Almost all politicians lie, but only some are demonstrably liars. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is not only a demonstrable liar; he’s also a sloppy and inartful one.

The clever dissembler knows that it’s wiser to sow doubt and confusion than to deny something outright—and that if you must deny it, be sure the denial can’t be definitively and humiliatingly debunked within hours. McCarthy broke both of those rules yesterday. In the morning, The New York Times published an article revealing how McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were furious at Donald Trump in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

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The political and legal earthquake that emanated Monday from the Tampa chambers of U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle provided the latest example of how an individual jurist — and a single lawsuit, seemingly filed in the right place at the right time — can alter the course of public policy. It is a practice that became more common at the end of the Obama administration and accelerated during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Sen. Mike Lee says the text messages he sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after the 2020 election don’t signal advocacy for overturning the results in favor of Donald Trump.

President Biden will reportedly order government agencies on Earth Day on Friday to take new action to protect old-growth forests, which are central to his agenda of mitigating climate change. The order will direct the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to inventory the nation's mature forests to inform new policies to protect them. 

Biden prioritized forest protection during his trip to the U.N.'s COP26 climate change conference in November, where he pledged billions of dollars over the next decade to support the conservation of global forests. He called the effort an "indispensable" piece of his climate agenda. Forests serve as "carbon sinks" for their maintenance of carbon dioxide and are integral to policymakers' strategies for slowing climate change.

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Yesterday, the Florida Senate voted to revoke special benefits that, since the 1960s, have given Disney the ability to essentially self-govern a vast area around its Disney World theme park and issue tax-free municipal bonds. The state’s House, which like its Senate is led by Republicans, is expected to vote for the measure today.

It’s a rapid unraveling of a long relationship. Last month, Disney C.E.O. Bob Chapek, facing a backlash from employees, spoke out against Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay law, which prohibits classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity until the third grade, and limits it for older students as well. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is eying a 2024 presidential run, has hit back, calling the company “Woke Disney,” and saying it no longer deserves its long-held special status. “If Disney wants to pick a fight, they chose the wrong guy,” DeSantis wrote in a recent campaign fund-raising email.

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The mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol said Russian troops have buried as many as 9,000 civilians killed in the conflict in a nearby mass grave in order to cover up “military crimes.”

“The greatest war crime of the 21st century has been committed in Mariupol. This is the new Babi Yar,” Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said, referring to the site of multiple Nazi massacres in which nearly 34,000 Ukrainian Jews were killed in 1941.

Boychenko and the city council in Mariupol accused Russians of burying civilians killed in Manhush, about 12 miles west of Mariupol, in large trenches they had dug. He said “the bodies started disappearing from the streets of the city,” charging that the Russians were “hiding the trace of their crimes and using the mass grave as one of the instruments for that.”

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Something needs to be done.

Six weeks after Gov. Newsom unveiled a far-reaching effort to push more people into court-ordered treatment for severe mental illness and addiction; homeless advocates are calling it legally misguided and immoral as the proposal's first public hearing at the state Capitol has been delayed.

Newsom touted the CARE Court framework last month as an innovative strategy to guide an estimated 7,000 to 12,000 people into housing and much-needed treatment. Under the proposal, family members, behavioral health care providers and first responders, among others, could petition a civil judge to initiate a CARE plan for eligible individuals who lack medical decision-making capacity.

More than three dozen organizations and individuals, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Disability Rights California and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, signed an April 12 opposition letter raising serious concerns with Assembly Bill 2830, one of two nearly identical measures moving through the Legislature to implement Newsom's Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court. The groups often have significant sway among liberal legislative Democrats, the kind of influence that could hinder Newsom's hopes for a new law to be in place by July 1.

In their 14-page letter, the advocates blasted the proposal as involuntary and coercive treatment that would strip individuals of their personal liberties and "perpetuate institutional racism and worsen health disparities." They said CARE Court "flies in the face of any evidence-based approach to ending homelessness" because it prioritizes mental health services — not housing — as the initial step toward recovery, which they said would deviate from California's "housing first" principles.

