Washington State Bans AR-15 Sales: “No Reason Other Than Mass Murder”

Washington has just banned the sale of AR-15s and dozens of other semiautomatic rifles.

The monumental change came Tuesday, as Governor Jay Inslee signed a trio of gun safety bills amid a spate of disastrous gun violence sweeping the nation.

“These weapons of war, assault weapons, have no reason other than mass murder,” Inslee said while signing the bills. “Their only purpose is to kill humans as rapidly as possible in large numbers.”

Inslee also signed a bill that enacts a 10-day waiting period for gun purchases, and another that will open the door to holding gunmakers and sellers liable for negligent sales. In sum, the bills embody yet another state government with a Democratic trifecta genuinely responding to concerns surrounding rampant gun violence. Michigan has been pursuing a slate of gun safety regulations, including the recent passage of universal background checks and safe storage laws.

Washington’s gun safety provisions follow horrific instances of gun violence on both micro and macro scales. In recent weeks, numerous individuals have been shot, even fatally, for the offense of accidentally ringing the wrong doorbell or driving up the wrong driveway. And these came amid larger back-to-back mass shootings that have shocked thousands of people in the South. A school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, left three children and three adults dead; a shooting at a Louisville, Kentucky, bank left five people dead and another eight injured.

There have been at least 173 mass shootings in America just this year—that is an average of about 1.5 mass shootings a day.

In the meantime, Republicans have spent most of their time either shutting down even modest gun reform or stumbling over themselves to still somehow pledge fealty to the NRA. (Essentially every rumored and declared candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination attended the NRA’s convention less than two weeks ago.)

“Just because they don’t solve all the problems does not mean the state of Washington does not take action,” Inslee said while signing the bills Tuesday. “Inaction against gun violence is unacceptable.”

On Monday, Senator Ed Markey joined the growing calls for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign.*

“I will say what needs to be said: Clarence Thomas should resign from the Supreme Court of the United States. His reputation is unsalvageable,” the Massachusetts senator said. “It is evident that he cannot judge right from wrong, so why should he be judging the country’s most important cases on the highest court?”

Markey made the comments while flanked by Representative Ayanna Pressley and Senator Elizabeth Warren in Boston, during the kickoff of a 20-stop tour focused on advocating for tighter ethical restrictions on the Supreme Court.

The tour follows a stream of revelations about the secret and extremely lavish gifts Thomas has received for decades from billionaire GOP megadonor Harlan Crow. The undisclosed offerings from the Nazi memorabilia–collecting billionaire included luxurious island-hopping excursions on superyachts and even a secret deal in which Crow bought Thomas family property and proceeded to upgrade it while Thomas’s mother still lived in it.

The trio’s kickoff also came a day before revelations that Justice Neil Gorsuch successfully sold a 40-acre property that he had been trying to sell for two years to an undisclosed buyer; the buyer of the nearly $2 million Colorado ranch was the CEO of a law firm that has since had 22 cases with business before the court.

Along with calling for Thomas’s resignation, Markey joined Warren and Pressley in calling for broader reform to the courts.

Markey assailed the court as being “broken,” with justices flouting financial restrictions and ethical standards while the court inflicts “painful real-world consequences” upon people. He listed an array of cases as evidence of how people’s “most fundamentally held freedoms are under siege.”

Dobbs, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the right to an abortion, has brought consequences “splattered across the national news and suffered in private, in doctors’ offices, and in kitchen tables all across the country.”

New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Breun, which overruled New York’s law that required people to have a license to carry concealed weapons in public places had the court ignoring “the suffering of families who have lost lives from the unrepentant score of gun violence in our nation.”

Limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in West Virginia v. EPA “tied the hands of regulators who are attempting to take lifesaving measures to shield our children from the most devastating and fatal effects of climate change.”

“But when something is broken, we don’t just agonize, we organize,” Markey insisted.

The Massachusetts lawmakers all proposed expanding the size of the court—which has been done seven times in the past—and enacting a much stronger ethics regime on the court.

“No one should have to wonder whether the justice who heard their case ignored the law because his wife had a stake in the outcome, or his friend who takes him on half-million-dollar vacations wanted him to rule a certain way,” Warren said.

Markey is among only a few lawmakers who have called for Thomas’s resignation, but the broader calls for a more fair Supreme Court are certainly not a minority opinion. Earlier this month, Senator Richard Blumenthal called for the Supreme Court justice to step down, as have a few representatives in the House. Nearly two-thirds of Americans no longer have confidence in the Supreme Court as it stands now, according to a poll conducted earlier this month.

