Florida Republicans Push to Let People Carry Guns Without a Permit

In Florida, just weeks before the anniversary of the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Republicans are pushing to allow people to carry concealed loaded guns without any permits.

Republicans hold supermajorities in both state chambers. The bill, filed Monday by State Representative Chuck Brannon, has a clear path of passage, especially under the wing of Governor Ron DeSantis, who had promised to pass such a bill. Just hours after the bill was filed, a mass shooting in Lakeland, Florida, left 10 people injured.

Meanwhile, though Florida is dominated by Republicans in office, voters seem less enthused by such a proposition. A poll conducted by the Global Strategy Group in December showed that 68 percent of voters in Miami-Dade oppose permitless carry—this includes 65 percent of registered Republicans and 60 percent of voters who said they voted for DeSantis in November.

Once voters were told explicitly that the bill would allow anyone who can purchase a gun to carry it in public, opposition grew by 12, to 80 percent—with 81 percent of Hispanics and 69 percent of DeSantis voters being opposed to such a policy. Moreover, more voters were found to attribute crime to lax gun laws than to lack of police funding.

Another poll conducted last September showed similar results, with 61 percent of Floridian voters opposed to permitless carry, including 71 percent of Hispanics.

Republicans, however, no strangers to proceeding with dangerous and unpopular policies, look poised to steamroll ahead. Along with DeSantis, the bill is endorsed by House Speaker Paul Renner, Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, the Florida Sheriffs Association, and of course, the NRA.

If the bill passes, Florida would become the twenty-sixth state to allow permitless concealed carry. This, as the country continues to be plagued by deadly mass shootings. A recent analysis found that states that pass a permitless carry law suffer from a 22 percent increase in gun homicide for the three years following the law’s passage. While states could be responding to the crisis of gun violence in this country, especially after another string of mass shootings this month, Florida instead looks poised to loosen restrictions even further—against the will of its voters, and threatening their lives too.

This post has been updated.

Donald Trump sued Bob Woodward Monday for using recordings of interviews they did to make an audiobook, claiming he only gave the journalist permission to use them for a book.

Woodward interviewed Trump for hours over the course of 19 interviews in 2016, December 2019, and August 2020. The recordings became the basis for Woodward’s 2020 book Rage, which was about the Trump presidency. About two years later, publisher Simon & Schuster released the recordings as an audiobook, The Trump Tapes.

The lawsuit, first reported by Bloomberg, focuses on Woodward’s alleged “usurpation, manipulation, and exploitation” of the material, according to court documents filed Monday.

“Defendants have converted the audio not only into an audiobook but also into derivative works, including a CD, paperback, and e-book—again, all at the expense of President Trump and without accounting to him,” the lawsuit says.

Trump is seeking nearly $50 million in damages from Woodward, Simon & Schuster, and the publisher’s parent company for alleged violation of his copyright interests, arguing that he never gave permission for the recordings to be made public.

Trump criticized Woodward right after the audiobook was released, insisting on Truth Social that he allowed the interviews to be recorded “only for the purposes of making sure that he got my quotes & statements correct for ‘the WRITTEN WORD.’”

Trump also claimed The Trump Tapes was “highly inaccurate” and edited to make him look “as bad as possible.”

Woodward, however, told CNN that the recordings were “done voluntarily” and “all on the record”—meaning, agreeing “for people to report and repeat what you are saying.”

Trump has a history of suing news outlets and people who do or say things he doesn’t like. He has filed libel suits against The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN, the latter two of which have been tossed out of court.

Last week, he dropped a lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who had sued his Trump Organization for fraud. Less than a week before, Trump was hit with about $1 million in sanctions for what a Florida judge slammed as a “completely frivolous, both factually and legally, lawsuit against Hillary Clinton.”

When Chris Licht took over CNN last year, he told employees he sought to make CNN “an organization that exemplifies the best characteristics in journalism,” pillaring values like “fearlessly speaking truth to power” and “educating viewers and readers with straightforward facts and insightful commentary.” Seeming to forget all of that, CNN will now be hosting Bill Maher’s late night HBO segment, Overtime, every Friday night, beginning this week. Falling short of some of these pillars, Maher comes with a spanning history of issues.

In 2017, Senator Ben Sasse appeared on Maher’s show, where he invited the host to “come work in the fields with us” in his home state.

“Work in the fields?” Maher replied. “Senator, I’m a house n*****.” Sasse and the audience awkwardly laugh (Maher later apologized for using the word).

Maher once questioned where Zayn Malik, the Pakistani-British member of One Direction, was during the Boston bombing and has described Muslims as dangerous and anti-American. He once said, “What if during Black History Month, we all bought lobster with food stamps? What if for Cinco de Mayo we all went swimming in blue jeans?” Maher also hosted alt-right commentator and alleged pedophilic advocate Milo Yiannopoulous. 

