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      ‘Do something!’: Biden visits Uvalde after mass shooting as onlookers urge him to take action

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      ‘Do something!’: Biden visits Uvalde after mass shooting as onlookers urge him to take action President and first lady seek to comfort community as DoJ launches investigation into police response to school shootingJoe Biden on Sunday visited Uvalde, Texas, seeking to comfort a community devastated by the latest American mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 19 elementary school children and two teachers.The visit marked the second presidential visit related to a massacre within two weeks following a racist attack in Buffalo, New York, as Democrats in Washington offered tentative hope of bipartisan gun reform legislation in Congress.Onlookers cheered Biden but also called out to the Democratic president and visiting Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott about taking action to make America safer for their children.The US president and First Lady Jill Biden, both wearing black, paid their respects at a makeshift memorial site outside the Robb elementary school in Uvalde, laying a bouquet of white flowers amid a mass of candles, flowers, and photographs of the victims.Biden could be seen reaching out to touch the pictures of the children and at one pointed wiped tears from his eyes as he made his way slowly through the memorial.Abbott was close by and since last Tuesday’s shooting has talked about greater security for schools, but not about restrictions on guns, drawing heckling on Sunday. “We need help, Governor Abbott,” shouted one onlooker. “Shame on you, Abbott,” shouted another.Uvalde resident Ben Gonzalez, 35, called out to the politicians and said after that he wanted to see change on several issues, including more gun laws, more resources for mental health and for schools and that it was up to state and federal lawmakers to act.“At a certain point of time it’s going to be on us, because we vote these people in to represent us and they are not representing us and it’s heartbreaking because things like this happen. Something needs to be done, we need change, we need help and my biggest fear is that nothing is going to change, and six months from now Uvalde is just going to be Uvalde, it’s just going to be history and nothing will have changed,” he told CNN.The Bidens walked past the school before being whisked away in the presidential motorcade to attend mass at the local Catholic church, without making public comment.After the service the Bidens left the church and someone in the crowd yelled: “Do something!”The president called back: “We will.”Biden was due to join mourners after the service and, later, first responders, as the US justice department announced it would conduct a critical incident review of the law enforcement response to the shooting, after it emerged that local police had waited for at least an hour outside the classroom where the gunman had barricaded himself and opened fire.On Saturday in a speech in Delaware Biden lamented “too much violence, too much fear, too much grief” in repeated gun violence across America, which he called “acts of evil”. 0The Texas visit came as senators in Washington DC, offered cautious optimism over a legislative deal on a package of small-scale gun safety measures. On Sunday, Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said ongoing talks between Senate Democrats and Republicans would involve compromises on both sides of the political aisle.“I think there is something dying inside the soul of this country when we refuse to act at a national level, shooting after shooting,” Murphy told CBS News.“And I do think there is an opportunity right now to pass something significant. I’ve seen more Republican interest in coming to the table and talking this time than at any moment since Sandy Hook,” he said, referring to the devastating mass shooting in an elementary school in his state almost 10 years ago that claimed 26 lives.A small group of US senators began negotiations earlier in the week with a number of control measures reportedly on the table. These include a national expansion of background checks for firearms purchases and the adoption of so-called red flag laws, which allow authorities to order the removal or restriction of weapons from a person deemed to be a public safety risk.But Murphy, who is joined at the negotiating table by a handful of senior Republican senators, including John Cornyn from Texas and Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, made clear that a number of key proposals endorsed by gun control advocates were unlikely to form part of any legislative package. These included a national ban on assault rifle purchases or limits to magazine capacity.Vice-President Kamala Harris made a fresh call on Saturday for banning military-style assault weapons for the general public, as she attended the last funeral for the 10 victims gunned down in Buffalo, two weeks ago in a racist attack on a supermarket in a majority-Black neighborhood. Both the alleged gunman in New York and the one who attacked the elementary school in Uvalde last week were 18 year-olds but were legally able to buy the assault rifles and ammunition they used in the attacks.There remain significant hurdles to achieving any major legislative measures, which have continually faltered in the aftermath of mass shootings in recent years.At least 10 Senate Republicans would need to cast a vote in favor of proposed legislation in order to win the 60 votes required for legislative passage, with the chamber split 50-50 between the two parties.This week, the New York Times contacted all 50 Republican senators to gauge their position on gun reform. Only five have so far indicated a willingness to vote for any legislation, highlighting the power the pro-gun lobby holds over the party.In Texas a handful of senior state Republicans joined Democrats in calling on Abbott to convene a special session of the state legislature, who later said: “All options are on the table”.But any reform is still likely to be an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled state, that has passed successive pieces of legislation loosening gun laws after recent mass shootings.On Sunday, Texas Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw knocked down new restrictions when interviewed on CNN.Crenshaw, a former US Navy SEAL, also claimed AR-15-style assault rifles are “more self-defense weapons” than a tool of war.TopicsTexas school shootingJoe BidenUS gun controlUS politicsJill BidennewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Too much fear, too much grief’: Biden visits Uvalde amid scrutiny of police response to shooting

