Seven months after he left office, Britain is still reeling from Boris Johnson

[Daily Kos Morning Roundup]( A morning roundup of worthy pundit and news reads, brought to you by Daily Kos. [Click here to read the full web version.]( - [Seven months after he left office, Britain is still reeling from Boris Johnson]( Seven months after he left office, Britain is still reeling from Boris Johnson, Luke McGee, CNN Seven months since he announced his resignation as prime minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson’s shadow still looms large over the ruling Conservative party. Despite being forced from office in disgrace and presiding over a massive decline in support for both himself and his party, Johnson is still attempting to influence government policy. His supporters say his interventions are the Conservatives’ last hopes at saving the party from decimation at the next election. His critics think he is not only undermining current PM Rishi Sunak, but, by reminding voters – with many of whom he is unpopular – of his existence, he is damaging his party’s electoral prospects. A quick recap: Johnson was forced to resign after multiple ethics scandals made his position untenable. Those scandals included the notorious “Partygate” where Johnson became the first sitting PM to be found guilty of breaking the law by holding illegal gatherings during the pandemic lockdown. The final straw came for Johnson after it allegations emerged that his deputy chief whip, Chris Pincher, had been sexually harassing party members while drunk. Johnson hired Pincher despite being aware of rumors about his conduct. Johnson has spent much of the past week leaving Westminster guessing as to whether or not he is going to publicly come out against Sunak as he attempts to negotiate an agreement with the European Union to fix part of the 2019 Brexit deal. It is worth noting that Johnson himself negotiated and signed that deal, calling it “oven ready” during his election campaign that same year. - [The GOP Plays the Race Card with a Train Wreck]( The GOP Plays the Race Card with a Train Wreck, David Corn, Mother Jones newsletter: This is deft demagoguery, conflating legitimate concerns about economic power with racist paranoia. It goes beyond the usual crass GOP playbook of waving the racism card, instead fusing toxic culture wars to bread-and-butter issues. I don’t know if this sly maneuver—assailing wokeness as the weapon of the 1 percenters—was responsible for Vance’s Senate victory. But it sure didn’t hurt. And in the days since the horrific train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Republicans and right-wingers have been beating this drum. Fox News host and conspiracy theory-pusher Tucker Carlson made this clear eleven days after the accident. “East Palestine is overwhelmingly white, and it’s politically conservative,” he said on his show. “That shouldn’t be relevant but as you’re about to hear, it very much is.” He went on to explain: “If this had happened to the rich or the ‘favored poor,’ it would be the lead of every news channel in the world. But it happened to the poor town of East Palestine, Ohio, whose people are forgotten, and in the view of the people who lead this country, forgettable.” His message: the good folks of East Palestine were being screwed because they were white. - [Bad news: Daily Kos revenue is down, and we might not be able to do all we do. Good news: You are a big part of the solution, and small donors have never let us down. Donate $5 TODAY.]( - [‘Dilbert’ dropped by The Post, other papers, after cartoonist’s racist rant]( ‘Dilbert’ dropped by The Post, other papers, after cartoonist’s racist rant, Thomas Floyd and Michael Cavna, The Washington Post Newspapers across the United States have pulled Scott Adams’s long-running “Dilbert” comic strip after the cartoonist called Black Americans a “hate group” and said White people should “get the hell away from” them. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the USA Today network of hundreds of newspapers were among publications that announced they would stop publishing “Dilbert” after Adams’s racist rant on YouTube on Wednesday. Asked on Saturday how many newspapers still carried the strip — a workplace satire he created in 1989 — Adams told The Post: “By Monday, around zero.” The once widely celebrated cartoonist, who has been entertaining extreme-right ideologies and conspiracy theories for several years, was upset Wednesday by a Rasmussen poll that found a thin majority of Black Americans agreed with the statement “It’s okay to be White” — a phrase sometimes associated with racist memes… “If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with White people … that’s a hate group,” Adams said on his live-streaming YouTube show. “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people … because there is no fixing this.” Adams, 65, also