Joe Biden says he is “determined” to achieve an assault weapons ban in the US.
The push to reenact such a ban forms a centerpiece of the Safer America Plan that the president is laying out in an address Tuesday afternoon in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
He is reminding the crowd that in 1994, as chair of the Senate judiciary committee, he helped engineer the original assault weapons ban that later lapsed:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country. Determined.
I did it once before. And I’ll do it again. For many of you at home, I want to be clear. It’s not about taking away anybody’s guns. In fact, we should be treating responsible gun owners as examples, how every gun owner should be.
Over 48,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021 in the United States of America. Over 26,000 by suicide.”
Biden also attacked the National Rifle Association, touring the success of the bipartisan gun control law he signed into law this year.
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We beat the NRA. We took them on and we beat ‘em straight up.
You have no idea how intimidating they are to elected officials. The NRA was against it, which means a vast majority. The vast majority of Republicans in Congress couldn’t even stand up and vote for it.
Law enforcement supported it. Faith leaders, teachers supported it. Victims of gun violence and their families supported it. Young people in this country, like the students of this great university, supported it.
And the NRA, the vast majority of congressional Republicans, voted against it, saving lives and keeping America safe. But guess what? We took on NRA we’re gonna take them on again. And we won and we will win again. We’re not stopping here. I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country.
The US politics blog is closing now and will resume tomorrow. It’s been a busy day in news from Washington, DC, and beyond of a political nature, finishing with US president Joe Biden’s speech in Pennsylvania on gun safety and law enforcement.
Here’s how the day went:
Joe Biden said he is “determined” to achieve an assault weapons ban in the US. The push to reenact such a ban formed a centerpiece of the Safer America Plan that the president laid out in an address this afternoon in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
The US president made a case for how funding the police – a deliberate rebuffing of the progressive cause of defunding the police (switching funds from policing to a spectrum of social services) – provides “peace of mind” to the American public.
The Biden administration announced it is sending more monkeypox vaccines to certain states and cities in an effort to combat further spread of the disease.
Victor Madrigal-Borloz, United Nations independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, warned that LGBTQ+ equality in the US ‘not yet within reach’ because of states that have passed legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights.
The DoJ tightened rules around some staff attending election events when attorney general Merrick Garland issued a memo saying that political appointees at the US Department of Justice will be barred from attending election campaign events or fundraisers.
And the public still awaits the DoJ’s legal response to Donald Trump’s request for a “special master” to oversee its review of classified documents seized by the FBI in a raid on his Florida home. The deadline for the latest filing in federal court in West Palm Beach is today.
We’ll be closing this US politics blog shortly. By now you will probably have heard or read that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died. The Guardian has launched a separate live blog to cover details and reaction, which you can follow here.
And here is the current main news story. There will be a lot more coverage on this huge event from the Guardian.
Joe Biden closed his remarks with a vociferous attack on Republicans who defended the January 6 insurrection incited by Donald Trump at the US Capitol, and called the deadly riot that claimed several lives, including police officers, “sickening”:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}What I find even more incredible is the defense. Cops attacked, assaulted. Speared with flag poles. Sprayed with mace. Stomped on. Dragged. Brutalized. Police lost their lives as a result of that day.
Let me say this to my Maga Republican friends in Congress. Don’t tell me you support law enforcement if you won’t condemn what happened on January 6. Don’t tell me. For God’s sake, whose side are you on?
You can’t be pro law enforcement and pro insurrection. You can’t be a party of law and order and call the people who attacked the police on January 6 patriots. You can’t do it.
Biden also condemned Republicans who have called for the FBI to be defunded after the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida that resulted in the seizure of classified documents the former president was hoarding:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening the lives of law enforcement agents and their families for simply carrying out the law and doing their job.
I want to set it out as clear as I can. There is no place in this country, no place, for endangering the lives of law enforcement. No place, no, never, period.