The figures reflect the lawmaker’s point of how a demonstrably unethical court is issuing life-changing opinions on everything from abortion access to the health of America’s environment.

Pressley called for “justice for the most marginalized,” in a nod to the millions impacted by the rogue court’s decision-making.

“Angela Y. Davis said, I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change. Instead, I’m changing the things I can no longer accept.”

* This post originally misstated that Markey was the first senator to call for Thomas’s resignation.

Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley had the nerve to pretend she’s a moderate on abortion issues, in a speech given Tuesday at an organization pushing a national ban on the procedure.

Haley spoke at the national headquarters of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, the anti-abortion organization that aggressively turned on Donald Trump after he said abortion rights should be decided by individual states instead of federally banned.

During her speech, Haley said that a federal ban was unlikely to work, so the next president should try to find a “national consensus” instead. She listed several points that she felt appealed to both sides of the aisle.

Most of the points Haley included are either not real or only occur in extreme circumstances. Fetuses are rarely “born alive” during an abortion, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health experts have warned that bills requiring care be given to fetuses “born alive” could negatively affect care for babies born prematurely or with fatal abnormalities by preventing doctors from helping relieve any pain those babies might be in, or punishing medical professionals who let families hold such newborns before they die.

Republicans like Haley often argue that abortions are conducted up until the moment of birth. That does not happen. Abortions that occur in the second trimester are most often for wanted pregnancies that develop complications, rendering them unviable and possibly a threat to the pregnant person’s life. (Less than 1 percent of abortions take place in the third trimester, for similar reasons.)

Haley also tried to appear moderate on certain points that are only issues because of what her fellow Republicans are doing. She said people who get abortions shouldn’t be jailed, as was suggested in a few Republican-backed state-level bills deemed so extreme that they failed. She also said there should be wider access to contraception, even as Republicans have repeatedly voted against expanding availability.

Haley has generally adopted a waffly stance on abortion since announcing her campaign. Abortion wins elections, and Haley can’t afford to alienate anyone, so she’s trying to find a middle lane that will win over both sides. But during her speech Tuesday, she essentially admitted that she can’t be trusted on abortion when she brought up her own record.

Haley voted for multiple bills while she was a state senator in South Carolina that restricted abortion access or gave rights to fetuses. As governor, she signed a ban on abortion at 20 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest. She claimed the time limit was to prevent fetuses from feeling pain, even though the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that fetuses don’t feel pain until at least 24 weeks of gestation.

If Haley were really interested in a “national consensus” on abortion, she could look at the numbers. Almost two-thirds of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center.

But it’s clear she doesn’t care all that much. You can take her word for it.

North Dakota lawmakers have passed a bill forcing schools to blare anti-abortion propaganda videos at children.

House Bill 1265 orders school districts to show students a “high-definition ultrasound video, at least three minutes in duration, showing the development of the brain, heart, sex organs, and other vital organs in early fetal development.” The bill’s text does not mention any concern for medical or scientific accuracy, nor principles related to bodily autonomy.

The bill also orders districts to show students “high-quality, computer-generated rendering or animation showing the process of fertilization and every stage of human development inside the uterus, noting significant markers in cell growth and organ development for every week of pregnancy until birth.”

What might such content look like inside classrooms across the state?

One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Senator Janne Myrdal, presented a sample video called “Baby Olivia,” made by anti-choice organization Live Action.

“This is the moment that life begins,” a narrator says in the video, overlaying an animation of a sperm cell approaching an ovum.

The question of when “life begins” is a primary point of contention in the debate surrounding abortion rights; the video Myrdal presents, however, comes from an organization known for making heavily edited hoax videos to take down Planned Parenthood.

At 11 weeks, the video claims a fetus is “playing in the womb” and “moving her body and exploring her environment.” (Recall that the point of viability for a fetus is generally considered to be at 23 or 24 weeks.)

Districts are not required to show this particular video; however the “model” video was the main one grounding debate as the bill was being discussed in the state legislature. The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction told The New Republic that while the bill does not require schools to use a specific video, “this one meets the parameters.”

The bill passed just ahead of a restrictive six-week abortion ban signed Monday, also pushed by Myrdal.

