Uvalde Cops Admit AR-15 Scared Them From Saving Children

“You knew that it was definitely an AR. There was no way of going in.… We had no choice but to wait and try to get something that had better coverage where we could actually stand up to him.” This is what Uvalde Police Department Sergeant Donald Page admitted in an interview with investigators after the elementary school shooting that upended the community of Uvalde, Texas.

Last May, an 18-year-old, after shooting his grandmother in the face, infiltrated Robb Elementary in Uvalde, killing 19 kids and two teachers, leaving another 17 injured.

The police response has been criticized as being substantially liable for many of those deaths. Now Texas Tribune reporting reveals that one reason that there was so much maddening footage of the police officers’ inaction, as well as accounts of officers standing around, twiddling their thumbs, and even stopping other parents from taking action in their stead was because the officers themselves were fearful of the shooter’s AR-15.

“We weren’t equipped to make entry into that room without several casualties,” Uvalde Police Department Detective Louis Landry admitted in another investigation interview. “Once we found out it was a rifle he was using, it was a different game plan we would have had to come up with. It wasn’t just going in guns blazing, the Old West style, and take him out.”

The alternative to “the Old West style,” as the world saw, was nearly 400 law enforcement officers responding to a scene that let the shooter roam through the school halls for over an hour and 10 minutes, leading to the third-deadliest school shooting in America.

The Tribune notes that such hesitation in the face of an AR-15 had led police in other shootings—including at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando—to respond less quickly.

Republicans, both in Texas and nationally, have opposed banning or further regulating weapons like the AR-15—even now as police officers themselves admit how dangerous the weapons are. Governor Greg Abbott derided even raising the minimum age to buy assault-style rifles from 18 to 21 years old as “unconstitutional.” Meanwhile, gun trade shows are blithely promoting guns like the “JR-15,” as on-ramp weapons for elementary-aged children.

Naturally, the debate over these weapons should not have progressed to the point where we’re learning something as obvious as: “Look, even the cops understand how petrifying these murder machines are.” If our governing structures were actually responsive to the concerns and fears of the people, one mass shooting would have been enough. The ruthless taking of innocent people—at a mall, the movies, school, the grocery store—should’ve been enough to bring some sort of change.

“(Police) knew the monster behind the door was not the kid. It’s the rifle the kid is holding,” said Jesse Rizo, who lost her 9-year-old niece Jackie Cazares in the shooting. “It’s the freaking AR that they’re afraid of.… Their training doesn’t say sit back and wait.”

If nothing else, the tapes revealed by the Tribune point to a matter of larger importance: Stronger gun regulation would protect police officers (and maybe also make them less reactionary-minded, not having to treat everyone as an existential threat), just as much it would help keep everyone else safer.

The Capitol Police were blindsided by Republicans’ decision to give security footage of the January 6 attack to Tucker Carlson, the department’s lawyer said Friday. Moreover, Capitol Police’s repeated requests to review the footage before it was released were ignored.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has come under fire for giving Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of security footage from the 24 hours surrounding the insurrection. The Fox News host has used cherry-picked videos to completely sanitize the events of January 6, despite knowing full well himself what actually happened.

The footage “was not previewed with the Capitol Police nor was the Capitol Police informed before that access was granted,” CPD general counsel Thomas DeBiaise said in a sworn affidavit filed Friday.

“Of the numerous clips shown during the Tucker Carlson show on March 6 and 7, 2023, I was shown only one clip before it aired,” DeBiaise said. “The other approximately 40 clips … were never shown to me nor anyone else from the Capitol Police.”

DeBiaise also noted that the police force learned Carlson had gained access to the footage through media reports, not from House Republicans directly.

Both Carlson and McCarthy insisted that the footage was cleared with Capitol Police before it was released. McCarthy also intends to make the January 6 footage available to the defense lawyers for people charged in connection with the riot.

The California Republican insisted the footage was already made available to defendants under former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But a Pelosi spokesperson said she never authorized access to the footage because she felt that wasn’t under her purview, but that of “security officials.”

Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger said earlier this month that once footage is given to lawmakers, he has little control over what they do with it. But he also slammed Carlson’s use of the footage, saying it minimized the violence of January 6 and was “misleading” and “offensive” about the Capitol Police’s actions.

Carlson used the footage to do exactly what people feared: present an alternate version of January 6 that sought to prove the rioters had done nothing wrong. His coverage was so bad that even some Republican lawmakers condemned it.

Silicon Valley Bank collapsed last week after a massive bank run, spurred in large part by billionaire investor and GOP donor Peter Thiel. Such a collapse could have perhaps been avoided had the massive bank been subject to higher regulation and scrutiny. But not according to the Democratic senators who helped deregulate the financial industry.

