Donald Trump

Political Violence Is Becoming America’s New Normal

Among the myriad headlines that roiled the nation last week, rising political violence in the United States was a sickening drumbeat—one that culminated and resounded most loudly during a weekend of targeted shootings directed at two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses.

Though the shooter’s motivations are still unconfirmed, news reports reveal that notebooks found in his car were “full of plans, lists of names, surveillance efforts and home addresses.” Among those listed are Democratic elected officials, including state Rep. Kelly Morrison, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, as well as state and federal leaders from other states; and local Planned Parenthood contacts, including abortion providers and advocates. Accounts by the shooter’s friends as well as his social media footprint indicate his vehement opposition to abortion and LGBTQ rights—an opposition he made especially clear.

All of it is worrisome, but the combination of antiabortion extremism, anti-democratic fury and actual violence is growing exponentially more potent. The federal government is communicating with utter precision that abortion is the exception, the excuse, the issue for which violence is an acceptable response. We ignore that message at our collective and societal peril.

Juneteenth Calls for Economic Justice, Not Trump’s Racially Coded Gimmicks

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As Juneteenth approaches, we are called to remember not just the day when the last enslaved Black Americans learned of their freedom, but the ongoing struggle for true justice and equality in this country.

In this context, Donald Trump’s economic and immigration policies—packaged as efforts to “Make America Great Again”—take on a more troubling meaning. They are not just policy proposals; they are part of a deliberate strategy to reinforce racial divides, undermining the very ideals that Juneteenth represents.

A Podcast for Our Constitutional Crisis: ‘Speaking Freely’ Provides Echoes of History—and Warnings for Today

As threats to free speech continue to escalate under the Trump administration, we must do our part to defend First Amendment rights for all.

In an illuminating new 10-episode series, Speaking Freely: A First Amendment Podcast, Stephen Rohde, who has litigated and written about freedom of expression for decades, explores some of the most controversial free speech and free press cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court—looking at hot-button issues like hate speech, defamation, incitement, social media, obscenity, flag burning, espionage and academic freedom.

Listen to Speaking Freely on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or iHeart. All 10 episodes available now.

‘An Abortion Saved My Life After I Got Leukemia’

Mom Abby Blum tells why she was forced her to end her much-wanted pregnancy. She warns that an unexpected tragic event can happen to any woman—even if they think they’ll never need an abortion.

“It felt like an impossible choice, but I decided to go ahead and have the abortion to end my pregnancy so I could start the treatment I needed to save my life. … For me, the abortion was a medical necessity. And, in hindsight, I realize that in the post-Roe v. Wade era, I was lucky to be in a state where I had access to an abortion and to all the healthcare that I needed. ….

“If I had lived in a state like Texas, which bans abortion in nearly all cases, my story would have had a very different ending. I didn’t choose to get cancer and to have to make the decision to end my pregnancy, but that’s what can sometimes happen in life.”

Trump’s Vanity Parades, Immigration Raids and Cuts to Medicaid Face a Feminist Wall

This weekend, while Trump paraded tanks through D.C. in a $45 million display of ego, tens of thousands of peaceful protesters flooded streets across the country to say: No more kings. In cities like Los Angeles, we saw communities come together to defend their neighbors from the cruel realities of immigration raids, family separation and attacks on basic healthcare. The protests made one thing clear—especially among women, who overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump’s actions: We reject this vision of America. And we’re not backing down.

Our Favorite Signs From the No Kings Protests

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Thousands of No Kings protests swept across the United States on Saturday, June 14. The protests intentionally coincided with a lavish, Trump-ordered U.S. Army 250th anniversary parade, Flag Day and the president’s 79th birthday.

From big cities, to small rural towns, representing every corner of the country, between 4 and 6 million people in more than 2,000 locations attended No Kings protests across the country, making it one of the largest national protests in U.S. history.

“Today what I saw was a boisterous, peaceful display of First Amendment rights,” Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of the nonprofit Indivisible, told NPR.

Here are some of our favorite signs from those “boisterous” protesters.

As Antiabortion Violence Surges, Republicans Vote to Strip Federal Protections for Providers

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Early Saturday morning, news broke of the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a Democratic Minnesota state legislator and former speaker, along with her husband Mark. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were also shot multiple times; both survived and are fighting for their lives following emergency surgery. The suspect had a list of more than 50 additional “targets,” including other Democratic officials, some from outside Minnesota, as well as abortion facilities and leading abortion rights advocates in the state.

Although we don’t yet know if his extremist views on abortion were the driving cause in his murderous rampage, it is proof of the ongoing threats to abortion providers in this climate of escalating political violence.

Yet, just weeks after the suicide bombing of a Palm Springs fertility clinic, and despite rising rates of threats and violence against abortion clinics after the Dobbs decision, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to advance HR 589, the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025. The bill would repeal the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a statute protecting clinicians’ and patients’ right to safely provide and access reproductive healthcare. All Democrats on the committee voted against the proposed bill.

Case Not Dismissed: Domestic Violence Is Indeed a Big Deal For Survivors

“It’s just domestic violence.”

“They did not have a good relationship.”

 If I had a dime for every utterance of those repulsive, dismissive sentiments from TV pundits and legal experts about the details in the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial in New York, I would donate it to the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, to reinvigorate paused funding.

That is because the cultural affinity for survivor diminishment as demonstrated in this case is aligned to the White House administration’s latest reduction of monetary, social, healthcare, housing and legal support for those experiencing domestic violence.

Trump’s Cartoonish Performance of Masculine Strength, from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.

Donald Trump’s decision to mobilize the military in Los Angeles was made against the reasoned judgment and expressed wishes of LA Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom. The recent actions of the president present yet another opportunity to observe, in real time, how the Trump era continues to be shot through with destructive and antiquated ideas about masculine strength – along with growing pushback against them.  

It might or might not be coincidental, but the fact that Trump called in the National Guard and a contingent of Marines into downtown L.A., just the week before the president’s expensive and ostentatious celebration of military prowess for his 79th birthday and the Army’s 250-year anniversary.

Sneak Peek: What’s Up With Men? Ms. Magazine Summer Issue Tackles ‘Brocasts,’ JD Vance and the State of American Manhood

It’s true that many boys and men are struggling. It’s also true that the right has successfully weaponized those struggles in their relentless attacks on feminists, liberals and progressives, and anyone else they can accuse of “wokeism,” and subsequently disparage and defund.

The “Special Report on Men” in the upcoming Ms. Summer issue—on newsstands July 1—seeks, instead, to understand the ways in which men’s struggles are connected to larger questions of gender and power that feminists have wrestled with for centuries.

You’ll find:
—Why is the vice president sitting like that? Organizer and writer Garrett Bucks sees through JD Vance’s awkward posture to reveal his self-defeating message for young men.
—Mental health clinician Jewel Woods argues that healing men and boys requires looking beyond grievance-based narratives.
—Jackson Katz promotes an untapped strategy for preventing violence against women: making it men’s work.

… and more!