As Politico notes, the trio’s specific “offense,” and the reason for the votes today, was their decision to “join protesters…to call for gun safety reform,” “approach the lectern without being called on by House GOP leadership,” and tote “a bullhorn to lead chants on the House floor,” which temporarily caused a suspension in legislative business. In a typical bit of Republican shamelessness, House Speaker Cameron Sexton likened their actions to “an insurrection.” (Just to be clear: The group’s protest did not cause lawmakers to flee the scene in fear of their lives, involve chants calling for anyone to be hanged, or result in the deaths of five people, like a certain Washington, DC, riot did in 2021.)
Jones was expelled in a vote of 72-25, Pearson by 69-26. Ahead of his ouster, Jones castigated his GOP colleagues for doing nothing to stop the epidemic of gun violence. “Your flexing of false power has awakened a generation of people who will let you know your time is up,” he said. Like Republicans across the country, those in Tennessee have rejected pleas for tighter restrictions on firearms. Instead, they’ve focused on measures that do not go to the root of the problem; on Thursday, the Tennessee House passed a bill that would require schools to, per The New York Times, “require schools to conduct annual drills, keep all entrance doors locked, and install a mobile panic-alert system.”
In a letter sent to Tennessee House members on Tuesday, Pearson wrote: “I recognize that I did not follow decorum this past Thursday on the House floor and I take full responsibility and accountability for my actions.” But “when I saw thousands of people — mostly children and teenagers — protesting and demanding action from us after the slaying of six innocent people, including three 9-year-old children, it was impossible to sit idly by and continue with business as usual.”
Idaho passes insane new law that criminalizes helping a minor get an abortion without parental consent—even if that minor was raped by their parent
Remember, in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, when a number of conservatives were like, “Oh, relax, they’re not banning abortion, they’re just sending it back to the states”—the suggestion being that the situation wasn’t as nearly dire as some people were making it out to be and that abortion would largely remain legal? Well, abortion has been sent back to the states, and here’s what the states are doing with it:
The new “abortion trafficking” law signed on Wednesday [in Idaho], is the first of its kind in the U.S. It makes it illegal to either obtain abortion pills for a minor or to help them leave the state for an abortion without their parents’ knowledge and consent. Anyone convicted will face two to five years in prison and could also be sued by the minor’s parent or guardian. Parents who raped their child will not be able to sue, though the criminal penalties for anyone who helped the minor obtain an abortion will remain in effect.
The law also gives the attorney general the ability to prosecute someone for alleged violations of the law, even if the county prosecutor—who would normally be responsible for filing a criminal case—declines to prosecute.
It’s hard to say which aspect of the new law is the most f–ked up, but we’re going to have to go with the bit about the state reserving the right to prosecute and imprison someone for helping a child obtain an abortion after that child was raped by their parent. (How big of Idaho to not allow the parent in that scenario to sue.)
In a statement, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, which serves Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, said: “Many minors do not have supportive or safe parents or guardians in their lives who they can ask to help them get an abortion. It’s remarkable that lawmakers believe that young Idahoans don’t have the capacity to make reproductive health care choices for themselves or deserve bodily autonomy, but believe that those same young people should have the capacity to raise and care for children on their own, without any major social or economic support.”
Last year, Idaho banned virtually all abortions in the state, prompting the Justice Department to sue. The new law signed Wednesday will go into effect in 30 days.
How many more people need to get death threats before Trump is gag-ordered?
In the weeks leading up to his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, Donald Trump regularly and viciously attacked Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor leading the investigation into his hush money deals. Because these (often racist) attacks led to at least one death threat—and perhaps because he’s all too aware of Trump’s penchant for inciting “death and destruction”—Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing the case, warned on Tuesday that the ex-president should “refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence and civil unrest.” Which Trump being Trump, i.e. a dangerous blowhard, promptly proceeded to ignore.
Speaking at Mar-a-Lago hours after he was charged with 34 class E felonies, the former president and current presidential candidate continued his verbal assault on the district attorney and took aim at Merchan as well. In the case of the former, Trump claimed that Bragg was a “criminal” who “illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information, for which he should be prosecuted.” (He also took a shot at Bragg’s wife.) As for Merchan, Trump called him a “Trump-hating judge, with a Trump-hating wife and family, whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris and now receives money from the Biden-Harris campaign—and a lot of it.” The former leader of the free world also took the opportunity to take shots at Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis, whom he described as a “local racist Democrat district attorney in Atlanta who is doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call,” and DOJ-appointed special counsel Jack Smith, whom Trump dubbed a “lunatic.” The former commander in chief also bizarrely suggested Smith had changed his name, musing, “I wonder what it was prior to a change.”
The result? More death threats.
Per NBC News:
The judge overseeing the Trump hush money case, Juan Merchan, and his family and court in Manhattan have received unsubstantiated threats since Trump’s hearing yesterday, two sources familiar with the matter said. There have been “dozens” of such threats to the judge and his chambers recently, one official said.
Bragg and other top officials in his office also continue to receive threats, one source said. The unsubstantiated threats have been in the form of phone calls, emails, and letters.
As Axios noted on Thursday, all of this—Trump’s dangerous rhetoric and the threats it has seemingly inspired—raises a “crucial question”: What’s it going to take for Merchan to issue a gag order against Trump?
“There is no court that would want to impose a gag order on a president of the United States,” J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge, told the outlet. He added, however, that “if the former president forces the Manhattan criminal court, the court will have no choice.” After Merchan warned on Tuesday that both prosecutors and Trump’s team should “refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence and civil unrest,” the ex-president’s attorney insisted his client’s previous rants on Truth Social were simply a result of his being “upset” and “frustrated” with the case and not meant to cause harm. “I don’t share your view that certain language is justified by frustration,” Merchan responded.
Incidentally, Trump’s subsequent attacks on Merchan and various prosecutors came after the ex-president’s eldest son tweeted a story with a photo of Merchan’s daughter.
Not surprisingly, congressional Republicans are already insisting that any gag order on Trump would be “unconstitutional” and “further demonstrate the weaponization of the New York justice system.”
Area man appears to be unfamiliar with both Logan Roy and Donald Trump
To be fair, he only worked for Trump for 11 days.