The Democratic lawmakers who voted alongside Republicans in 2018 to roll back key Dodd-Frank regulations, ones that would have subjected SVB to greater regulations, seem to have no regrets for having done so.

In total, 16 Democratic senators joined all 50 Republicans five years ago in rolling back the regulations. Thirteen of those Democrats are still serving in office today, and so far this week, none have expressed regret for their 2018 decision. Most have justified their vote as support for smaller banks, skipping over the fact that the bill treated big banks like SVB as smaller than they were.

Senator Michael Bennet criticized SVB but said that he stands by his vote, under the guise of his support for smaller and rural banks.

Senator Tom Carper said Tuesday that at “this moment,” he doesn’t regret the vote, and instead called for hearings to figure out what happened.

Senator Chris Coons avoided directly answering questions from The Intercept about whether he could defend his vote given what is known about SVB now. “And just what is that?” he retorted, before pausing, adding, “Exactly,” as the elevator doors closed on a senator who cinematically refused to answer a simple question.

Senator Tim Kaine justified his vote by saying his “community banks really needed it.”

Senator Angus King told The Intercept that he would’ve voted the same way to help smaller banks and that there were still some regulations in place on SVB.

Senator Joe Manchin said he’s open to “making adjustments” to regulations but emphasized it was not a mistake to vote for the 2018 bill.

Senator Jon Tester pins the blame on the Fed, rather than the 2018 vote, saying they could have “put the same regulation on them that they do JPMorgan Chase.”

In a statement earlier this week, Senator Mark Warner invoked Dodd-Frank as a North Star to “protect depositors and make sure that our financial system remains stable,” but had little to say specifically about SVB’s management—or his own vote to weaken regulation on them. The Lever found that Warner held a fundraiser at SVB CEO Greg Becker’s home in 2016, and he also received $10,000 in donations from SVB’s PAC.

The offices of Senators Gary Peters, Krysten Sinema, Jeanne Shaheen, Debbie Stabenow, and Maggie Hassan—the remaining Democratic senators who voted for the 2018 rollback—did not respond by publication.

At this point, of course, there is no going back. But if these Democrats want to square the circle of purporting to care about smaller institutions while also recognizing where their vote may have fallen short (they don’t even have to admit they were wrong!), they could begin by supporting Elizabeth Warren’s aptly named Secure Viable Banking, or SVB, Act, which would repeal the provisions of the 2018 bill that allowed for banks like SVB to get by without stronger regulation.

It’s just that easy. The layup is there, if these Democrats want to bank it.

Texas Republican lawmakers are under fire for a bill that would ban students from China and three other countries from all public colleges and universities in the state, with many calling the measure racist and xenophobic.

The bill, introduced last week, would prohibit higher education institutions from admitting international students from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, or any students who are undocumented. It also changes existing law to restrict the definition of a Texas resident. People who received a high school diploma or equivalent in Texas and lived in the state for three years prior to receiving that degree or for the year prior to enrolling in higher education no longer count.

The measure has “little chance of advancing” in the current legislative session, according to the San Antonio Express News, but it has still raised fears as it comes just two months after other Texas Republicans introduced a bill banning citizens from the same countries from purchasing land in the state.

That bill garnered months of backlash. Governor Greg Abbott endorsed the measure, even as local Asian American groups slammed it as racist.

Lawmakers amended the bill earlier this month to clarify that dual citizens and green card holders would still be allowed to buy property. But their attempt to cool the controversy was rightfully called out.

“It’s still a fundamentally racist bill as it unfairly targets H1B visa holders, students, and refugees from exercising their full property rights,” the Texas-based Asian American group Rise AAPI said.

Both of these bills are painfully reminiscent of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was enacted in 1882 and restricted Chinese immigration to and rights in the United States until 1943. That measure was a direct result of “yellow peril,” or racist fearmongering about Asian people. The heightened political tensions around race helped set the stage for much broader political scapegoating, when people of color were specifically blamed for issues in American society.

More recently, citizens of Iran and North Korea were targeted for years under former President Donald Trump’s travel ban. (Levels of immigration from North Korea to the United States are, of course, quite low.)

The Texas bills are also coming at a time of increased racial scapegoating. The nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate released a report in October that found Asian Americans are blamed for issues with the economy, public health, and national security.

