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Here are key takeaways so far from Tuesday’s primaries
Kansas voters handed abortion-rights advocates a massive victory Tuesday, surging to the polls to defeat a measure that would have allowed the GOP-led legislature to impose new restrictions.
The vote in Kansas was one of the first tests of the potency of abortion rights at the ballot box since the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade and end the federal protection of abortion access.
Meanwhile, in Arizona, local elections officials were still counting votes to determine whether a slate of statewide candidates who were endorsed by former President Donald Trump and promoted his lies about election fraud won their Republican primaries.
Federal grand jury subpoenas ex-Trump WH counsel Cipollone in 2020 election probe, source says
Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN, the latest sign that the Justice Department’s investigation is heating up.
Cipollone and his attorneys are in discussions about an appearance before the grand jury, including how to deal with executive privilege issues, the source said.
ABC News first reported the subpoena.
Senate passes veterans health bill after Republicans cave to pressure
The Senate on Tuesday passed legislation expanding lifesaving health care benefits for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
The 86-11 vote came after Republicans agreed to lift their blockade of the popular bill, caving to pressure from more than 60 veterans groups — and comedian Jon Stewart — who had railed against Republicans for days outside the Capitol.
Many of the veterans who had camped on the Senate steps, braving heat, humidity and thunderstorms, watched the vote from the gallery in the Senate chamber. The bill has already cleared the House and now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
Kansans overwhelmingly vote to uphold abortion rights in their state
Kansas voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly struck down a proposed constitutional amendment that would remove language enshrining reproductive rights in their state, in a move widely seen as a victory for abortion rights activists.
The proposed amendment was the first time anywhere in the U.S. that voters cast ballots on abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
A ballot question, known as the “Value Them Both Amendment,” asked voters to decide whether the state’s Constitution should continue to protect abortion rights. The proposed amendment to the state Constitution would have removed language that guarantees reproductive rights and asked voters if they prefer to put the issue of abortion in the hands of the state’s Republican-controlled legislature — an outcome that abortion advocates said was all but certain to result in the elimination or curtailment of those rights.
Lindsey Graham adds Trump’s former White House counsel as he battles Georgia subpoena
Amid an ongoing legal battle over the 2020 election probe in Georgia, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has added former President Donald Trump’s first White House counsel, Donald McGahn, to his legal team.
Graham continues to fight a subpoena ordering him to appear before a grand jury in Fulton County’s criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.
McGhan’s name appeared on a recent legal filing alerting the Fulton County Superior Court that Graham would be moving his challenge to the Northern District of Georgia, as he continues his fight against the subpoena, which he first began last month.
Veterans have been camping out on the Capitol steps after GOP blocks burn pit bill
Jen Burch, 35, a retired staff sergeant in the Air Force, looks strong and healthy from the outside. She says that inside, however, she’s suffering from ailments that she believes are related to her service during the Afghanistan war more than a decade ago.
While they were in Kandahar, Burch and her fellow service members were exposed to “burn pits, incinerators and poo ponds,” she said. When she left, she battled pneumonia and bronchitis. And in the years since then, she has been “in and out of ERs” and has struggled with intense migraine headaches and shortness of breath whenever she climbs a flight of stairs.
DHS watchdog asked the Secret Service for all Jan. 6 texts, then retracted the request in an email
The Department of Homeland Security’s watchdog agency, which in February 2021 requested all Secret Service text messages sent around Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot, withdrew the request five months later, according to an email obtained by the top Democrats on two House committees.
On July 27, 2021, DHS Deputy Inspector General Thomas Kait sent an email telling Jim Crumpacker, a senior official at DHS, “Jim, please use this email as a reference to our conversation where I said we no longer request phone records and text messages from the USSS relating to the events of January 6th,” referring to the U.S. Secret Service.
U.S. drone strike kills Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan
President Joe Biden announced Monday night that a U.S. counterterrorism operation over the weekend in Afghanistan killed top Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the plotters behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“Justice has been delivered. And this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said in a rare evening address from the White House. “No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide — if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”
Two people briefed on the matter told NBC News it was a CIA drone strike that killed al-Zawahiri.
Charlie Pierce: Hey, That’s Weird… The Texts for Trump’s Top DHS Officials Are Also Gone
As it turns out, Rose Mary Woods, or somebody (cough-Nixon-cough), was something of a piker when it came to burying inconvenient electronic evidence of presidential misdeeds. From the Washington Post:
This discovery of missing records for the senior-most homeland security officials [acting Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli], which has not been previously reported, increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack. It comes as both congressional and criminal investigators at the Department of Justice seek to piece together an effort by the president and his allies to overturn the results of the election, which culminated in a pro-Trump rally that became a violent riot in the halls of Congress.
What appears to have been an almost maniacal frenzy of ass-covering in the final days of the previous administration—one that’s extended, largely underground, well into the current one—has opened a brand new universe of investigation for all concerned.
House Democrats pass a ban on assault weapons
The House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill to ban assault-style weapons.
The last-minute vote was announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Friday morning just hours before the chamber was set to break for a month-long recess.
The legislation passed 217 to 213. Two Republican lawmakers — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Chris Jacobs of New York — voted in support of the bill.
Pelosi said the ban is “a crucial step in our ongoing fight against the deadly epidemic of gun violence.”
Biden ‘continues to feel well’ after testing positive for COVID-19 again: Doctor
President Joe Biden has tested positive again for COVID-19, according to a letter from White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who said on Sunday that Biden “continues to feel well” and that “unsurprisingly” his test results are still positive.
O’Connor wrote in a memo released by the White House that Biden’s antigen test came back positive late Saturday morning after he tested negative Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning and Friday morning.
As Manchin pushes for speedy passage of new deal, Sinema stays quiet
Senate Democrats are aiming to pass a major spending bill this week that includes funding for climate change, health care and tax increases on corporations.
The deal was unexpectedly struck last week by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and a key centrist, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., giving Democrats optimism that they’ll have a robust agenda to run on in competitive races ahead of the midterm elections this fall.
While Manchin appeared on five Sunday programs to defend the deal and call for its passage, another centrist who holds a swing vote in the 50-50 Senate, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., whom Democrats consider a difficult negotiator, has been quiet about whether she’d vote for the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, released Wednesday.
Speaker Pelosi Heads To Asia, But No Word On Potential Taiwan Visit
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed Sunday she is leading a Congressional delegation to several Asian countries, but didn’t say if she planned to stop in Taiwan.
Pelosi’s office said the speaker would visit Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan with several members of her caucus, including Reps. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), Mark Takano (Calif.), Suzan DelBene (Wash.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.) and Andy Kim (N.J.).
“Today, our Congressional delegation travels to the Indo-Pacific to reaffirm America’s strong and unshakeable commitment to our allies and friends in the region,” Pelosi said. “Our delegation will hold high-level meetings to discuss how we can further advance our shared interests and values, including peace and security, economic growth and trade, the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, human rights and democratic governance.”
Prosecutors prepare for court battle to force former White House officials to testify about Trump’s January 6 conversations
Justice Department prosecutors are preparing to fight in court to force former White House officials to testify about then-President Donald Trump’s conversations and actions around January 6, according to people briefed on the matter.
At issue are claims of executive privilege that prosecutors expect the former president to make in order to shield some information from the federal grand jury as the criminal investigation moves deeper into the ranks of White House officials who directly interacted with Trump.
DOJ’s preemptive move is the clearest sign yet that federal investigators are homing in on Trump’s conduct as he tried to prevent the transfer of power to Joe Biden.
U.S. Economy Shows Another Decline, Fanning Recession Fears
A key measure of economic output fell for the second straight quarter, raising fears that the United States could be entering a recession — or perhaps that one had already begun.
Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, fell 0.2 percent in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That drop followed a decline of 0.4 percent in the first quarter. The estimates for both periods will be revised in coming months as government statisticians get more complete data.
News of the back-to-back contractions heightened a debate in Washington over whether a recession had begun and, if so, whether President Biden was to blame. Economists largely say that conditions do not meet the formal definition of a recession but that the risks of one are rising.
Blindsided veterans erupt in fury after Senate Republicans suddenly tank Burn Pit Act
Blindsided veterans erupted in anger and indignation Thursday after Senate Republicans suddenly tanked a widely supported bipartisan measure that would have expanded medical coverage for millions of combatants exposed to toxic burn pits during their service.
Supporters of the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act — or PACT Act — overwhelmingly expected the House-passed bill to sail through to the president’s desk for signature.
But in a move that shocked and confused veteran groups Wednesday night, 41 Senate Republicans blocked the bill’s passage, including 25 who had supported it a month ago.
Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former acting chief of staff, testifies before Jan. 6 committee
Mick Mulvaney, who was the acting White House chief of staff for President Donald Trump, testified Thursday before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.
Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff in 2019 and early 2020, arrived for his closed-door deposition with the committee around 1:40 p.m. and departed 2½ hours later.
As he was leaving, reporters asked Mulvaney whether he was in contact with anyone from the White House from December 2020 to January 2021. “I haven’t talked to anybody in the White House in a long time,” he responded, without elaborating.
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson cooperating with DOJ’s Jan. 6 probe, say sources
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top adviser to then-President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, has recently cooperated with the Department of Justice investigation into the events of Jan. 6, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The Justice Department reached out to her following her testimony a month ago before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the sources said.
The extent of her cooperation was not immediately clear.
DOJ is questioning witnesses about Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6
Federal prosecutors have been interviewing witnesses pertaining to former President Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021 as part of a larger investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, a person familiar with the matter said.
Prosecutors will also review attempts by Trump and his team to alter the election outcome by substituting fake electors in key states Trump lost and by pressuring former Vice President Mike Pence to block certification of the results.
U.S. seeking to swap Russian arms dealer for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan
The U.S. government has proposed to Russia that it release detained Americans Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan in exchange for imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, two sources familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News.
Griner, a WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist, has been held in Russia since February, and Whelan, a corporate executive, has been detained in the country since 2018.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the Biden administration had made a “substantial” offer to Russia to facilitate the release of Griner and Whelan, but he did not disclose further details about the proposal.
Manchin strikes major deal with Schumer on climate, taxes and health care
In an unexpected breakthrough, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., reversed his opposition to quickly moving a broad filibuster-proof bill Wednesday and announced he will support a package that includes major investments in drug pricing, as well as provisions to address climate change and taxes on the wealthy.
Manchin announced the agreement in a joint statement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., after months of negotiations between the two appeared to break down recently. The deal represents a major breakthrough for elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda that appeared to be all but dead.
Dr. Irwin Redlener: Dispatch From Ukraine
Last week in Lviv was particularly productive for Karen and me.
Although warnings to Americans to stay out of Ukraine were becoming increasingly intense, we were getting mixed signals from our friends in-country. Their message was, in essence, that this decision should be entirely one of risk versus benefit. In other words, were the meetings we had planned essential to what we were trying to accomplish with the work of our new foundation, Ukraine Children’s Action Project This is how we parsed the decision: Lviv? Yes, we needed to be there. Kyiv? Not so much. (Next time, though…)
Read the rest of Dr. Irwin Redlener’s piece at Smerconish.com
Georgia state bar investigating two lawyers who participated in fake elector plot
The State Bar of Georgia is investigating two Republican lawyers who signed on to the “fake electors” scheme to subvert the Electoral College in the 2020 presidential election.
The lawyers, Brad Carver and Daryl Moody, were specifically referred to the State Disciplinary Board for investigation by the Office of General Counsel, the state bar told CNN in a statement.
Carver, a lawyer and member of the Republican National Lawyers Association, and Moody, chairman of the Foundation Board of Governors for the Georgia Republican Foundation, are two of the 16 individuals who signed the fake elector certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives in late 2020.
Self-awareness in short supply as Trump calls for law and order in DC
America first, irony last. Donald Trump, the former US president accused of a coup attempt in which police were speared and sprayed, returned to Washington on Tuesday with a plea for law and order to give police “the respect that they deserve”.
Trump spoke at a luxury hotel less than two miles from the US Capitol where, 18 months ago, his supporters furiously attacked law enforcement in a bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election result. It was his first visit to the nation’s capital since he snubbed Joe Biden’s inauguration and took flight to Florida.
There were chants of “four more years!” as Trump gave a 90-minute address to a summit hosted by the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a rightwing thinktank conceived by alumni of his White House. Less than a week after the congressional January 6 committee detailed 187 minutes in which he chose not to stop the deadly insurrection, Trump sought to blame Democrats for what he described as rampant crime.
Trump Defense Secretary Says He Never Received ‘Direction or Order’ to Deploy National Guard on Jan. 6
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol shot down a right-wing talking point on Tuesday by releasing a video deposition of former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller saying there was no order to have military personal ready ahead of Jan. 6.
“I was never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature,” Miller said in the clip shared by the committee on Twitter.
“To remove any doubt: Not only did Donald Trump fail to contact his Secretary of Defense on January 6th (as shown in our hearing), Trump also failed to give any order prior to January 6 to deploy the military to protect the Capitol,” the committee wrote, adding, “Here is Secretary Miller’s testimony.”
Justice Dept. investigating Trump’s actions in Jan. 6 criminal probe
The Justice Department is investigating President Donald Trump’s actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury — including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence — have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers, and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
GOP lawmaker attended gay son’s wedding 3 days after voting against same-sex marriage
A Republican lawmaker attended his gay son’s wedding just three days after joining the majority of his GOP colleagues in voting against a House bill that would codify federal protections for same-sex marriage.
The gay son of Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., confirmed to NBC News on Monday that he “married the love of [his] life” on Friday and that his “father was there.” NBC News is not publishing the names of the grooms, neither of whom is a public figure.
Thompson’s press secretary, Maddison Stone, also confirmed the congressman was in attendance.
Top Pence Aides Testify to Grand Jury in Jan. 6 Investigation
Two top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence testified last week to a federal grand jury in Washington investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the highest-ranking officials of the Trump administration so far known to have cooperated with the Justice Department’s widening inquiry into the events leading up to the assault.
