Crooked Media - What A Day: High-Breyer act

Heads up: There will be no What A Day email on Friday (tomorrow). See you back in the inbox on Monday, May 10.

Sure, the GOP election-rigging effort has racked up another victory, a Republican House leader is about to be forced out for challenging the Big Lie, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced that obstruction is the name of the game. But why are Democrats so opposed to bipartisanship?
 

• Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed Florida’s new voter-suppression measures into law on Thursday during an appearance on Fox and Friends, as one does. No local media outlets were allowed into the signing event. You wouldn’t think a closed-door anti-voting law signing ceremony could get much shadier than the arrest of a state legislator trying to bear witness, but credit to DeSantis, he will find a way to be the worst.
   
• A coalition of civil-right groups that includes the League of Women Voters of Florida and the Black Voters Matter Fund filed a legal challenge immediately. The lawsuit targets provisions that would limit ballot drop boxes, require voters to request mail-in ballots more frequently, and restrict volunteers from returning completed ballots on behalf of voters. A second lawsuit filed by the NAACP and other groups argued that the law will disproportionately harm voters of color and disabled voters.
   
• Texas Republicans are hustling to go next, in spite of pushback from HP, Microsoft, Unilever, and other major corporations that joined forces with local businesses and chambers of commerce. Texas’s H.B. 6, which would functionally authorize a voter intimidation army, was poised to pass a House floor vote just hours after Florida’s new restrictions became law.

Meanwhile, down in the fake fraud mines:
 

• The Justice Department has written to Arizona’s Republican Senate President Karen Fann to express concerns about the chaotic GOP-backed election audit in Maricopa County. Ballots and voting systems were removed from the custody of election officials—a potential violation of federal law—and handed over to the profoundly unqualified contractor Cyber Ninjas, which has been just...leaving those things laying around. (When it’s not putting them under UV lights, for no clear reason.) Cyber Ninjas also said it would be knocking on doors to “confirm” voter registration addresses, which, the DOJ wrote, sounds a bit like illegal voter intimidation. 
   
• Lest anyone think Republicans have been solely focused on stealing the next election, Mitch McConnell offered a Wednesday reminder that they’re also working very hard to block President Biden’s agenda: “One hundred percent of my focus is on standing up to this administration.” In response, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has of course changed his mind about the filibuster and apologized for his hubris stuffed his fingers in his ears: “I can assure you there are Republicans working with Democrats.”

It’s a bad cocktail that could bring a permanent hangover: Democrats will be at a considerable disadvantage in the 2022 midterms, and if our broken electoral system costs them the House, they may not get another chance to fix it. S1 or we really are fucked.

In the latest Hysteria episode, comedian, activist and step-mom Lindy West joins Erin Ryan, Alyssa Mastromonaco, and an all-female panel to talk about the different paths to motherhood, reasons why women choose not to have kids, and how we can celebrate all the maternal relationships in our lives. Check it out and subscribe to Hysteria wherever you listen to podcasts →  

The Biden administration has come out in support of waiving intellectual-property protections for coronavirus vaccines (woo!), but there are still several hurdles to clear before developing countries start seeing more doses. All members of the World Trade Organization must unanimously decide to relax the patent rules, meaning the U.S. will now need to bring other wealthy nations on board. Germany has sided with pharmaceutical companies in opposing the plan, and there are a few other holdouts that could slow down a consensus. The waiver alone won’t do the trick: Rich countries will also need to invest in vaccine manufacturing in low-income countries, and a waiver won’t solve the problems of raw material shortages or a lack of supply shortages. In other words, the decision won’t mean a sudden flood of vaccines into countries like India, but it’s an important first step.

• Two students and a custodian were wounded in a shooting at an Idaho middle school on Thursday, all with non-life-threatening injuries. Authorities have taken a suspect into custody.
   
• The Federal Election Commission voted unanimously to recommend that Congress ban political campaigns from using pre-checked boxes to tricking supporters into recurring donations, after the Trump campaign used that tactic repeatedly.
   
• The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate received nearly 3000 new reports of anti-Asian racism in the month of March alone. There were at least four unprovoked attacks on Asian people across the U.S. in the past week, including two older Asian American women who were stabbed at a San Francisco bus stop.
   
• The New York attorney general’s office found that the FCC’s proposal to repeal net neutrality drew in nearly 18 million fake comments. A broadband industry group spent $4.2 million to generate about 8.5 million fake pro-repeal comments, while a single California college student submitted more than 7.7 million comments in favor of net neutrality.
   
• South Carolina lawmakers have voted to allow execution by firing squad, which does not seem like a step in the best direction. 
   
• Pfizer will provide vaccines for Olympic athletes at the Tokyo Games, which are still scheduled to happen this summer. On the one hand, there is an ongoing pandemic! On the other hand, Canada already bought jean jackets. 
   
• A large chunk of a Chinese rocket will be hurtling back to the Earth this weekend, and nobody’s quite sure where it’ll land. Best of luck! <3
   
• An Ohio state senator was caught driving during a government video call, on the same day lawmakers were considering a distracted-driving bill. Come for the poor timing, stay for the attempted cover-up (living room Zoom background betrayed by unmistakeable seatbelt).
   
• Polls close soon, but if you are in line to vote for What A Day at the Webby Awards, stay in line.

A number of senior Democrats have said they’re scared to pressure Justice Stephen Breyer (age 82) to retire, out of concern that it might backfire. Last month, Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) publicly called on Breyer to step down, citing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death as a valuable cautionary tale: “My goodness, have we not learned our lesson?” But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and other Democrats have suggested that pressure might prompt Breyer, who’s adamant about keeping (sorry, “keeping”) the Supreme Court free of political influence, to dig in his heels and serve past the midterms. Then there’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) (age 87), who thinks Breyer’s retirement would be a “great loss.” If and when Breyer does step down, progressives have their eye on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson—a former clerk of Breyer’s—to replace him.

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Two new studies found the Pfizer vaccine to be extremely effective at protecting against the coronavirus variants first identified in South Africa and the U.K.

San Francisco will redirect $3.75 million from the city’s police budget to organizations supporting Black small business and entrepreneurs. 

New York City will launch a $25 million program that will give money to artists and performers to create public works across the city. 

Laurel Hubbard, a New Zealand weightlifter, is set to become the first transgender athlete to compete in the Olympics.