Trump helped foment a lot of resentment towards China and Asian Americans through his rhetoric around Covid-19, calling it “Kung Flu” and the “China virus.” He and other Republicans blame China for deliberately spreading the coronavirus around the world. Their words helped spur a massive increase in anti-Asian hate in the past few years.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle accuse TikTok of spying on American users for the Chinese government, and the Biden administration has threatened to ban the app nationwide if it is not sold to a non-Chinese entity. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who owns TikTok: Bad actors get hold of private data all the time. China’s just a handy scapegoat.

And in February, Texas Representative Lance Gooden said he felt his Californian colleague Judy Chu needed “to be called out” and that her security clearance should be revoked.

“I question her either loyalty or competence,” he said.

Democrats rushed to Chu’s defense, with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calling Gooden’s comments “dangers, unconscionable, and xenophobic.” But Chu herself summed it up best.

“I very much doubt that [Gooden] would be spreading these lies were I not of Chinese American descent,” she said on MSNBC.

On Friday, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin, accusing the Russian president of war crimes in abducting children from Ukraine and deporting them to Russia.

Russia’s government has denied accusations that it has committed such atrocities during its one-year invasion and occupation of Ukraine that has left, according to the U.N., at least 9,000 civilians dead and over 15,000 wounded.

The ICC also issued a warrant for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Putin’s commissioner for children’s rights, on similar allegations.

Enforcement, however, is another thing. The ICC has no police force to carry out such warrants, and defers to the international community to do so.

“The ICC is doing its part of work as a court of law,” said court president Pitor Hofmanski. “The judges issued arrest warrants. The execution depends on international cooperation.”

Meanwhile, Russia is not taking the court’s threat seriously. “The decisions of the International Criminal Court have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakhraova on Telegram.

Ukraine also technically does not adhere to the ICC. But since 2015,* it has granted the court ongoing jurisdiction over crimes occurring in the region. There are 123 state party members of the statute overseeing the ICC; the United States is the only North American country not part of the cooperative.

The warrant comes before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s scheduled visit to Moscow next week. Xi’s visit will mark his first visit to Russia since the invasion began, and the first foreign trip he makes since securing his third term as president last week.

While Xi ostensibly plans to visit as a neutral arbiter between Russia and Ukraine, his visit marks a deepening tie between China and Russia. Xi has reportedly spoken to Putin numerous times since Russia began its invasion, but has not even shared a single phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. China is also not among the states who adhere to the ICC.

* This post originally misstated the length of ICC jurisdiction in Ukraine.

Chicago mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson is surging. Polls are tightening. A broad coalition of labor, women’s rights, and LGBTQ advocacy groups are throwing their support behind Johnson. And this week, he has earned endorsements from Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Representative and Democratic kingmaker Jim Clyburn, and Representative and former opponent Chuy Garcia.

The endorsements come alongside reports indicating growing support for Johnson’s candidacy ahead of the April runoff. A poll conducted this week showed Johnson leading his opponent, pseudo-conservative Paul Vallas, 46–44. The first two polls conducted after the general election last month showed Vallas leading Johnson by 9 and 11 points, respectively. Johnson’s steady rise mirrors his path during the general election, as his performances on the debate stage and on the campaign trail gradually earned him more support.

Johnson’s performance is all the more notable in Chicago, where crime has pervaded as a main issue throughout the entire race. Question after question in debates—whether about transportation, education, housing, and so on—has been framed through the lens of crime. But Johnson has not taken the bait, insisting on reimagining public safety. “This so-called toughness that politicians or insiders have just been recycling over the past 40 years has failed us—in the most dramatic of ways,” Johnson told TNR in January.

Johnson has remained consistent even as national Democrats have taken the bait on right-wing crime narratives. Earlier this month, 33 Senate Democrats and 31 House Democrats, led by Biden himself, voted with Republicans to overturn modest criminal justice reforms in Washington, D.C. Johnson, however, has stuck to his vision to invest in a more holistic approach to public safety: affordable housing, mental health services, year-round youth opportunities, and more. And the message has resonated enough with local groups, from unions to advocacy organizations, to build a wide enough coalition that earned trust from both Sanders and Clyburn.

Vallas, meanwhile, has come under fire for being further right than he lets on. The Chicago Tribune found Vallas’s Twitter account had liked several tweets that “used racist language, supported controversial police tactics like ‘stop-and-frisk’ or insulted the mayor in personal terms.” The Chicago Sun-Times reported Vallas once described himself as “more of a Republican.” And he has also come under scrutiny for his close relationship with the Fraternal Order of Police, as well as his previous role as a school superintendent in Louisiana, during which time he helped flip virtually all schools in New Orleans into charter schools, some of which reportedly discriminate against disabled students.

It is just some two weeks away from the runoff election. If Johnson continues his climb and Vallas can’t find a way to break free from all that plagues his campaign, Chicago voters may yet show America their hunger for a new vision of politics.