Fargo school board member and state director of Planned Parenthood Katie Christensen noted that the school board of the state’s largest city opposed the bill. Christensen told TNR that experts came together to create the state’s current health education content standards, and that the law “disregards the hard work and expertise of those individuals.”

Myrdal, for her part, said showing the video to students would be “enhancing the understanding of life, enhancing the intrinsic value of human beings.” In February, Myrdal turned her back on a pastor who delivered a prayer to the Senate about the value of people of all backgrounds.

“Creator of the universe and all people therein, you who formed humankind in your image, placing them in this world in all their diversity—differing colors, genders, races, ethnicities, and language. We praise you for the splendor of your creation and the love that motivated your hand on this Earth,” Reverend Dr. Leanne Simmons preached to the Senate. Every floor session begins with a prayer by a religious leader, but only this specific deliverance about the value of all human beings brought Myrdal to protest.

Live Action hailed the bill’s passage as “ensuring all 116,639 students in North Dakota will be shown the truth,” especially in light of “one of the options presented for school district use being Live Action’s cutting-edge educational video Baby Olivia.” Myrdal has said that Live Action is even willing to relinquish its rights to the video, taking its name off the video and providing it for free to the state.

“We know that teachers already manage various tasks every single day and now this is one more requirement added to their plates,” Christensen said, adding that even though Live Action’s video will not be required, the bill still requires some form of video to be shown. “If a district or teacher wants to seek an alternative video, that would require more time and resources to fulfill this unnecessary mandate.”

As can be seen with the litany of copycat bills nationwide antagonistic to abortion rights, labor, LGBTQ people, and more, it’s possible that North Dakota will inspire other state legislatures as well. “With this bill’s passage, it is possible that other states will follow suit,” Live Action celebrated.

Fox announced Monday that Carlson would no longer appear on the network, a shock move that seemed to catch everyone off guard. Fox had even aired ads that day for Carlson’s show up until the decision was made public.

Carlson now appears to be persona non grata at Fox, despite being one of the network’s most popular stars. An interim show hosted by rotating anchors will take Carlson’s coveted evening air slot until a successor is announced.

Who do you think will replace Carlson?

The senator who sponsored North Dakota’s new near-total abortion ban, one of the strictest measures in the country, has a long history of trying to impose her own extreme views on the state.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, North Dakota has banned abortion after six weeks, before most people even know they are pregnant. The state tried to implement its trigger law, a total abortion ban, but the measure was blocked in the courts.

Governor Doug Burgum on Monday signed a bill amending the language in the six-week ban, effective immediately. The law now makes exceptions for rape or incest, but only up to that six-week limit. There are also exceptions for life-threatening conditions such as ectopic pregnancies, when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, making the pregnancy nonviable and dangerous; and for molar pregnancies, another nonviable compilation when a tumor forms in the uterus.

Minors need to get consent from both their parents to get an abortion, with no exception for minors who might be abused by a parent or guardian, or they have to petition a court to get an abortion without parental consent. Doctors are required to lie to patients that medication abortions can be reversed. Any care provider who violates the law can be charged with a felony.

The measure was sponsored by Senator Janne Myrdal, an extremist Republican first elected in 2016. Prior to serving in public office, she led the anti-abortion group ND Choose Life and was a former director for the state chapter of Concerned Women for America, a conservative activist group that has lobbied for anti-LGBTQ legislation.

Myrdal co-sponsored a bill in January 2017 that would have classified all internet-connected devices as a “pornographic vending machine.” Under the measure, it would have been a crime to sell any such device in North Dakota unless the “obscene” material could be censored or internet users paid $20 for uncensored access.

Two years later, Myrdal co-sponsored a bill that would have required doctors to lie to their patients that it was possible to reverse a medication abortion (which made it into Monday’s abortion bill). The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says abortion reversal claims are “unproven and unethical,” and attempts to reverse a medication abortion could put a patient’s health at risk.

Myrdal shared an image on her Facebook page of a Pride flag with a swastika on it, and after being met with outrage, apologized and said she never meant to post the image. She tried to defund North Dakota State University for launching a research project on youth sex education, and she backed a bill that would prevent government entities from requiring that employees be addressed by their preferred pronouns. That measure would also require teachers to get permission from parents and the school administration to use a student’s preferred pronouns.

More recently, she also sponsored a bill requiring all schools in North Dakota to show students a propaganda video from the anti-abortion group Live Action.