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      ‘Too much fear, too much grief’: Biden visits Uvalde amid scrutiny of police response to shooting Kamala Harris calls for ban on assault weapons after attending last funeral of those killed in Buffalo attackJoe Biden lamented “too much violence, too much fear, too much grief” after the latest US mass shooting as he prepared to visit Uvalde, where police face intensifying scrutiny for waiting outside the classroom where a teenage gunman with an assault rifle killed 19 children and two teachers.The US president and first lady, Jill Biden, arrived in Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday morning, both dressed in black. They visited the informal memorial of flowers and notes that has accumulated outside Robb elementary school, where the carnage took place last Tuesday.Then they will meet families who lost loved ones, and those who survived the gunman’s rampage, followed by first responders, after a relatively long gap between the tragedy in Uvalde and the presidential visit.On Saturday, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, called for a ban on such military-style assault weapons for the general public, while she attended the last funeral of the 10 people killed just two weeks ago in a racist attack on a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, carried out with a similar gun.Kamala Harris calls for assault weapons ban: ‘We are not sitting around waiting’Read moreThe center of Uvalde was busy but hushed on Saturday afternoon as a long line of people lined up quietly in heat approaching 100F, waiting to place flowers and other tributes at the hurriedly-created memorial of crosses set up for those killed five days ago at nearby Robb elementary school.An ambulance was standing by and a state trooper assisted members of the public who came to mourn.But as well as grief there was anger that has been simmering since Tuesday, when local police waited at least an hour, while young children trapped with the gunman repeatedly called 911 and parents outside pleaded with officers to go in, before federal agents arrived and shot the 18-year-old local man dead.The police department specifically assigned to oversee school security in the area, led by Pedro Arredondo, appeared not to have followed state protocols advising that an “officer’s first priority is to move in and confront the attacker”.0The head of the Texas department of public safety, Steve McCraw, admitted on Friday afternoon that “of course it was the wrong decision” for local officers to wait to enter the classroom.And Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, said he felt “misled” and was livid after several days of conflicting accounts about the law enforcement response.Biden spoke about the tragedy in Uvalde during a commencement speech he gave on Saturday morning at the University of Delaware, his alma mater.“As I speak, those parents are literally preparing to bury their children. In the United States of America. Too much violence, too much fear, too much grief,” said Biden and called the Uvalde and Buffalo mass shootings acts of “evil”.“In the face of such destructive forces, we have to stand stronger. We cannot outlaw tragedy, I know, but we can make America safer. We can finally do what we have to do to protect the lives of our people, and of our children,” he said.‘We have to act’: can Biden cut through the gridlock on gun control?Read moreThe US has received increasing criticism from the international community and gun safety advocates domestically over continual mass shootings and the failure of lawmakers to pass gun control laws that could mitigate them.Biden and fellow Democrats have been repeatedly out-maneuvered in the last decade by Senate Republicans, many of whom are backed by the powerful gun lobby.Harris called on the Congress to act, saying: “We are not sitting around, waiting to figure out what the solution looks like. We know what works on this. It includes – let’s have an assault weapons ban.”In Uvalde, Alfred Garza was among several parents who gathered outside the elementary school after reports that a shooting was under way and witnessed officers delaying a move to storm in. He tried not to get in the way. Other parents begged officers to take action.His daughter Amerie Jo, 10, was among those shot dead before federal agents arrived and killed the gunman, Salvador Ramos.“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it just took too long to get in there and, you know, had they gotten there sooner, and someone would have taken immediate action, we might have more of those children here today, including my daughter,” he told CNN.Warning signs about Ramos had been evident prior to his attack, with reports of threatening posts on social media and aggressive interactions with teenage peers.But he was able legally to arm himself with assault rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition shortly after he turned 18 this year.His mother, Adriana Martinez, gave a short television interview earlier in the week, saying in Spanish: “I have no words to say. I don’t know what he was thinking,” adding: “He had his reasons for doing what he did. Please don’t judge him. I only want the innocent children who died to forgive me.”TopicsTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingUS gun controlJoe BidenUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Tibetan Activist and Writer Tenzin Tsundue Talks to Fair Observer

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      ‘We have to act’: can Biden cut through the gridlock on gun control?

