Time now for a midweek check in of some major political news so far this week with our friend Roland Martin, who is a senior editor with NPR States.

Good to see you, Roland.

Good to see you, too, Renee.

So let's start with Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican.

He's pushed back on a couple of things.

The first thing really recently, the Biden administration has finalized some new rules when it comes to child welfare agencies and placement, particularly for LGBTQ plus children who identify as such and putting them in supportive family environments.

Why is the attorney general pushing back against this?

Well, he says that, you know, this would really affect Kentucky's ability to contract with certain agencies that work with foster kids in the state.

So there's just one there's one agency, Sunrise Children's Services in Kentucky, which is part of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

And you might remember a few years ago, there was a bit of a dustup between the statements on rights, children's services, when the state was, you know, requiring that as part of its contract, that that that there be no discrimination against LGBTQ students or at least that there are foster kids and that there would be and that LGBTQ foster parents would be eligible to adopt.

And that is something that Sunrise Children's Services wasn't really in favor of ultimately led to that contract changing, and the state removed those provisions.

And now this issues come back from the federal level.

The federal government is saying that in order that states will be required to to have this in place in order to as part of its adoption program.

So that's something Russell Coleman says Kentucky shouldn't have to do.

And this just also goes along with a couple other rules changes that the Biden administration has made in recent weeks.

The other one having to do with Title nine protections for banning discrimination involving LGBTQ students.

So as you mentioned, the Title nine issue of actually expanding that to include the population that we just talked about.

Russell Coleman did push back against that as well.

So these two are connected, correct?

And I think they're connected in the sense that the Biden administration has been pushing to put these rules in place this summer.

I think a little bit of that has to do with timing of the election.

One, to I think from the Biden administration's perspective, have it in place before the election in case there is an administration change.

But also this is something that a lot of you know, a lot of that is hoping that the people who support LGBTQ rights will see the Biden administration going out of their way to to double down on these protections.

So anyway, Russell Coleman has joined this multi-state lawsuit which has been filed in the Eastern District of Kentucky.

That's where one of these lawsuits, at least, is going to take place.

There's a lot of different ones taking place across the country.

He's saying that against that states that the schools in Kentucky should not have to do that.

And this you know, this can apply from everything to some of the bathroom bills that we've seen across the country.

Some of the other, you know, what people characterize as anti-trans legislation that schools would have to abide to.

And he's saying that the Kentucky schools shouldn't have to take part in that and that the federal government is overreaching on this.

It's important to remember that there are some you know, the whole the whole part of these Title nine protections is that states would have to you would risk funding federal education funding if they don't abide by them.

So, you know, depending on how these lawsuits end up, which probably will not be resolved anytime soon, you know, there is some significant risk for states and school districts.

So making a pivot quickly to talk about some Washington politics.

Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, who serves the fourth Congressional District that encompasses northern Kentucky, is in cahoots with Georgia Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor GREENE in trying to oust the House speaker, Mike Johnson.

And today, they've been in talks that may not be a vote this week, as we understand it.

But there are four conditions that they've put that they want Mike Johnson to comply with or else they could proceed with a vote next week.

This is getting more interesting as the days unfold, right?

Yeah.

Congressman Massie now has what I don't know, as he's calling it, some are calling that the Massie rule, which is trying to force the speaker to to to block any future Ukraine funding, or at least in exchange for making some other cuts to to federal spending.

And so he and Marjorie Taylor GREENE are trying to apply pressure on the speaker in the Senate.

It's the speaker's pretty safe at this point because Democrats have actually said that they will come out and vote and vote against any ouster of the speaker, which would, you know, kind of scuttle those efforts from for some of the more conservative Republicans trying to oust him.

But I think that, you know, Congressman Massie and others are trying to point out that that that the speaker is, at least on some issues when it comes to funding through Ukraine, some federal spending is a little bit more moderate than than the extreme wing of the party.

And they're they're trying to make an issue of this.

You know, some political observers have pointed out that this is really dividing the Republican Party at this point when they're trying to, you know, maintain their majority in the in the House and and regain a majority in the Senate, which is becoming increasingly questionable going into the November elections, because there's there's a quite a bit of disunity among Republicans in Congress right now.

Well, thank you so much for your time, Rayland.

We appreciate it.

Take good care.

Thanks, Renee.