The appearances before the grand jury of the men — Marc Short, who was Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, and Greg Jacob, who was his counsel — were the latest indication that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the events surrounding and preceding the riot is intensifying after weeks of growing questions about the urgency the department has put on examining former President Donald J. Trump’s potential criminal liability.
Trump didn’t want to call for Jan. 6 rioters’ prosecution, new video shows
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) posted a video Monday on Twitter showing previously unpublicized testimony from several people close to Trump, centered on a speech he was supposed to give Jan. 7, 2021.
Biden tears into Trump over violence against police hours before ex-president returns to D.C. for campaign-style speech
President Joe Biden slammed former President Donald Trump on Monday for lacking “the courage to act” as police defending the U.S. Capitol suffered through “medieval hell” on Jan. 6, 2021 — a rare and direct attack pre-empting Trump’s plan to deliver a law-and-order-themed speech Tuesday in the nation’s capital.
The two men may be on a collision course for a rematch of their hard-fought 2020 election.
Biden has said he will seek re-election, and Trump advisers say it is likely he will announce his own bid before November’s midterm elections.
Biden’s Covid symptoms are improving ‘significantly,’ doctor says
President Joe Biden’s Covid symptoms “continue to improve significantly,” his doctor said in a letter Sunday.
Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House physician, said that the president completed his third full day of treatment with the antiviral drug Paxlovid on Saturday and that his “predominant symptom” is only a sore throat. Biden, who tested positive for Covid on Thursday, had been fully vaccinated and twice boosted, the White House said.
“This is most likely a result of lymphoid activation as his body clears the virus, and is thus encouraging,” O’Connor said of Biden’s sore throat. “His rhinorrhea, cough and body aches have diminished considerably. His voice remains a bit deep. His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature all remain normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. His lungs remain clear.” (Rhinorrhea is a runny nose.)
Read the rest of the story at NBC News
Steve Bannon found guilty in Jan. 6 contempt of Congress trial
A jury on Friday found former Donald Trumpadviser Steve Bannon guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress for blowing off the House Jan. 6 committee.
The jury returned the verdict after deliberating for less than three hours in what prosecutors presented as a straightforward case.
“This case is not complicated, but it is important,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Molly Gaston told jurors during closing arguments on Friday. She argued that Bannon “did not want to recognize Congress’ authority” or play by the government’s rules.
Jan. 6 panel will weigh subpoenaing Ginni Thomas if needed, Cheney says
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots will weigh subpoenaing Virginia “Ginni” Thomas if she does not agree to a voluntary interview with the committee, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo, said Sunday.
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Cheney, vice chair of the panel, said the committee remained “engaged” with Thomas’ lawyer and hopes “she will agree to come in voluntarily.
“But the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not,” Cheney told host Jake Tapper. “I hope it doesn’t get to that. I hope she will come in voluntarily. We’ve certainly spoken with numbers of people who are similarly situated in terms of the discussions that she was having that you’ve mentioned.”
Mike Pence’s Security Detail Feared For Their Lives During Jan. 6 Capitol Riot
Members of former Vice President Mike Pence’s security detail were so afraid for their lives during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot that they made calls over radio to say goodbye to their family members, according to testimony given to the House committee investigating the attack.
“The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives,” a former White House national security official said in testimony to the committee that aired in a hearing on Thursday.
The official’s identity was withheld for security reasons.
Senate Democrats Introduce Bill To Lift Federal Ban On Weed
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats in the chamber announced a long-awaited bill Thursday to lift the federal ban on cannabis products ― something that’s hugely popular with the American people but unlikely to succeed in Congress right now.
The New York senator’s Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act has been in the works since last year, when he released a draft with Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). If passed, it would decriminalize weed on the federal level and officially allow states to create their own marijuana laws.
President Joe Biden Tests Positive For COVID, Experiencing Mild Symptoms
Biden, who is fully vaccinated and twice boosted, tested positive Thursday morning and is experiencing “very mild symptoms,” the White House said.
“Consistent with CDC guidelines, he will isolate at the White House and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time,” his administration said. He will resume in-person activities after he tests negative.
Jan. 6 Hearing Focuses On Trump’s 187 Minutes Of Cheering His Mob During His Coup Attempt
The House committee investigating Donald Trump’s attempted coup to remain in power wrapped up its summer series of public hearings Thursday night, going through a minute-by-minute account of his refusal to tell the violent mob he had called to the U.S. Capitol to stand down.
“Donald Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 was a supreme violation of his oath of office and a complete dereliction of his duty,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican. “It is a stain on our history.”
Prime-time Jan. 6 hearing to focus on Trump’s riot response, with new testimony and evidence
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold the eighth in its latest string of hearings on Thursday starting at 8 p.m. ET — in prime-time.
Committee aides say the session will zero-in on then-President Donald Trump’s response to the insurrection by a pro-Trump mob, specifically the 187 minutes between his speech at the Ellipse near the White House earlier that day and his public statement telling rioters to go home.
The panel will also discuss what occurred on the remainder of Jan. 6, including a tweet Trump sent around 6 p.m., and the fallout on Jan. 7, 2021.
Prosecution rests its case in Steve Bannon trial after calling 2 witnesses
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday rested what they argue is a pretty straightforward contempt of Congress case against former Trump adviser Steve Bannon after calling just two witnesses.
Justice Department prosecutors told jurors in their opening statement Tuesday that Bannon thought he was “above the law.” Wednesday’s testimony from a senior staffer on the House Jan. 6 committee and an FBI special agent, who testified — among other things — about Bannon’s posts on the right-leaning social media website GETTR.
Judge orders Rudy Giuliani to testify before grand jury in Trump election probe
A New York judge has ordered Rudy Giuliani to testify before the Georgia special grand jury hearing evidence in an investigation into possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and others, court filings show.
The order came after Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal attorney, failed to appear at a July 13 hearing before the judge to challenge a subpoena for his testimony in the investigation.
Giuliani was subpoenaed earlier this month as a “material witness” by the grand jury called by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to investigate any “coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections.” The subpoena said Giuliani made statements at legislative hearings in Georgia falsely claiming that there had been “widespread voter fraud” in the state.
Senators Propose Changes To Electors Law After Capitol Riot
A bipartisan group of senators agreed Wednesday on proposed changes to the Electoral Count Act, the post-Civil War-era law for certifying presidential elections that came under intense scrutiny after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and Donald Trump‘s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Long in the making, the package introduced by the group led by Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Joe Manchin of West Virginia is made up of two separate proposals. One would clarify the way states submit electors and the vice president tallies the votes in Congress. The other would bolster security for state and local election officials who have faced violence and harassment.
Georgia ‘fake electors’ hit with subpoenas in criminal probe
Nearly a dozen of Georgia’s “fake electors” revealed Tuesday they’ve been subpoenaed to appear before the Fulton County special grand jury hearing evidence in the criminal investigation into possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and his allies.
The revelations came in a court filing where attorneys for 11 of the state’s 16 false presidential electors attempted to quash the subpoenas, calling them “unreasonable and oppressive.”
The attorneys also argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office initially said their clients were “witnesses, not subjects or targets” of the investigation, and that the electors had agreed to voluntary interviews with the team investigating election interference beginning in April.
Secret Service Says Some Missing Jan. 6 Texts Are Unlikely to Be Recovered
The Secret Service said it may not be able to recover a batch of erased text messages from phones used by its agents around the time of the attack on the Capitol last year, a development that comes amid intensified scrutiny over lapses in the agency’s accounting of its actions during the riots.
The Secret Service informed the House Jan. 6 committee that it was still attempting a forensic search for the phone records on Tuesday morning, when it delivered not the missing text messages the panel was seeking but “thousands of pages of documents” and other records related to decisions made on Jan. 6, according to the agency’s spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi. Later, in an interview, Mr. Guglielmi said the phone records were probably not recoverable.
Steve Bannon thought he was ‘above the law,’ prosecutors say in contempt trial
Former Donald Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon “decided he was above the law” when he blew off the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday in opening statements of Bannon’s contempt of Congress trial.
Bannon “chose to show his contempt for Congress’ authority and its processes” by refusing to comply with a subpoena, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Rose Vaughn told jurors.
“It wasn’t optional, it wasn’t a request and it wasn’t an invitation. It was mandatory,” Vaughn said.
House votes to protect same-sex marriage in case the Supreme Court rescinds it
The House passed the Respect For Marriage Act Tuesday to codify legal same-sex marriage nationwide, fearing that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will rescind the right after it overturned Roe v. Wade last month.
The vote was 267-157, with 47 Republicans joining a unanimous Democratic caucus in supporting the legislation.
Among the GOP lawmakers who voted for the measure were Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 Republican in the House, and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. House Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, head of the House Republicans’ campaign arm, also backed the bill.
Barbara McQuade: The case for charging Trump with manslaughter
The next Jan. 6 committee hearing — a prime-time finale after seven previous hearings — is expected to focus even more intently on what was happening inside the White House during the insurrection. I will be listening for evidence of a crime that has gone largely undiscussed: manslaughter.
Five people died in the Jan. 6 attack. Officer Brian Sicknick sustained a fatal stroke a day after rioters sprayed him with a chemical irritant. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt was shot by police when she tried to climb through a window and enter the House chamber. A Georgia woman, Rosanne Boyland, was crushed by fellow rioters as they pushed their way against the police outside a Capitol door. Kevin Greeson, an Alabama man, died of a heart attack in a sea of Trump supporters on the sidewalk west of the building. Benjamin Philips of Pennsylvania died of a stroke during the assault on the Capitol.
Biden could declare climate emergency as soon as this week, sources say
The potential move comes days after Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) told Democratic leaders that he does not support his party’s efforts to advance a sprawling economic package this month that includes billions of dollars to address global warming. If an emergency is invoked, it could empower the Biden administration in its efforts to reduce carbon emissions and foster cleaner energy.
Jury Selection Begins In Trial Of Ex-Trump Adviser Steve Bannon
Jury selection began Monday in the trial of Steve Bannon, a one-time top adviser to former President Donald Trump. He is facing criminal contempt of Congress charges after refusing for months to cooperate with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
Bannon is charged in Washington’s federal court with defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee that sought his records and testimony. He was indicted in November on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, one month after the Justice Department received a congressional referral. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days of jail and as long as a year behind bars.
Angry and heartbroken Uvalde parents flood school board meeting with demands for new leadership
One by one, dozens of angry parents and residents lambasted the Uvalde school board, repeatedly calling for the superintendent to be fired and trustees to step down after more law enforcement failures were revealed in the response to the shooting that killed 19 childrenand two teachers at Robb Elementary School.
“Shame on you!” a chorus erupted as the meeting got underway Monday evening.
Hundreds of community members crammed into an auditorium at Uvalde High School, questioning school officials’ handling of safety and demanding accountability from the people paid to protect children and school staff.
Two Trump White House officials expected to testify at prime-time Jan. 6 hearing Thursday
Former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, a member of the National Security Council during the Trump administration, are expected to testify at the Jan. 6 committee’s high-profile hearing on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the plans.
Both Matthews and Pottinger were among a wave of Trump officials who resigned in the wake of the attack on the Capitol. This would be the first time either witness has testified publicly before the panel.
CNN first reported Pottinger was an expected witness.
Charlie Pierce: Joe Manchin Has Sold Us All Out Again
Over the decade in which this shebeen has been open, I have gradually come to the sad conclusion that the climate crisis is far beyond the ability of our democratic republic to handle. Our institutions are too creaky, too money-sodden, and too fat with chokepoints to develop a consensus that the climate crisis is even a crisis at all. Our politicians and our political system are sleepwalking themselves—and us—into an apocalyptic cul de sac from which there is no way out, and in which there are no good choices anymore. More and more, I think that the only nation-states that will survive what’s coming are the most brutal and authoritarian ones. And good morning to you, too. Have a nice day.
The Rude Pundit: An Observation on the Nature of Extremist F***nuts at the January 6 Committee Hearing
One thing that jumped out at me while watching Tuesday’s televised hearing from the January 6 Committee into the insurrection of fucking idiots, which came closer than we want to believe to actually working, is how the extremists coming to DC on that cold day didn’t emerge from a vacuum. No, in fact, it was the action, or, really, the inaction of the federal government on another uprising that gave the idiot hordes the confidence to go full overthrow. Jason Van Tatenhove, former member of the Oath Keepers (motto: “If this whole beach was completely covered in dicks, and somebody said I had to eat every dick until the beach was clean for liberty, I would say, ‘No problemo!'”), pointed very clearly to an event from 2014 that helped inspire motherfuckers to start fucking more mothers all the way to the Capitol.
Jury selection set to begin in contempt trial of Trump ally Steve Bannon
Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the trial of former President Donald Trump’s ally Steve Bannon over his defiance of a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Bannon, who previously served as Trump’s White House chief strategist but departed in August of 2017, was first subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee for records and testimony in September of last year. The committee told Bannon at the time it had “reason to believe that you have information relevant to understanding activities that led to and informed the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Jan. 6 panel expects to get Secret Service texts by Tuesday, says new witnesses will appear in next hearing
The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot expects to receive erased Secret Service text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, by Tuesday, and will present testimony from new witnesses during Thursday’s public hearing, its members said Sunday.
Fanning out on Sunday programs, multiple members of the committee discussed the latest developments in their investigation and plans surrounding the prime-time hearing this week, which will focus on what the panel has called the crucial “187 minutes” — the length of time it took for former President Donald Trump to urge his supporters to leave the Capitol after the attack began.
Four dead after a shooter uses a long gun to open fire at an Indianapolis-area mall
Four people were dead, including the suspected shooter, after a man with a long gun entered a mall south of Indianapolis and opened fire, police said.
Two others were injured in the early evening attack at Greenwood Park Mall, Jim Ison, the police chief of Greenwood, Indiana, said at a Sunday night news conference. One remained hospitalized, he said. A 12-year-old girl with abrasions was treated and released.