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      ‘We have to act’: can Biden cut through the gridlock on gun control?The president has long fought for restrictions but deep divisions have often left him hamstrung Less than two hours after returning from a five-day trip to Asia, a visit meant to signal American strength, Joe Biden walked slowly into the Roosevelt Room of the White House, visibly shaken, to address one of the nation’s greatest weaknesses.Another bloody mass shooting in America. This time in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers, making it the deadliest shooting at an elementary school since the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.It was just 10 days after a gunman had targeted Black shoppers at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people. And just nine days after a gunman opened fire in a Taiwanese church in southern California, leaving one dead and several wounded.“Why?” Biden said, his voice rising in anger. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”Nearly a decade after watching Republicans defeat a gun control package he helped develop as vice-president in response to the shooting at Sandy Hook, Biden’s wrenching search for answers to this uniquely American tragedy continues.He entered the White House with a sweeping plan to address gun violence, but too-narrow margins in Congress to see them enacted. Once again, the president finds himself stuck between a desire to act and the limits of power to do so.Washington’s shame: how previous bids to tighten gun laws have failedRead more“I am sick and tired of it,” Biden said this week. “We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”On Sunday, Biden will travel to Uvalde to honor the lives lost. He will grieve with the community as a father who knows the pain of burying a child. But as the president, it is unclear what he can deliver.Biden said on Wednesday that “the idea that an 18-year-old can walk into a store and buy weapons of war, designed and marketed to kill, is, I think, just wrong,” declaring: “The second amendment is not absolute.”Any hope he had of action from lawmakers on Capitol Hill was seemingly tempered by decades of false starts and failures. He called on Congress to pass “reasonable” gun safety laws and urged the Senate to take a “modest step” by confirming his nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).“We’re always looking to do more,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said on Thursday. “But right now we need the help of Congress.”Encouraged by the White House, Democrats have thrown themselves into the gun control debate anew. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by the Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, who was the congressman representing Sandy Hook at the time of the massacre, began talks this week. But they face long odds in drafting a bill that can garner the 60 votes necessary to overcome a Senate filibuster.Speaking at a gun safety rally on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Murphy acknowledged a feeling of “dejà vu” in the wake of these tragedies, when vows of “never again” are followed by gridlock and inaction. He asked supporters for help building the public case for action, urging a “popular uprising of citizens” to pressure Republicans.Democrats say the discussions will not be open-ended and have vowed to force Republicans to take votes on the issue if no compromise is reached in the coming weeks.“I’m not going to negotiate for ever,” Murphy told reporters after the rally.Hours later, Senate Republicans blocked legislation introduced by Democrats that would have strengthened the federal government’s response to domestic terrorism and white supremacy in response to the racist attack in Buffalo, a stark reminder of the deep divisions between the parties on how to address gun violence in America.The White House pointed to a flurry of executive orders Biden has signed as part of the administration’s “whole of government” response to the nation’s “epidemic of gun violence”. One would strengthen regulations on “ghost guns”, homemade firearms without serial numbers that are increasingly recovered at crime scenes. Another launched a team of strike forces to crack down on illegal firearms trafficking in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, the Bay Area and DC.Additionally, they have launched efforts to prevent veteran suicides by firearm, increase community policing and tighten regulations on “stabilizing braces” that have been used in mass shootings.But the steps fall short of Biden’s campaign promises to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and his embrace of a federal gun buyback program to take more weapons off the streets.In the absence of congressional action, gun safety advocates believe Biden can do more with his bully pulpit and his pen.