True, silver linings don't melt heavy clouds — for example, the White House's ongoing mishandling of the classified documents found at President Joe Biden's home and his think tank office; or the Supreme Court's avoidance of serious investigation of the leak that may well have helped end Roe v. Wade.

Still, it's important not to miss powerful pro-democracy decisions in the lower courts. They are where, in actuality, most cases get decided.

America is becoming an idiocracy — assuming it isn't fully one already.

On a widely viewed cable TV network there is a new show called "Power Slap: Road to the Title," and the title is a perfect description of the show. In this "sport" two adults slap one another as hard as they can until one of them is knocked out, cannot continue, or the "judges" stop the "competition." The "slap-fighters" are not allowed to put up their hands to defend themselves or flinch. The participants in this human zoo have been knocked head over heels (literally) and appear to have suffered severe concussions as well as bloody and swollen faces that could result in permanent disfigurement. The crowd in the studio cheers as the competitors slap each other into oblivion.

It's begun. And just as we once assumed, it's a tired re-run of 2020 with former president Donald Trump hopping from rally to rally repeating his boring recitation of the Big Lie and the perpetual "witchhunt" and "hoax" mantras. Only this time, the Republican presidential primary is starting early with what's shaping up to be a crowded field. Whether any of Trump's rivals will be able to knock him out remains to be seen — but there's no doubt they think he's weakened enough to chance it.

We've all been closely watching Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who hasn't yet made any overt moves to run but is nonetheless clearly positioning himself to do it. At the moment he is the only serious contender who still holds office which gives him the opportunity to demonstrate his right-wing bonafides. And boy is he ever doing that.

Crowder, for those who are lucky enough to have never heard his name, rose to fame by being especially cringeworthy in the crowded field of professional right-wing trolling. He plays heavily into the stereotype of the loudmouth ignoramus who spouts off in class about how slavery wasn't so bad or corners women at the bar to rave about how their entire sex is insufficiently grateful to men. He is, quite literally, the dude in that "debate me, bro" meme.

The original photo came from a stunt where he set up shop on a campus with a sign that read "male privilege is a myth" in hopes of baiting teenage girls into arguing with him. That sums up Crowder's schtick: He appeals to dudes who are so pathetic that they resort to politicized cat-calling in order to garner female attention.

One of the dues-paying members had listed nuclear weapons training as among his skills.

“What the funk,” I muttered, or something similar, feeling as if I was reading a mash-up of the January 6th Committee Report and the 1962 political thriller “Seven Days in May.”

Russian money has been finding its way into American elections. It’s a growing threat to U.S. national security and to the integrity of our election system. In ironic contrast to the GOP’s baseless claims of fraudulent Democratic voting, this flow of Russian money especially implicates the Republican Party.

For example:

salon.com

Biden's documents: Democrats, media fall into GOP trap one more time

Some years ago, my mother went shopping at a department store in the local mall. After she had left the store and was walking around the mall, she noticed that people were pointing and laughing at her. What had she done to become an object of scorn and mockery? Did she have toilet paper on her shoe? Was her hair unkempt, or her clothing disarranged? Did she have something on her face?

Some years ago, my mother went shopping at a department store in the local mall. After she had left the store and was walking around the mall, she noticed that people were pointing and laughing at her. What had she done to become an object of scorn and mockery? Did she have toilet paper on her shoe? Was her hair unkempt, or her clothing disarranged? Did she have something on her face?

This article first appeared in Salon.

There was a time in American life when it was considered bad manners to talk about politics or religion at the dinner table. There were good reasons for that — those subjects tend to get people upset and angry and that's always rough on digestion. But I doubt it was ever something that was practiced much because when people aren't gossiping or talking about work, politics and religion are the most likely topics whether we like it or not. Still, I don't think the merging of religion into partisan politics has ever been quite as thorough as it's been in the past 40 years or so. Sure you can go back in history and see many examples of religious leaders being politically influential from Cotton Mather to Brigham Young to Martin Luther King Jr. And various religious movements have been deeply involved in social reforms forever. But the emergence of the Christian Right under the auspices of organizations like the Moral Majority led by the Reverend Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition was explicitly formed as a faction of the Republican Party for the purpose of electing officials who would carry out their political agenda. That was unusual and it has been wildly successful.

Ironically, the first evangelical president was a Democrat. Jimmy Carter wore his religion on his sleeve – not that it did him any good with the burgeoning conservative evangelical political movement. In 1980, when Carter ran for re-election, two-thirds of white evangelicals voted for the twice-married, un-churched, matinee idol, Ronald Reagan. It was clear even then that the Christian Right was very serious about enshrining their socially conservative beliefs into law and they weren't picky about how they got it done. Until then religion had operated more or less outside the ugly sausage-making of politics and government, then the Christian Right dove in head first. That movement became one of the most, if not the most, dominant political movements of our time. It completely co-opted the GOP, forcing their agenda as a requirement for office and ensuring that their demands cannot be ignored. In a few decades, they managed to get a religious right majority seated on the Supreme Court and even have an active lobbying effort to sway the justices.

News coverage of failed GOP candidate Solomon Peña's arrest for allegedly orchestrating a plot to shoot up the homes of various elected Democrats has consistently highlighted one key detail: His claims to be the "real" winner of the race for New Mexico House District 14 are so ridiculous that it's hard not to laugh. Ever since Donald Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 election, there's been an assumption that election denialists would at least try to make their claims a little plausible by only crying "fraud" in relatively close elections. Failed Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, for instance, continues to proclaim herself the "real" winner of an election she lost last cycle by less than a percentage point. Peña, on the other hand, lost his bid for the New Mexico House of Representatives in the deep blue city of Albuquerque to Democrat Miguel Garcia by over 47 percentage points, garnering only 26.4% of the vote.

This article first appeared in Salon.

Roughly a third of the way into the annual State of the State address delivered by Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday before the Colorado General Assembly, he said, referring to the state’s housing crisis, “We need more flexible zoning.”

And with those words, along with the larger position Polis staked out on housing, he put the state’s NIMBYs on notice: the status quo just won’t do.