DeSantis Uses Sports Complex Veto To Attack Tampa Bay Rays’ Gun Reform Effort

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday used his veto of a multi-million dollar funding package for a sports complex to attack the gun reform advocacy of the Tampa Bay Rays, a Major League Baseball team. 

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Peter Navarro Indicted On Contempt Of Congress Charges

A federal grand jury returned an indictment on Thursday charging Trump White House adviser Peter K. Navarro with two counts of contempt of Congress relating to his refusal to testify before the House Jan. 6 Committee.

Navarro was taken into custody on the charges Friday morning, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia told TPM.

He’s the first Trump official to face arrest for events related to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Stephen K. Bannon, charged with contempt relating to his refusal to cooperate with the investigation last year, was allowed to surrender of his own volition.

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Abbott Takes Bold Action On America’s Unsecured Door Epidemic

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Yup We’re Sticking To The Door Thing

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) wants to make it clear that he absolutely is doing something to prevent future school shootings like the horrific massacre in Uvalde last week, and he can prove it with this letter he sent to the commissioner of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) yesterday. In it, Abbott directs the commissioner to, among other things, ensure that school doors are keeping the kids safe.

  • Schools should be instructed to “conduct weekly inspections of exterior doors to verify they are secure during school hours,” Abbott writes.
  • The GOP’s new door control platform is part of conservatives’ Very Serious push to “harden” schools into quasi-supermax prisons rather than consider gun control.

Dem Rep. Cicilline’s Had Enough

During a tense House Judiciary Committee session on a sweeping gun control package on Thursday, Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) tore into Republicans’ “bullshit” argument that gun control is an infringement on constitutional rights, and he wasn’t having it when he was asked to yield after saying The Bad Word.

“No, I will not yield, and I’m not gonna yield for my entire five minutes, so don’t ask again!” Cicilline retorted.

  • The committee ultimately passed the legislation (which is titled the “Protecting Our Kids Act”) along party lines, and it’ll be taken up for a full House vote next week, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
  • Needless to say that the package almost certainly won’t go anywhere in the Senate. A bipartisan group of senators is apparently working on its own legislation at the moment.

DeSantis Tells Gun Control Supporter To Get Lost

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) yelled “Nobody wants to hear from you!” at Democratic House candidate Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who confronted DeSantis during an interview:

Support For Abortion Access Reaches Record Highs

Two polls that were conducted by the Wall Street Journal and Gallup after the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision leak show how much Americans’ support for abortion access has ramped up in the face of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority striking down Roe.

  • 57 percent now believe a person ought to be allowed get an abortion for any reason, according to WSJ, the highest figure since its pollster started surveying people on the issue since 1977.
  • For the first time, a majority of Americans now say abortion is morally acceptable, according to Gallup.

Get Ready For Public Jan. 6 Panel Hearings

The House Jan. 6 Committee announced that it will hold its first public hearing on Thursday, June 9. The panel has reached out to three people closely tied to ex-vice president Mike Pence asking them to testify publicly, according to CNN: Ex-federal Judge J. Michael Luttig and Pence’s ex-chief counsel, Greg Jacob, plus Pence’s ex-chief of staff, Marc Short.

Must Read

“The bleak spectacle of the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial” – Michael Hobbes

Hit-And-Run AG Not Expected To Testify At Impeachment Trial

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg’s (R) defense team didn’t file a witness list for the official’s upcoming Senate impeachment trial by the deadline on Wednesday, and the prosecutors in the case don’t have him on their witness list.

  • Ravnsborg never testified on his deadly crash against a pedestrian in the criminal investigation. He only had his lawyer go to court for him, including when he pleaded no contest to a couple of traffic misdemeanors in the case.
  • Ravnsborg doesn’t plan on running for reelection regardless of how the impeachment trial goes, according to local outlet KOTA.

White House Interns Will Finally Start Getting Paid

Interns for the White House and the vice president’s office will no longer have to work for the highest offices in government for free: Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Thursday that interns would start getting paid, beginning with the White House’s fall 2022 internship program. They’ll be paid a stipend of $750 a week.

Sanctioned Russian Oligarch Stashes $300M Yacht In A Creek

Russian fertilizer and coal tycoon Andrey Melnichenko has been keeping his $300 million superyacht anchored in a creek in Ras al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, per the Financial Times and Associated Press, as Western governments seize sanctioned Russian oligarchs’ fancy toys.

  • Melnichenko already had to kiss another yacht goodbye in March, when Italian authorities seized his $578 million boat in northeastern Italy. That was the biggest sailing yacht in the world, according to SuperYachtFan, and it came with several smaller boats to go with the big boat.

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Abortion Numbers

I’ve been working on a column about abortion politics. And as part of pulling that together, I’ve been sifting through recent polling data, especially surveys taken after the release of the Alito draft opinion. As is often the case, polling data on abortion can seem scattered and inconsistent, in large part because responses turn so closely on subtle differences in wording and framing. I’ll get to that in a moment. But looking at all these numbers really confirmed me in thinking that this is a powerful midterm issue for Democrats but … it won’t activate itself. It’s going to take specific actions to activate it for its full potential.

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Trump Endorses Big Lie Booster Blake Masters In Arizona GOP Primary

Former President Trump on Thursday announced his endorsement of Blake Masters, who is backed by conservative megadonor Peter Thiel, in the Arizona GOP Senate primary.

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Where Things Stand: From ‘Doors’ To Abortion, GOP Blames Everything But Gun Laws For Mass Shootings

In the wake of three recent mass shootings in America in the last two weeks, Republicans are once again showing their collective ass, deploying a litany of talking points about random stuff to clog up the national discourse on gun violence with anything and everything but guns.

It’s all very pellucid — a distraction tactic to avoid engaging seriously on the issue of our nation’s unprecedentedly lax gun laws and the need for national — or even state level! — gun control reform. And Republican Rep. Billy Long (MO) just dangerously added a befuddling new culprit to the mix: abortion is to blame for mass shootings.

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Raffensperger Testifies For Hours Before Special Grand Jury Probing Election Steal Scheme

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) on Thursday testified before a special grand jury investigating former President Trump’s fruitless efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the battleground state, according to multiple reports.

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Florida Supreme Court Lets DeSantis’ Gerrymandered Congressional Districts Stand For Now

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday declined to hear a challenge to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) gerrymandered congressional maps for now, meaning that the maps will likely be in place for this year’s congressional elections. 

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