“We need the president to bring this issue to the national level consistently, even when there aren’t mass shooting tragedies rocking the nation,” said Po Murray, chair of Newtown Action Alliance, formed after the Sandy Hook massacre. “He needs to make this issue a daily priority until we start reducing gun deaths and injuries in this country.”Murray is among the advocates urging the White House to establish a federal office of gun violence prevention and issue a national emergency declaration to more forcefully confront the issue. Others have called on Biden to appoint a gun “tsar” or use his executive authority to expand background checks on firearm purchases and reform the ATF.Greg Abbott backs out of NRA appearance amid fury over eventRead moreJohn Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said Biden had been the “strongest gun-sense president in history”. But he is urging the White House to issue an executive order that would clarify the definition of gun sellers so that more would be required to conduct background checks on prospective buyers.During a press briefing this week, Jean-Pierre stressed that this had been a top priority for Biden for much of his political life. “Look, this is a president, as I’ve said already, who has been working on gun violence, comprehensive gun reform, since he was a senator.”But a reporter pushed back: “Isn’t that more of an indictment” that he has been working on this issue for so long and so little has changed?Jean-Pierre replied that Biden had done “more via executive actions than any president in their first year” to combat gun violence, but understands that we need to do more.”“We are angry as well,” she said.Biden’s frustration is borne of decades of experience working on the issue, one of the most divisive in American life. As a senator, he played a key role in passing the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004 when Congress failed to renew it.Years later, when Biden was vice-president, Barack Obama tasked him with the mission of developing a fresh wave of gun control measures in response to Sandy Hook. The team proposed a slew of executive actions that Obama ultimately signed, but a parallel legislative effort failed in the Senate in 2013.Matt Bennett, a vice-president of the Democratic thinktank Third Way, who worked with Biden’s team on gun control legislation after Sandy Hook, said Biden knows his options are limited without Congress.“When he ran the taskforce in 2013, they did their damnedest to find every single thing Obama could do by executive order, but there’s just not that much,” he said. “Trust me, they’re looking under every rock.”Wading too deeply into the legislative debate as talks begin on Capitol Hill could upset the already-fragile negotiations, he added.“Biden understands that this can’t be the ‘Biden bill’ or else it has no hope,” Bennett said.In Uvalde, Biden will once again play the role of first responder to a nation reeling from tragedy. But in the days and weeks that follow, advocates hope the president will seize this moment to relentlessly pursue meaningful policy reform.“He can be savvy but he cannot be complacent,” said Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords, a gun violence protection group founded by the former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt that left six people dead, “because we cannot continue this cycle of mourning.”TopicsTexas school shootingJoe BidenUS politicsUS gun controlUS CongressfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Georgia primaries deliver blow to Trump’s grip on Republican party – live

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      It was supposed to be the moment of Donald Trump’s triumphant revenge over Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and the other RINOs (Republicans in name only) he excoriated for rebuffing his big lie of a stolen presidential election.But as his chosen candidates fell one by one in Tuesday’s primary elections, a new reality was dawning over the former president: the total control the self-appointed kingmaker believed he still wielded over the Republican party is no longer intact.Reaction to last night’s events was coming in on Wednesday, although, notably, nothing yet from the former president himself, who put his reputation and – for once his money – behind former senator David Perdue’s doomed attempt to unseat Kemp.But others had plenty to say.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was among a number of senior Republicans, including ex-vice president Mike Pence, to back Kemp, celebrated the demise of Trump’s “vendetta tour” in a tweet.Enormous win tonight for @BrianKempGA. I am so proud of and happy for my friend—and just as importantly for the Georgia GOP and the people of Georgia. They were not going to kick out a great Governor or be willing participants in the DJT Vendetta Tour.— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) May 25, 2022