YouTube restored former President Donald Trump’s channel on Friday, two years after he used it to help incite the January 6 insurrection.

Trump was suspended from the platform a few days after the riot for posting content that incited violence. YouTube removed some of the videos on Trump’s channel and restricted comments, although the company said it would lift the suspension when it felt “the risk of violence has decreased.” The last video on his YouTube page is a 46-minute speech from December 2020, during which he complained about the “rigged” election.

But as of Friday, Trump’s channel “is no longer restricted and the ability to upload new content is restored,” YouTube’s vice president of public policy Leslie Miller told Axios.

“We carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, balancing that with the importance of preserving the opportunity for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run up to an election.”

Miller said the channel will be subject to all of YouTube’s policies on content moderation. But many social media platforms give leeway to posts they deem “newsworthy,” meaning considered to provide more to public interest than to cause harm.

With the suspension lifted, Trump can now post videos and buy ads ahead of the 2024 election.

Trump has been granted access once more to all major social media platforms, although he has yet to make his grand reentry to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, instead favoring his own Truth Social.

Trump has millions of followers on his mainstream social media accounts, including 2.6 million on YouTube—and that’s less than a tenth of the followers he has on Facebook or Instagram. On Twitter, he has even more.

Experts were already worried that letting him back onto mainstream social networks would increase the flow of disinformation ahead of the 2024 election. OnYouTube, he’ll have greater ability to purchase targeted ads.

Don’t forget, he was suspended from all of these platforms in the first place for sharing false information about the 2020 election and January 6. And prior to his suspensions, he had already gotten reprimanded for sharing misinformation about Covid-19 and election fraud. In fact, misinformation on Twitter dropped 73 percent after Trump was suspended from the platform.

This post has been updated.

The congressional Florida contingent is sure that the next president will be from their home state, but very few are willing to say outright whether they back Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.

Politico asked all 22 Floridians on the Hill whether they preferred the former president or the current governor. Most preferred to keep their cards close to their chest.

“Oh, wow. You are really trying to get me into a situation here,” joked Representative Neal Dunn. Dunn said he had made up his mind but wouldn’t share his endorsement because he didn’t want to put a target on his back.

Another Florida Republican, speaking anonymously, said, “Do you think I want to talk about that? You think I’m crazy?”

So far, only Trump has announced that he’s running for president, although DeSantis is expected to announce a run. The latter recently visited Iowa and commented on Fox News about the war in Ukraine—attempts to showcase his appeal in another state and his foreign policy chops, which governors typically don’t worry about.

Both men have demonstrated an ability to hold grudges and to take them out through their politics. Trump in particular is known for turning on a dime against anyone he perceives as an opponent. That includes DeSantis: Trump had backed the governor during his reelection campaign in 2018.

But now that the governor is nipping at his heels, Trump has slammed him as disloyal and nicknamed him “Meatball Ron” and “Ron DeSanctimonious.” Trump’s influence in the Republican Party is declining, but he’s still powerful. The Florida contingent knows better than to alienate him just yet.

DeSantis is less brash than Trump but no less dangerous. The governor has been quietly but steadily cutting back human rights in his state, particularly for women, the LGBTQ community, and people of color. He could easily exact revenge on members of Congress who turn on him, such as by restricting resources for their district.

Only two representatives were open about who they support. Both Matt Gaetz and Anna Paulina Luna backed Trump. Gaetz pointed out that DeSantis has been somewhat closed off and hasn’t tried to build relationships with federal lawmakers.

Senator Rick Scott said he typically doesn’t endorse anyone during the primary, but he similarly noted that he has a more open relationship with Trump.

Overall, the lawmakers were clear on one thing: “The next president will be from Florida.” It doesn’t seem like they really care who the nominee is, so long as it’s someone who will help them complete their political agenda.

A Florida Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill to restrict sex education in public schools that would also prohibit younger students from discussing their periods with school officials.

The bill, originally introduced in February, would ban teaching students about health, reproductive health, or sexually transmitted diseases before sixth grade.

“Does this bill prohibit conversations about menstrual cycles? Because we know that typically the ages is between 10 and 15. So if little girls experience their menstrual cycles in fifth grade or fourth grade, will that prohibit conversations from them since they are in a grade lower than sixth grade?” state Representative Ashley Gantt asked during a House Education Quality Subcommittee meeting on Wednesday.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Representative Stan McClain, admitted the measure would.

Gantt later asked if the bill would penalize teachers if students younger than sixth grade come to them with issues or questions about their period. McClain said that “would not be the intent” of the bill, and that he was open to amendments that would allow for such conversations.

