On Tuesday evening, Russia was trying to establish a defensive line across their holdings in the Kherson area that stretches between the town of Bruskynske on the west and Mylove on the east. This is designed to halt the rapid Ukrainian advance in northern Kherson. It’s unclear if this effort has been in any sense successful, but it does seem to have temporarily halted the “take a village as fast as you can reach it” parade that has gone on for the last three days.

Young people shouldn’t have to worry about their basic rights, dignities, and protections from harassment and abuse, but of course, thanks to Republicans, they do. Conservatives haven’t been shy about demonizing and isolating LGBTQ+ youth—and especially trans youth—from their peers if they think it’ll get them more votes in the midterm elections.

Again: There is no underlying Republican philosophy. None at all, aside from an insistence that anything a Republican does is good and anyone who criticizes a Republican is bad. Republican voters don’t care if you have sex with minors (Matt Gaetz), help cover up the sexual abuse of student-athletes (Jim Jordan), troll local malls looking for teen girls to sexually assault (Roy Moore), or commit actual treason against the republic (Donald What’s-His-Name).

In the Republican race to put forward the most repulsive agenda possible, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida is definitely outpacing his GOP counterparts.

Sure, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent his colleagues running when he introduced a national 15-week abortion ban and pledged that a GOP-controlled Congress would give it a vote.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Another hour, another map of the northern area of Russian occupation in the Kherson area. Over the course of Tuesday, and into the evening, Ukraine has continued to press southward, bringing the area liberated since Sunday, in this one part of this one oblast, to an astounding 1,600 square kilometers.

Ukraine has now reclaimed about a third of the formerly Russian occupied area on the west side of the Dnipro River.

The 40 or so insurrectionists being held in the Washington, D.C., jail while awaiting trial—having proven their susceptibility to conspiracy theories and disinformation by engaging in criminal behavior at the Jan. 6 Capitol siege—not only have become convinced of their own martyrdom, which they’ve been using to raise funds for their cause. They’re also convinced that they’d have better conditions being held at Guantanamo Bay than in D.C.

On Monday, the public learned that Donald Trump packed up the classified documents himself, tried to get an attorney to lie about returning everything, and that some of the items the National Archives was most interested in—including the letter from President Barack Obama and Trump’s correspondence with Kim Jung Un—are still missing.

Another day, another Republican trying to turn the general public against a vulnerable, marginalized population. This time, we can look at a recent campaign ad from Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who decided to use trans folks as a scapegoat to try and get reelected in Kentucky, as covered by LGBTQ Nation. In the big picture, we’ve seen conservatives accuse trans girls of ruining the chances of cis girls to play sports and earn titles and scholarships.

Mere days ago, when Dr. Mehmet Oz’s biggest political liability was that he was an out-of-touch carpetbagger who likes to push fake remedies (e.g., Donald Trump) on lonely, desperate people, it looked like the only office he might actually have a shot at winning was dog catcher.

Yeah, about that. If Derp Oz himself was thinking along those lines, he can fuggetaboutit.