      Kemp goes on to face Democrat Stacy Abrams – who won her party’s primary Tuesday unopposed in November in a rematch of their 2018 battle, which Kemp won narrowly.Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who memorably denied Trump’s request that he “find” votes in 2020, secured the Republican nomination for re-election against the Trump-backed congressman Jody Hice.The state’s Republican party was quick to celebrate:Congratulations Brad Raffensperger, Republican nominee for Secretary of State#LeadRight #gapol #GeorgiaOnTheLine pic.twitter.com/12BrILSlvm— GAGOP (@GaRepublicans) May 25, 2022
      And Georgia’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr beat back a challenge from John Gordon, who made Trump’s stolen election myth a central plank of his campaign.Not all Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia fell: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter.But Republican leaders will worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall. And that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.My colleague Lauren Gambino has this look at how Trump’s chosen candidates went down, and how Kemp’s victory marks a “resounding setback” for the former president’s quest to punish those who dared to cross him:Resounding setback for Trump as Kemp wins Republican primary in GeorgiaRead moreThanks for following the US politics blog today. We’re closing down here, but you can keep up with developments in our live blog covering the Texas elementary school massacre here.Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican party loosened with defeat for his “big lie” candidates in several key Georgia primary races. But the former president was more focused on his weekend appearance at the national rifle association’s weekend convention in Houston.Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary from last week might not be settled until next month after the state’s elections chief said the deadlocked race between Trump’s pick, celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz, and David McCormick, was headed for a recount.Here’s what else we followed:
      Joe Biden’s hopes of taming inflation before November’s midterm elections were dashed by an economic outlook released by the congressional budget office on Wednesday afternoon that says the crisis will persist into next year.
      Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would not immediately bring gun legislation to a vote because of Republican opposition.
      Public approval of the supreme court dropped sharply to 44% following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn the Roe v Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights nationwide, according to a Marquette Law School poll.
      Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection, has Covid-19.
      Joe Biden’s hopes of taming inflation before November’s midterm elections look to have been dashed by an economic outlook released by the congressional budget office on Wednesday afternoon that says the crisis will persist into next year.High prices and the soaring cost of gas threaten to derail Democrats’ hopes of retaining control of Congress in the fall, and Biden last week promised tackling them was his “top domestic priority”.Wednesday’s report from the non-partisan agency predicts the consumer price index will rise 6.1% this year and 3.1% in 2023, the Associated Press said. This forecast suggests that inflation will slow from current annual levels of 8.3%, yet would still be dramatically above a long-term baseline of 2.3%.The CBO cautions its numbers “are subject to considerable uncertainty, in part because of the ongoing pandemic and other world events,” including Russia’s war in Ukraine.Maya MacGuineas, president of the committee for a responsible federal budget, told the AP ahead of the report’s release that the pandemic, war in Ukraine and other factors point to the importance of reducing the annual deficit.“Unfortunately, the underlying story here is one of fiscally unsustainable positions and on top of that, we have this added challenge of inflation and a reminder that external shocks continue to come at us,” she said. CBO Director Phillip Swagel highlights the main findings of “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2022 to 2032,” which was released today. https://t.co/AanxPE9ctK— U.S. CBO (@USCBO) May 25, 2022
      Joe Biden is about to sign an executive order increasing accountability in law enforcement and creating a national database of police misconduct.In a statement from the White House, the president says the steps are needed following the killing two years ago of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Two years ago, the murder of George Floyd exposed for many what Black and Brown communities have long known and experienced – that we must do more to ensure that our nation lives up to its founding promise of fair and impartial justice for all.
