The onslaught of anti-LBGTQ bills across the nation’s statehouses aren’t to protect children, or anyone else for that matter. They’re actually to make the lives of LGBTQ youth and adults as miserable as possible. These bills are having that intended effect, regardless of whether or not they’ve actually been passed into law (and some have been).

The “sovereign citizen” movement—comprising scam artists and their gullible followers who claim that, by filling reams of documents full of pseudo-legal babble, ordinary citizens can declare themselves free of government rule at any level, thus becoming the law unto themselves—seems to have figured out how, after a couple of decades of mostly lurking on the fringes of the extreme right, to expand its reach and revive (if not entirely rebrand) itself: Go full QAnon.

This week, the Supreme Court gutted abortion rights. This is a workers’ issue, in a country where many struggle to afford an abortion and lack the paid leave needed to take multiple days off work to travel out of state for abortion access as state bans go into effect. The Economic Policy Institute’s Heidi Shierholz points out research showing that people who want but cannot get an abortion experience long-term financial consequences and increased poverty.

Welcome back to Connect! Unite! Act! With the conclusion of Obi Wan this last week, there are a lot of us looking back over the various Star Wars series and what made them work. I look back at the films and I think about which ones I enjoy most and which I had the hardest time with. Honestly, it is easy for me to say that seeing The Phantom Menace in a movie theater after a long, long break between the last film was an experience unlike anything else.

Back in February, when Russian troops were lining up on the border for a brutal invasion, Trump-endorsed Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance insulted Ukrainians on Steve Bannon’s podcast, “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” He later doubled down, saying, “spare me the performative affection for [sic] the Ukraine, a corrupt nation run by oligarchs.” And then, after backlash, doubled down yet again.

It doesn’t matter what state you live in: Our federal protections to the right abortion care, and the underpinning right to privacy that ensures access to contraception, marriage equality, and other civil rights—and even interracial marriage—is now gone.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy already said he’ll be pushing for a national abortion ban. (Well, he says 15-week ban today, but we know they all lie, and what their true intentions are.

Military historians will someday debate the wisdom of defending Severodonetsk. I debated the pros and cons with myself. Regardless of that final judgement, the battle is over. Ukraine withdrew the last of its forces across the river overnight, ceding yet another worthless pile of rubble to the Russian invaders. Hopefully, the cost to defend it was worth it.

It is Friday. We knew it would be bad. We all hoped for a miracle. There are no miracles, just work to be done. The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—most likely leaked by a conservative clerk hoping to secure the votes of theocratic members on the Court—was made official today in a ruling that undoes 50 years of established law protecting reproductive rights in our country. The decision, a 6-3 ruling to overturn Roe v.

Democratic lawmakers’ response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s destruction of reproductive rights for the nation has been, let’s say less than urgent. Less than cognizant of the absolute earthquake that just rocked us. Less than aware that we are all looking to them to DO. SOMETHING.

Start with canceling recess. Start with acknowledging that the nation is on fire and that it is their job to start putting the fire out.

Author Celeste Headlee has composed a helpful list of quotes from the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe today, and it’s a reminder that Senate confirmation hearings are, at this point, just another institutionalized venue for lying.