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Guest David Chiu

Drugmaker Endo Pharmaceuticals has agreed to a $10 million settlement over its role in selling prescription opioids in San Francisco. City Attorney David Chiu announced the settlement Wednesday, five days before a trial is to begin over the toll of opioids here.

Also, a Kentucky jury has awarded a man $450,000 who sued his employer after he asked them not to celebrate his birthday at work — and they did it anyway. Kevin Berling told his manager at Gravity Diagnostics in Covington in 2019 that a birthday celebration would cause him immense stress. His manager didn't heed his request, and Berling suffered a panic attack. The next day Berling had another panic attack when his supervisor chastised him for “stealing his co-workers’' joy and “being a little girl," according to a lawsuit. Berling was fired after the second attack.

Berling had told his supervisor that a birthday celebration would bring back bad childhood memories surrounding his parents’ divorce. The supervisor forgot to pass along his request.

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Guest is Farah Diaz-Tello,  IF/WHEN/HOW senior counsel and Legal Director for If/When/How, a reproductive justice advocacy group that is co-sponsoring the legislation. California lawmakers have advanced a bill that would strengthen laws preventing prosecution of pregnant people for pregnancy loss. California already has laws preventing these types of prosecutions. But a bill that passed the Assembly Health Committee on Tuesday would let women sue prosecutors for erroneously charging them with crimes related to pregnancy losses. 

Also, a teachable moment is ignored at West County High in Sonoma. The incident involved a “promposal” — where one student asks another to prom.

The student was photographed holding a sign that referred to the use of African slaves to grow and harvest cotton, Principal Shauna Ferdinandson said. It said that rather than do what they did, since she is white, she’d be “picking” her date for prom, a copy of the photo obtained by The Press Democrat shows.

The student in the photo, as well as two others who posted the photo on social media, have been disciplined, Ferdinandson said. She declined to discuss the nature of that discipline, citing student privacy laws.

“All across campus people are very upset,” Ferdinandson added. “I think the picture personified some of the feelings and experiences (students of color) have had that have been more subtle, and have brought it to light.”

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The National Rifle Assn. said the bill’s real intent is “to torment the firearms industry through costly litigation in the widest array of circumstances.”

The bill is written so broadly that “almost anyone could bring civil action against the firearm industry,” said the California Rifle and Pistol Assn. “It is an attack on the lawful commerce of firearms with an intent to limit the availability of firearms.”

Roy Griffith, the California group’s legislative director, said the proposal is “clearly in direct conflict with federal law.”

He equated it to allowing lawsuits against carmakers for drunk driving deaths.

“This industry gets protection that no other industry in the United States gets,” Ting responded. “Guns are not cars. The purpose of guns is to harm another individual.”

The Assembly Judiciary Committee advanced the bill on a 7-2 vote.

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Guest: Assemblyman Phil Ting

California lawmakers have advanced a measure that would make it easier to skirt a federal law in order to sue gun-makers. Opponents say the legislation that cleared its first committee Tuesday is ultimately aimed at driving manufacturers out of business. Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting said his legislation would make it easier to sue gun-makers or dealers for liability in shootings that cause deaths or injuries. Federal law blocks most of those types of lawsuits against the gun industry. But New York last year enacted the nation's first law opening up gun-makers to lawsuits. Ting's bill would require firearm makers and dealers to "take reasonable precautions."

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More forms of transportation are today announcing masks are now optional after the Biden Administration said the mask mandate will not be enforced following a court ruling in Florida.  Most of the big airlines now say masks are no longer mandatory.  In fact, many dropped masks mid flight yesterday to cheering passengers.  While other passengers say it was unfair that they boarded on the belief masks were mandatory and then they came down during flight.  Today Uber and Lyft have announced they too will no longer require masks be worn during rides.  But then it gets weird in Philadelphia where masks are still required in the city so masks are still required in the Philadelphia airport but then they can be dropped when somebody gets on board their plane.  It’s a lot of confusion.

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