“Janne’s vision—and the vision of those like her—is to create a state where they make all the rules,” Amy Jacobsen, the executive director of progressive rights group Prairie Action ND, wrote in a 2021 op-ed. “What religions are acceptable. What should be taught in our schools. What sex education curriculum may be used (if any at all). What science to allow, and what science to deny.”

North Dakota’s Janne, like the many who came before her, carries out her bigotry and intolerance in the name of religion. Yet her views are not based on anything “Christian.” Christ taught acceptance, compassion, and to be cautious when judging others. Instead, Janna Myrdal is mean-spirited and only too happy to not only judge but lay out the penalties for those she doesn’t like. She is, in short, a bully.

It was the first night on Fox News without Tucker Carlson in seven years, and his former colleagues barely mentioned him.

Fox announced Monday that Carlson would no longer appear on the network. The decision seemed to catch everyone off guard, considering the separation was effective immediately and Carlson had no formal opportunity to say goodbye. Fox even aired ads Monday for an interview with Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Carlson’s show before the decision was made public.

It now appears that Carlson is already persona non grata at Fox. His departure was announced on air, when host Harris Faulkner simply read the statement that had already been released.

But on Monday night, Carlson got only the most passing of mentions.

Temporary host Brian Kilmeade also took over the big Ramaswamy interview, a sign that Carlson was ultimately replaceable to the network despite being Fox’s most popular anchor for years.

Weird theories are already circulating as to why Carlson is no longer at Fox, including that the network is trying to minimize the fallout of multiple lawsuits. But the important thing to remember is that now, there is one less fount of hateful conspiracy theories on air.

President Joe Biden has named Julie Chavez Rodriguez as his 2024 campaign manager. The news comes as Biden announced his bid for reelection on Tuesday morning.

Chavez Rodriguez embodies some of the most defining features of the president’s contemporary posture.

In one sense, Chavez Rodriguez is a Washington veteran. She is currently serving as the senior adviser and assistant to Biden, as well as the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Before that, she served as deputy campaign manager for the Biden-Harris campaign, as well as national political director and traveling chief of staff for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.

Before the 2020 campaign season, Chavez Rodriguez worked in Harris’s Senate office, in the Obama administration, and in the Interior Department, including as the director of youth employment. All to say, she is a longtime fixture within the government—like her boss.

Biden’s lengthy presence in government has garnered trust, through a sense of reliability and relationship-building. It has also attracted scrutiny, in terms of all the undesirable outcomes he has tolerated or even advanced. Chavez Rodriguez’s own trajectory mirrors the dynamic.

Chavez Rodriguez began her advocacy as a child, knocking on doors and handing out leaflets with her grandfather, Cesar Chavez, in support of organizing farmworkers. According to the Los Angeles Times, Chavez Rodriguez and her cousins were around the famed organizer and patriarch so much, they joked that while others would go on family picnics, they’d be busy at family pickets.

After high school and on breaks from university, Chavez Rodriguez worked in AFL-CIO union summer programs. She worked with the United Farm Workers to organize strawberry pickers. She later worked for eight years as a program director at the Cesar Chavez Foundation, advocating for Latino and working families, before transitioning into volunteering for Obama’s campaign and then soon finding a job in the administration.

Besides her famed grandfather, Chavez Rodriguez’s mother, Linda—Cesar Chavez’s daughter—was active in organizing as a farmworker herself. Linda’s husband, Arturo, Chavez Rodriguez’s father, was just as active, serving as president of the United Farm Workers for 25 years.

While Chavez Rodriguez has deep roots in organizing and advocacy, her long arc serving in government has brought her to defend positions that may not offer confidence for what a fully progressive agenda looks like. In 2014, for example, when Obama faced criticism for operating as the “deporter in chief,” Chavez Rodriguez was serving as deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement, focusing specifically on Obama’s immigration reform efforts. She was tasked with overseeing outreach to Latino communities.

Chavez Rodriguez invoked her grandfather’s memory while explaining her role in defending Obama’s approach to immigration. “My grandfather helped me to understand that change isn’t immediate,” she told the LA Times. “It doesn’t happen overnight. It does take a lot of time and sacrifice. It takes consistent, sustained organizing and pressure to be able to see great progress in our country.”

“There’s no turning back,” Chavez also once said. “We will win. We are winning because ours is a revolution of mind and heart.”

