Stories to Watch: 6/6/13

RIP Esther Williams, movie star, bathing beauty, and athlete.


A Texas jury decides it's totally legal to murder an escort for refusing to have sex with you.


Also out of Texas, a four-year-old shoots himself after finding grandpa's gun. Why do so many of these stories come out of Texas? It's like a constant hail of bullets down there. They have a very serious "stupid people with guns" problem.


The Republican base isn't going to be happy with the guy Chris Christie is appointing to New Jersey's vacant Senate seat.


In accepting the federal expansion of Medicaid, the Tea Party believes Arizona's far right Gov. Jan Brewer has turned into a commie overnight.


Meanwhile in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker's just so pleased he could bust over his plan to avoid the Tea Party's wrath. His super-genius plan costs Wisconsinites $119 million more than it would've if he'd accepted the expansion and will cover 85,000 fewer people. No doubt, the bass-ackward financial geniuses in the Tea Party will be thrilled. Between Brewer and Walker, guess which one's thinking about a presidential run? Yeah, you can't make it through the GOP primaries these days without having proved you're a total idiot.


The GOP's War on Women is still going strong.


Half of licensed gun dealers in the US depend on illegal sales to Mexico. Part of the problem: the failure to renew the assault weapons ban.


Sen. Bernie Sanders looks at the NSA/Verizon story and says he told you so. Ditto Russ Feingold. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein has "everything you need to know" about the controversy. Meanwhile, the whole thing is insanely far-reaching and wider than you'd imagined. Internet companies like Google and Facebook are also involved. "They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type," a source says. The program started under Bush, but damn this administration for continuing it.


Finally, Walmart execs are about to learn just how much their company sucks.


[photo via Yahoo! News]