But given the scope of the rest of the bill, it would be surprising if students will even know what to ask. McClain’s measure would dramatically limit what can be taught about sexual health. Teachers would have to say that sex is only male or female, and that the “reproductive roles are binary, stable, and unchangeable.”

Any sex education would be abstinence-only, and the bill includes language that makes sex and desire sound shameful.

Parents would have the right to object to and contest any course material that they think is not age-appropriate, is pornographic, or contains sexual content that is not purely educational. If a special committee agrees with the complaint, the material will be pulled from the school.

Parents could also see the school library catalog and prevent their children from accessing any of the material.

Florida Republicans are cracking down hard on the rights of women and gender minorities. They introduced a bill that would ban abortion after six weeks, and have banned transgender girls from playing girls’ sports.

The state high school athletics governing board came under fire in January for deciding to require that student athletes give schools detailed information about their menstrual history. Parents and health care providers slammed the measure as an invasion of privacy and worried the information could be used to find out which students got abortions or were trans.

The Florida High School Athletics Association decided in February not to require students’ menstrual history, but it will require them to report their sex assigned at birth—another measure that many worry could be used to out trans students.

This latest bill seems to imply that when Florida legislators said they don’t want to know students’ menstrual history, they really meant it.

On Thursday, a BNSF train derailed on the Swinomish reservation in Washington state, spilling some 5,000 gallons of diesel. No one appears hurt after the derailment. But it only adds to the over 1,000 derailments that happen every year in America—any of which could turn into the next East Palestine, as lax rules allow toxic trains to move sans regulation and corporations continue making trains longer and crews smaller.

Since the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, a lot of focus over the last month has been on Norfolk Southern, the rail company responsible for the disaster. But Thursday’s news serves as a reminder that issues in the rail industry are not limited to one company. In the past month, BNSF, the largest rail company in the United States, has not been shy about its efforts to block the growing push for rail regulation.

As Sludge has reported, BNSF led the rail industry in contributions to state candidates last year with $6.8 million spent. It was also the leader in state lobbying, spending another $12.7 million since 2003.

And since the disaster in East Palestine on February 3, BNSF’s spending hasn’t seemed to slow down.

After the Norfolk Southern train derailment, BNSF’s political action committee spent the rest of the month throwing $15,000 a piece to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The company sent $5,000 to the Association of American Railroads, a group that aggressively lobbies Congress on behalf of America’s rail giants.

BNSF also donated $2,500 to Republican Representative Sam Graves, who is the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. The donation is not an aberration. During the 2022 election cycle, Graves was the leading recipient of donations from the railroad industry—more than the other 434 members of the House.

All this while Congress now considers bipartisan legislation to enact industry-wide safety measures on railroads.

Just one day before the Ohio derailment, BNSF also donated $1,000 to North Dakota’s House Republican leadership, as well as to its Senate Republican Caucus fund. What may sound random is actually part of an ongoing relationship with North Dakota’s congressional delegation. One of at-large Representative Kelly Armstrong’s top contributors is BNSF, which has given the Republican member of Congress $25,000. Berkshire Hathaway, the parent company of BNSF, has given Senators John Hoeven $35,000 and Kevin Cramer $25,000.

And money talks. Hoeven has seemingly expressed little public concern about the rail industry since the East Palestine derailment. In 2021, however, he, Cramer, and Armstrong did send a letter to the Surface Transportation Board advocating for the Canadian Pacific, or CP, and Kansas City Southern, or KCS, merger. As The American Prospect reports, Hoeven was rewarded with $3,000 from the Association of American Railroads, which includes CP, KSC, and BNSF as members.

As far as Cramer goes, he applauded the merger between CP and KCS on Wednesday. Since the East Palestine derailment, he’s used the accident to advocate for building more pipelines, rather than making railroads safer. When asked about a bipartisan effort in the Senate to pass railroad reform, Cramer expressed a fairly lax analysis of how he and other Republicans felt. “Nobody jumped up and said, ‘Sign me up,’” he told The Washington Post. “I didn’t hear anybody say, ‘Hell no, we won’t go,’ either.”

Meanwhile, Cramer has previously signed off on a bill to prohibit the Department of Transportation from issuing any regulation to limit the transportation of liquefied natural gas by rail.

Cramer, Hoeven, and Armstrong all voted against providing rail workers paid sick leave days.

Norfolk Southern has been under a magnifying glass since one of its trains disastrously derailed in East Palestine—and for good reason. But let BNSF’s unbashful spending campaign serve as a reminder that the wider industry is ruthless and can readily buy more lenience if attention strays elsewhere.