The apparent Ukrainian strike against a Russian military base in occupied Crimea may turn out to be one of the most consequential of the war to date; video and satellite images taken after the blast show widespread damage, including the likely destruction of at least nine Russian warplanes. The blast, far from the frontlines, significantly dents Russian airpower in southern Ukraine—and Ukraine is being coy about how, exactly, they might have done it.

by Neesha Powell-Ingabire

This article was originally published at Prism

Medicaid expansion in Georgia is likelier than ever as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams ties in the polls with Gov. Brian Kemp.

Kemp and his two Republican predecessors have refused to adopt Medicaid expansion, while Abrams, a former state representative, recently told a crowd, “I’m going to talk about Medicaid expansion every chance I get.

If that whiny sound emanating from so many elected Republican officials sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same high-pitched squeal a balloon emits when you carefully let its air out between compressed fingers. Republicans have been living in that balloon for so long, they’ve pretty much forgotten that the balloon existed in the first place.

Balloons are different than bubbles. You can live in a bubble and not really know you’re in it.

Back in 2007, several bloggers raised the matter of right-wing violence should the Democrats—and therefore a Black man named Barack Obama—win the November 2008 election. Among them were digby, Rick Perlstein, and David Neiwert, an expert on militias and right-wing extremists who now writes for Daily Kos. A good deal of the reception to these assertions was … skeptical. Some critics ridiculed these three and the others of us raising the issue.

According to a new California lawsuit, hate crimes against members of the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community are not the only form of rising racism. Filed in Sacramento federal court on Wednesday, a class-action lawsuit against Siskiyou County and its sheriff alleges racism in traffic stops, access to water, and enforcement of cannabis-related property liens.

The first-ever FBI search warrant served against a former U.S. president is still the big news in the country, but we still don’t know much more about it than we did yesterday. Donald Trump took “classified national security documents” from the White House when he left; when those documents were discovered at Mar-a-Lago in early June, Trump seems to have refused to relinquish them, relying on his apparent political power to skirt consequences. Didn’t work out for him.

There are big developments both inside and outside Ukraine today, so let’s get right to it.

America’s right-wing extremists have been hankering for a civil war for a long time now, and in particular have been eager to start using their guns in defense of Donald Trump ever since he came onto the political scene. They tried to start a civil war on Trump’s behalf after he lost on Jan. 6, 2021.