Texas Is About to Pass an Insane Law Letting People Carry Guns Without Background Checks, Licenses, or Training

Thinking of taking a page from corporate America’s playbook and relocating to Texas? Wondering what life might be like in the Lone Star State? On the one hand, you’ve got the great food and live music scenes of Austin. On the other, you run the risk of running into “gelatinous tubeworm” Ted Cruz, abortions are now banned as early as six weeks, voter suppression is rampant, and, thanks to a bill about to be signed into law, there are basically no restrictions on guns whatsoever.

Despite criticism from both law enforcement and a majority of residents, Texas’s Republican-led legislature approved a bill late Monday night that allows people to carry handguns in public without a license, background check, or training. It will now go to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk, where, short of him suffering an attack of conscience, it’ll be made into law. “The strongest Second Amendment legislation in Texas history,” Abbott tweeted before the bill was passed. “Let’s get it to my desk for signing.” While 59% of Texas voters oppose permit-free carry, supporters like the National Rifle Association—whose leader hides out on yachts to avoid mass shootings—praised the legislation, calling it the greatest Texas “gun rights victory since the Alamo,” claiming it repeals restrictions that infringe on one‘s constitutional rights.

While Republicans love to talk a big game about being the party of “law and order,” they apparently had little issue going against the wishes and advice of law enforcement in passing the bill. Prior to the legislation’s passage, law enforcement groups reportedly expressed concern that there would be no way to determine in advance if a person has the right to carry a gun if licenses are not required. Lawmakers added stiffer penalties for felons caught illegally carrying guns, but law enforcement was not swayed by the largely meaningless measure. “We wouldn’t know who we’re stopping,” Douglas Griffith, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, told KTRK-TV. “Who is going to have a weapon? Who is not going to have a weapon? Who is trained proficient in that weapon and who’s not? I think it’s very important when you’re talking about people having something that could take someone’s life that they have to be trained in that.” Kevin Lawrence, executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association, told The Washington Post that in states that enacted similar laws to the one Abbott is poised to sign, crime rates went up and police reported challenges after such laws went into effect. “It’s going to make the jobs of the officers on the street more difficult,” Lawrence told the Post on Tuesday.

In an emotional seven-minute address on the House floor on Monday, Rep. Joe Moody, who represents a portion of El Paso County, where a 2019 shooting killed at least 20 people, pleaded with lawmakers to take a second to consider the violence that could occur from unrestricted access to firearms. Apparently, though, like their colleagues across the country, Texas Republicans decided pleasing the NRA was more important than the lives of their constituents. Oh, and in a turn of events that’ll knock your socks off, the most hated man in Congress thinks the bill is a great idea:

Meanwhile, as Texas passes a law basically allowing anyone to carry a gun, no questions asked, it’s about to make it more difficult for people to exercise their constitutional right—you know how they love those!—to vote. And should anyone want or need to get an abortion—including the victims of incest or rape—sorry, that ain’t happening. Because Texas Republicans are pro-life, except if we’re talking about people needlessly killed by gun violence, in which case that’s the price of freedom.

If you would like to receive the Levin Report in your inbox daily, click here to subscribe.

Elizabeth Warren rearranges Jamie Dimon’s internal organs

The Senator and the bank CEO meet again:

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon is the longest serving bank chief who testified before Congress Wednesday, but to the Senate’s biggest critic of Wall Street, he’s also “the star of the overdraft show.” Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren lit into Dimon, as she sought to make the point that banks kept charging onerous fees to customers struggling during the pandemic — even as regulators in Washington eased rules for lenders. JPMorgan, Warren noted, made almost $1.5 billion from overdrafts last year, seven times more per account than its competitors. Still, it didn’t automatically waive the penalties as the government had suggested.

Warren, who said banks collectively took in $4 billion in overdraft fees last year, accused Dimon of ducking her question and asked him to return the money. He refused. “You and your colleagues come in today to talk about how you stepped up and took care of customers during the pandemic, and it’s a bunch of baloney,” replied Warren.

Dimon, who is no stranger to tussling with lawmakers—having been on the receiving end of Rep. Katie Porter’s whiteboard of doom in 2019—insisted that his bank did not hit customers with nearly as many fees as Warren suggested, though he didn’t have actual figures to back up his claim, simply insisting to her, “I think your numbers are totally inaccurate.”

Biden orders intelligence community to further investigate COVID-19 origins

In a statement released on Wednesday, Biden noted that “As of today, the U.S. Intelligence Community has ‘coalesced around two likely scenarios’ but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question. Here is their current position: ‘while two elements in the IC leans toward the former scenario and one leans more toward the latter — each with low or moderate confidence — the majority of elements do not believe there is sufficient information to assess one to be more likely than the other…I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China. I have also asked that this effort include work by our National Labs and other agencies of our government to augment the Intelligence Community’s efforts. And I have asked the Intelligence Community to keep Congress fully apprised of its work.”

