| Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has made two dramatic changes at the U.S.-Mexico border in anticipation of a possible influx of migrants there under a new Biden administration policy. One change is quite controversial and could affect what you and I see in our grocery stores. The other was expected to be controversial but actually seems to be pleasing both sides of the contentious debate about what to do about migrants. Let's explain. What he's doing  Trucks wait at the crossing at Pharr, Texas. (Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images) | - Abbott is forcing trucks entering from Mexico with goods to undergo a state inspection, in addition to federal inspections, saying lifting pandemic border restrictions will open the door to gangs and drugs. The result is a backup at border crossings stretching seven or eight miles, my colleagues report, and concerns that all the produce these trucks are carrying — strawberries, asparagus, avocados — will go bad and have to be thrown away. That could push already high prices at the grocery store even higher. General Motors and other carmakers could also be short on parts to make cars.
- He's busing migrants to D.C. Fresh after crossing illegally into Texas from Mexico, Texas officials asked some migrants if they wanted a free bus ride to D.C. Those who might be going that way anyway said yes; the first busload arrived Wednesday outside the U.S. Capitol. There's no other way to see this; Abbott was trying to make a political point that if Democrats in control of Washington want to take a more lenient approach to migrants, they can take the migrants. Migrant groups normally at odds with Abbott used the buses the state was offering to help coordinate rides.
 Ordalis Rodríguez, a migrant from Venezuela, is accompanied by her daughter Luciana and her husband Víctor in Washington. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post) | Why he's doing this? Abbott says it's because Biden is going to end Title 42, a pandemic-era restriction that for more than two years has allowed the government to send migrants back home as soon as they cross the border, rather than let them apply for asylum and let them stay in the country while they await their court cases. Biden has keep the Trump-era policy in place for much longer than liberals in his party want, but lifting it will inevitably draw more migrants to the border. That's worrying vulnerable Democrats up for reelection in 2022, who fear their party will get hit as the one that can't handle the border. This is a political opportunity for Republicans. Polls showed a majority of Americans disapproved of how Biden was handling the border last year, the last time this was back in the news. The border is especially useful for revving up the Republican base to vote in November's midterm elections. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans say immigration is very important to their vote in the midterms, compared with 34 percent of Democrats, according to a March Pew survey. It's one of Republican voters' top issues, alongside crime and the economy. What Elon Musk wants with Twitter (and why it matters to you) Elon Musk announced this morning that he's trying to buy Twitter. (We don't know whether Twitter wants to be bought.) The CEO of Tesla and founder/CEO of SpaceX presumably has big plans for one of the largest social media companies in the world, though we don't know exactly what they are. Musk, an avid Twitter user himself, is staunchly pro-free speech without restrictions. But he's all over the place on politics. Musk has donated generously to Republicans and Democrats. Sometimes he says he's a socialist, sometimes he says he's an independent. Generally, he seems to lean libertarian in the sense that he's anti-regulation. At other times said he's socially "very liberal" and fiscally conservative, though he's also tweeted things like "pronouns suck" and called pandemic restrictions "fascist." But as lawmakers search for ways to regulate social media, Musk has said that the government needs to "get out of the way" and let companies innovate. If he can buy Twitter, that free-speech/no-regulation mind-set could dramatically reshape Twitter, a platform that's has become increasingly willing to ban some speech, even kicking the then-president of the United States off the platform entirely after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Musk has called himself a "free speech absolutist," and it seems like Twitter moderation is his biggest concern with the platform. He tweeted a poll in March asking whether the platform "rigorously adheres" to the principle of free speech, following up the poll with a tweet that reads: "The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully." A hit for democratic values The Republican Party wants out of presidential debates. The Republican National Committee voted Thursday to withdrawal from the process of participating in debates that both sides have agreed to since the 1980s. For decades, American has a bipartisan commission whose sole job is to host these debates as fairly as possible. In 2020, Trump baselessly accused the Commission on Presidential Debates of being biased toward Democrats. And the Republican Party has followed through on his threats to get out of participating in these debates altogether. Presidential debates, as we saw in 2020, can be messy; ugly, even. But they're a hallmark of democracy. And they might not be happening any more. | 
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