Republicans gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend to commune and talk about their terrible plans for America.
 

• The annual gathering of right-wing fanatics and charlatans attracted the usual MAGA psychos, though with a much smaller turnout than in years’ past. The weekend got off to a predictably insane start when the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles told the attendees, “for the good of society…transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely”—a sentiment they met with a horrifying round of applause. News outlets then (accurately) reported this as Knowles calling for the eradication of trans people, which triggered Knowles and his cronies, who accused outlets like Rolling Stone of “libel” and threatened lawsuits. It’s not libel if it’s a direct quote of something you said on camera, sweetie! 
   

• The Knowles incident is a harbinger of the GOP messaging and policy platforms in the 2024 election cycle. Republicans have started to make borderline genocidal statements, while also claiming that they aren’t actually targeting transgender people, but rather transgenderism. It’s a stupid rhetorical trap that the mainstream media shouldn’t fall for, but probably will. To be clear: there is no meaningful distinction. Knowles explicitly calls for the eradication of, “the whole preposterous ideology at every level,” which could not come to pass without the eradication of trans people from public life, because transgenderism isn’t an ideology, but a state of existence and identity. Any attempt to argue otherwise is intentionally disingenuous. 
   

• The rest of the conference was peppered with similar speakers, as well as a few candidates running in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. Trump’s Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a milquetoast-ass speech as did former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who said she is running for president to “end the self-loathing that has taken over our country.” Nikki, with no due respect, it is my right as an American to self-loathe, and if we cannot do so, then we are fundamentally not free.

But as expected, the weekend still belonged to disgraced former president Donald Trump. 
 

• Trump closed out the conference on Saturday as the headliner, speaking for more than 90 minutes (woof) and wow was he able to fit a lot of lies into one address! He really put a nice variety of lies in there, too, ranging from recounting his time in office, to foreign affairs, to crime, and Joe Biden’s presidency. He used his podium to go after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (could it be because Bragg has been investigating him?) and claimed that “killings are taking place at a number like nobody’s ever seen, right in Manhattan.” The “New York City is more dangerous than ever” line, an overused right-wing talking point, is just objectively false. New York City reported 438 murders in 2022, in a city of 8.5 million, compared to 2,262 in 1990, when the city was smaller. That’s more than an 80 percent decrease. It’s also 30 percent lower than the number of reported murders during the mayoral tenure of Rudy Giuliani. Not to mention the fact that all of the major cities in Trump’s beloved Republican haven of Florida have crime rates significantly higher than New York City’s. 
   

• Trump also baselessly claimed that “NATO wouldn’t even exist if I didn’t get them to pay up,” (lol okay buddy), said that Russia would have never invaded Ukraine if he were still the president, and promoted various conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the Biden family. Great stuff. Love it. But of course he wasn’t alone. The weekend was full of exactly the same lies coming from the mouths of the likes of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and former Trump White House Official Steve Bannon, among others. 

The modern Republican Party is beyond redemption. We don’t have to pretend that their ideas should merit serious consideration or negotiation just because they’re vocalizing them while wearing Brooks Brothers ties.

Norfolk Southern will pay several million dollars to cover the cost of the response and recovery in Pennsylvania after last month’s train derailment just across the border in eastern Ohio. 

JetBlue Airways said today that it believes the Justice Department has a “high likelihood” of filing an antitrust lawsuit this week to block its takeover of Spirit Airlines, because…it’s an obvious antitrust case. 

The Biden Administration may vaccinate millions of chickens as the largest-ever outbreak of bird flu sweeps across the country. 

The Supreme Court declined to hear a Florida city’s attempt to fend off a lawsuit by atheists accusing officials of violating constitutional limits on government involvement in religion by staging a prayer vigil following gun violence there that wounded three children. 

Republican-led states are withdrawing from the little-known data-sharing consortium used by more than 30 states to keep voter rolls updated and free of fraud vulnerabilities, putting one of the country’s most powerful tools for minimizing ballot fraud in jeopardy. 

The Biden administration is lending legal and messaging resources to states pushing for restrictions on reproductive rights. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) will make his Iowa debut next week with stops in Davenport and Des Moines, as he continues his tour of running for president without announcing it. 

In other Florida-related bad news, a GOP-proposed bill would require paid bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to register with the state under penalty of fine(!), a prospect so Orwellian that even Father Time of far-right Republicanism Newt Gingrich called it “an embarrassment.”

Washington, DC, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson wrote a letter to the Senate today attempting to withdraw the district’s criminal reform legislation from congressional review after it became clear that the Senate intended to reject it.

Unexplained illnesses have afflicted hundreds of Iranian schoolgirls in recent months, leading to suspicion that the girls may have been poisoned. Concerned parents protested in the nation’s capital of Tehran and other cities on Saturday over the wave of alleged poison attacks that have affected girls in dozens of schools. Iran’s Health Minister said the girls have suffered “mild poison” attacks, and some politicians in the government suggested that they could have been targeted by hardline Islamist groups who oppose educating girls. A video verified by Reuters showed that the protest over these illnesses turned into an anti-government demonstration. This confluence of events comes at a critical time for Iran’s clerical rulers, who have faced months of demonstrations after a young Iranian woman died in custody of the morality police, who arrested her over an alleged dress-code violation. On Friday, the United Nations human-rights office called for a transparent investigation into the suspected attacks.

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Paris’ famed Notre Dame Cathedral will reopen at the end of this year after years of reconstruction following a devastating fire in 2019. 

An Arizona judge ordered sanctions against Arizona’s GOP secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem for making false claims about election fraud then refusing to accept the results. 

Another hit for election deniers: Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters was convicted on Friday of obstruction for trying to prevent authorities from taking an iPad which she allegedly used to videotape a court hearing. This case is separate from the one regarding her alleged involvement in a security breach of voting machines. Busy lady!!

Amid pressure from the Biden administration, three U.S. airlines agreed to commit in writing to eliminating family-seating fees if adjacent seats are available during booking.