-Gov. Jim Justice (R-WV), during his State of the State address

With GOP attacks on voting access and election procedures left up to the states to deflect or endure, some Democrats have begun quietly working on one of the few key democracy reforms they might have the votes for: Coup-proofing the Electoral College.
 

• A right-leaning Pennsylvania appeals court on Friday struck down the state’s law allowing all Pennsylvanians to vote by mail without an excuse as unconstitutional, siding with the 14 GOP Republicans who challenged the law last year. Eleven of those 14 Republicans voted for the election law when it passed in 2019 with overwhelming bipartisan support, pretending to find issue with it only after Donald Trump started rolling out his 2020 voter fraud lies. 
   
• That ruling is awful and offensive, but it’s not likely to stand. Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA) promptly filed an appeal to the state Supreme Court, which has a Democratic majority and has repeatedly sided with Pennsylvania on voting issues both before and after the 2020 election. The filing triggered an automatic stay of the decision, so mail-in voting will remain legal while the appeal plays out. 
   
• Not every swing state is so fortunate. A new data analysis from Mother Jones found that the sweeping voter-suppression law that Georgia’s GOP-controlled legislature passed last year has been functioning exactly as designed. During municipal elections in November 2021, Georgia voters were 45 times more likely to have their mail-in-ballot applications rejected and not vote as a result than in 2020. If Georgia had seen the same rejection rate in 2020, more than 38,000 ballots would have gone uncast in a presidential race that was decided by just over 11,000 votes. Additionally, Georgians who managed to get mail-in ballots in 2021 were twice as likely to have those ballots rejected.

Even if Democratic voters overcome suppression efforts in 2024, the election could still be ripe for the stealing without some new guardrails.
 

• A bipartisan group of 16 senators has been meeting to discuss reforms to the byzantine, ambiguously worded Electoral Count Act, reportedly with the behind-the-scenes encouragement of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer had previously (and rightly) called that goal “unacceptably insufficient" compared to Democrats’ broader elections package, but that package has met an untimely end and the Electoral Count Act is still full of rakes just waiting to be stepped on.
   
• A new paper by an election-law specialist outlined how easily Donald Trump might be able to subvert the next election if Congress doesn’t revise the ECA. In certain improbable-but-conceivable nightmare scenarios, all it would take is a single Trumpified GOP governor who’s willing to send fake electors, and a GOP-controlled House willing to count them. We know that Trump allies will seek to exploit the Electoral College’s oddities because they’ve already tried: On Friday, the January 6 committee subpoenaed 14 Republicans who served on fake slates of Trump electors in seven states, as part of that scheme.

When Donald Trump narrowly failed to throw out the 2020 election, he gave Republicans and Democrats alike a guided tour of American democracy’s weak spots. In the absence of more sweeping federal reforms, protecting democracy through the next election will mean blocking off as many avenues for subversion as possible.

Tickets for Pod Save America: (A)Live and on Tour are on sale today! Starting this April  Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor, and Dan Pfeiffer travel to cities like Washington D.C., Dallas, Chicago, Boston, and more—and they’ll be joined by inspiring local activists, candidates and politicians. For the full list of dates and to get tickets, visit Crooked.com/events.

A snow-covered Pittsburgh bridge collapsed on Friday morning, injuring 10 people just hours before President Biden’s scheduled visit to the city to talk about infrastructure. Four people were hospitalized, but none of the injuries were life-threatening, according to authorities. “This is a horrible way to underscore just how critical our infrastructure needs are in this country,” Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA) said of the collapse. Biden visited the scene ahead of his speech to promote his $1 trillion infrastructure law, which includes about $1.6 billion for Pennsylvania bridge maintenance. “I didn’t realize there are literally more bridges in Pittsburgh than any other city in the world. More than Venice,” Biden said. “We're going to fix them all. Not a joke, this is going to be a gigantic change.”

• The Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to execute Matthew Reeves by lethal injection, reversing a lower court opinion in a 5-4 vote. Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented along with the three liberals. 
   
• Virginia’s new GOP attorney general ruled that the state’s public colleges can’t enforce COVID-vaccine requirements for students, following a review of the mandate requested by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA). 
   
• A federal judge blocked an executive order from Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) that would have placed new restrictions on obtaining abortion pills. The order was scheduled to go into effect on Thursday.
   
• Lesley Haskell, the wife of Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell, proudly identifies as a white nationalist and uses the N-word on social media. “Happy Insurrection Day, ya filthy patriots!!" she posted on the anniversary of January 6.
   
• The Hungarian government has been quietly working with a lobbying and PR firm stacked with prominent Democrats, including former Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND). 
   
• The National Butterfly Center in South Texas was forced to close due to “credible threats” from a nearby pro-Trump rally focused on border security. QAnon adherents have falsely accused the butterfly sanctuary of being a front for human trafficking. 
   
• Publication dates for two cookbooks were postponed because the books were lost at sea when a storm hit the cargo ship carrying every copy. Don't put all of your cookbooks in one cargo ship, as we have always said, baffling everyone around us until today.
   
• It took a year, but Biden has fulfilled his promise to appoint a White House cat. Congratulations to Willow, a Pennsylvania farm cat with two full years of cat experience. 

The Pentagon on Friday issued an alarming new assessment that Russia has now amassed enough forces along the Ukrainian border to invade the whole country, exacerbating tensions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has asked Western leaders to quit harshing the vibes. "There are signals even from respected leaders of states, they just say that tomorrow there will be war,” Zelensky said just hours earlier. “This is panic—how much does it cost for our state?” During a call with President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his call for “lasting, legally binding security guarantees” from the U.S. and NATO. Diplomatic de-escalation efforts continue: The U.S. will meet with Russia at the United Nations Security Council on Monday, and European diplomats have been meeting in Paris in separate negotiations focused on upholding a 2015 ceasefire agreement in eastern Ukraine.

The cost of higher education has grown exponentially in our country, placing it out of reach for most students and families unless they agree to take on huge amounts of debt. Over 44 million Americans carry more than $1.7 trillion of student debt. This crushing burden is preventing millions from buying homes, starting businesses, saving for retirement, or even starting families: And that reality falls heaviest on communities of color – particularly Black people and especially Black women – as a direct result of systemic racism.

That's why we’re urging the Biden Administration to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt per borrower  – and we need as many people with us as possible. Add your name to our petition to join us in action today.

Centuries of structural inequities and racism have created large barriers in access to education for Black communities. For instance, Black families have far less generational wealth to draw on to pay for college than white families – and as a result, are more likely to take on student loans and struggle with repayment, which is exacerbated by job discrimination and pay disparities. Two decades after taking out student loans, the median Black borrower still owes 95 percent of debt, whereas the median white borrower has paid off 94 percent of debt.

But canceling student debt can help close the racial wealth gap by over 20 percent – securing financial stability and economic mobility for Black, Latinx, and other people of color who are disproportionately burdened by loans, while addressing the debt crisis for millions.

It’s a common-sense solution and there is no reason to wait: Sign our petition telling the Biden administration to cancel $50,000 of student loan debt per eligible borrower now.

Thanks for taking action, 
The ACLU Team

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has directed the Pentagon to step up its efforts to prevent civilian casualties in U.S. airstrikes. 

The Biden administration has revoked a pair of mining leases just a few miles from Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

Scientists at University of California, Santa Barbara say they’ve developed a smartphone-based COVID test kit that’s a 10th of the cost of a PCR test and potentially just as accurate.

More than 30 Starbucks stores across the country have filed for union elections, in a push largely led by young employees.