Four of six people who were injured or killed were female, Ison said.
Blistering report finds ‘systemic failures’ by authorities in the wake of Uvalde school shooting
A scathing report released Sunday by a Texas House committee investigating the mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde faulted “systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making” by law enforcement and the school district.
Also Sunday, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin announced that Uvalde’s acting chief of police, Lt. Mariano Pargas, has been placed on leave as a city launched an investigation of his response and that of his officers.
Manchin rejects climate and energy provisions in reconciliation bill
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has dealt a huge blow to President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, telling Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that he will only support a reconciliation bill that lowers prescription drug prices and extends subsidies for the nation’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act, according to a Democrat briefed on the conversations.
Manchin told Schumer that he cannot support a bill this August containing the climate or energy provisions the president seeks.
Texas AG sues Biden for telling doctors to perform abortions as needed in emergencies
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday filed the first legal challenge to President Joe Biden’s executive order on abortion — accusing the administration of turning emergency health care providers into “walk-in abortion clinics” and kicking off what is expected to be a protracted legal battle between the White House and red states.
At issue is Biden’s interpretation of a federal law that requires doctors to treat patients in medical emergencies, even if they do not have insurance, and provide the necessary “stabilizing treatment.”
Under guidance issued Monday, the Health and Human Services Department said the law would require doctors to perform abortions in medical emergencies if their clinical judgement finds such a procedure would help stabilize a pregnant patient.
Ivana Trump, Donald Trump’s first wife, dead at 73
Ivana Trump, Donald Trump‘s first wife and the mother of his three oldest children, has died, the former president said Thursday.
“I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” the former president said in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. “She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life. Her pride and joy were her three children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her. Rest In Peace, Ivana!”
Ivana Trump was 73. Her cause of death is unknown.
Secret Service erased text messages from Jan. 6 and the day before, the Homeland Security watchdog says
The Secret Service erased text messages from both Jan. 6 and the day before the attack on the Capitol after the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog requested records of electronic communications tied to the insurrection, according to a letter sent to congressional committees that was obtained by NBC News.
The details about the erased messages were revealed in a letter to two congressional committees Wednesday, in which Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari said he was informed that many of the messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, had been erased “as part of a device-replacement program.”
House Jan. 6 committee is having conversations with Justice Department
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has been having conversations with the Justice Department about the phony elector scheme put forward by former President Donald Trump’s allies, committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson said Wednesday.
Thompson confirmed a day earlier the committee had been having discussions with the Justice Department. He clarified on Wednesday that those conversations are about a scheme allegedly cooked up by Trump’s allies to put forward alternate electors supporting him in seven battleground states that President Joe Biden won.
Novavax Covid-19 vaccine wins FDA authorization
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday granted emergency use authorization to Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine, opening up another option for adults who have not received immunization against the virus.
The vaccine, a two-dose series administered three weeks apart, is manufactured using a lab-made spike protein produced in insect cells and an adjuvant obtained from the bark of a tree native to Chile, offering a different and older vaccine technology than is used in the messenger RNA vaccines and Johnson & Johnson shot. It is authorized for people ages 18 and older as a primary series, meaning the shot is intended for the roughly 10 percent of adults who have not yet received a Covid-19 vaccine.
Biden meets with Israeli leaders amid unsettled political climate
President Joe Biden sought to reaffirm U.S. support for Israel and present a united front between the two nations on a range of issues from Iran to Russia’s war in Ukraine as he kicked off a day of meeting with Israeli leaders here on Thursday.
Biden met Thursday with Israeli caretaker prime minister Yair Lapid, who said the two leaders spoke about ways to improve relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and their commitment to never allow a nuclear Iran.
Biden said he discussed with Lapid the importance of integrating Israel into the region and support for Israel from the “the vast majority” of Americans.
Trump tried to call a White House support staff member who was in talks with the Jan. 6 panel, source says
Former President Donald Trump tried to call a member of the White House support staff who was talking to the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, a source familiar with the issue told NBC News on Wednesday.
CNN first reported that the witness works at the White House.
The committee’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., asserted Tuesday that Trump tried to call a witness involved in the committee’s investigation. She did not identify the person.
Biden heads to Israel, kicking off first Middle East trip as president
President Joe Biden will arrive in Israel Wednesday for his first trip to the Middle East as president looking to show support for that nation amid low expectations that his visit will lead to any fundamental shift in the growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
While most presidents have centered their visits to Israel around trying to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are no indications from Biden administration officials that there are plans to do anything more than reaffirm Biden’s support for a two-state solution.
Cheney says Trump called a Jan. 6 committee witness after its last hearing
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., revealed Tuesday during the Jan. 6 committee’s seventh hearing that former President Donald Trump called a witness in the probe after the previous hearing on June 28.
“After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation — a witness you have not yet seen in these hearings,” Cheney said in her closing statement. “That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call, and instead alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us.”
Video from inside Uvalde school shows officer running from classroom where gunman killed 21
Security video published Tuesday by two Texas news outlets shows police officers retreating from the classroom where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
The video, which was recorded in a hallway and obtained and edited by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV of Austin, shows the officers arriving at Robb Elementary School at 11:36 a.m. May 24, three minutes after the gunman was seen entering the school and walking down an empty hallway.
Takeaways from Day 7 of the Jan. 6 panel: Trump can’t be ‘willfully blind’ in defending assembling the mob
As it builds a case that Donald Trump plotted a coup, the House Jan. 6 committee is painstakingly seeking to undercut his argument that the 2020 election was stolen.
No “rational or sane man” could possibly reach that conclusion given the dearth of evidence and the abundance of top White House advisers who believed that he lost and needed to concede, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the panel’s top Republican, said at the hearing Tuesday.
Trump “cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind,” she added.
Charlie Pierce: The Jan. 6 Committee Can’t Let Steve Bannon Bring the Circus (Back) to Town
Were I running the House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021, and I wanted testimony from the likes of Steve Bannon or Stewart Rhodes, I would insist it be taken on videotape, preferably recorded in the old jail cells in the basement of the Capitol.
The possibility that Bannon—and Oath Keeper Rhodes—would testify lit up the news over the weekend. But the idea that either one would be allowed a public platform is sheer lunacy. Either they would demolish the great sense of dignity that has lent the committee’s proceedings so much gravitas and credibility thus far, or they would concoct some wild, ruthless scheme that would blunt the momentum built up assiduously by the committee throughout the past several months. The circus most definitely need not come to town at this point.
xWhat to watch for during President Biden’s trip to the Middle East
When President Joe Biden touches down in Israel on Wednesday for a series of meetings there and in the West Bank before heading to Saudi Arabia, he will find himself treading carefully around political land mines both foreign and domestic, where any missteps could have wide-ranging consequences.
For much of Biden’s time in office, the Middle East has taken a back seat as an area of concern to China and Russia, and the president hasn’t made progress on his campaign pledge to improve human rights in the region. But the region remains key to Biden’s wider domestic and foreign policy goals, including the revival of a nuclear deal with Iran, maintenance of stability in the region, and the lowering of record high gas prices.
Judge won’t delay Steve Bannon’s trial after his last-minute offer to cooperate with Jan. 6 panel
A judge said Monday that he would not delay Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress trial, just one week before it is set to begin.
Bannon was indicted last year for refusing to answer questions from the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Bannon, who had stonewalled the committee since October, had a last-minute change of heart over the weekend, a decision his lawyer attributed to a letter from former President Donald Trump that waived a purported claim of executive privilege. The Justice Department maintains that Bannon’s offer to testify was nothing more than a “last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability.”
Judge orders Lindsey Graham to testify before grand jury in Trump election probe
A judge ordered U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham to testify in front of a special grand jury in Georgia investigating former President Donald Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered that Graham will be required to testify on Aug. 2. The judge’s certification filed on Monday described Graham as a “necessary and material witness” to the grand jury probe. The development was reported earlier by WSB-TV.
Ties between Trump allies and extremist groups to be focus of today’s Jan. 6 panel hearing
The Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday plans to demonstrate how right-wing militia groups that led the assault on the U.S. Capitol were connected to key Trump allies, including Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, who were at the center of the plot to overturn the 2020 election.
“We’ll show how some of these right-wing extremist groups who came to D.C. and led the attack on the Capitol had ties to Trump associates, including Roger Stone and General Flynn,” a committee aide said Monday on a conference call with reporters.
Bannon now says he will testify for Jan. 6 committee after Trump’s OK — with contempt trial looming
Steve Bannon, a former top adviser in Donald Trump’s White House, recently told the House panel investigating the Capitol riot that he would be willing to testify since Trump now says he won’t cite executive privilege.
In a letter on Saturday to the committee, obtained by ABC News, Bannon said he would prefer testifying in a live, public hearing after the former president had sent him a separate letter on Saturday — also obtained by ABC — waiving objections.
Both the House committee and federal prosecutors who sought to speak with Bannon have said the executive privilege claims never covered him, since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection took place long after Bannon left his post as chief White House strategist in 2017.
Ex-Oath Keepers spokesperson to appear as witness at Tuesday’s Jan. 6 hearing
A former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, a far-right “militia” organization, will appear as a witness at the House Jan. 6 committee’s next public hearing Tuesday, a source familiar with the plans said.
While he was not part of the Oath Keepers, whose members have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy in connection with the riot or with events during or leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, the source said, Jason Van Tatenhove is expected to speak about the group’s propaganda efforts and radicalization over the years, including how founder Stewart Rhodes capitalized on conspiracy theories to build membership and funding.
‘Closing argument’: Jan. 6 panel makes final hearings push
Six down. At least two more to go.
The Jan. 6 committee is hitting the home stretch of the public hearings phase of its historic, yearlong investigation into the attack on the Capitol — and American democracy.
After a half-dozen hearings, committee members are looking to build on the momentum with a pair of back-to-back panel meetings this week. They will mark a final push for a special House panel that set out not only to establish an official record for the history books but also to demonstrate Donald Trump’s role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election, and to warn the public about ongoing threats to the election system.
‘Closing argument’: Jan. 6 panel makes final hearings push
Six down. At least two more to go.
The Jan. 6 committee is hitting the home stretch of the public hearings phase of its historic, yearlong investigation into the attack on the Capitol — and American democracy.
After a half-dozen hearings, committee members are looking to build on the momentum with a pair of back-to-back panel meetings this week. They will mark a final push for a special House panel that set out not only to establish an official record for the history books but also to demonstrate Donald Trump’s role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election, and to warn the public about ongoing threats to the election system.
Biden Considering Public Health Emergency To Protect Abortion Access
President Joe Biden said Sunday he is considering declaring a public health emergency to free up federal resources to promote abortion access even though the White House has said it doesn’t seem like “a great option.”
He also offered a message to people enraged by the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that ended a constitutional right to abortion and who have been demonstrating across the country: “Keep protesting. Keep making your point. It’s critically important.”
The president, in remarks to reporters during a stop on a bike ride near his family’s Delaware beach house, said he lacks the power to force the dozen-plus states with strict restrictions or outright bans on abortion to allow the procedure.
Highland Park suspect’s father could have some ‘responsibility’ in attack, police say
Highland Park shooting suspect Robert E. Crimo III’s father “may have responsibility in certain circumstances” for his son’s deadly actions, police said Wednesday while stopping short of tying the dad to any criminal culpability.
The 21-year-old suspect was too young to get a gun permit in 2019 from the state of Illinois, but his father, Bob Crimo Jr., sponsored one for him despite previous threats by his son to harm himself and loved ones, authorities have previously said.
IRS Watchdog To Investigate Why Comey, McCabe Both Chosen For Rare, Invasive Audit
The head of the Internal Revenue Service, Charles Rettig, has asked the agency’s inspector general to investigate why former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe were both selected to undergo rare, invasive audits in recent years
“The IRS has referred the matter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration for review,” the agency said in a statement to The New York Times, adding that the IRS commissioner had “personally reached out” to the watchdog.
The request came a day after The New York Times first reported that both Comey and McCabe were subjected to the intensive audits, which are supposed to be random. The newspaper noted that just 5,000 people were selected in 2017 out of153 million returns, or about 1 in 30,600. Both men, who didn’t know the other had been targeted for the process until the Times informed them, raised questions about the randomness of the audits as both were seen as enemies by former President Donald Trump.
Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone to appear before Jan. 6 committee on Friday
Pat Cipollone, who served as White House counsel under former President Donald Trump, has reached an agreement to appear Friday before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, two sources familiar with the matter tell CBS News.
The panel issued a subpoena for Cipollone’s testimony last week after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Cipollone strongly opposed Trump’s efforts to travel to the Capitol on Jan. 6. Other witnesses have testified that Cipollone was one of the main White House officials opposed to attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He previously sat for an informal interview with the committee.
Former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe dies after being shot at campaign event
Former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe died on Friday after being shot at a campaign event, in an attack that shocked a country where gun violence is virtually nonexistent.
Abe, 67, was a towering political presence even after he stepped down as Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, and he was campaigning ahead of elections scheduled for Sunday. He had just begun a speech in the western city of Nara, near Kyoto, when gunfire was heard around 11:30 a.m. local time (10:30 p.m. Thursday ET).
Officials said that one person had been apprehended in relation to the shooting.
New Report Details The Many Law Enforcement Failures During Uvalde School Massacre
A new report offers the clearest timeline yet of a mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, school in May that left 19 children and two teachers dead, and it addresses the many failures of law enforcement that contributed to the high number of casualties.
The report, released Wednesday by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) program, which is based at Texas State University, describes a police response that was botched by poor tactical planning and by officers who put their safety above those who were being executed in their classrooms at Robb Elementary School on May 24.
Sen. Lindsey Graham says he’ll challenge subpoena in Georgia Trump probe
Lawyers for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Wednesday they’ll challenge a subpoena demanding that he testify before a special grand jury in Georgia hearing evidence in a probe of possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and others.
