President Biden has announced his first executive actions on gun control and called on Congress to do more, but unless he’s got a plan for disarming Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Congress might not be in a position to do much of anything.
 

• On Wednesday, Biden unveiled a series of executive actions that include efforts to restrict ghost guns, which are self-assembled firearms that don’t have serial numbers, made from kits or parts that can be purchased online without a background check. Like crafting, but for murder! Biden also asked the DOJ to publish model “red flag” laws for states, which make it easier for family members and police to temporarily take guns away from people who present a threat, and to draft rules regulating stabilizing braces that make pistols more accurate.
   
• Biden also said he will nominate David Chipman, a senior policy advisor to Gabby Giffords’s gun reform organization, to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. ATF hasn’t had a permanent director since 2015. “This is just a start,” Biden emphasized, urging Congress to take more aggressive steps by banning assault weapons, closing background-check loopholes, and stripping gun manufacturers of liability protections.
   
• That could be...challenging. Those measures don’t quite have unanimous support among Senate Democrats, but at the moment they would require 60 votes to pass, and that’s absolutely not happening. Even a compromise looks to be out of reach: Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) said he’s still game for narrow, bipartisan legislation, but it’s not at all clear that he has nine GOP pals to bring along with him. Considering Republicans filibustered Toomey’s deal with Manchin on background checks in 2013, maybe don’t hold your breath. 

Not a soul expected Joe “Legislation Hunter” Manchin to agree to filibuster reform for gun control purposes specifically. The increasingly tiresome question is, will he yield at all?
 

• In a Washington Post op-ed published on Wednesday, Manchin insisted that he’s sticking to his, uh, guns on preserving abused Senate rules and pursuing good-faith cooperation from the radicalized, openly antidemocratic GOP: “There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster.” Manchin also suggested he’s opposed to passing bills through budget reconciliation as a workaround—a fun little bonus bad take. Manchin’s flop-ed™ came a day after Sen. Kyrsten Sinema reiterated her own opposition to reform. Kyrstanchima’s back, baby.
   
• It looks like they’ll be on their own when the time comes to pass the For The People Act. Sen. Dianne Feistein (D-CA), who’d previously hinted that her opposition to changing the filibuster had softened, indicated this week that she’s ready to torch that sucker for voting rights. If any Democrats still had illusions about Republicans earnestly trying to protect Election Integrity, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R-GA) cleared that right up on Wednesday, saying that Georgia’s voter-suppression law gained momentum after Rudy Giuliani showed up at the state legislature spreading made-up voter fraud claims. 

Passing life-saving, wildly popular gun-control legislation should be an urgent enough reason for Democrats to insist on their power to govern, but it’s S.1 that will force the issue. Joe Manchin will ultimately need to deliver 10 GOP votes (lol), change his tune on the filibuster, or bear personal responsibility for the collapse of American democracy. Only one great option in there. 

The Senate gets back from recess next week, and we want to make sure they're hearing from every supporter about why passing the For the People Act needs to be their top priority.

This week, activists are hosting a For the People Week of Action, including virtual advocacy visits with senators and Democracy Teach-Ins where you can learn more about issues like gerrymandering, voter suppression, and how to get big money out of politics.

To find ways you can take action today, head over to votesaveamerica.com/forthepeople.

In an observation that has become evergreen, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) appears even more fucked than he was yesterday. Gaetz’s slimy, indicted friend Joel Greenberg is reportedly expected to plead guilty in the next few weeks. He could then cooperate as a key witness against Gaetz to reduce his own sentence: “I’m sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today,” said Greenberg’s lawyer on Thursday. Reporters have obtained Venmo records showing that Gaetz sent payments to Greenberg, which Greenberg then passed along to young women. In one payment, Gaetz REFERRED TO ONE OF THE WOMEN IN THE MEMO FIELD. A criminal mastermind.

Meanwhile, investigators are looking into whether Gaetz accepted trips and women in exchange for political favors, and whether women were illegally paid to travel with him for sex on a trip he took to the Bahamas with a marijuana entrepreneur/hand surgeon (why not). On the other hand, Donald Trump has broken his silence to offer his weakest possible defense, and somebody in Gaetz’s office wrote a statement of support from his female aides, signed by exactly zero female aides. A few more wins like that and Gaetz could still turn this whole thing around. 

• Just hours after President Biden deplored the epidemic and "international embarrassment" of gun violence, a gunman shot six people at a cabinet company in Bryan, TX, on Thursday, killing at least one. A day earlier, a former NFL cornerback shot and killed five people, including two children, in Rock Hill, SC.
   
• Caitlyn Jenner is exploring a run for governor of California, with advice from former Trump campaign manager/Drunk Shirtless Man Brandishing A Loaded Gun Brad Parscale.
   
• The Manhattan District Attorney's Office seized financial records from Jennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
   
• During the Derek Chauvin trial on Thursday, pulmonary expert Dr. Martin Tobin testified that George Floyd died of oxygen deprivation caused by Derek Chauvin’s restraint: “A healthy person subjected to what George Floyd was subjected to would have died.” 
   
• Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) has endorsed former VA Gov. Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race.
   
• Various governments have issued a patchwork of age restrictions for the AstraZeneca vaccine, after the E.U.’s drug regulator said there was a “possible link” between the shot and a rare clotting disorder.
   
• Carbon dioxide and methane levels surged in 2020 in spite of pandemic lockdowns, according to a new NOAA analysis. At least we got to watch some goats take over small towns?
   
• Some jerk with a chainsaw keeps cutting down trees along the River Thames in the middle of the night and reporters haven't started calling him Jack the Woodchipper yet, which feels like the more pressing problem.

Belfast has seen a wave of post-Brexit violence over the past week, in one of the worst flares since The Troubles. Britain’s departure from the E.U. has reignited tensions in Northern Ireland, with new trade rules contributing to grocery-store shortages in the region. Protestant unionists feel they’ve been isolated from the U.K. and forced together with the Republic of Ireland, and relations between the unionist and nationalist parties in Northern Ireland’s government have grown increasingly strained. Young people in Belfast have been torching cars and throwing Molotov cocktails at police for about a week, and things escalated badly on Wednesday night as crowds clashed across the peace wall dividing Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods, prompting the Belfast-based government to hold an emergency meeting.

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New York will use a $2.1 billion fund to offer payments of up to $15,600 to undocumented immigrants who lost work during the pandemic.

New Mexico has become the second state to ban qualified immunity.

Patagonia has donated $1 million to be split between the Black Votes Matter Fund and the New Georgia Project, to fight Georgia’s voter-suppression law.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has unveiled a Racism and Health initiative aimed at remedying health inequities and addressing racism as a public health threat.