Welcome to Monday, April 12th, singles and duos...

GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz is facing calls to resign - including from his own party - amid a federal probe into allegations that the Florida lawmaker was involved in sex trafficking.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tweeted that Gaetz, who has not been charged with any crime, needs to step down. Kinzinger linked to a story from The Daily Beast, who revealed that Gaetz, in 2018, paid an accused sex trafficker who later sent the same amount of cash to teen girls.

Gaetz sent two Venmo transactions - amounting to $900 - to accused sex trafficker Joel Greenberg. The first transaction was labeled “Test," the second transaction “hit up _____,” with the alleged nickname of the teen girl. 

Greenberg later made Venmo payments to three girls labeled “Tuition,” “School,” and “School" which totaled $900. (Gaetz’s once-public list of Venmo transactions disappeared during the course of reporting this story.)

“I may be a canceled man in some corners,” Gaetz tweeted on Saturday. “I may even be a wanted man by the Deep State. But I hear the millions of Americans who feel forgotten, canceled, ignored, marginalized and targeted.”

Does Rep. Gaetz need to resign?

Commission to Explore SCOTUS Expansion

Biden has signed an executive order to form a commission that will analyze the merits and legality of proposals to expand or otherwise reform the Supreme Court.

The 36-member “Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States” includes former federal judges, lawyers who’ve argued before the Court, in addition to reform advocates.

The White House explained the commission’s purview in its press release:

“The topics it will examine include the genesis of the reform debate; the Court’s role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court’s case selection, rules, and practices.”

Last week, Justice Stephen Breyer spoke for two hours at Harvard Law School to warn against court packing efforts and said he hoped to “make those whose instincts may favor important structural change or other similar institutional change, such as forms of ‘court-packing,’ think long and hard before they embody those changes in law.” 

Do you support or oppose expanding the Supreme Court?

Historic Levels of Illegal Border Crossings

Federal agencies encountered 172,300 people at the southern border in March 2021, the highest level since at least October 2012 and more than 10 times the number recorded in April 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic began in earnest.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 18,890 unaccompanied minors were apprehended in March 2021, an all-time high that surpassed the previous highs of 11,861 in May 2019; 10,620 in June 2014; and 9,431 in February 2021 as this USAFacts chart shows:

Are you concerned about the rise in border apprehensions?

All The Memes Fit To Post
 

And, In The End...

Eyes to the skies for International Day of Human Space Flight.

On this date in 1961, Soviet Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin became first person to orbit the Earth.

Moment of reflection for all the animals that went before Gagarin,

—Josh Herman

Talk to us via email at editorial [at] causes.com. And don’t forget to keep in touch @Causes.