In a statement, Graham’s attorneys Bart Daniel and Matt Austin said the subpoena, in which the grand jury hearing evidence in the Fulton County district attorney’s investigation seeks his testimony, is “all politics.”
“Senator Graham plans to go to court, challenge the subpoena, and expects to prevail,” the statement said.
Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone agrees to testify behind closed doors with Jan. 6 committee
Pat Cipollone, who served as Donald Trump’s White House counsel, is expected to testify behind closed doors on Friday with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, a person familiar with the situation said Wednesday.
The interview with Cipollone will be transcribed and videotaped, according to a person familiar with the matter. His appearance before the panel comes as a result of a subpoena issued to him last week.
The committee didn’t return a request for comment.
Suspect confesses to Highland Park shooting and plotted second attack in Wisconsin, prosecutor says
The man accused of killing seven people at a Fourth of July parade confessed in detail to the shooting — and revealed that he had considered a second attack, authorities said Wednesday.
Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, 21, has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, and will likely face many more counts stemming from the dozens wounded and injured during Monday’s carnage in this upscale Chicago suburb.
“He went into details about what he had done. He admitted to what he had done,” Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart told reporters outside of the county courthouse. “We don’t want to speculate on motives right now.”
Highland Park shooting suspect’s past littered with ‘red flags’
A portrait of Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III as a mysterious and music-obsessed loner began emerging Tuesday, a day after he was arrested in the wake of a mass shooting at a July Fourth parade that left seven dead and traumatized an affluent Chicago suburb.
Crimo, 21, who attempted to disguise himself by wearing women’s clothing during the deadly rampage, aspired to be a rapper and his music got darker and more delusional as he got older and relationships with his parents and a girlfriend frayed, former friends said.
“He was in his own world,” said 22-year-old Nick Pacileo.
Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham subpoenaed by grand jury in Trump election probe
The Georgia special grand jury hearing evidence in an investigation into possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and others has issued subpoenas to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and key members of Trump’s legal team, including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, NBC News has confirmed.
The Fulton County special grand jury also subpoenaed lawyers Jenna Ellis, Cleta Mitchell and Kenneth Chesebro, all of whom worked with Trump as he contested the election results.
The subpoenas were first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and obtained by NBC News.
Highland Park parade shooting suspect charged with 7 counts of first-degree murder
An Illinois man who police say for weeks planned the mass shooting on a July Fourth parade has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder in the killing spree, officials said Tuesday evening.
Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, 21, will be charged with additional counts in the shooting spree in Highland Park that killed seven and injured dozens of others Monday, Illinois officials said.
If convicted of murder, Crimo would receive a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Blood-Smeared Toddler Reportedly Found Orphaned At Highland Park Parade Shooting
A toddler found at the scene of the July Fourth shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, was left orphaned in the attack.
His parents — Irina McCarthy, 35, and Kevin McCarthy, 37 — were among the seven people killed by a gunman during the town’s July Fourth parade. Members of the community worked together to care for the child in the aftermath and reunite him with his grandparents, according to multiple news reports and an online fundraiser. The child was reportedly physically unharmed.
In the wake of the shooting, many locals posted pictures of a boy with blood stains on his clothes on Facebook, asking if anyone recognized him or knew his parents.
Charlie Pierce: The Declaration of Independence Has Always Been a Tremendous Bluff
The Special Committee seems to be getting serious about witness tampering in its investigation, and that’s a good thing. Witness tampering is easily understood. And it opens up all the avenues of communication employed by the targets of your investigation—emails, texts, answering machines, all of it.
The Rude Pundit: The Supreme Court Tells the 21st Century to Go F*** Itself
This session, the newly-ripened conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court of the United States decided it was time to lift up their robes and piss on the 21st century and reality. The half-dozen justices, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, looked out at a nation, no, a world that demands progress, that demands care, that demands a government that can act to help people, and said, “Nah. Fuck that.” And their reasoning essentially came down to, in every case, “Because we can.”
We have a gun crisis in this country. The Supreme Court said that the only thing that mattered was that more people have easier access to guns. We have a policing crisis in this country. The Supreme Court said that it’s more important to protect cops from being sued or charged with crimes and that you don’t need to worry about being told your Miranda rights anymore. We have an ongoing pandemic that has killed over a million people in this country. The Supreme Court said that public safety takes a back seat to whatever stupid bullshit makes people decide not to get a vaccine. We have an electoral crisis in this country. The Supreme Court said that gerrymandering away fair representation is a-okay.
Bidens ‘shocked’ by Highland Park shooting as White House marks July Fourth
President Joe Biden began Independence Day by sharing a message that looked to the country’s future, but quickly had to respond to another mass shooting in the United States.
“Jill and I are shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day,” the President said in a statement Monday after at least six people were killed in a shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, during a July Fourth parade.
Biden noted that he had “surged Federal law enforcement to assist in the urgent search for the shooter,” and pointed to the gun safety legislation he recently signed into law. (Authorities said Monday evening they have taken into custody “a person of interest” connected to the shooting.) “But there is much more work to do, and I’m not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence,” Biden added.
Here’s what we know about the suspect arrested in connection with the Highland Park shooting
Robert E. Crimo III, identified by police as the person suspected of shooting and killing six people and wounding dozens of others Monday morning at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, has been arrested, authorities said Monday evening.
Police believe the suspected gunman opened fire shortly after 10 a.m. CT from the rooftop of a business near the parade route. The gun was a “high-powered rifle” and the attack appeared to be “random” and “intentional,” said Christopher Covelli, spokesperson for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force.
Jan. 6 panel could make multiple criminal referrals of Trump to DOJ, Cheney says
House Jan. 6 committee members said Sunday that they may make criminal referrals to federal prosecutors involving former President Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Fanning out on Sunday programs to discuss the congressional investigation and its public hearings, committee members said that while no formal decision has been made, they can envision multiple referrals to the Justice Department based on evidence they’ve uncovered investigating the events surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Person of interest apprehended in July 4 suburban Chicago parade attack that killed 6, authorities say
A person of interest in the July Fourth parade attack that killed six people and injured 38 others in suburban Chicago on Monday has been apprehended, authorities said.
Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III was spotted in a Honda Fit described as wanted by the FBI in North Chicago, where local police attempted a traffic stop before the man took them on a short pursuit, authorities said.
At the end of the chase Crimo surrendered peacefully to North Chicago officers, they said.
Federal law enforcement search the home of former DOJ official at center of Jan. 6 hearing
Federal law enforcement was at the Virginia home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who is at the center of Thursday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing.
A U.S. Attorney’s office spokesman confirmed that the activity took place on Wednesday, but the spokesman had no comment regarding the reason for the activity.
In a Thursday night interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, Clark said it was just before 7 a.m. on Wednesday when he answered his front door to discover federal agents.
Senate passes most sweeping gun bill in decades, setting up House vote
The Senate on Thursday night passed the most sweeping gun bill designed to prevent gun violence in decades, a major victory for advocates and a rare defeat for the National Rifle Association.
The vote was 65 to 33, with all 50 Democratic-voting members and 15 Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, voting to send the bill to the House for a vote expected Friday.
“The United States Senate is doing something many believed was impossible even a few weeks ago. We are passing the first significant gun safety bill in nearly 30 years,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said immediately before the vote. “The gun safety bill we are passing tonight can be described with three adjectives: bipartisan, commonsense, lifesaving.”
Supreme Court allows the carrying of firearms in public in major victory for gun rights groups
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Constitution provides a right to carry a gun outside the home, issuing a major decision on the meaning of the Second Amendment.
The 6-3 ruling was the court’s second important decision on the right to “keep and bear arms.” In a landmark 2008 decision, the court had said for the first time that the amendment safeguards a person’s right to possess firearms, although the decision was limited to keeping guns at home for self-defense.
The court has now taken that ruling to the next step after years of ducking the issue and applied the Second Amendment beyond the limits of homeowners’ property in a decision that could affect the ability of state and local governments to impose a wide variety of firearms regulations.
Key takeaways of Jan. 6 panel Day 5: Trump wanted DOJ to promote his interests
After four years in power, Donald Trump never grasped that government isn’t supposed to be a tool for promoting personal interests, the Jan. 6 committee argued as it presented evidence Thursday about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Witnesses described Trump’s desperate efforts to rope the Justice Department into a plot to overturn the election — trying at every turn to persuade government attorneys to act as an extension of his campaign.
Senior officials whom Trump had appointed testified that they tried to explain the department’s unique role to him: They worked for the American people and represented the federal government. The message never stuck.
Biden calls on Congress, states to suspend gas taxes
President Biden on Wednesday called on Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for three months and asked states to suspend their own gas taxes or provide commensurate relief to consumers.
The federal government charges an 18.4-cent tax per gallon of gasoline and a 24.4-cent tax per gallon of diesel. Suspending the tax for three months — through the end of September, will cost about $10 billion, the White House said.
“I fully understand that the gas tax holiday alone is not going to fix the problem,” Biden said in remarks delivered from the South Court Auditorium. “But it will provide families some immediate relief, just a little bit of breathing room, as we continue working to bring down prices for the long haul.”
Trump fumes as Republicans ignore Jan. 6 panel
Republicans in Washington are betting that the televised Jan. 6 hearings aren’t breaking through, that voters are more worried about gas prices and inflation and that — basically — no one cares.
But one man is paying attention: Donald Trump. And he’s not happy no one is defending him.
The former president has reserved special criticism for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who made the call last year to yank all five Trump allies from the special panel after Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., rejected two of his picks.
Uvalde school district puts embattled Police Chief Pete Arredondo on leave
Pete Arredondo was put on administrative leave Wednesday as the police chief of the Uvalde, Texas, school district after a month of sharp criticism for his decision to delay confronting the gunman in the shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers, the district superintendent said.
Hal Harrell, the superintendent of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, noted in a written statement Wednesday that he has said the district would wait until the investigation into the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary School was complete before it made personnel decisions.
Tense Trump meeting with DOJ leaders to take center stage at Jan. 6 hearing today
The Jan. 6 committee plans to take viewers inside the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon, when witnesses describe a contentious meeting in which Justice Department leaders threatened to resign if then-President Donald Trump promoted a political appointee who was prepared to back up his false claims of election fraud.
The committee’s fifth public hearing will focus on the former president’s effort to draw upon the department’s legal muscle and authority as he tried to overturn the 2020 election.
In keeping with a message the committee has been hammering home, the hearing is expected to show how America’s democratic tradition survived largely due to the integrity of a few people who stood up to Trump and refused to go along with his plan to retain power.
Dr. Irwin Redlener: Ukraine’s children desperately need more than shelter and food
There are two things that Ukraine needs right now. First, this deadly war of attrition and destruction must end. Second, the younger generations of Ukrainians must be healthy, educated, resilient and ready to take on the enormous task of rebuilding their country.
I can’t comment on what it would take to bring lasting peace to the region, though my friends with relevant expertise say it’s at least possible. But I do know a good deal about what Ukraine’s children and youth will need, starting right now.
Multiple school security failures contributed to Uvalde mass shooting
Automatic locking doors and law enforcement radios — things that were supposed to protect children from mass shootings — failed in the Uvalde school massacre, a top Texas official testified Tuesday.
In testimony before the state legislature, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw outlined several school security failures that may have contributed to the tragic outcome at Robb Elementary last month, when a gunman opened fire and killed two teachers and 19 students.
Trump-backed Katie Britt defeats Rep. Mo Brooks in Alabama GOP Senate primary runoff
Katie Britt, a former top aide to Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has defeated Rep. Mo Brooks in Alabama’s Republican Senate primary runoff, NBC News projects.
The race to succeed Shelby, who is retiring, had flummoxed former President Donald Trump, whose early endorsement of Brooks was consistent with what had been a close political alliance.
But Trump soured on Brooks, who had expressed a desire to move on from the 2020 election that Trump continues to falsely claim he won. Brooks, once an early favorite in the race, saw his poll numbers decline, and Trump withdrew his endorsement. Brooks ultimately rallied to earn a spot in the runoff against Britt, but she had long since become the GOP front-runner. Trump eventually endorsed herless than two weeks ago.h
Senate Advances Bipartisan Gun Safety Bill With Hopes Of Passing It This Week
A bipartisan bill aimed at curbing gun violence cleared a key procedural hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday, less than a month after the horrific mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, ignited calls for action in Congress.
The vote to advance the bill was 64-35. Fourteen Republicans joined Democrats in support of the measure, and senators now expect its final passage later this week.
The bill, titled the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, includes modest curbs on obtaining firearms, and aid for mental health and schools. It was agreed to after weeks of painstaking negotiations by a core group of four senators ― Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
7 Major Takeaways From The Jan. 6 Committee’s Fourth Hearing
The House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol attack held its fourth public hearing Tuesday, this time focusing on the intense pressure campaign led by former President Donald Trump as he scrambled to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Through live and recorded testimony, text messages, video and audio segments, the panel showed how the effort to keep Trump in power for another four years was extensive and unrelenting. Trump’s team took particular aim at fellow Republicans in swing states who might have been in positions to sway the final outcome, either by falsely revising the final tallies, meddling with the Electoral College or saying evidence of fraud had been found. But there was zero evidence of election fraud on a scale that could have affected the results.
Charlie Pierce: The Texas Republican Party Celebrated Juneteenth By Trying to Drag Us All Back to 1857
Happy Juneteenth, everyone! I know that this has been accepted as a truly American holiday because people are already complaining that it’s been commercialized. They are absolutely right, by the way. From the Washington Post:
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis advertised a “Juneteenth watermelon salad” in its food court, then dropped it and issued an apology after intense blowback.
I mean, come on, people. Honest to god, get with the damn program.
GOP Senate candidate releases ‘RINO hunting’ ad aimed at fellow Republicans
Eric Greitens, the embattled former Missouri governor-turned-GOP Senate candidate, released a campaign ad Monday in which he and a group of armed men in tactical gear are on the hunt for “RINOs” — Republicans in name only.