      The incident sparked one of the largest social movements this country has ever seen, with calls from all corners to acknowledge the legacy of systemic racism in our criminal justice system and in our institutions more broadly. As well as creating the database, Biden’s order bans the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints unless deadly force is authorized, and restricts the use of no-knock entries, such as the one used by police in Kentucky who killed an unarmed Black woman, Breonna Taylor, at her home in March 2020. It also requires new standards that limit the use of force and require de-escalation for all federal agencies, among other measures.I’ve called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but Senate Republicans have stood in the way of progress. That’s why this afternoon, I’m taking action and signing an Executive Order that delivers the most significant police reform in decades.— President Biden (@POTUS) May 25, 2022
      The Biden administration blames Republicans in the senate for blocking the George Floyd justice in policing act, forcing the president to take executive action.Read more:Biden to sign police reform executive order on George Floyd anniversaryRead morePennsylvania’s top election official said Wednesday that last week’s Republican Senate primary is heading for a recount, with no winner likely until June.Celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz is virtually deadlocked with former treasure official David McCormick in the hotly contested race to take on Democratic nominee John Fetterman in November’s election.Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, said in a statement that the vote totals for the top two finishers fell well within the 0.5% margin for an automatic recount after the deadline for counties to report unofficial totals.Oz, who is endorsed by Donald Trump, led McCormick by 902 votes, or 0.07% of 1,343,643 ballots reported by the state by Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.The agency said it would not declare a winner until the recount is complete, possibly as late as 8 June.Counties continued counting hundreds of ballots on Wednesday, including provisional, military and overseas absentee ballots.He might have lost the endorsement of Donald Trump, but Republican Alabama congressman Mo Brooks’s challenge for a US Senate seat is very much alive, and heading for a June runoff.Some analysts expected the loss of Trump’s backing, a revenge act for Brooks’s comments that he believed voters should look forward instead of dwelling on the 2020 election that the former president lost, would be fatal.But Brooks, formerly a staunch Trump ally and mouthpiece, earned enough if the vote on Tuesday to secure a runoff with Katie Britt, former chief of staff to Senator Richard Shelby, whose retirement opened up the Alabama seat.Trump initially endorsed Brooks, but pulled his backing in March.“Mo Brooks of Alabama made a horrible mistake recently when he went ‘woke’ and stated, referring to the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, ‘Put that behind you, put that behind you,’ despite the fact that the Election was rife with fraud and irregularities,” Trump said in a statement. In response, Brooks, a six-term congressman, issued an angry statement claiming Trump had asked him to “rescind” the 2020 election and remove Joe Biden from the White House.Brooks was a prominent figure at the “Save America” rally at the Ellipse in Washington DC on 6 January 2021 that preceded the storming of the Capitol building by Trump supporters. “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks told the crowd before the riot.It’s been a lively morning so far in US political news and there is more to come, so do stay tuned, Here’s where things stand:
      Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar was still locked in a tight primary runoff race with progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros on Wednesday, but has already faced criticism from the party’s progressive wing in Congress due to his anti-abortion and pro-gun views.
      Senate Democrats declined on Wednesday to bring gun safety legislation to a vote right now, with leader Chuck Schumer saying that he knows that the bills will not pass due to Republican opposition.
      Public approval of the US Supreme Court has dropped sharply following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn Roe v Wade.
      Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection, has Covid-19.
      The former president faced a resounding setback as Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp won the state’s Republican primary, defeating former senator David Perdue, a Trump ally who embraced the myth of a stolen election.
      Donald Trump released a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social, saying that he still plans on attending the NRA convention in Houston this weekend.“America needs real solutions and real leadership in this moment, not politicians and partisanship,” the former president wrote. “That’s why I will keep my longtime commitment to speak in Texas at the NRA Convention and deliver an important address to America.”In his statement, Trump made a peculiar stylistic choice and put the word massacre in quotes.Trump is not cancelling his appearance at the NRA convention this week in Houston, he says on Truth Social pic.twitter.com/BF4WZO6M10— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) May 25, 2022
