Bedazzled items including gun shaped purses are for sale at the "USA Trump Store" at the expo hall i the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md., Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
DUMB CONTROL!
Against the backdrop of a deadly mass shooting in New York City, a new report reveals that Trump’s team has been quietly weakening gun safety measures.
- New Yorkers were winding down their work days in Midtown Manhattan last night when Shane Devon Tamura, a 27-year-old Nevada resident, walked into a building with an assault rifle and opened fire, killing four people and himself. Investigators found a note in his pocket, which expressed grievances with the NFL (which has an office in the building) and detailed his own experience with CTE, a brain injury found in many football players. Tamura had a “documented mental health history,” police said.
- This shooting, like so many others in the United States, prompted fresh calls for gun control — and the usual pushback from the right. “We don’t need more gun control, we need more idiot control,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Fox News last night, seemingly unconcerned that he might be advocating against his own interests with that one. Kennedy proceeded to to push for extremely controversial stop-and-frisk policies.
- That makes literally no sense in the wake of a mass shooting by a man with mental health issues who drove across the country and walked right into the building carrying an AR-15-style weapon… but okay!
- “We have a patchwork of gun laws, and you are safer in a state that has stronger gun laws,” Emma Brown, executive director of gun safety advocacy group Giffords, told What A Day. “But there’s nothing that stops somebody from driving from a different state with weaker gun laws into your state and killing people.”
Trump’s team has steadily rolled back gun safety measures in America while countless other scandals sucked up the media’s attention.
- This morning, news broke that the Trump administration slashed half of all federal funding for gun violence prevention programs — totaling $158 million in grants to groups in major cities, including New York City. Since January, Trump’s team also legalized a device that effectively transforms weapons into machine guns, considered restoring gun rights for criminal convicts, established the “Second Amendment Task Force” to bolster gun owners’ rights, and allowed DOGE to change or eliminate 47 gun rules and restrictions. Apparently, that number was chosen because he’s the 47th president.
- Opponents of gun control often suggest they’re already overregulated, so more laws won’t help. “We’ve got hundreds of gun control laws, maybe thousands,” Kennedy said during his Fox News appearance. But about 6 in 10 Americans support stricter gun control laws, and foreign countries with tighter restrictions simply don’t have the epidemic of gun violence that plagues America. Meanwhile, anti-gun control money flows like water from a busted fire hydrant through the streets of Washington D.C.
- “It’s corruption,” Brown said. “Our senators, our elected officials take incredible amounts of money from gun industry CEOs, and then side with them over Americans.”
Throughout Kennedy’s career, the National Rifle Association has spent more than $220,000 to elect him, according to FEC data. Nothing to see here!
CLIMATE DERANGED
Some big, history-making decisions arrive quietly, without great fanfare.
Someday, sweltering citizens of an overheated future may look back on today as just such an occasion: The day the Environmental Protection Agency officially gave up on the fight against climate change.
That’s what EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin effectively just tried to initiate, with an attempt to blow up a bedrock scientific finding that human-caused climate change endangers human health. Zeldin proposed repealing the so-called “endangerment finding,” which underpins his agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gasses that cause climate change.
If the courts back him up, today’s move might even mean that future presidents can’t use the agency to limit greenhouse gasses.
This is the Trump administration’s most damaging assault on the fight against climate change yet. And it comes, ironically, at a moment when heatwaves cover almost half the country, and rising temperatures are creating more dangerous storms.
“They care more about protecting polluters than people,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said in a statement.
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"They get a kick out of playing dress-up and acting tough.”
— Former FBI agent Michael Feinberg on Donald Trump’s leadership at the bureau, adding these guys have no idea what they’re doing.
NEWS NEWS NEWS
Americans’ support for Israel’s war in Gaza is falling. Only 32 percent back the effort, the lowest figure since the conflict began, according to new Gallup polling. The divide is hyperpartisan: Only 8 percent of Democrats back Israel’s actions, compared to 71 percent of Republicans. More than 60,000 people have now been killed in the conflict, local health officials announced today.
Ghislaine Maxwell wants immunity and to be provided questions ahead of her testimony in front of Congress scheduled for next month, according to her lawyer. Maxwell, the confidant of deceased child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, also wants clemency from Trump, who has repeatedly stated that he has the power to pardon her.
Trump’s Department of Justice filed a misconduct complaint against Judge James Boasberg, who has repeatedly slapped down Trump’s policies. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Boasberg of trying to influence Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts at a private event, allegedly warning Roberts that the Trump administration might ignite a “constitutional crisis.” Well, if he did say that… he wasn’t lying!
A Korean scientist who has lived in the U.S. since he was 5 years old has been detained by ICE agents in San Francisco for the past week — without an explanation or access to an attorney, the Washington Post reports. The scientist, Tae Heung “Will” Kim, is a green card holder and pursuing a PhD, researching a vaccine for Lyme disease, his attorney said.
A third whistleblower accused Emil Bove, a top DOJ official, of misleading senators during a hearing. GOP senators have been trying to ram through Bove’s nomination to become an appeals court judge, despite his extremely shady track record and history as Trump’s personal hatchetman lawyer. A spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said the new allegations “reek of a bad faith attempt to sink a nominee.” Excuse me, but if making this guy a federal judge doesn’t “reek of bad faith,” you may need your nose checked, senator.
A pizza shop in Wisconsin named Famous Yeti’s Pizza mistakenly served dough made with cannabis oil to at least 85 people last year, according to federal officials, in what the government described as “mass THC intoxication events.” I am so curious how many people went back for a second pizza after scarfing down that first one.
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