“We’re going RINO hunting,” a shotgun-toting Greitens, with a handgun holstered at his side, says before he bursts into a house with the men in tactical gear, one of whom throws what appears to be a flash-bang grenade.
“Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country,” he says at the end of the video, which encourages donors to pay $25 for a “RINO hunting” sticker.
Biden says he’s considering gas tax holiday as admin targets July 4 announcement
President Joe Biden said Monday that he is seriously considering temporarily halting the federal gas tax as the White House looks to take steps to lower the cost at the pump ahead of the July 4 holiday.
White House officials say the July 4 weekend, when tens of millions of people are expected to hit the road, is a target for announcing new measures to help lower record-high gas prices.
Biden said Monday that he could make a decision on pausing the federal gas tax by the end of this week. “I hope I have a decision based on data,” he told reporters traveling with him in Rehoboth, Delaware.
Report: Officers were in Uvalde school with rifles, shield 19 minutes after gunman
Police officers with rifles and at least one ballistic shield were in a hallway at Robb Elementary School around 19 minutes after a gunman entered classrooms there, according to reports from Texas news organizations Monday.
The Austin American-Statesman said the timeline was based on documents it reviewed following the May 24 attack in Uvalde that killed 19 children and two teachers.
The Texas Tribune on Monday night also reported the new details, citing records and surveillance video it had reviewed.
Jan. 6 committee turns focus to Trump’s efforts to pressure states to overturn Biden’s win
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack will hold its fourth public hearing Tuesday, focusing on an elaborate effort by former President Donald Trump and his allies to strong-arm state officials to defy voters and hand him the 2020 election, committee members and aides said.
Building on previous hearings, the committee said it will show the intricacies of a scheme that sought to manipulate the electoral vote total to deprive Joe Biden of the majority needed to win.
The panel said it will lay out a central element of the plan: getting Trump supporters in key swing states to submit official-looking certificates claiming they were the legitimate electors, even though Trump had actually lost those states.
CDC recommends Covid-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months, clearing the way for vaccinations to begin soon
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on Covid-19 vaccinations for children under 5 on Saturday, clearing the way for vaccinations to be administered soon.
This move comes after vaccine advisers to the CDC voted unanimously on Saturday in support of recommending the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines to children as young as 6 months.
“Together, with science leading the charge, we have taken another important step forward in our nation’s fight against COVID-19. We know millions of parents and caregivers are eager to get their young children vaccinated, and with today’s decision, they can,” Walensky said in a statement. “I encourage parents and caregivers with questions to talk to their doctor, nurse, or local pharmacist to learn more about the benefits of vaccinations and the importance of protecting their children by getting them vaccinated.”
What to know about Juneteenth now that today is a federal holiday
Despite Juneteenth’s storied history, the holiday was largely overlooked by non-Black Americans until recent years.
The momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement propelled Juneteenth into the national spotlight, building on a decades-long push by activists and leaders to get recognition for the landmark occasion. Last year, Juneteenth became the latest federal holiday in the US — the first to be approved since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.
With Juneteenth now a national holiday, many public and private sector employees enjoy an extra day off from work while brands and corporations capitalize on the event with celebratory marketing campaigns. But there’s much more to Juneteenth than a long weekend and branded products.
Jan. 6 committee will show evidence of Trump’s involvement in fake elector plot, Schiff says
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitolwill present evidence in a public hearing this week about then-President Donald Trump’s involvement in a failed scheme to push slates of bogus electors to overturn the 2020 election results, Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the panel, said Sunday.
“We’ll show evidence of the president’s involvement in this scheme,” Schiff, D-Calif., said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We’ll also again show evidence about what his own lawyers came to think about this scheme. And we’ll show courageous state officials who stood up and said they wouldn’t go along with this plan to either call legislators back into session or decertify the results for Joe Biden.”
Nearly 6 In 10 Americans Want Trump Charged For Insurrection: Poll
Nearly six in 10 Americans believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a new poll released Sunday.
The findings by the ABC News/Ipsos survey reveal a very slight uptick in support for prosecution of Trump since the start of televised hearings by the House select committee investigating the insurrection.
The new poll, conducted June 17 and 18, found that 58% of those surveyed believe Trump should be charged with a crime for his role. An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in April found that 52% of those surveyed thought the same.
The Rude Pundit: Call It What It Was… An Assassination Attempt on Mike Pence
I have despised Mike Pence longer than most of you, even before he was that fuckin’ conservative prick in Congress from 2001-2012, even before he was that motherfucking governor who refused to allow a needle exchange program in a town with a high rate of HIV (until he prayed and partially gave in). Yeah, see, I was damned to live in Indiana in the late-1990s when Pence was a right-wing radio twatmite, advocating for laws against adultery and railing against the cartoon Mulan for daring to say that women could be in the military with men and hating on LGBT people with a fervor that could only be described as protesting way, way too much. When I say, “Fuck him in every hole from ass to eye,” I mean it.
So if I say anything that is perceived as a kind word about him, just know that I really think he’s lower than worm shit.
Senate gun group eyes finish line as ‘boyfriend loophole’ remains a big hurdle
The four U.S. senators leading negotiations on a gun deal met for hours in a Senate basement Thursday in pursuit of a final agreement, but emerged with one major unresolved issue.
The meeting among Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., did not yield a resolution on how to close the “boyfriend loophole” involving gun rights for abusive partners.
As they craft the federal language, the group is looking at “state statutes” that currently prohibit dating partners convicted of abuse from possessing guns, said Tillis, without elaborating on which states. More than 33 states have already taken steps to close or address the boyfriend loophole.
Rep. Bennie Thompson Says It’s Time For Ginni Thomas To Talk To Jan. 6 Committee
So far, Ginni Thomas has avoided answering questions under oath about her involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
But that seems to be changing thanks to the reports of emails between Thomas and John Eastman, the lawyer who advised former President Donald Trump how to fight the election results.
Previously, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol seemed hesitant to question Thomas, whose husband is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but the emails recently obtained by the committee seem to be a tipping point, committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said Thursday.
10 Important Moments From The Third Jan. 6 House Committee Hearing
In its third day of hearings, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol narrowed in on two opposing figures that day: John Eastman, the lawyer who helped Donald Trump craft a plan to overturn the election, and Mike Pence, the vice president who refused to play along.
In both live and recorded testimony, attorneys, aides and other people in Trump’s orbit on Jan. 6 last year defended Pence’s actions and accused Eastman of wreaking havoc on American democracy.
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Senate negotiations on gun safety reform stall over outstanding challenges
Top negotiators on a bipartisan gun safety framework huddled behind closed doors for several hours Wednesday evening to try to solve remaining differences on the package, but the group’s effort to expedite passage of an agreement is stalled, at least for the moment.
Since a group of 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans announced an agreement on a framework of proposals aimed at curbing gun violence in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, on Sunday, a bipartisan group of senators has been working to speedily turn the list of ideas into a bill ready for consideration on the Senate floor next week. But two provisions, one focused on incentivizing states to implement violence prevention programs, and another dealing with closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” are now plaguing negotiations, chief Republican negotiator John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Wednesday.
Dr. Anthony Fauci tests positive for Covid
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, has tested positive for Covid-19, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in a statement Wednesday.
Fauci, 81, has directed the institute since 1984. He is fully vaccinated and has received two booster shots. His positive result came from a rapid test.
“He is currently experiencing mild symptoms,” the institute said. “Dr. Fauci will isolate and continue to work from his home. He has not recently been in close contact with President Biden or other senior government officials.”
Jan. 6 Panel’s Third Public Hearing Today Will Probe Trump Pressure On Pence To Reject Election
The 1/6 committee is set to plunge into Donald Trump’s last-ditch effort to salvage the 2020 election by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral count — a highly unusual and potentially illegal strategy that was set in motion in the run-up to the U.S. Capitol riot.
With two live witnesses Thursday, the House panel intends to show how Trump’s false claims of a fraudulent election left him grasping for alternatives as courts turned back dozens of lawsuits challenging the vote.
Trump latched onto conservative law professor John Eastman’s obscure plan and launched a public and private pressure campaign on Pence days before the vice president was to preside over the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s election victory. A federal judge has said it is “more likely than not” Trump committed crimes over the scheme.
McConnell announces support for bipartisan gun reform framework
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Tuesday he supports the framework agreement for a gun reform plan announced by a bipartisan group of senators over the weekend.
“For myself, I’m comfortable with the framework and if the legislation ends up reflecting what the framework indicates, I’ll be supportive,” he said during a press conference Tuesday.
A group of 20 senators, led by Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, announced Sunday they reached consensus on the key priorities of a deal to reform the nation’s gun laws. The senators set to work on finding common ground on legislative solutions to curbing gun violence in the wake of the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.
June 14 primaries key takeaways: Trump’s political sway tested, as South Carolina ousts one of his critics
As former President Donald Trump’s presidential legacy is tested in Washington this week, with the Jan. 6 hearings dominating Capitol Hill, his political power — and the sway of his election denying — saw a renewed test in the midterm primaries in a handful of states. Voters took the polls in South Carolina, Nevada, Maine, North Dakota and Texas’ 34 Congressional District Tuesday night, delivering historic turnout numbers and allowing voters to give Republicans who defied the former president a second chance at keeping their jobs, and some Democrats to lose theirs.
Trump issues 12-page statement amid Jan. 6 hearings alleging he plotted a ‘coup’
Former President Donald Trump on Monday responded in a lengthy statement to the House’s ongoing Jan. 6 committee hearings, assailing the panel as illegitimate and their presentation as one-sided — but rather than refute their evidence, he reiterated the same baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election that are at the center of the proceedings and the group’s case that he had attempted a “coup.”
Trump’s 12-page statement, sent to reporters on Monday night, comes after the second public hearing held by the House select committee investigating last year’s deadly Capitol attack. His statement, marked by characteristic exclamations and insults, called the hearings “a smoke and mirrors show” that failed to include “all exculpatory witnesses, and anyone who so easily points out the flaws in their story.”
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S&P 500 tumbles 4 percent to new low for the year, closes in bear market territory
Stocks sold off Monday, pushing the S&P 500 to a fresh 2022 low and back into bear market territory, as recession fears grew ahead of a key Federal Reserve meeting this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 810 points, or about 2.6 percent, the S&P 500 fell 3.5 percent and the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 4.35 percent.
The moves came as investor continued to digest a hotter-than-expected inflation report on Friday and braced for the Fed to raise rates later in the week as the 10-year Treasury yield saw its largest jump since March 2020.
2022 Midterms: What To Watch In Maine, Nevada, North Dakota And South Carolina today
Primary voters on Tuesday will decide the fate of two South Carolina Republicans who are clinging to their seats in the U.S. House after defying Donald Trump, while in Nevada an establishment favorite with the former president’s endorsement is facing a tougher than expected challenge for the U.S. Senate.
Meanwhile, in Maine, a bellicose former governor who once said he was “Trump before Trump” has come out of retirement in Florida to challenge a nemesis for his old job.
Primary contests in South Carolina, Nevada and Maine on Tuesday will offer the latest test of the Trump political brand. North Dakota is also holding elections, though Republican U.S. Sen. John Hoeven doesn’t face a serious challenger.
7 Key Moments From The Second Jan. 6 Hearing
In its second public hearing, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol delivered a relatively focused message on Monday: that Trump knew his claims of a stolen election were false but continued to push them widely, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars while seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“This morning, we’ll tell the story of how Donald Trump lost an election and knew he lost an election, and as a result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy,” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told the audience in opening remarks.
Thompson characterized the effort to discredit the 2020 election as a “conspiracy” and a “scheme” that Trump oversaw and directed and that is “unprecedented in American history.”
Charlie Pierce: The Bipartisan Gun Bill Is a Good Start Like Tying Your Shoes Is a Good Way to Start a Marathon
The Washington Post ran an altogether remarkable paragraph on Monday to kick off its coverage of the bipartisan agreement on gun violence that emerged over the weekend. This was it.
A bipartisan group of senators announced Sunday that it had reached a tentative agreement on legislation that would pair modest new gun restrictions with significant new mental health and school security investments — a deal that could put Congress on a path to enacting the most significant national response in decades to acts of mass gun violence.
It could do that. It could also provide a lake of stew, and of whiskey, too, that you can paddle around in a big canoe. Even assuming that the plan passes the Senate at all, which is still not a mortal lock, to assume that this is some sort of stepping-stone toward more toothsome gun control regulations seems to be wildly optimistic. Remember those heady days when the Affordable Care Act was supposed to put us all on the road to universal healthcare and Medicare For All? All that’s actually happened is that the ACA has been fighting for its own life ever since. Republican governors even refused the FREE MONEY!!! available to them to expand Medicaid coverage, and then they bragged about it. Keep that part of the story in mind as we go along here.
FDA: Pfizer COVID-19 Shot Appears Effective For Kids Under 5
Federal health officials said Sunday that kid-sized doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines appear to be safe and effective for kids under 5, a key step toward a long-awaited decision to begin vaccinating the youngest American children.
The Food and Drug Administration posted its analysis of the Pfizer shot ahead of a Wednesday meeting where outside experts will vote on whether the shots are ready for the nation’s 18 million babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Kids under 5 are the only group not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccination in the U.S.
Late last week the FDA posted a similar analysis of Moderna’s shots for children under 6.
Senate negotiators announce framework deal on bipartisan gun package
Key senators announced a framework agreement on new gun legislation Sunday, marking a breakthrough on a collection of measures to combat gun violence, including “red flag” laws and enhanced background checks on gun buyers.
The chief negotiators of the deal are Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., an outspoken proponent of gun safety laws, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a firm Second Amendment advocate who has promised the new measures won’t affect the gun rights of law-abiding Americans. The final bill hasn’t been written yet, sources familiar with the negotiations said.
Trump 2020 campaign manager to testify before Jan. 6 committee Monday
Former President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien will testify before the House Jan. 6 select committee on Monday, in a hearing that will focus on Trump’s decision to declare victory against Joe Biden on election night and knowledge that he was spreading lies of widespread election fraud.