Chavez Rodriguez, like many campaign staffers, is but one cog in a larger machine. But in many ways, personnel does matter, or at least indicates the priorities of a politician. Since Ron Klain’s departure and Jeff Zeints’s empowerment as chief of staff, for instance, Biden has swung substantially right on a range of issues, from approving the overturning of Washington, D.C.’s criminal codes and proposing Trumpian immigration restrictions to greenlighting the Willow pipeline project.

While Chavez Rodriguez holds deep ties to labor and immigrant rights, she also has been in the tough position of having to defend officials who have fallen short of honoring those causes. She certainly has her own agency, and Biden’s trust in her may offer confidence in the direction he’d like his campaign to go; but it still depends on who else surrounds her and how much her being picked is about her actual work, rather than simply the succession of someone who has been in government for a long time.

To this day, Biden has a bust of Chavez in the Oval Office in commemoration of the famed labor leader. It will soon become apparent whether he will now welcome the full spirit of his granddaughter, or if he’ll simply prop Chavez Rodriguez up to shield off criticism—just as he has kept her grandfather’s statue in full view while lurching to the right.

Donald Trump and his friends can look forward to a Hot Seat Summer, after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis revealed Monday that she plans to announce possible criminal indictments this summer.

Trump is under investigation in Georgia for his actions following the 2020 presidential election. A leaked phone call revealed he had pressured the Georgia secretary of state to “find” the exact number of votes needed to flip the state in his favor.

Willis sent a letter to local law enforcement Monday asking them to be ready for “heightened security and preparedness” during the summer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. She plans to announce “charging decisions resulting from the investigation my office has been conducting into possible criminal interference in the administration of Georgia’s 2020 General Election” between July 11 and September 1.

“We have seen in recent years that some may go outside of public expressions of opinion that are protected by the First Amendment to engage in acts of violence that will endanger the safety of those we are sworn to protect,” Willis said in the letter. “As leaders, it is incumbent upon us to prepare.”

While she never mentions Trump or any of his allies by name, it is clear that she has her sights set on the former president and his inner circle.

Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told the Journal-Constitution that there is a “substantial likelihood that Donald Trump and his princip[al] co-conspirators will be included” when Willis announces the charges.

One major hint is Willis’s request for increased security. New York City police stepped up their presence around the Manhattan district court where Trump was arraigned earlier this month. Trump has previously called for protests around his indictment, although only a handful of people showed up to support him in New York.

Trump is already facing 34 counts of business fraud in New York for his alleged role in hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. He is also under investigation for his role in the January 6 insurrection and for his alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He will go on trial Tuesday for allegedly defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, who has also accused Trump of raping her.

Tucker Carlson isn’t off the hook yet.

While far-right Fox has shedded far-right Carlson, the network is still liable for damage he leaves in his wake.

The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that Carlson’s sudden departure was related to a discrimination lawsuit filed by former Fox producer Abby Grossberg. And the order came directly from Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch.

Grossberg has accused Carlson and other executives of managing a newsroom rife with hostility, where antisemitism and gross misogyny ran rampant. Such an environment, plagued by “poisonous and entrenched patriarchy,” was part of an atmosphere that Grossberg said forced her to give misleading testimony in the historic defamation lawsuit against Fox brought by Dominion Voting Systems.

Grossberg had worked at Fox for four years, mainly on Maria Bartiromo’s programs. But last year, she began working on Carlson’s show. In court documents filed last month, the ex-producer accused Fox lawyers of trying to scapegoat her and Bartiromo for the network’s lie-peddling about the 2020 election and voting system companies like Dominion.

The culture was not just hard on specific employees, but outwardly gross. Large photos of Representative Nancy Pelosi in a plunging swimsuit emblazoned the walls. Carlson’s producer, Justin Wells, who was let go alongside Carlson on Monday, once asked Grossberg whether Bartiromo was having a sexual relationship with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.

Carlson’s staff would joke about Jews, throw out vulgar terms for women, and debate whether they’d rather have sex with Republican Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon or Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

After Grossberg once complained about harassment from two male producers, Human Resources confronted her and accused her of not performing her duties.

The dynamic is a familiar one in big-box network news, especially at Fox, where the company has cultivated a notoriously toxic racist and sexist environment for years.

Fox has denied such allegations with the same vigor it denied accusations brought by Dominion in its case—one Fox settled for $787.5 million, an amount the network might not throw around if it truly believed it wasn’t guilty.

Tanvir Rahman, an attorney for Grossberg, said that Carlson’s exit indicates “in part, an admission of the systemic lying, bullying, and conspiracy mongering claimed by our client.”