-DNC Chair Jamie Harrison, accurately, on Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)

As major world powers continue to rally behind Ukraine, the first crack may have emerged in Russia’s defiant posture.
 

• The U.N. General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from its Human Rights Council in response to images depicting tortured and executed civilians in Bucha, a city near Kyiv, and other parts of Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov continued to brazenly deny that Russia has committed war crimes, and firmly rebuffed the idea that President Vladimir Putin would ever see the inside of a war-crimes court, but admitted that Russia has incurred “significant losses of troops” since the invasion in Ukraine began—mark it down as perhaps the first true thing the Russian government has said in almost two months!

• Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba made an impassioned appeal to NATO members to suspend their reservations about providing Ukraine with more weapons, citing the horrors committed in Bucha against defenseless civilians. Allied governments have been apprehensive about increasing arms shipments for fear of triggering an escalatory cycle, and continue to be divided over how much military aid to provide. Kuleba did not mince words, criticizing NATO members’ “hypocritical” distinctions between offensive and defensive weapons.

• In the United States, the House and Senate each passed bills revoking normal trade relations with Russia, and banning Russian oil imports. This marks the first time since the invasion began on February 24 that Congress has sent sanctions to President Biden’s desk, and punctuates three weeks of negotiations in the Senate over legislation to further isolate Russia, after the measures passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House. The legislation codifies the Russian oil embargo that began with President Biden’s Executive Order.

Major players in the international community may have turned their backs, but the Kremlin continues to receive head-scratching support from a small but rather loud clown car minority of elected Republicans. 
 

• In the latest edition of far-right “weird hill to die on, but okay,” six Congressional Republicans voted to oppose a House resolution calling for the collection and preservation of evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine Wednesday night. The six in question are, naturally, a who’s-who of unhinged MAGA devotees: Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Tom Massie (R-KY), Warren Davidson (R-OH) and Scott Perry (R-PA). Yes, the members of Congress most likely to go on the record equating COVID-19 mask mandates to Khmer Rouge tactics took a hard pro-war crimes stance against documenting actual atrocities committed by an actual tyrant. 

• Gosar was also in the news this week (busy guy!) after being listed as a planned “special guest” in promotional materials for an upcoming event held by the neo-Nazi group the American Populist Union on April 20, which is a very special day on the White Nationalist Calendar because it’s [drumroll] Hitler’s birthday. Gosar’s camp now denies that he planned to attend the event, despite having promoted it on his official instagram account. Maybe Putin should look into denazifying the GOP?
   

This week on Hysteria, Erin and Alyssa talk about the Republicans' attempt to stop Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to SCOTUS, the historic Amazon Union vote in New York, Alabama’s mistrust in pregnant women, and more. Plus, Michaela Watkins and Dana Schwartz join to discuss the rise and evolution of cringe culture. New episodes of Hysteria drop every Thursday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

As COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths continue their gradual decline, the collective desire to move on belies one particularly grim reality with brutal future implications: This pandemic has been the greatest mass-orphanhood event in modern history. According to new findings published in The Atlantic, “caregiver loss during the pandemic is now responsible for one out of every 12 orphans under the age of 18, and in every public school in the United States, on average two children have lost a caregiver to the pandemic.” The Biden administration released a memorandum on Tuesday pledging to develop a plan for orphans, but it fails to specify or even outline concrete actions. Even at the state level, hardly any plans have been established to identify and help children who lost parents and caregivers to the pandemic. In the absence of adequate solutions from the White House and state governments, Congress should take up this mantle before collectively turning away from COVID again.

• The Senate has confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court by a vote of 53-47  making soon-to-be Justice Jackson the first black woman in American history to sit on the Supreme Court. 
   
• More than a million people in Puerto Rico remain without electricity after a fire at a main power plant caused an island-wide blackout—the largest blackout this year across a U.S. territory.
   
• Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has ordered “increased military activity” and law-enforcement stoppages along the border Texas shares with Mexico, ensuring major traffic slowdowns, one of the less fatal repercussions of his inhumane garbage fire policy of pandering to bigots.
   
• Elon Musk blew the SEC’s deadline for filing the correct paperwork for his huge purchase of Twitter stock by 11 days, a “mistake” that netted him about $156 million, according to experts. Whoopsie-daisy! He must be so embarrassed.
   
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Washington DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser, and many other political elites have all tested positive for COVID-19, as cases in the nation’s capital appear to surge.
   
• The House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held hearings on right-wing book bans, where teachers, students, and experts testified about the GOP’s “crusade against critical thinking.”
   
• An English teacher in Irving, TX, faces the termination of her contract after pushing back against a request from the district to remove rainbow stickers from her classroom, indicating her support of LGBTQ students.
   
• After years of not-insignificant internal opposition to him, national Democratic leaders appear to have made their peace with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA), now that he’s the runaway favorite to win the party’s Senate primary campaign. How generous of them. His success and rising profile is, of course most importantly, a win for guys who wear gym shorts everywhere. 
   
• A truly bonkers developing story to keep an eye on: federal prosecutors have charged two men for posing as law-enforcement officers in order to integrate with actual federal agents. The fraudulent agents provided acting Secret Service officers with rent-free luxury apartments (which apparently did not arouse their suspicions at all??) including a $40,000 per year Washington, DC, penthouse and other expensive goods.

It’s been a run of bad luck for all the disgraced former one-term president’s men. Just this week: 
 

• The House referred former Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino to the Justice Department for criminal contempt of Congress.

• The federal judge (a Trump appointee, no less!) overseeing Steve Bannon’s contempt trial rejected Bannon’s main defense (that he is not guilty because he was just following his lawyer’s advice when he flouted a congressional subpoena). Tough break, my guy! Such an impediment may back Bannon into a corner and force him to cut a deal now that he is staring down the barrel of a losing case.

• New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked a judge to hold former President Trump himself in civil contempt, and to fine him $10,000 per day until he turns over subpoenaed documents.

• The Justice Department is apparently conducting a criminal investigation of Trump’s theft of classified documents that should have been turned over to the National Archives when he left office. That would explain why the department is blocking the House Oversight Committee from conducting its own investigation of Trump's handling of those records.

Who says bad things don't happen to bad people?

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Gov. Andy Bashear (D-KY) has vetoed Republican legislation that would prevent transgender girls from playing on girls’ athletic teams in middle school and high school.

The Walt Disney Corporation has earmarked 80 acres of Central Florida land for an affordable housing development that will comprise 1,300 units available to Disney employees and others who apply. (We might also suggest the $200 billion corporation pay its park employees higher wages, but hey guys, don’t over-exert yourselves!)

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) has filed a lawsuit to protect abortion rights, which, if successful, would recognize the right to abortion under the state’s constitution and overturn a defunct, 176-year-old statutory ban that may spring back to life if the Roe v. Wade is overturned federally.

Boston Public Schools launched a pilot program that will deploy 20 electric school buses during the 2022-2023 academic year, and plans to have a fully-electric fleet of school buses by the year 2030. Well done—wicked good stuff.