Charge Greg Abbott for blocking rescuers from saving drowning migrants!

Daily Dose of Democracy:

Democrats score huge win in deep-red Florida
In a very encouraging sign for what's to come in November, the first special election of the year was a resounding success for Democrats. Tom Keen defeated Republican Erika Booth for Florida State House District 35, a huge surprise given that the county had voted for its last Republican state rep and Gov. Ron DeSantis by double-digit margins. Let this be the first in a year of many victories for the Democratic Party and our democracy!

Take Action: Demand the Justice Department harshly prosecute voter intimidation!

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Trump gets nightmare news out of Iowa caucus
Yeah, he may have won big on a historically freezing primary Iowa caucus. But it's what voters told the exit pollsters that should have the serially indicted grifter deeply worried.

Take Action: Demand Clarence Thomas recuse himself in Trump's disqualification case!

Corporate jagoffs have no place in Congress
Chris Deluzio for Congress: Chris is running for reelection in one of the most competitive districts in the nation. His GOP extremist opponents have sided with corporate jagoffs over the American people. We can't let them win. Will you chip in today to flip the House blue and get America back on track?

School voucher supporter gave Texas Gov. Greg Abbott $6 million in December
Billionaire finance vampire Jeff Yass, a huge supporter of dismantling our public schools and replacing them with taxpayer-funded for-profit charters, dumped a staggering six MILLION dollars — the largest campaign donation in state history — into Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's war chest. We'll give you one guess what he wants in return for it. It is lunacy that we let obscenely wealthy, right-wing extremists use their play money to radically shape public policy to suit their own perverse, regressive agendas.

Take Action: Stop right-wing billionaires from taking over the government!

Moms for Liberty activists starting taxpayer-funded MAGA charter school
A group of the most uptight and deranged parents in America have taken it upon themselves to start a school that will teach "the red [MAGA] hat in textbook form." Their curriculum will surely get to the well-done heart of Trump and his MAGA movement, so we can safely predict elective offerings like "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Liars," "Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo: Painting with the Condiments," "Sexual Assault Allegation Defense 101," and "Rethinking Adolf Hitler."

Take Action: End abortion bans ASAP!

Lawmakers announce deal to expand child tax credit and extend business tax breaks
President Biden's historic 2021-2022 expansion of the child tax credit in 2021's American Rescue Plan HALVED child poverty in the United States — so of course, conservatives refused to extend it after the measure expired with the rest of the pandemic social safety net measures, with predictably devastating results. Now Democrats — and a few Republicans, for now — have a new plan that would help some 15 MILLION kids — so of course certain members of the supposed party of FaMiLy VaLuEs don't want to pass it. Doing so might look like a political win for President Biden, and we certainly can't have that in an election year! The situation isn't entirely hopeless, though. There are also some tax breaks for business thrown in to entice enough members of the GOP to get on board with doing the right thing for millions of kids. Time will tell.

Senate votes against Sanders resolution to force human rights scrutiny over Israel aid
US senators rejected a measure, introduced by Bernie Sanders, that would have made ongoing military aid to Israel conditional on whether Netanyahu's government is violating human rights and international accords in its devastating war in Gaza. Although Sanders’ attempt to compel the US State Department to produce a report on human rights violations committed by the Israeli military with the billions of dollars in American military aid they receive was easily defeated 72-11, it was a notable test that reflected growing unease among Democrats over blanket US support for Israel. Sanders, who is Jewish, has been a leading voice among progressives who have expressed growing dismay over Israel’s inexcusable carpet bombing of Gaza, following the Hamas terror attacks on October 7. The IDF bombardment, now in its fourth month, has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents, killed more than 24,000 Palestinians — including over 10,000 children, and utterly flattened one of the most densely populated regions in the world.

Surprise aspect of Trump's disqualification SURGES into spotlight
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: Wow.

Nikki Haley claims the US has "never been a racist country"
Presidential long-shot Nikki Haley has claimed with a straight face that the US has "never been a racist country" as she dismissed the suggestion that she would struggle to win over legions of MAGA voters and somehow topple Donald Trump as a woman of color. 400 years of chattel slavery? Not racist! Reductive arguments about the Confederacy, Confederate statues, the Confederate flag, and how the South will supposedly rise again? Not racist! The KKK and more than a century of documented lynchings? Not racist! Separate but equal? Definitely not racist! The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.? Not even remotely racist! Decades of catastrophic redlining? Nope, sorry, not racist. Racist, white supremacists openly espousing racist, white supremacist views on television, the internet, radio airwaves, and in legislative chambers literally every day? Nope. Definitely not racist. Good luck with that sales pitch, Nikki.

Israel Education Ministry withdraws funding of Jewish event over Arab-Israeli host
The Netanyahu government has pulled out of an event to celebrate a "progressive and pluralist Judaism" all because the host is Arab-Israeli. "We live in a Jewish State and as the Wing of Jewish Culture, it makes sense that a woman who represents mixed marriage cannot represent Jewish culture," said the ministry about journalist and host Lucy Aharish, who is married to a Jewish actor. It's the latest outrage from the extremist right-wing Netanyahu government, which doesn't seem to be too concerned with rebutting the charges that it is maintaining an apartheid state.

Canadian arrested for starting wildfires he blamed on government conspiracy
Canada's historic, climate-change-driven wildfire season last year was helped along by Brian Paré, a right-wing crank who accused the government of starting wildfires to push the liberal climate change agenda. Turns out at least a dozen of those blazes were started by Brian himself, who claimed that he was just "doing tests to find out whether the forest was really dry or not." Well, guess what, Brian? It was really, really dry. Paré set hundreds of acres ablaze and forced hundreds of people to evacuate their homes. Let's hope the judge throws the book at him...a book on climate science that he can read while he's in prison.