blamed Black people for not “focusing on education” during the show and said, “I’m also really sick of seeing video after video of Black Americans beating up non-Black citizens.” Outrage followed. - [Ukraine Is the West’s War Now]( Ukraine Is the West’s War Now, Yaroslav Trofimov, The Wall Street Journal The initial reluctance of the U.S. and its allies to help Kyiv fight Russia has turned into a massive program of military assistance, which carries risks of its own A year later, the war in Ukraine has become, to a large extent, the West’s own. True, no American or NATO soldiers are fighting and dying on Ukrainian soil. But the U.S., its European allies and Canada have now sent some $120 billion in weapons and other aid to Ukraine, with new, more advanced military supplies on the way. If this monumental effort fails to thwart President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions, the setback would not only undermine American credibility on the world stage but also raise difficult questions about the future of the Western alliance. “In many ways, we’re all-in, and we’re all-in because the realization has dawned in Europe that showing weakness to President Putin, showing no response to his atrocities, only invites him to go further and further,” said Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, a Dutch politician and member of parliament. “We have also realized that it is not only the safety and security of Ukraine that is at stake but also our own.” - [Stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Ukraine: Donate to humanitarian efforts assisting refugees and others suffering during this horrific time.]( - [The right fans a repulsive campaign to racialize the Ohio train disaster]( The right fans a repulsive campaign to racialize the Ohio train disaster, Greg Sargent, The Washington Post The fiery derailment of a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals in eastern Ohio is coming to represent bigger societal failures. It’s a story about profit-driven rail companies underinvesting in safety, lobbyists weakening rail regulation, and the government’s failure to assure residents’ security from lingering toxins. But in certain right-wing media precincts, the disaster is about something else: A campaign of discrimination being waged against White people. “East Palestine is overwhelmingly White, and it’s politically conservative,” Fox News’s Tucker Carlson recently said of the roughly 4,700 residents of the disaster zone. “That shouldn’t be relevant,” he added, but “it very much is.” - [The War in Ukraine Is the End of a World]( The War in Ukraine Is the End of a World, Tom Nichols,The Atlantic A shroud is settling over the dreams many of us had at the end of the 20th century. I grieve for the innocent people of Ukraine, for the dead and for the survivors, for the mutilated men and women, for the orphans and the kidnapped children. I grieve for the elderly who have had to live through the brutality of the Nazis and the Soviets and, now, the Russians. I grieve for a nation whose history will be forever changed by Putin’s crimes against humanity. And yes, I grieve, too, for the Russians. I care not one bit for Putin or his criminal accomplices, who might never face justice in this world but who I am certain will one day stand before an inescapable and far more terrifying seat of judgment. But I grieve for the young men who have been used as “cannon meat,” for children whose fathers have been dragooned into the service of a dictator, for the people who once again are afraid to speak and who once again are being incarcerated as political prisoners. Finally, I grieve for the end of a world I knew for most of my adult life. I have lived through two eras, one an age of undeclared war between two ideological foes that threatened instant destruction, the next a time of increasing freedom and global integration. This second world was full of chaos, but it was also grounded in hope. The Soviet collapse did not mean the end of war or of dictatorships, but after 1991, time seemed to be on the side of peace and democracy, if only we could summon the will and find the leadership to build on our heroic triumphs over Nazism and Communism. ICYMI: Popular stories from the past week you won't want to miss: - [President Biden reportedly despises one U.S. senator more than any other. And the winner is ...]( - [Marjorie Taylor Greene attacks Joe Biden for visiting Ukraine: It doesn't go well]( - [Longtime Democratic congressman announces surprise resignation]( Want even more Daily Kos? Check out our podcasts: - [The Brief: A one-hour weekly political conversation hosted by Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld]( - [The Downballot: Daily Kos' podcast devoted to downballot elections. New episodes every Thursday]( Want to write your own stories? 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