Stepien will appear before the committee on a panel with Chris Stirewalt, the former Fox News political editor who was fired after defending the network’s early projection that Trump had lost Arizona on election night — a move that infuriated the former president.
The Rude Pundit: Liz Cheney Is Trying to Save the House She and Her Father Built and Other Observations on the 1/6 Hearing
On Thursday night, the Select Committee on the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol finally, after far too long, frankly, made its case to the American people and the world. The committee wasn’t talking to you and me, we who are damned to spend far too much of our time elbow-deep in the clogged sinks of political shit. The committee wasn’t talking to the scores of MAGA drones who are joyfully face-fucked by dildos of misinformation, disinformation, and lies and will never return to what we like to think of as “reality.” They were clearly talking to other entities, including, as many have noted, Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose Justice Department is moving at a pace that might be best described as “nearly still” when it comes to charging top officials with crimes related to the attack. To my weary (and currently Covid-addled) mind, the hearings had another target: Americans who checked out after Donald Trump’s second impeachment and haven’t followed the evolving story. For them, much of what was said on Thursday was new, and let’s just fucking hope that at least a few of them watched.
MSNBC’s Glenn Kirschner Declares ‘Donald Trump Is Done’ After Jan. 6 Hearing: ‘Let’s Get This Indictment Show On The Road’
Former federal prosecutor and current MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner told SiriusXM guest-host Jody Hamilton that former President Donald Trump “is done” after seeing the Jan. 6 committee’s primetime hearing.
Hamilton — host of the From The Bunker podcast — filled in for Stephanie Miller on Friday’s episode of The Stephanie Miller Show, and asked Kirschner for his take on the hearing.
Kirschner — who has long pushed for and predicted that Trump would end up in jail — told Hamilton that based on what he saw Thursday night, the hearings will produce enough evidence to spark a Justice Department prosecution of Trump.
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Senators hope to reach gun deal in ‘next few days’ after leaving for the weekend
The Senate left town for the weekend without agreeing on gun legislation, but the negotiators planned to meet virtually Friday to hash out the lingering issues as they continue to project optimism.
“We’re not there yet,” Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the chief Republican negotiator, said after an in-person meeting Thursday. “I hope to resolve the remaining differences.”
Some provisions, like mental health funding and school safety, are relatively settled. Others, like “red flag” provisions and background check enhancements, are still being crafted.
Key takeaways from the first Jan. 6 hearing: It’s all about Trump
One person more than any other set in motion the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the committee investigating the riot argued at its first public hearing Thursday.
And that person is Donald Trump.
He sparked the riot at the Capitol and nearly shredded American democracy in pursuit of power, the House Jan. 6 committee contended in what will serve as the opening argument in a weekslong effort to make a case to the public.
Jan. 6 Hearing Opens With Trump’s AG William Barr Calling Stolen Election Claim ‘Bullsh**’
Donald Trump’s own attorney general told the then-president that his claims of a “stolen” election were “bullshit,” according to videotaped testimony revealed Thursday night at the House Jan. 6 select committee’s first public hearing.
“I told the president it was bullshit, and I didn’t want to be a part of it,” Barr told committee investigators during his deposition.
Committee chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said in his opening remarks that the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol was the culmination of a “conspiracy” to hold on to power. “Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup. The violence was no accident.”
Man with gun, knife arrested near Justice Kavanaugh’s house
An armed man was arrested overnight near the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after he called 911 on himself, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
Officials say the man, identified as Nicholas John Roske, 26, was armed with a handgun, a knife, pepper spray and burglary tools. He was stopped a block from the justice’s house. And when police detained him, he said he was there to kill Kavanaugh, the officials said.
Deputy U.S. marshals spotted Roske — dressed in black and carrying a backpack and a suitcase — getting out of a cab in front of Kavanaugh’s house shortly after 1 a.m. ET Wednesday, according to a criminal complaint. Roske looked at the officers and then started walking down the street and called 911 on himself, the complaint said.
House Approves Gun Control Bills, Including Higher Age For Assault Rifles
The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a package of gun control bills that, among other things, would raise the age requirement for most rifle sales from 18 to 21.
Rather than becoming law, the legislation will land on the growing pile of House-passed bills that the Senate ignores. That pile already includes a recent measure to require criminal background checks for all firearm sales.
But the Senate has been busier than usual in the wake of horrific mass murders in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, in which teenage gunmen legally purchased assault rifles to slaughter more than 30 people, including 19 children in an elementary school.
Jan. 6 Committee To Put Trump ‘At The Center’ Of The Plan To Overturn Election
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol plans to show starting Thursday night how the assault was part of a coordinated scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election and stop the transfer of power, with Donald Trump “at the center” of that plan, committee aides said.
The bipartisan panel plans a series of six public hearings starting at 8 p.m. EDT, which will be carried live by all three broadcast TV networks. The first hearing is scheduled to include live testimony about the start of the violence by the pro-Trump mob at the Capitol as well as video clips from Trump White House officials, campaign officials and family members.
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Secret Service considered options to get Trump to Capitol on January 6
The Secret Service says former President Donald Trump’s call to supporters to walk alongside him to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, led the agency to consider options to secure a motorcade, but ultimately found that transporting the former President to the Capitol unfeasible.
A minute-by-minute accounting of the President’s movements has been a central focus of the House select committee investigating January 6, and sources tell CNN that several members of the Secret Service have testified.
“Secret Service personnel assigned to the President’s detail told administration officials that proposed travel plans to visit the Capitol on January 6 would not be feasible,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Tuesday.
Uvalde native Matthew McConaughey makes emotional plea for gun control legislation from White House briefing room
Actor and Uvalde, Texas, native Matthew McConaughey made an emotional plea to Congress for new gun control legislation from the White House briefing room Tuesday, after meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and President Biden at the White House. Making schools safer and expanding background checks for people to to get access to guns should be a nonpartisan issue, McConaughey said.
“We start by making the loss of these lives matter,” he told reporters.
“We start with laws that save innocent lives and don’t infringe on our Second Amendment rights,” McConaughey said in remarks during which he sometimes appeared to be fighting back tears.
Primary results 2022: California, Iowa, New Mexico, South Dakota and more
Voting has finished in all seven states that held primaries on Tuesday, as California polls closed at 11 p.m. ET. Some high-profile incumbents – including South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Republican Sens. John Thune and Chuck Grassley – have beaten back their primary challengers, and their general election competitors have been determined for November.
In San Francisco, the Associated Press reported progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin was recalled amid worries over crime in the city.
In California, results in many races will likely not come on Tuesday night, since the state conducts its elections by mail. It also advances the top two vote getters to run in November, regardless of party affiliation, meaning some match-ups could result in two Democrats facing off or two Republicans.
Jan. 6 Panel Has Evidence Of A ‘Lot More Than Incitement’ Against Trump: Jamie Raskin
Donald Trump and the White House were “at the center” of events triggering last year’s violent Capitol insurrection, and the House Jan. 6 select committee has uncovered evidence against the former president “about a lot more than incitement,” panel member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said on Monday.
The panel will be “laying out the evidence about all of the actors who were pivotal to what took place on January 6th” at upcoming televised hearings beginning Thursday, the lawmaker vowed in an interview with Washington Post Live.
2022 Midterms: Primaries Held In 7 States Today
Primary elections in seven states Tuesday will set the stage for U.S. House and Senate races this fall, with many contests shaped by political fissures in both major parties and the lingering shadow of former President Donald Trump.
With control of Congress in play, a string of Republican House incumbents are contending with challenges from the political right, and some rivals are embracing Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud in his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.
No incumbent governors or senators appear to be in imminent danger. In Iowa, several Democrats are jockeying for the chance to take on seven-term Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, with the campaign showcasing the breach between the Democratic Party’s progressive and establishment wings.
Key senators eye bipartisan gun bill deal ‘this week’
The top Democratic negotiator of a package of gun bills prompted by the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, said Monday he hopes to reach a deal with his Republican counterparts this week.
“My hope is that we are able to come to an agreement by the end of the week,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said in an interview Monday. “The discussions have been really positive. I still am hopeful we’ll be able to get a product.”
“My goal is to have an agreement by the end of this week. And I don’t think that’s an unrealistic goal,” he said, adding that it may be more of an “outline” than detailed legislative text.
Charlie Pierce: It’s Bad to Elect Authoritarian Lunatics as President
Here’s some more interesting stuff it would have been nice to know at the time. From the New York Times:
The day before a mob of President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff called Mr. Pence’s lead Secret Service agent to his West Wing office. The chief of staff, Marc Short, had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.
The stark warning — the only time Mr. Short flagged a security concern during his tenure as Mr. Pence’s top aide — was uncovered recently during research by this reporter for an upcoming book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” to be published in October.
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Jan. 6 Hearings Set To Highlight Battle Between Democracy And Donald Trump
The House Jan. 6 committee’s long-awaited public hearings are set to start this week, promising to highlight the deep schism between Donald Trump and his allies on one side and democracy on the other.
The committee planned a half-dozen hearings over two weeks to lay out its findings from more than 1,000 interviews — a great many compelled by a subpoena — and more than 100,000 pages of documents, with the hope of boiling it down to an easily digested narrative about what the former president tried to do to remain in power.
“They’ve got massive amounts of information. They’ve interviewed massive numbers of people,” said J. Michael Luttig, the retired federal appellate judge who advised former Vice President Mike Pence that he had no authority to overturn the election as Trump was demanding. “They’ve got to condense this down and tell one simple story.”
Russia Hits At Ukraine’s Heart As Vladimir Putin Issues Warning To The West
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s new warning to the West against sending longer-range rocket systems to Ukraine came as his forces claimed to have destroyed Western military supplies in their first such airstrikes on Ukraine’s capital in more than a month.
The attack showed that Russia still had the capability and willingness to hit at Ukraine’s heart, despite refocusing its efforts to capture territory in the east.
Putin’s comments, in a TV interview that aired Sunday, came days after the U.S. announced plans to deliver $700 million of security assistance for Ukraine, including four precision-guided, medium-range rocket systems, as well as helicopters, Javelin anti-tank systems, radars, tactical vehicles and more.
Sen. Chris Murphy: ‘We’re Closer Than Ever Before’ On Bipartisan Gun Legislation
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who has been leading bipartisan talks in the Senate on gun control legislation, said more Republicans are at the table working toward changing gun laws and investing in mental health than “at any time since Sandy Hook.”
“I’ve never been part of negotiations as serious as these,” he said in an interview Sunday with CNN’S “State of the Union.”
“We are talking about a meaningful change in our gun laws, a major investment in mental health, perhaps some money for school security that would make a difference. On the table is red flag laws, changes to our background check system to improve the existing system, a handful of other items that will make a difference,” he said.
The Rude Pundit: Uvalde, the Southern Baptist Church, and the Murderous, Traumatizing Failure of Conservative Ideology
What do you do when your belief system allows for the murder and rape of children? What do you do when the things that the leaders you trust have said to you, messages their media figures have inundated you with, when the outcome of that is the destruction of kids? A sane person would want to repent, get out, try to change. But we are a nation filled with incoherent rage and fuck-everyone-but-me-and-mine madness. Lemme explain.
In Texas, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District has a police department. According to its webpage, “The primary goal for the Uvalde CISD Police Department is to maintain a safe and secure environment for our future leaders to learn and our current leaders to educate while forming partnerships with students, teachers, parents, and the community while enforcing laws and reducing fears.” Do you understand that? Like many places around the country, the schools have their own cops. And, in nearly every case of a school shooting, the cops or security officers failed to even hinder the shooter.
Jan. 6 committee reveals details of first public hearing in Capitol riot probe
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot released new details Thursday about its first hearing, scheduled to kick off in prime time on June 9.
“The committee will present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power,” the panel said.
Additional information about witnesses will be released next week, the committee said.
White House: 1st COVID-19 Shots For Kids Under 5 Possible By June 21
The Biden administration said Thursday that children under 5 may be able to get their first COVID-19 vaccination doses as soon as June 21, if federal regulators authorize shots for the age group, as expected.
White House COVID-19 coordinator Aashish Jha outlined the administration’s planning for the last remaining ineligible age group to get shots. He said the Food and Drug Administration’s outside panel of advisers will meet on June 14-15 to evaluate the Pfizer and Moderna shots for younger kids. Shipments to doctors’ offices and pediatric care facilities would begin soon after FDA authorization, with the first shots possible the following week.
Texts Show Republicans Believed Trump Could End Jan. 6 Chaos But Didn’t For Hours: Report
A trove of text messages obtained by CNN reveal that a number of Republicans were convinced that Donald Trump could immediately stop the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but that the then-president failed to take any action for hours.
The messages “began pouring into the cellphone” of White House chief of staff Mark Meadows within minutes of the breach of the Capitol and throughout the afternoon, with pleas to get Trump to call off the violence, CNN reported.
Republican members of Congress, former members of the Trump administration, Fox Newshosts and even Donald Trump Jr. reached out to Meadows, clearly convinced Trump could quell the insurrection aimed at overturning the 2020 election and keeping Trump in office.
‘Enough’: Biden Exhorts Congress To Pass Gun Control Laws
President Joe Biden delivered the second evening address of his presidency on Thursday night, almost begging Congress to pass gun control legislation following yet another wave of mass shootings stretching from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Buffalo, New York.
“Enough,” Biden said repeatedly, invoking the dozens of school shootings that have swept America over the past decade. “We can’t fail the American people again.”
Biden delivered his 15-minute speech, informed by his recent trips to both Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, from the East Room of the White House after walking down an aisle lined with small candles.
U.S. and Germany announce weapons packages for Ukraine
The U.S. and Germany pledged on Wednesday to equip Ukraine with some of the advanced weapons it has long desired for shooting down aircraft and knocking out artillery, as Russian forces closed in on capturing a key city in the east.
Germany said it will supply Ukraine with up-to-date anti-aircraft missiles and radar systems, while the U.S. announced it will provide four sophisticated, medium-range rocket systems and ammunition.