Biden recalls a long list of mass shootings in the US.
“More children in America die from guns than active duty police and active duty military in the United States,” he says.
“We have to act for those families of Buffalo, Uvalde, Newtown, El Paso, Parkland, Charleston, Las Vegas, Orlando … I’ve been to every one of those. Sat down with those parents. I spent four hours last time with every single one of the parents and families who have lost someone, and seen the looks in their faces.”
“Think about it. Think about the devastation that’s occurred. We have to act for all those kids gunned down on our streets every single day that never make the news. There’s a mass shooting every single day in this country.”
Joe Biden says he is “determined” to achieve an assault weapons ban in the US.
The push to reenact such a ban forms a centerpiece of the Safer America Plan that the president is laying out in an address Tuesday afternoon in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
He is reminding the crowd that in 1994, as chair of the Senate judiciary committee, he helped engineer the original assault weapons ban that later lapsed:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country. Determined.
I did it once before. And I’ll do it again. For many of you at home, I want to be clear. It’s not about taking away anybody’s guns. In fact, we should be treating responsible gun owners as examples, how every gun owner should be.
Over 48,000 people died from gunshot wounds in 2021 in the United States of America. Over 26,000 by suicide.”
Biden also attacked the National Rifle Association, touring the success of the bipartisan gun control law he signed into law this year.
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We beat the NRA. We took them on and we beat ‘em straight up.
You have no idea how intimidating they are to elected officials. The NRA was against it, which means a vast majority. The vast majority of Republicans in Congress couldn’t even stand up and vote for it.
Law enforcement supported it. Faith leaders, teachers supported it. Victims of gun violence and their families supported it. Young people in this country, like the students of this great university, supported it.
And the NRA, the vast majority of congressional Republicans, voted against it, saving lives and keeping America safe. But guess what? We took on NRA we’re gonna take them on again. And we won and we will win again. We’re not stopping here. I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country.
Joe Biden is laying into Republicans who refused to back the American Rescue Plan in congress last year, which he says provided $350bn to states to help make their communities safer.
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Guess what? Every single Republican member of Congress, every single one voted against us support law enforcement. They talk about how much they love it. They voted against the funding. Flat out. Flat out. Every Republican in the House. Every Republican in the Senate. Every single one.
And know we expect so much of our law enforcement officers, so we need to support them. That’s why my crime plan to help communities recruit, hire and train nationwide more than 100,000 additional officers for community policing
Joe Biden is talking up his crime prevention plans during a speech in Pennsylvania, and says funding the police is the pathway to providing American families with peace of mind.
During an address at which he is also expected to call for an assault weapons ban, the president is laying out his Safer America Plan. A series of deadly mass shootings have destroyed Americans’ sense of security, he says:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Peace of mind [is] knowing your kids can go to school, or the playground, or movies, at a high school game, and come home safely. Not have to think about it for too long. So many families haven’t had that peace of mind.
They watch the news and they see kids being gunned down in schools and on the streets. Almost every single night you turn the news on that’s what you see. They see their neighbors lose their loved ones to drugs like fentanyl, which is a flat killer.
They see hate and anger and violence. Just walking the streets of America and they just want to feel safe again. They want to feel a sense of security. That’s what my crime plan is all about.
Turning to funding law enforcement funding, which some Republicans accuse Democrats of wanting to scrap, Biden was clear:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When it comes to public safety in this nation, the answer is not defund the police. It’s to fund to the police. We expect them to do everything. We expect them to be protect us, to be psychologist to be sociologists. I mean, we expect you to do everything. We ask so much of you.
The Biden administration has announced it is sending more monkeypox vaccines to certain states and cities in an effort to combat further spread of the disease.
The White House national monkeypox response team said at a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon that the aim was to “protect individuals most at risk of contracting the virus.”
Additional vaccines and support will be sent to states and cities holding events that convene large groups of LGBTQI+ individuals, specifically gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, officials said.
They also announced a pilot to “surge” vaccine availability and other prevention resources to communities of color in light of recent CDC data showing the disproportionate reach of the virus among Black and Latino gay, bisexual, and other men.
New Orleans, Louisiana; Atlanta, Georgia; and Oakland, California are among the first cities benefiting from the additional vaccines.
The White House released a monkeypox fact sheet to accompany the briefing.
Three Arizona Republicans, including secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem and congressman Paul Gosar, must pay $75,000 in attorney fees for filing a defamation suit against a former Democratic lawmaker “primarily for purposes of harassment”, a judge has ruled.
The Associated Press reports that the Republicans filed the lawsuit last year against former state representative Charlene Fernandez after she and other Democrats called for an investigation of their roles in the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol.
The judge, Levi Gunderson, dismissed the lawsuit in April, saying Fernandez’s request was protected by the first amendment’s rights to free speech and to petition the government.
On Tuesday, Gunderson ruled that the lawsuit appeared to have been “written for an audience other than the assigned trial court judge” as it made irrelevant references to open borders and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
The lawsuit “was brought for an improper purpose, having been filed against a political opponent primarily for purposes of harassment,” he added.
Fernandez and 41 other Democratic lawmakers signed a letter in January 2021 urging the justice department to investigate Finchem, Gosar and then state representative Anthony Kern, allies of Donald Trump who were in or around the US Capitol at the time of the riot. All deny wrongdoing.
States that have passed legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights have come under attack from an independent United Nations expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Speaking at a UN briefing on discrimination against LGBTQ+ communities in New York on Tuesday, Victor Madrigal-Borloz said he looked at a cross-section of key indicators from housing to health care access:
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Equality is not yet within reach, and in many cases not within sight of LGBT communities and populations in the US. All outcomes in the sectors I mentioned are inferior, and in many cases significantly inferior, for the LGBT population.
I am extremely concerned about a series, and I would say a concerted series, of actions at state level, both legislative and administrative, that tend to base on prejudice and stigma, to attack and to rollback the rights of LGBT persons.
Numerous US states have passed, or have been contemplating restrictive anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in recent months, none more so than Florida.
Republican governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a “don’t say gay” bill that outlaws most classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation topics, as well as a law banning transgender athletes.
Political appointees at the US Department of Justice (DoJ) will be barred from attending campaign events or fundraisers, according to new guidance issued by attorney general Merrick Garland today, ahead of November’s midterm elections, Reuters reports.
.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I know you agree it is critical that we hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards to avoid even the appearance of political influence as we carry out the department’s mission. It is in that spirit that I have added these new restrictions on political activities by non-career employees,” Garland wrote in a memo.
While it is common for the justice department to remind its staff to tread carefully about political activities ahead of election seasons, Garland’s memo contains among the most restrictive policies in recent times.
Federal employees in general are subject to the Hatch Act, a law which limits some of their political activities to ensure the government is free from partisan influence.
Previously, political appointees at the department were permitted to attend partisan events in their personal capacity, as long as they sought prior approval.
Under the new guidance, however, there will be no exceptions – including on the evening of election day itself.
The change comes at a time when the justice department is under a national microscope over its extraordinary decision to search the Florida estate of former Republican president Donald Trump earlier this month.
This was part of an ongoing criminal investigation into whether he illegally retained government records, including some marked as top secret.
In addition to the pressure the department has faced over its investigation into Trump, some of its political appointees have also faced criticism for attending political functions.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas in July called for an investigation after Rachael Rollins, an outspoken progressive prosecutor who serves as the US attorney for Massachusetts, attended a Democratic fundraiser that month that was also attended by first lady Jill Biden.
Rollins in a tweet following news reports on her attendance said she had “approval to meet Dr. Biden & left early to speak at 2 community events”.
A spokesperson for Rollins did not immediately respond to a request for comment on today.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