      Anyway, an interesting twist of irony is that people won’t be able to carry firearms when attending Trump’s speech. It seems this rule is one made by the Secret Service, which told NPR that it has the “authority to preclude firearms from entering sites visited by our protectees, including those located in open-carry states”.For all the live news on the school shooting in Texas, do head over to our other live blog currently running, here.Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar was still locked in a tight primary runoff race with progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros on Wednesday, but “the Squad” is already angry, regardless of the result.New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among the most prominent of the party’s progressive wing in Congress, called out its leaders for backing the anti-abortion, pro-gun Cuellar over Cisneros.“On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary,” the politician known as AOC tweeted.“Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it. Accountability isn’t partisan. This was an utter failure of leadership”.On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary. Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it.Accountability isn’t partisan. This was an utter failure of leadership.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 25, 2022
      Senior Democrats including Nancy Pelosi campaigned for Cuellar, a nine-term congressman, as he sought to fend off the challenge from Cisneros, a 28-year-old immigration attorney.Cuellar has already declared victory, but according to the Associated Press on Wednesday, the race is still too close to call. Cuellar led Cisneros by 175 votes, or 0.38% of the 45,209 ballots counted by 2am.The winner will face Cassy Garcia, who won the Republican runoff for the seat, in November’s midterm elections.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said on the chamber floor Wednesday morning that he will not be bringing any gun legislation to a vote in the immediate future, saying he knows that the bills will not pass due to Republican opposition.Speaking after Tuesday’s massacre of 19 children and two teachers by a gunman at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Schumer said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I believe that accountability votes are important, but sadly this isn’t a case of the American people not knowing where their senators stand. Americans can cast their vote in November.The Associated Press reported that Schumer swiftly set in motion a pair of firearms background-check bills in response to the school massacre, but acknowledged the unyielding rejection by Congress of previous legislation to curb the national epidemic of gun violence..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If the slaughter of schoolchildren can’t convince Republicans to buck the NRA [national rifle association], what can we do? But he said he would continue to work on advancing bipartisan legislation.Follow our live blog on the Texas school shooting here.From my colleagues Maanvi Singh and Joan E Greve, these are the Guardian’s main takeaways from primary night, which was understandably overshadowed by the massacre of elementary school children in Texas:
      Blow to Donald Trump as a political kingmaker
      Key race for Georgia secretary of state signals defeat for ‘big lie’ candidate
      But Trump acolytes performed better in Arkansas and Texas
      Elementary school shooting casts pall over the night
      Democratic races also hold interest
      Read the full story here for their observations:Five key takeaways: the US midterm electionsRead morePeople who take part in insurrections against the US government can be barred from office, an appeals court said on Tuesday, reversing a ruling in favor of Madison Cawthorn, an extremist Republican politician from North Carolina. Hailing a “major victory”, Free Speech For People, the group which brought the case, said: “This ruling cements the growing judicial consensus that the 1872 Amnesty Act does not shield the insurrectionists of 6 January 2021 – including Donald Trump – from the consequences of their actions.”Cawthorn lost a primary this month and will not return to Congress in November. But Free Speech For People pursued an appeal.It also brought cases against Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, two Arizona Republicans, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, and an Arizona state representative, Mark Finchem. All have been unsuccessful.The challenges cited the the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war.It says: “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Cawthorn and the other Republicans were closely tied to events around the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. They have denied knowledge of plans for violence.Read the full story:Blow to Madison Cawthorn as appeals court reverses ‘insurrectionist’ rulingRead morePublic approval of the supreme court has dropped sharply following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn the Roe v Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights nationwide, according to a new poll.Disapproval of the nation’s highest court was especially pronounced among the roughly two-thirds of US adults who oppose overturning Roe, the Associated Press says, while support for the court was high among those in favor, according to the Marquette Law School poll, which also found increased partisan polarization in approval.Approval fell to 44%, with 55% disapproving of how the court is handling its job, the sample of more than 1,000 adults between 9 and 19 May found.In March, 54% approved and 45% disapproved, itself a massive drop from the 66% approval the panel enjoyed in September 2020, the month that long-serving justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.Approval was fairly steady among Republicans from March to May this year, but fell sharply among Democrats and slightly among independents.New Marquette Law School national poll finds overall approval of US Supreme Court has dropped 10 percentage points since March, from 54% to 44%, and disapproval has gone up from 45% to 55%. #mulawpoll— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) May 25, 2022