The U.S. is trying to help Ukraine fend off the Russians without triggering a wider war in Europe. The Pentagon said it received assurances that Ukraine will not fire the new rockets into Russian territory.
Georgia secretary of state to testify to grand jury investigating Trump effort to overturn election
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was on the receiving end of an infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which then-President Donald Trump pleaded with him “to find 11,780 votes,” will testify under oath Thursday before a special grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Raffensperger, whose office oversees Georgia’s elections, is among at least half a dozen people working in his office who have been subpoenaed to testify in June before the special grand jury in Fulton County. The subpoenas, which were first obtained by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, provide the earliest glimpses into an unprecedented criminal probe of a president’s interactions with state elections officials.
Biden administration cancels $5.8 billion in student debt for people who attended for-profit college
Hundreds of thousands of students who attended the for-profit Corinthian Colleges chain will automatically get their federal student loans canceled, the Biden administration announced Wednesday, a move that aims to bring closure to one of the most notorious cases of fraud in American higher education.
Under the new action, anyone who attended the now-defunct chain from its founding in 1995 to its collapse in 2015 will get their federal student debt wiped clean. It will erase $5.8 billion in debt for more than 560,000 borrowers, the largest single loan discharge in Education Department history, according to the agency.
America Had 3 Simultaneous Shootings On Wednesday, Less Than 2 Weeks After Uvalde
As residents in Uvalde, Texas, were burying their children and loved ones this week, Americans in three separate states watched shootings unfold simultaneously in the latest deadly spate of gun violence that has become a uniquely American problem.
Four people were killed in a shooting at a medical building in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Wednesday. Police said a gunman carrying a rifle and a handgun opened fire on a hospital campus just before 5 p.m. local time, wounding several others before the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Just before, the Los Angeles Police Department said shots were fired outside Grant High School in the Van Nuys neighborhood. Authorities said an unknown gunman fired three or four shots from a vehicle. A 10th grader was shot in the leg and taken to the hospital. The extent of injuries was unclear.
Texas officials: Teacher didn’t leave door propped open before massacre
Four days after saying that the gunman who massacred children in a Uvalde, Tex., elementary school had gotten inside through a door“propped open by a teacher,” the state agency investigating the massacre now says the educator had closed the door.
The teacher shut the door behind her, but it “did not lock as it should,” Travis Considine, chief of communications with the Texas Department of Public Safety, said in a brief telephone interview Tuesday. “And now investigators are looking into why that was.”
Bipartisan discussions on “red flag” laws make progress as Sens. Graham, Blumenthal revise gun control proposal
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, are making progress as they hammer out details of revised “red flag” legislation that they both hope can win sufficient GOP support to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, according to four people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Graham and Blumenthal later confirmed in statements to CBS News that their discussions are making progress.
Justice Department asks court to reverse order lifting airplane mask mandate
The Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to overturn a U.S. District Court judge’s April orderthat declared the government mandate requiring masks on airplanes, buses and in transit hubs unlawful.
Hours after the federal judge in Florida declared the mandate unlawful, the Biden administration said it would no longer enforce it.
The Justice Department told the appeals court that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order issued in January 2021 was “within” the agency’s legal authority.
Texas school police chief hasn’t responded for days to state investigators about Uvalde shooting
A local police chief in Uvalde, Texas, hasn’t responded for a follow-up interview in a state investigation into the law enforcement response to an elementary school massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead, an official said Tuesday.
Peter Arredondo, the police chief of Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, participated in an initial interview but has not yet answered requests for follow-ups made two days ago, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said.
DPS spokesman Travis Considine said that “Uvalde and Uvalde CISD departments have been cooperating with investigators,” but added that Arredondo has not responded to requests for additional interviews.
Trudeau Proposes Bill to ‘Freeze’ Handgun Sales in Canada After Uvalde Massacre: ‘We’re Capping the Market’
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has introduced a bill that would ban the sale, transfer and importation of all handguns nationwide.
Lawrence O’Donnell shared the news on MSNBC Live Tuesday evening. He aired remarks from a press conference, in which Trudeau said Canadians have no business carrying firearms without the explicit intent to hunt with them, or use them for sport.
“Two years ago, our government banned 1,500 models of assault-style weapons,” he said, before he listed off numerous weapons which are now banned in the country.
Biden to meet Fed chair as inflation bites pocketbooks
President Joe Biden will meet Tuesday with Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell as soaring inflation takes a bite out of Americans’ pocketbooks.
The meeting will be the first since Biden renominated Powell to lead the central bank and comes weeks after his confirmation for a second term by the Senate.
The White House said the pair would discuss the state of the U.S. and global economy and especially inflation, described as Biden’s “top economic priority.” The goal, the White House said, is a “transition from an historic economic recovery to stable, steady growth that works for working families.”
Biden points to assault weapons ban as a ‘rational’ option for gun control
President Joe Biden, pressed on potential avenues for gun control in the wake of the devastating school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, pointed to an assault weapons ban Monday morning.
“It makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds,” he told reporters outside the White House after traveling from Delaware. “The idea of these high-caliber weapons — there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of, about self-protection, hunting and I guess — and, remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment was never absolute. You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weaponry.”
Grief-stricken Uvalde starts tough task of saying farewell to shooting victims
On the day the nation sets aside to remember those killed in war, Uvalde began saying farewell to the 19 children and two teachers who were massacred in a shooting at their elementary school.
The visitations for Amerie Jo Garza, 10, at Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home, and for Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10, at Rushing-Estes-Knowles Mortuary Inc., were the first services to be held Monday, which was Memorial Day.
Family members and friends mourned and prayed the rosary, keeping out the omnipresent cameras and reporters drawn to the rural Texas community that has been thrust into the nation’s conscience.
Charlie Pierce: There Were Good Guys With Guns and It Didn’t Matter
What the old city editors used to call the “tick-tock” on the massacre at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas is emerging, and it is emerging in such a way that doesn’t cover local law enforcement with glory. From the AP:
“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.
The Rude Pundit: Can We Please Talk About Crazy Motherf***ers Like They’re Crazy Motherf***ers?
I’ve been trying to articulate for the last week this feeling of things spinning off their axis. I’m in the UK right now, a place I now end up spending about a month a year, and I was talking about politics with a young man from Northern Ireland. He had supported Brexit, yes, because he had believed the Conservatives’ utter garbage about how much funding would go to the National Health Service. Now that Brexit is so obviously the clusterfuck of regulations and shortages that the Stay coalition had said it would be, as well as there being no benefit at all to having left the EU, Donal is, to say the least, done with Boris Johnson and the Conservatives.
I pointed out to him that at least politicians in the UK don’t pander to religion quite as blatantly or quite as regularly as American politicians do. “You don’t see anyone here talking about how God wants them to do something,” I said.
“No, they don’t,” Donal said. “Everyone would look at them as if they’re quite mad.”
Husband of teacher killed at Texas elementary school shooting dies
The widower of a Texas elementary school teacher killed in a shooting has died of a heart attack days just days after his wife was killed.
Joe Garcia, the husband of Irma Garcia, suffered a fatal heart attack on Thursday, two days after his wife died in a mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the couple’s nephew, John Martinez, and a close family friend confirmed.
Gun owners, protesters and Donald Trump converge on Houston for NRA event
Thousands of gun owners, throngs of protesters and some prominent Republican politicians are expected in Houston for the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting Friday, just three days after 19 children and two adults were shot to death at an elementary school in South Texas.
The event, which is being held in the George R. Brown Convention Center and will last through Sunday, “will showcase over 14 acres of the latest guns and gear,” the NRA said on its website, describing it as “a freedom-filled weekend for the entire family.”
As timeline emerges, police criticized for response to school massacre
The new details of how 18-year-old Salvador Ramos was able to kill 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Tex., on Tuesday, together with cellphone videos and witness accounts of police outside tackling or handcuffing desperate parents who tried to rush into the building, called into question earlier claims by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) that a “quick response” by law enforcement had saved lives.
Jan. 6 panel is told that Trump indicated support for hanging Pence during insurrection
The account of Meadows’s comment characterizing Trump’s reaction to his vice president was provided to the committee by at least one witness, according to people familiar with the investigation — but those people did not describe the tone with which the comment was made. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to be more candid about a sensitive topic.
A grisly checklist and a sickening rampage: Inside the Uvalde massacre
The gray Ford pickup truck veered into a ditch with such force that people who live on the block assumed it was an accident and rushed over to help the driver.
Instead, according to witness and police accounts, Salvador Rolando Ramos emerged wearing tactical gear and carrying an AR-15-style rifle he bought this month, just after his 18th birthday. Bystanders scattered as Ramos hopped a fence, exchanged gunfire with a school police officer and entered through a side door to Robb Elementary. Inside, he embarked on a deadly rampage that brought the national scourge of school shootings to a fourth-grade classroom in this southern Texas town.
Beto O’Rourke interrupts a news conference by his opponent, Gov. Greg Abbott, accusing him of ‘doing nothing.’
Former Representative Beto O’Rourke interrupted a news conference held by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas on Wednesday to accuse Republicans of “doing nothing” to address gun violence in the aftermath of a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde.
Mr. O’Rourke, the Democrats’ nominee for governor, stood in front of a stage at a Uvalde High School auditorium during the news conference and shouted that the killings were a “totally predictable” result of lax state and federal gun laws.
When Mr. Abbott’s allies saw Mr. O’Rourke step forward, they began yelling at him.
Democrats Hit Pause on Gun Control Vote, Hoping for a Compromise
Just shy of a decade after the Senate’s failure to respond to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Democrats are again trying to transform outrage over the gun deaths of children into action by Congress to curb gun violence in America.
But with the Republican position more intractable than ever, calls for negotiations to find some response to the recent horrors in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., left few lawmakers with much hope that Congress would produce anything meaningful.
“Please, please, please, damn it, put yourselves in the shoes of these parents for once,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, pleaded with his Republican colleagues, as he made the case for at least expanding background checks on gun purchasers.
‘I am sick and tired of it,’ Biden says after Texas school shooting
President Joe Biden on Tuesday called once again for Congress to take action on gun control legislation, urging lawmakers to stand up to the gun lobby, after a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.
“I am sick and tired of it. We have to act, and don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage,” Biden said.
“As a nation we have to ask when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?”
Trump Influence Mixed: 3 key takeaways from Tuesday’s primary elections
Historic early turnout meant knockout political races in Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama and Texas primary and runoff elections. With the backdrop of another massacre in which at least 18 schoolchildren and two adults were gunned down in a Texas elementary school, voters took to the polls to sign off on the candidates they believe best meet this political moment.
Here are some key takeaways from Tuesday’s pivotal races:
‘Spare me the bullsh**’: Sen. Chris Murphy rips GOP colleagues after Texas shooting
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., took to the Senate floor after Tuesday’s deadly school shooting in Texas and pleaded with his Republican colleagues to take action against gun violence, saying what happened wasn’t “inevitable.”
“I’m here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues. Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely,” said Murphy, who was elected to the Senate just weeks before the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 children dead.
Murphy said the shooting deaths of 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday was a uniquely American problem.
At least 19 children, 2 teachers killed in Texas elementary school shooting
At least 19 children and two teachers were killedTuesday when a gunman opened fire in a Texas elementary school, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The suspected shooter, who might have had a handgun and a rifle, was also killed when law enforcement confronted him at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, about 83 miles west of San Antonio, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference.
“It is believed that he abandoned his vehicle, then entered into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun, and he may have also had a rifle,” Abbott said.
Pfizer covid shot 80 percent effective in younger kids, early data shows
Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said Monday that an early analysis showed their three-dose coronavirus vaccine regimen triggered a strong immune response in younger children, proving 80 percent effective at preventing symptomatic infections in children 6 months to 4 years old.
The results, along with other recent developments, signal that the long and frustrating wait for a vaccine for the youngest children, the last group to lack access, could be over within weeks.
Biden: US would intervene with military to defend Taiwan
President Joe Biden said Monday the U.S. would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, declaring the commitment to protect the island is “even stronger” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was one of the most forceful presidential statements in support of Taiwan’s self-governing in decades.
Biden, at a news conference in Tokyo, said “yes” when asked if he was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if China invaded. “That’s the commitment we made,” he added.
House ethics panel opens Cawthorn probe over cryptocurrency, ‘improper relationship’
The House Ethics Committee said Monday it is investigating whether scandal-plagued GOP Rep. Madison Cawthornof North Carolina may have improperly promoted a cryptocurrency and engaged in a relationship with a congressional aide.
The panel announced it had unanimously voted earlier this month to establish a subcommittee to look into whether Cawthorn “improperly promoted a cryptocurrency in which he may have had an undisclosed financial interest, and engaged in an improper relationship with an individual employed on his congressional staff.”
A string of Southern primaries today will see the GOP battle itself — over election lies, more
National attention turns next to the South as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Texas voters head to the polls on Tuesday, rounding out a consequential string of May contests.
Months-long, sometimes contentious battles to be governor, attorney general, secretary of state and for U.S. Senate and House seats will come to a head. The results should give more insight into the strength of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement with the Republican base as well as conservative voters’ appetite for election lies.
The most-watched races will be in Georgia, an emerging battleground state, with primaries for governor and the Senate that will preview closely fought races come November’s midterms.
Charlie Pierce: The Flying Monkeys Came Screeching For the Head of the Disinformation Governance Board Immediately
In 2009, a man named Daryl Johnson worked for the Department of Homeland Security. His job was monitoring the potential of white-supremacist violence in the country, chatter that intensified in response to the election of a Black president. Johnson put together a report that was supposed to be sent exclusively to law-enforcement operations around the country. Unfortunately, it leaked, and Republican politicians went predictably bananas, largely because the report referred to “right-wing extremism.” They called for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to rescind the report. Napolitano caved and, as we have seen, the years subsequent to her surrender have demonstrated that white-supremacist conservative violence has completely petered out.
