In the news today: Omicron. Omicron, omicron, omicron. While politicians posture and bicker over who can keep schools open longest or manage this new mega-surge with the least “disruption,” the virus at the center of the surge isn’t listening—and that means schools and other services are being shuttered not because any politician ordered it to happen or not happen, but there are simply too many people out sick to make things function. That’s a pandemic stage we had really, really been trying to avoid—and now that we’re in it, there don’t look to be any coherent plans for getting us back out.

In the meantime, the Texas governor is now demanding the federal government bail his state out after yet another summer of mocking the federal government for trying to keep his citizens safe. And new polls show an alarming rise in the number of Republicans who say violence against the U.S. government is justified—a predictable rise in pro-terrorism sentiments after a yearlong hoax campaign by Republican Party lawmakers and allies claiming recent election losses to be the result of nationwide—and entirely imaginary—”fraud.”

Here’s some of what you may have missed: