-Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), after losing the Alabama Senate primary

Investigations of the January 6 insurrection are expanding on multiple fronts—in Congress, and at the Justice Department—which seems inconvenient for the overwhelming majority of Republicans who support the January 6 insurrection.

• Federal agents delivered subpoenas on Wednesday to Brad Carver, a Georgia lawyer and fake Trump elector who signed fraudulent election documentation; Thomas Lane, who help organize the fake-electors scheme in Arizona and New Mexico; and to fake Trump electors in Michigan. These mark the first-known actions taken against participants in the fraud scheme.
   
• The House January 6 Committee, meanwhile, will pause hearings after Thursday and schedule more in July, based in part on new evidence that has come to light just since the public-hearing phase of the investigation began. That evidence includes documentary footage, productions from the National Archives, and new tips, according to Chairman Bennie Thompson.
   
• The committee also appears to be leaning hard on former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to testify, beginning with a direct public appeal Tuesday from Vice Chair Liz Cheney. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) hinted that the committee may seek to compel his testimony, which may be necessary, as Cipollone claims he has sought "Trump's permission" to cooperate with the committee (it's not Trump's to give) based on "serious institutional concerns and privilege issues" (which the sitting president has waived).

Getting exposed as a participant in the insurrection seems to be weighing on the insurrectors.

• Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) got caught (and called out for) pretending to be on his phone, in a failed effort to dodge reporters asking him why he planned to hand deliver fraudulent-elector paperwork to Vice President Pence. Trump, meanwhile, can't stop whining about House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's decision to boycott the committee (something McCarthy clearly did to please Trump).
   
• Unfortunately, the heat is also getting to murderous Trump supporters. Members of the committee will likely be getting dedicated security details, based on an uptick in threats of violence. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) recently disclosed a letter addressed to his wife that contained a threat to execute their whole family.

A note from Equality Florida:

Governor DeSantis and his allies in the state legislature have made it clear that they’re trying to push our community backwards. They’re banning books with LGBTQ characters and Black authors, censoring conversations about us, threatening families for providing the best possible care to their transgender kids, and launching dehumanizing, bigoted smears against us. They’re doing it because they want us to be fearful. They want us to hide again, as many of us had to do when we were young.

Defeating this anti-LGBTQ onslaught means organizing and mobilizing like never before. It means making a plan to vote and dragging our “I’m not political” friends out to vote with us. It means sending a message that you cannot simultaneously love us and vote against our survival. It means using our dollars wisely to insist that those who want our business must fight alongside us. And it means showing up for each other, holding each other up, and refusing to let those who want to do us harm find success in their divide and conquer agenda.

This Pride month, let’s stand together to reject the hate and bigotry and to find strength in our collective power. Donate to Crooked Media’s pride fund at crooked.com/pridefund.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell said a recession is "certainly a possibility" though not the "intended outcome" of the Fed's monetary tightening, in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. His testimony and the nature of the Fed's response to inflation has alarmed critics, who've noted that demand-driven pressures on U.S. prices are ebbing, while supply-driven pressures on oil prices and other commodities are climbing; raising the specter of a Fed-induced recession that doesn't actually fix the country's inflation problem. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) noted in response, "You know what’s worse than high inflation and low unemployment? It’s high inflation and a recession with millions of people out of work. I hope you will reconsider that before you drive this economy off a cliff.”

Fight Classroom Censorship with the ACLU

Since last year, 10 states have passed classroom censorship bills that restrict discussions about race, gender, and sexual orientation in schools. In 2022 so far, state legislatures have introduced over 100 new bills across 22 states, many of which explicitly target K-12 schools.

If schools are found in violation of classroom censorship bills or restrictions, many may risk losing funding. In some cases, teachers could face formal admonishment or lose teaching licenses if they don’t comply with curriculum restrictions.

These restrictions are a coordinated attack on our students’ right to learn. Join the ACLU to fight back today.

Politicians and school boards are making moves to ban books from public schools and libraries. As a result, schools can't make certain books – predominantly those by Black and LGBTQ authors discussing issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation – available to students to learn from and explore, even voluntarily and on their own time.

This wave of censorship efforts is attempting to erase the legacy of discrimination and lived experiences of Black and Brown people, women and girls, and LGBTQ+ individuals. And it’s refusing to let students think for themselves.

