposed shrinking the limits to $50,000 in annual income for individuals and $100,000 for couples filing jointly.

As Democrats debated the stimulus bill, several progressive members of the party voiced opposition to lower cutoffs. “These income thresholds need to stay the same,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal told CNN. Now that the bill is in the Senate, however, Democrats must contend with tougher math in order to pass the package without Republican support.

Democrats hold 50 seats, with Vice President Kamala Harris as a potential tie-breaker—the slimmest of majorities. Barring any help from Republicans, Democrats will require unanimous intra-party support to pass the package. This math has empowered moderate Democrats, namely Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has been a key voice pushing to lower the income thresholds to more narrowly target relief money to those who most need it. Manchin met with the White House about this proposal on Monday.