Maher hosted anti-vaxxer Jay Gordon, giving the “doctor” open and unopposed headway to peddle anti-vaccine talking points. He also praised Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for being a “voracious consumer of the scientific literature” on Covid-19. Maher said DeSantis “protected his most vulnerable population, the elderly, way better than did the governor of New York.” As of January 30, Florida’s seven-day average of Covid deaths stands at 53.6 deaths; New York’s is 32.3.

Maher appeared on Chris Cuomo’s show to talk about the need for “an honest history of racism,” only to then use right-wing terms to denounce “critical race theory,” manufacturing a nonexistent conflict between the two ideas.

To be fair, Maher has hosted people from across the political spectrum for years: from Cornel West and Ann Coulter to Andrew Yang and Barbara Lee. Maher, and his guests, may not fit in one particular ideological box, and some use that as evidence of Maher’s independence. After all, though espousing some culturally conservative and simply problematic stances, Maher has also earned favor with different factions of the left. Liberals may support him for his general anti-Trump stances; progressives may find appreciation in his endorsing Medicare for All and marijuana legalization or platforming people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

But Maher isn’t unique; millions of people have complicated and cross-ideological views. And if someone peddles baseless conspiracy or dehumanizes (or gives permission for others to dehumanize) entire groups of people, there’s no need to pay them to lead your network’s expansion. Even if CNN wanted to expand into comedy, and wanted a charismatic host who can roll with wherever punches may come, it’s not as if Maher was their only option.

A white officer present during Tyre Nichols’ brutal beating at the hands of Memphis police was put on administrative leave, Memphis Police confirmed Monday.

The Tennessee city is reeling over the fatal beating of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man. The Memphis Police Department released the body camera footage of the tragedy on Friday, showing multiple officers were involved in his death.

Preston Hemphill is the sixth officer implicated in Nichols’s death, but the first white one. Memphis P.D. would not say how he was involved, local news outlets reported. Hemphill was hired in 2018, according to the department.

Administrative leave is when an employee “is asked to remain at home during regular work hours but continues to receive regular pay and benefits,” according to the University of Washington.

Five other officers were fired over Nichols’s death and charged with second-degree murder. All five men were Black.

Social media was already in uproar over Hemphill’s involvement after Amber Sherman, a Memphis-based policy analyst and activist, identified him as the officer who tased Nichols.

Sherman told The New Republic that the police affidavit for Nichols’ death was posted on Facebook. She already had the names of the officers in the Scorpion (Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods) unit, the armed unit that stopped Nichols, from research she was doing with a local nonprofit.

“I looked up the individual named person that had not already been charged and found their mom’s Facebook page. In a picture she posted, he was wearing the same Apple Watch and green band and that’s how I confirmed his identity as Preston Hemphill,” Sherman told TNR.

A local news channel reported Monday it had also identified Hemphill as the officer who tased Nichols. Sherman’s finding was picked up by The Tennessee Holler, an independent news organization that said Hemphill was also the officer who said, “I hope they stomp his ass” of Nichols.

Many Twitter users demanded to know why Hemphill was not also fired or charged for Nichols’s death.

This post has been updated.

After reelecting Ronna McDaniel as its leader, the Republican National Committee has passed an anti-choice resolution instructing the party to “go on offense” against abortion rights and pass legislation including six-week bans.

In the resolution passed Monday, the RNC pushes the party apparatus—candidates, consultants, and committees—to “go on offense in the 2024 election cycle,” with regard to abortion. It further urges Republicans in state legislatures and Congress to pass the “strongest” anti-choice legislation possible, using language previously used to justify so-called “heartbeat” bills that would ban abortions at six weeks, before many even know they are pregnant.

By passing such a resolution, the RNC is both directing the party to pursue extreme legislation that would strip away significant bodily autonomy from women and gender minorities, and doubling down on a radical strategy that helped the party’s projected midterm red wave fizzle away.

In the lead-up to the midterms, Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks, seeking to present a “reasonable” abortion talking point for the party. Some Republicans took issue with the introduction, worrying, perhaps correctly, that any nationwide ban would give Democrats ample ammo to hammer away on. But the new RNC resolution makes clear that the party apparatus has wanted such a ban, only preferably more extreme.

Neither here nor there, the resolution also farcically cites the party’s “proud heritage of challenging slavery, segregation” as a complement to their anti-choice resolution. The former, of course, has little to do with the latter and is an effort today’s Republican Party would be hard-pressed to support, given they don’t even want kids to learn about slavery, segregation, or race generally.