That’s why the ACLU is already hard at work to fight back against these damaging censorship bills and book bans through lawsuits and fierce advocacy. Are you with us? Add your name today to stay up to date on how you can defend everyone’s fundamental right to learn.

Thanks for taking action,

The ACLU Team

• The Senate voted 64-34 to advance a new gun-regulation bill after Democrats conceded to a GOP demand that convicted abusers be eligible to get their gun rights restored after five years. Mitch McConnell was among the 14 Republicans who voted to support the bill. 
   
• President Biden has asked Congress to suspend the gas tax for three months, an idea that seems like it won't work, and that Senate Republicans will never allow to happen with a Democrat in office anyhow.
   
• E.U. countries are in "total consensus" that Ukraine should be a candidate for membership in the union.
   
• A 5.9 earthquake in eastern Afghanistan has killed over 1,000 people. 
   
• Uvalde, TX, Mayor Don McLaughlin lashed out at everybody involved in the response to the Robb Elementary school massacre and the authorities investigating those failures. Also: nobody's lost their job. 
   
• A Uvalde school district police officer who tried to save his wife—a Robb Elementary teacher who was shot and bleeding to death—was detained, had his gun confiscated from him, and was escorted from the scene. Again: nobody's lost their job.
   
• Nine days after then Attorney General Bill Barr called bullshit on the Big Lie in December 2020, Ivanka Trump told a documentary filmmaker she wanted her daddy to "continue to fight until every legal remedy is exhausted” because of fabricated concerns about “the sanctity of our elections,” suggesting she lied to the committee when she said she believed Barr over her aforementioned daddy.
   
• Former Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum has been indicted on 21 federal fraud, conspiracy, and false-statements charges stemming from his 2018 campaign.
   
• Wisconsin's Republican state legislators—gerrymandered into unaccountable power—will allow a latent abortion ban on the state's books to take effect if and when the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade rejecting a call from Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) to repeal the law in a special session. 
   
• Dr. Oz has shaken the ol' Etch-A-Sketch to remove evidence of his Trump sycophancy from his campaign literature, like we wouldn't notice. 
   
• In other moving-on new, 91-year-old Rupert Murdoch and his 65 year old wife Jerry Hall are getting divorced.

Vladimir Putin's game plan for seizing as much of Ukraine as possible is starting to look a lot like his game plan for helping Donald Trump become president the first time. Namely: hold out long enough to help make him president again. Recent U.S. intelligence suggest Putin hopes to bombard western and U.S. audiences with propaganda aimed at convincing them that U.S. support for Ukrainian resistance is to blame for the persistence of the war itself, and the related global energy and grain problems. Combine that with another info-op aimed at subverting the 2022 and 2024 elections on behalf of Trump and his growing slate of pro-Russia candidates, and you have a recipe for winning the war by manipulating U.S. politics severely enough to let Trump waltz in and hang Ukraine out to dry.

Terrified of climate change? Want to be a solar baron? Exhausted by COVID variant 65? Taken a few too many Z-Packs?

Introducing Important, Not Important: science for people who give a shit.

The Important, Not Important free weekly newsletter curates the most vital science news of the week, adds pithy contextual analysis, and then gives you data-driven Action Steps you can mash your finger against to:

1. Be less fucking anxious about (waves hands) everything, and; 
    
2. Build a radically cleaner and more just world -- for everyone. 

From climate to clean energy, AI to antibiotics, food & water to whatever other fresh hell could either kill us all, or turn this place into Star Trek, we’ve got it covered.

In brief: You’ll learn how to think about the scary shit and exactly what you can do about it, once a week, in 10 minutes or less.

Get it for free at newsletter.importantnotimportant.com.

Democrats have introduced legislation that would prohibit companies from retaining their customers' reproductive-health data without their express permission.  

Voting-rights advocate and state-Rep. Bee Nguyen (D-GA) will face Brad Raffensperger in the general election for secretary of state. 

Dominion Voting System's defamation lawsuit against Fox News and the Murdochs will move forward. 

Against the backdrop of the January 6 hearings, Republican voters, including Trump supporters, want to flush Trump. (They're inching toward Ron DeSantis, who, to be clear, also sucks and hates democracy.)