We had something similar happen this week. On April 27, DHS announced that it was creating something called the Disinformation Governance Board which, according to the DHS announcement, would “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.”
Giuliani meets with January 6 committee for more than 9 hours
Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump‘s onetime personal attorney and a lead architect of his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, on Friday met with the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, two sources told CNN.
Giuliani’s original deposition with the committee had been postponed after the former New York City mayor asked to record the interview, with both audio and video. At the time, Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello said the committee rejected that request.
Biden: Monkeypox threat doesn’t rise to level of COVID-19
President Joe Biden sought Monday to calm concerns about recent cases of monkeypox that have been identified in Europe and the United States, saying he did not see the need to institute strict quarantine measures.
Speaking in Tokyo a day after he said the virus was something “to be concerned about,” Biden said, ”I just don’t think it rises to the level of the kind of concern that existed with COVID-19.”
Monkeypox is rarely identified outside of Africa. But as of Friday, there were 80 confirmed cases worldwide, including at least two in the United States, and another 50 suspected ones. On Sunday, one presumptive case of monkeypox also was being investigated in Broward County in South Florida, which state health officials said appeared to be related to international travel.
Military aircraft arrives in U.S. with baby formula from Europe amid shortage
The first flight of baby formula from Europe arrived in Indiana on Sunday as the White House tries to address a crushing shortage.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack greeted the arrival of a military aircraft carrying about 78,000 pounds of formula flown in from Germany in what the government has dubbed Operation Fly Formula. President Joe Biden authorized the program to import formula from abroad last week.
This shipment contains specialized formula for children with allergies who can’t take regular formula, and there’s enough to provide for 9,000 babies and 18,000 toddlers for one week, Vilsack told reporters in Indianapolis after the plane landed.
Biden says U.S. will defend Taiwan militarily if China invades
President Joe Biden said Monday that the United States would be willing to intervene militarily if China were to invade the self-governing island of Taiwan, again sowing confusion over American policy in the region.
Speaking during a news conference in Tokyo alongside Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Biden said Beijing was already “flirting with danger” with its recent decision to hold military drills near Taiwan, which China views as its own territory.
The question came up in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Rude Pundit: The “Grooming” Bullsh**… They’re Coming Up With Excuses to Murder Us
I have lived through a whole lot of rhetorical fuckery in my exhausting time dealing with the American right. I’ve seen us called every -ist that they found scary: Marxist, communist, socialist, anarchist (as if those are bad things). I’ve watched us be called demonic and anti-Christian and, heavens forbid, atheists (as if that’s a bad thing). According to conservatives, we on the left hate the country, hate the troops, hate the flag, hate the police, love terrorists, love socialism (that one again), love taxes, love drugs, love perverse sex (as if that’s a bad thing), and love killing babies. Specific Democrats have been baselessly accused of murder, and a couple of those specific ones are specifically Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Biden arrives in South Korea with worries growing over possible North Korean missile test
President Joe Biden arrived here Friday on a mission to reaffirm a key alliance at an uncertain moment in East Asia.
Even as the war in Ukraine has preoccupied Washington — and took up the first half of Biden’s day before he departed for Asia — provocations from North Korea have intensified and China continues flexing its economic and military might.
Biden wants to show his top partners here he can focus both eastward and westward, and that the United States has resources to help uphold democracy and sovereignty around the world.
Monkeypox cases detected in US, Europe, but experts caution against comparing it to COVID-19
Countries in Europe and North America are continuing to report more cases of monkeypox, but experts say the disease so far does not pose a serious risk to the public.
At least 17 infections of the rare disease have been confirmed in non-endemic areas such as the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden and Italy, and dozens of possible cases are under investigation in those nations as well as in Canada and Spain.
Most cases occur when people encounter infected animals in countries where the virus is endemic — typically central and western Africa as occurred with the outbreak’s first case, reported in England on May 7 among a person who had recently traveled to Nigeria.
Jan. 6 committee seeks info from Georgia Republican about pre-riot tour of Capitol
The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot asked Thursday to meet with a House GOP lawmaker about a Capitol tour that took place a day before the attack last year.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., asked Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., to meet with the Democratic-controlled panel to discuss events shortly before the riot.
“We believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021,” Thompson and Cheney wrote to Loudermilk.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn Vows ‘Dark MAGA’ Revenge For His Election Loss
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) has threatened retaliation for his primary election loss earlier this week.
Rather than take responsibility for a series of political stumbles that tanked his race, Cawthorn took to social media to target Republicans who failed to “have my back”:
Details of what “Dark MAGA” might do were hazy, but apparently it could involve the revelation of embarrassing secrets and, ominously, “numbered” days.
“We are coming,” he warned..
House passes bill to aid fight against domestic terrorism after Buffalo supermarket shooting
In the wake of the Buffalo, New York, supermarket shooting that left 10 Black people dead, the House on Wednesday approved a measure to beef up federal efforts to combat domestic terrorism and white supremacy.
The vote was 222-203, with Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, voting with all Democrats in favor of the proposal.
The bill from Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Illinois, would create new offices within the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation to “monitor, analyze, investigate, and prosecute domestic terrorism.”
Oz, McCormick remain optimistic as Pa. Senate primary vote counting continues
The wait is on in Pennsylvania, where a slugfest of a Republican Senate primary remained too close to call Wednesday.
The leading candidates, celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund executive Dave McCormick, are each projecting confidence that they will prevail when all votes are counted.
But a clear result could be days — if not weeks — away. Pennsylvania law requires an automatic recount if the margin of victory is within a half-percentage point. At noon Wednesday, with 96 percent of the expected ballots tabulated, Oz led McCormick by about 2,400 votes, or about two-tenths of a percentage point.
Biden invokes Defense Production Act to address national shortage of baby formula
President Joe Biden on Wednesday invoked the Defense Production Act in a major step to boost the supply of baby formula.
The announcement means the federal government will prioritize key ingredients for formula production and compel suppliers to provide the needed resources to formula manufacturers ahead of other customers ordering those goods.
In addition to invoking the 1950 law, which allows the government to direct manufacturing production for national defense, Biden also launched a program that will use U.S. military aircraft to import formula from abroad.
A Third Of U.S. Should Be Considering Masks, Officials Say
COVID-19 cases are increasing in the United States — and could get even worse over the coming months, federal health officials warned Wednesday in urging areas hardest hit to consider reissuing calls for indoor masking.
Increasing numbers of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are putting more of the country under guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that call for masking and other infection precautions.
‘I know you are worried’: Jill Biden speaks about baby formula shortage in new PSA
First lady Jill Biden is speaking out about the nationwide baby formula shortage in a new public service announcement.
In the PSA released Tuesday, Biden and the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, touch on parents’ frustrations about the lack of formula and how President Joe Biden and his team are “working around the clock” to get them what they need.
“Becoming a mom or dad means falling in love deeper than you ever thought possible,” said Jill Biden, 70. “And in those first few months of sleepless nights of endless diapers and dirty dishes and worrying about every little danger, your love can feel like the only thing that keeps you going.”
Biden labels Buffalo shooting ‘domestic terrorism’ after visiting scene
Assuming his role as consoler in chief, President Joe Biden traveled to Buffalo, New York, on Tuesday to visit a community in mourning and call out the dangers of white supremacy on the national stage following Saturday’s racially-motivated mass shooting at a supermarket that left 10 Black people dead, three wounded and others fearing for their lives.
Biden wanted to meet with victims’ families to “try to bring some comfort to the community, particularly to those who lost loved ones” and “grieve with them,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday.
Finland, Sweden apply to join NATO
Nordic neighbors Finland and Sweden jointly submitted their applications to join NATO on Wednesday, as Russia’s war in Ukraine reshapes European security.
The boost to the Western military alliance — assuming Turkish objections to the pair joining can be overcome — is a major setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin on the global stage. It takes place even as his forces gain full control of the key port city of Mariupol after the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance surrendered.
Pennsylvania G.O.P. Senate Race Is Deadlocked; Cawthorn Falls to Defeat
Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick are narrowly separated in the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania and possibly headed for a recount. Madison Cawthorn lost his primary in North Carolina.
Complete results from yesterday’s primaries are at The New York Times
2022 Midterms: 5 States Hold U.S. House Primaries Today
After years of irking his colleagues, a longtime moderate Democratic congressman faces his stiffest primary challenge yet in Oregon.
In North Carolina, a rising Republican star beset by personal and professional scandals is looking to eke out a win in his GOP-leaning district.
And across the U.S., an exodus of House Democrats has put a half dozen congressional seats up for grabs.
The outcomes of House primary contests held in Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania are not likely to offer hints of which party will control the chamber next year. But they will offer insight about the direction in which each party is headed after two years of unified Democratic control of Washington.
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson under fresh scrutiny after Buffalo mass shooting
Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is facing intense scrutiny from extremism experts, media watchdogs and progressive activists who say there is a link between the top-rated host’s “great replacement” rhetoric and the apparent mindset of the suspect in the weekend’sdeadly rampage in Buffalo, New York.
The white suspect accused of killing 10 people and wounding three others Saturday at a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood apparently wrote a “manifesto” espousing the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory — elements of which Carlson has pushed on his weeknight show.
Document appears to show Buffalo shooter’s planning including March trip to supermarket
An online document obtained by ABC News appears to chronicle how Payton Gendron carefully planned out his attack at least two months before he allegedly shot and killed 10 people at a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, according to law enforcement sources.
According to the document, Gendron, on March 8, drove to Buffalo and visited the supermarket, where he was questioned by a security guard at the store as he was compiling detailed plans of the location.
The 589-page document, which is separate from the 180-page hate-filled screed Gendron is alleged to have posted online just before the massacre, includes sketches of the supermarket, including the makeup of different aisles, with notes on how to navigate around quickly.
FDA, Abbott agree on plan to resume production of infant formula at Michigan plant
In a move to ease a nationwide shortage of infant formula, the Food and Drug Administration on Monday said it has agreed with Abbott Nutrition on a plan to reopen the company’s manufacturing plant in Sturgis, Michigan, after it was shut down following the discovery of a deadly bacteria inside.
The FDA also announced Monday it would make it easier for global manufacturers to sell their product inside the U.S. so long as they meet certain criteria.
Charlie Pierce: Our Out-of-Control Political Moment Has Been Joined to Our Insane Attraction to Firearms
Do not be alarmed, but I suspect that the Tree of Liberty is dangerously close to being overly refreshed, and not with the blood of patriots and tyrants, either, but rather with the blood of ordinary folks celebrating a basketball game, or people going to church on Sunday, or some just stopping in to pick up last-minute provisions for Sunday dinner. Ordinary people, living ordinary lives, until they weren’t anymore.
Milwaukee: None dead, 21 wounded.
Laguna Hills: One dead, five wounded.
Buffalo: 10 dead, three wounded.
And how was your weekend, America?
McConnell leads GOP delegation to meet with Zelenskyy in Ukraine
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., led a Republican congressional delegation to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Saturday in Kyiv.
After leaving Ukraine, McConnell said in a statement that the group witnessed firsthand the “courage, unity and resolve of the Ukrainian people,” and that they “only ask for the tools they need for self-defense.”
Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas, and John Barrasso of Wyoming were among the delegation.
Clarence Thomas says abortion leak has changed Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas says the Supreme Court has been changed by the shocking leak of a draft opinion earlier this month. The opinion suggests the court is poised to overturn the right to an abortion recognized nearly 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade.
The conservative Thomas, who joined the court in 1991 and has long called for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, described the leak as an unthinkable breach of trust.
“When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like kind of an infidelity that you can explain it, but you can’t undo it,” he said while speaking at a conference Friday evening in Dallas.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen says he suffered ‘minor stroke,’ is hospitalized
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., was hospitalized this weekend after suffering a minor stroke, he said Sunday.
He was admitted to George Washington University Hospital after experiencing lightheadedness and acute neck pain while delivering a speech in western Maryland, the senator said in a statement.
An angiogram Sunday indicated he had “experienced a minor stroke in the form of a small venous tear at the back of my head,” Van Hollen said, adding that he has been told there are no “long-term effects or damage as a result of this incident.”
Read the rest of the story at ABC News
Buffalo Shooting Suspect Bought AR-15 Legally But Modified Gun With Illegal High-Capacity Magazine: Report
The 18-year-old man who allegedly opened fire in a Buffalo, New York grocery store on Saturday purchased his weapon legally, passing a background check, but altered it with a high-capacity magazine that is illegal under New York law, according to several media reports.
Payton Gendron, a resident of Conklin, New York, lived several hours away from the Tops Friendly Markets grocery store where the shooting occurred. He is alleged to have posted a 180-page manifesto online that contained racist and anti-Semitic views, including voicing support for the conspiracy theory that immigrants are “replacing” America’s white population, and to have targeted this specific store because of its location in a heavily Black neighborhood.
The Rude Pundit: A Case for Letting Trump Back on Twitter: I Know, But Listen…
I know, I know, I fucking know. I remember that tense feeling, somewhere between shit-yourself anxiety and stroke-inducing rage, of wondering what deliberate, fuck-up-your-day provocation Donald Trump had tweeted. Of course, if you’re of a devolved or brain-damaged or cynical mindset, you looked forward to the Trump tweets like they were worms disgorged from Daddy Bird’s beak into your hungry, squawking throats. And then the rest of us would get extra rage jolts from the idea that all the greedy-mouthed baby birds were loving this whole situation.
So I’m not here to tell you that Donald Trump should be allowed back on Twitter because of free speech or censorship or whatever. Twitter is not a government entity. Trump wasn’t banned for being conservative. He was banned for being a lying dick. His First Amendment rights weren’t violated. No one is passing a law saying he should be punished for being a lying dick. He’s free to be a lying dick in lots of places, and, well, he totally is. So, no, I don’t actually give a fuck about Trump being banned. I’ve been tossed from shitty bars for being less of a dick and I wasn’t a whiny bitch about it. I just figured it was the bar owner’s prerogative and went to the next bar.