Per CNN:

Last month, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified that US intelligence agencies still do not know “exactly where, when or how Covid-19 virus was transmitted initially” in China but remain focused on two primary theories, that “it emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals or it was a laboratory accident.” Two sources told CNN on Sunday that assessment has not changed. Biden said the US would work with allies to continue to press China “to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence.”

When asked during a White House briefing if the announcement was related to the recent US intelligence report on the researchers [in Wuhan] falling ill [in November 19 and needing to be hospitalized], principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Wednesday the issue is “something that the President has been working on for some time.”

“We have been saying that for a very long time that China needed to provide more access to the lab, cooperate more fully with the scientific investigators, and we don’t think that they have met that standard,” Jean-Pierre told CNN’s Phil Mattingly. She added: “Getting to the bottom of the origin of this pandemic will help us understand how to prepare for the next pandemic and the next one.”

While the World Health Organization conducted an investigation on the origins of COVID-19 and concluded the risk that it came from an accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute, where coronavirus research was being done on bats, was “extremely low,” the probe was criticized by the U.S., the U.K. and other governments over limited data access and for being too deferential to China.

Bill Gates’s money manager sounds like a real charmer

And by charmer we of course mean massive creep, according to reporting from the New York Times:

For 27 years, Bill Gates has entrusted the management of his enormous wealth and the endowment of his giant foundation to a single man: Michael Larson. Mr. Larson has invested the Microsoft co-founder’s money in farmland, hotels, stocks, bonds, even a bowling alley. Thanks in part to Mr. Larson and the soaring value of Microsoft’s shares, Mr. Gates’s fortune has gone from less than $10 billion to about $130 billion. But Mr. Larson, 61, also engaged in a pattern of workplace misconduct at Mr. Gates’s money-management firm, Cascade Investment, according to 10 former employees as well as others familiar with the firm.

He openly judged female employees on their attractiveness, showed colleagues nude photos of women on the internet and on several occasions made sexually inappropriate comments. He made a racist remark to a Black employee. He bullied others. When an employee said she was leaving Cascade, Mr. Larson retaliated by trying to hurt the stock price of the company she planned to join.

According to the Times, Cascade paid out at least seven people over the years who witnessed or knew about Larson’s behavior, in exchange for agreeing to never speak about their time at the firm. In a report earlier this month, the Times wrote that Melinda Gates “wasn’t satisfied with her husband’s handling of a previously undisclosed sexual harassment claim against his longtime money manager,” and that “after Mr. Gates moved to settle the matter confidentially, Ms. French Gates insisted on an outside investigation. The money manager, Michael Larson, remains in his job.” In a statement, Chris Giglio, Larson’s spokesperson, said, “During his tenure, Mr. Larson has managed over 380 people, and there have been fewer than five complaints related to him in total. Any complaint was investigated and treated seriously and fully examined, and none merited Mr. Larson’s dismissal.”

Also this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft board members decided Gates needed to step down in 2020 as they learned of an affair that he’d had with a female employee, who wrote a letter saying she’d had a sexual relationship with him over a period of several years. According to the Times, asking female employees out on dates while still married was Gates’s thing. In 2006, for example, he attended a presentation given by a female Microsoft employee and after it concluded, immediately emailed to ask her out to dinner, writing “If this makes you uncomfortable, pretend it never happened.” (Apparently it did.) A spokesperson for Gates acknowledged the affair to the Journal, while telling the Times, which also reported on the billionaire’s friendship with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein: “It is extremely disappointing that there have been so many untruths published about the cause, the circumstances and the timeline of Bill Gates’s divorce. Your characterization of his meetings with Epstein and others about philanthropy is inaccurate, including who participated…The claim of mistreatment of employees is also false. The rumors and speculation surrounding Gates’s divorce are becoming increasingly absurd, and it’s unfortunate that people who have little to no knowledge of the situation are being characterized as ‘sources.’”

Elsewhere!

Paychecks Got Bigger for Most U.S. Bank CEOs During Pandemic (Bloomberg)

Activist investor ousts at least two Exxon directors in historic win for pro-climate campaign (CNN)

New York giving away 50 full college scholarships to vaccinated teens (NYP)

Ohio’s Vax-a-Million lottery boosts Covid-19 vaccination rate, governor says (CNN)

Mitch McConnell, the minority leader with ‘veto’ power (Politico)

Trump tried to end Spygate probe of New England Patriots by offering bribe, late senator’s son says (Washington Post)

Male panda opts for snacks over sex with mate (NYP)

— How the University of Iowa Became Ground Zero for the Cancel Culture Wars
— Inside the New York Post’s Bogus-Story Blowup
— The Mothers of 15 Black Men Killed by Police Remember Their Losses
— “I Can’t Abandon My Name”: The Sacklers and Me
— This Secretive Government Unit Is Saving American Lives Around the World
— Trump’s Inner Circle Is Terrified the Feds Are Coming for Them Next
— Why Gavin Newsom Is Thrilled About Caitlyn Jenner’s Run for Governor
— Can Cable News Pass the Post-Trump Test?
— From the Archive: The Life Breonna Taylor Lived, in the Words of Her Mother
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.