Why I Keep My Eyes — and My Mind — on the South

[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.]( - [Why I Keep My Eyes — and My Mind — on the South]( Why I Keep My Eyes — and My Mind — on the South, Tressie McMillan Cottom, The New York Times We like to look to the horizon instead of to the soil because we bury the people we do not care about in the South. It is where we have put migrants and poor people and sick people. It is where we put the social problems we are willing to accept in exchange for the promise of individual opportunity in places that sound more sophisticated. But the South is still a laboratory for the political disenfranchisement that works just as well in Wisconsin as it does in Florida. Americans are never as far from the graves we dig for other people as we hope… I keep my eyes on the South for a lot of reasons. This is my home. It is the region of this nation’s original sin. Nothing about the future of this country can be resolved unless it is first resolved here: not the climate crisis or the border or life expectancy or anything else of national importance, unless you solve it in the South and with the people of the South. - [Abortion Is Terrifying Republicans]( Abortion Is Terrifying Republicans, Rich Lowry, Politico Here’s how they can escape the political spiral. Make no mistake: In many places, Republicans are simply seeking to neutralize the Democratic political advantage on the issue and fight to a draw. If this is unsatisfying and discomfiting, it’s still better than the pre-Dobbs context when the politics were easier but it was impossible to get any meaningful restrictions done. Yes, it would have been better if Republicans had spent a little more time during the prior half-century contemplating what they’d do if Roe fell, but here we are. If there’s one thing that should be clear, it’s that fear — no matter how natural or visceral — is no substitute for careful thought and considered action. - [The Effort to Suppress the Vote Is Spreading to the Republican Mainstream]( The Effort to Suppress the Vote Is Spreading to the Republican Mainstream, Richard L Hasen and Dahlia Lithwick, Slate They’ve been at it for a long time, and they’re picking up steam. It’s bad enough when a trio of voter suppression groups led by charlatans gets together at an annual secret conference that is sponsored, in part, by a group created by the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo to talk about all the ways they might make it harder for people to register or vote in future elections. But it is much worse when the participants in that secret conference also include secretaries of state and other top election officials from 13 Republican-led states, plus Don Palmer, a member of the United States Election Assistance Commission, plus counsels to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the House Administration Committee’s Republican staff, and a sitting Texas state senator. The entire conference—whose existence was revealed in a blockbuster report by the Guardian and Documented last week—shows that there is a thriving network of interlocking organizations working with elected and election officials to use unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud to try to mess with fair elections for partisan advantage. It is understandable if this particular report flew below the radar for you. We are all living in Steve Bannon’s Trumpian dreamworld in which “flooding the zone with shit” has become a remarkably successful political tactic. From the past week’s stories of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failing to report lavish free vacations, including a $500,000 jaunt on a private plane, to a bonkers anti-abortion ruling from a Texas judge that bans an abortion drug and lays the groundwork for recognizing a fetus as a human being entitled to full constitutional protection, to the expulsion of two Black state legislators from the Tennessee Legislature because they had the temerity to protest gun violence fueled by a Supreme Court stuck in the 1790s to—yes—more mass shootings, it is too easy to be distracted. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are people meeting, behind closed doors, to plot out new paths to voter suppression, with direct implications for the type of democracy that we may have in the United States in 2024 and beyond. - [Republicans facing a reckoning later this week]( Republicans facing a reckoning later this week, ADAM WREN, NATALIE ALLISON and MERIDITH MCGRAW, Politico An NRA convention and an RNC confab in Nashville come at an inopportune time. Days after a mass shooting in Louisville, Ky., many declared and undeclared 2024 candidates will be brandishing their Second Amendment bona fides at the National Rifle Association’s annual leadership forum in Indianapolis. From there, a number of the candidates will travel south on I-65, where they will make their cases to Republican National Committee grandees for a gathering in Nashville — the site not only of another mass shooting, but also the state GOP-led ejection of two Black Democratic lawmakers last week. “Talking at the NRA meeting in Indianapolis then going to the RNC meeting in Nashville all fits together,” said Paul Helmke, the former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind., and president and CEO of the Brady Center/Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “You’re giving a single unified message: You don’t brook dissent or disagreement on guns.” - [Sorry Doubters, But Bragg Was Right to Indict Trump]( Sorry Doubters, But Bragg Was Right to Indict Trump, Philip Rotner, Bulwark No, the case isn’t too weak. No, it’s not too politically explosive. And no, Bragg should not have waited for other indictments to come first. But what are they really saying? To argue that Bragg should not have indicted Trump at all requires one to believe that even if Bragg can prove everything alleged in the indictment and the accompanying statement of facts filed in New York last week, he still shouldn’t have brought the case. That’s a heavy lift. Too heavy. - [Tenure of new Michigan GOP chair who spread Beyoncé paganism conspiracy theory is off to a rocky start]( Tenure of new Michigan GOP chair who spread Beyoncé paganism conspiracy theory is off to a rocky start, Em Steck, Olivia Alafriz and Andrew Kaczynski, CNN Karamo has claimed in the past that Beyoncé was secretly recruiting Black Americans to Paganism through a new album; that “demonic possession is real” and transferred via “intimate relationships”; and that acceptance of gay and transgender Americans will lead to the acceptance of pedophilia. She has said that the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement are “Marxist witches”; that the theory of evolution is “one of the biggest scams ran on us in human history”; and that doing drugs is “witchcraft.” She has compared abortion to Pagan child sacrifice. In the past, Karamo has also compared the media to Nazi Germany, saying media rhetoric about Republicans will lead to them being rounded up, killed and put in concentration camps. A proud anti-vaxxer, Karamo has also said she doesn’t believe in vaccines – saying she won’t vaccinate her children and has only taken one vaccine herself. After losing every statewide office and full control of the state government for the first time in nearly 40 years, Michigan Republicans elected Karamo – who made these comments and many others within the last few years – as their new state party chairwoman and the first Black person to lead the state party. Karamo, an election denier who believes the 2020 presidential race was stolen, has also refused to concede her own 2022 race for Michigan Secretary of State, which she lost by 14 percentage points – the most lopsided loss of any statewide candidate last year. - [Daily Kos t-shirts are going fast. Get one now and show your support for progressive, independent media!]( - [Daily Kos needs your help. In hopes of offsetting some revenue deficits, we had to increase our fundraising goals. Can you chip in $5?]( ICYMI: Popular stories from the past week you won't want to miss: - [Trump hire causes civil war between MTG and another white nationalist]( - [Tennessee House speaker who pushed to expel Democrats needs to answer questions about where he lives]( - [If the leaked documents are real, then they're a good sign for Ukraine]( Want even more Daily Kos? 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