What A Day: What Gosaround, comes around

While House Republicans contemplate how best to undermine Democrats’ high-profile investigation of the January 6 insurrection, yet another vocal GOP election denier has sullied the party’s impeccable honor with his ties to racist extremism. What are the odds?
 

• House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has declined to say whether he intends to seat Republicans on the newly announced January 6 select committee, but in the meantime, some of the House’s biggest MAGA dipshits have begun angling for spots on the panel to sabotage the investigation from the inside. While McCarthy will have input on five of the 13 appointments, if he opts to participate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has the final say on who makes the cut.
   
• As even the House Republicans who supported Donald Trump’s second impeachment prepare to vote against the creation of the committee because it’s more partisan than the independent commission that their own leadership torpedoed, one of the caucus’s most pro-sedition members has been hard at work boosting the GOP’s outreach to white nationalists. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is once again slated to speak alongside white-supremacist Nick Fuentes at a fundraiser, after the two appeared together at an America First PAC event back in February.
   
• Gosar defended his renewed alliance with Fuentes—who has endorsed segregation and called the insurrection “awesome”—by invoking the Different Strokes Doctrine: “Not sure why anyone is freaking out. I’ll say this: there are millions of Gen Z, Y and X conservatives...They will not agree 100% on every issue. No group does.” Conservatism’s a big tent! C’mon in, Holocaust deniers! McCarthy and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise have of course pledged to strip Gosar of his committee assignments mumbled that they don’t know anything about it.

After all, it’s not like Gosar stepped over some sort of uncrossable line like “agreeing to investigate an attack on Congress” or “talking to Joe Biden.”
 

• Fresh off of his unfortunate return to the Big Lie Rally Circuit, Trump has released a statement berating Republican senators for negotiating an infrastructure deal with the White House (and needling Addison “Mitch” McConnell for losing the Senate, natch)—another big dent in the bipartisan bill’s chances of passing. And as Trump aggressively campaigns against Republicans who challenged his election lies, a far-right super PAC has dumped $300,000 into recent ads attacking Republican lawmakers who supported a bipartisan January 6 commission. 
   
• The GOP’s adherence to Trump’s lies might be exciting his racist base, but it doesn’t seem to be playing well with key voters. A new poll found that roughly half of Arizona voters oppose Maricopa County’s audit-shaped clusterfuck, and that the independent voters who decide Arizona elections oppose it by an 18 point margin. They’ll have to foot the bill anyway: County officials notified Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs on Monday that they will throw out and replace all of the voting machines that wound up in the custody of Cyber Ninjas.

It’s no coincidence that House Republicans would rather rail against schools teaching kids about American racism than investigate the racism-fueled attack on their institution, or hold their own extremist-adjacent members to account. Top Republicans don’t have to actively spew hatred to speed (and benefit from) the party’s radicalization: They can just leave the door wide open for those who do.

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The thing to know right up top is, if you are fully vaccinated, you are—with the possible exception of some immunocompromised individuals—well-protected against the Delta coronavirus variant. That said, its rapid climb to the top of the U.S. coronavirus charts may necessitate some extra caution. Los Angeles County health officials have reinstated a mask recommendation for indoor spaces, after the WHO urged fully vaccinated people to continue masking as the more contagious Delta variant spreads. The variant has now been identified in at least 85 countries, and prompted new lockdowns in Asia and Australia. It’s also heightened concerns about potential outbreaks in unvaccinated pockets of the U.S., so hopefully the same folks who refuse to take the Bill Gates Mind Control Vaccine will see the wisdom in wearing a mask for a few more months.

Twelve GOP-led states still refuse to expand Medicaid through the ACA, even with supplemented financial incentives included in the American Rescue Plan, and sometimes in spite of voters passing ballot initiatives to do so. Democrats haven’t yet reached a consensus on when and how the federal government should intervene. Some Democratic House members from holdout states are pushing Congress to pass Medicaid expansion legislation to fix the coverage gap, but spending billions to make up for the failings of GOP governors and legislatures doesn’t have the political appeal of, say, expanding Medicare. The “how” is also tricky: Health-policy aides in Congress are studying how legislators could either expand Medicaid or subsidize private coverage in those 12 states, without giving states that have already expanded Medicaid an incentive to switch to a new federal program.

It's time to fully fund true community safety and health in Black communities that helps bring the era of racist and violent policing to an end. Are you with the ACLU?

Our country needs to re-examine public safety to save Black lives and reduce racist police violence – and the critical solutions to do so are straightforward: from training civilian professionals as first responders in mental health crises to dealing with low-level offenses through tickets instead of force, arrests, and preventable death. Sign the ACLU's petition and urge President Biden to use the power and purse strings of the federal government to make sure these proven alternatives are embraced by every city across America. 

We know that real justice will only be achieved when no more Black lives are harmed or taken by the police – and the ACLU will fight to make sure that day comes. Click here to add your name today to join the fight.

The House has passed a bill to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol. 

Fair Fight Action has launched a new website to help Georgia voters check if they’re about to be purged from the rolls.

New Jersey has agreed to adopt several major policy changes to help protect trans, intersex, and nonbinary people in its prisons.

Kataluna Enriquez will become the first openly transgender Miss USA contestant.