      Donald Trump’s big lie lost bigly in Georgia on Tuesday night. Some might take this as proof that his spell over the Republican party has finally been broken, but that is what the Republican party wants people to believe. The former president had been waging a personal vendetta against Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for failing to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor.Trump handpicked former senator David Perdue and congressman Jody Hice to challenge Kemp and Raffensperger in the Republican primaries. Both parroted the big lie and both were soundly beaten. It was a tangible sign that even many Trump voters are now weary of “stop the steal” and eager to look forward. It was also a blow to Trump in a primary season where his scattergun endorsements have come up with a decidedly mixed win-loss record.But studying Trump’s recent record as kingmaker misses the point. In fact, it actively helps Republicans create the illusion that they have moved on from “Make America great again” (Maga) even as they continue to push its radical rightwing agenda.It all began with Glenn Youngkin, who last year won election as governor of Virginia as a Trump-lite Republican. He never campaigned alongside the ex-president but also took pains to avoid criticizing him and alienating his base. “Don’t insult Donald Trump but do everything to keep him away,” was how columnist Peggy Noonan put it in the Wall Street Journal.Youngkin projected the image of a safe, sane, old school Republican who could win back suburban and independent voters. But he went Maga by pushing hot button issues such as coronavirus mask mandates, transgender bathrooms and “critical race theory” and portraying his opponent as a “woke” liberal. He flirted with, but did not embrace, Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.The formula has been emulated in various ways by candidates facing extreme Trump-backed challengers. It worked for Brad Little, the governor of Idaho, and now for Kemp in Georgia. Neither should be mistaken for “NeverTrumpers” in the mould of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger or Larry Hogan. Read the full story:Trump-backed nominees lost in Georgia, but can Republicans escape the specter of Maga?Read moreLiz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the 6 January House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection, has Covid-19.The Wyoming congresswoman and Republican party pariah made the announcement in a tweet that said she was fully vaccinated and boosted, and following federal guidelines.She said she received a positive test this morning, and was “experiencing mild symptoms”. pic.twitter.com/lEoQGk3Ru4— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) May 25, 2022
      If Brian Kemp’s obliteration of David Perdue’s challenge wasn’t bad enough for Donald Trump, the failure of the former president’s pick Jody Hice to topple Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger might have stung even more.Raffensperger was, of course, the recipient of Trump’s infamous call following the 2020 election asking him to “find” the votes he needed to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state, which is now the subject of a criminal probe.The refusal of Georgia’s Republican officials to bend to Trump’s will resulted in his furious campaign of vengeance, which fell flat on Tuesday when voters soundly rejected the “big lie” candidates he wanted to install.Raffensperger’s victory wasn’t as sizeable as Kemp’s, but he still achieved more than 50% of the vote, enough to avoid a run-off and win him the Republican nomination outright. Brad Raffensperger found the votes.— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) May 25, 2022
      My colleague Sam Levine has taken a look at Raffensperger’s victory and how it was, arguably, the biggest blow yet to Trump’s efforts to install compliant officials in positions of authority:Brad Raffensperger defeats Trump bid to oust him as Georgia’s top election officialRead moreIt was supposed to be the moment of Donald Trump’s triumphant revenge over Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and the other RINOs (Republicans in name only) he excoriated for rebuffing his big lie of a stolen presidential election.But as his chosen candidates fell one by one in Tuesday’s primary elections, a new reality was dawning over the former president: the total control the self-appointed kingmaker believed he still wielded over the Republican party is no longer intact.Reaction to last night’s events was coming in on Wednesday, although, notably, nothing yet from the former president himself, who put his reputation and – for once his money – behind former senator David Perdue’s doomed attempt to unseat Kemp.But others had plenty to say.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was among a number of senior Republicans, including ex-vice president Mike Pence, to back Kemp, celebrated the demise of Trump’s “vendetta tour” in a tweet.Enormous win tonight for @BrianKempGA. I am so proud of and happy for my friend—and just as importantly for the Georgia GOP and the people of Georgia. They were not going to kick out a great Governor or be willing participants in the DJT Vendetta Tour.— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) May 25, 2022
      Kemp goes on to face Democrat Stacy Abrams – who won her party’s primary Tuesday unopposed in November in a rematch of their 2018 battle, which Kemp won narrowly.Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who memorably denied Trump’s request that he “find” votes in 2020, secured the Republican nomination for re-election against the Trump-backed congressman Jody Hice.The state’s Republican party was quick to celebrate:Congratulations Brad Raffensperger, Republican nominee for Secretary of State#LeadRight #gapol #GeorgiaOnTheLine pic.twitter.com/12BrILSlvm— GAGOP (@GaRepublicans) May 25, 2022
      And Georgia’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr beat back a challenge from John Gordon, who made Trump’s stolen election myth a central plank of his campaign.Not all Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia fell: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter.But Republican leaders will worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall. And that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.My colleague Lauren Gambino has this look at how Trump’s chosen candidates went down, and how Kemp’s victory marks a “resounding setback” for the former president’s quest to punish those who dared to cross him:Resounding setback for Trump as Kemp wins Republican primary in GeorgiaRead moreGood morning and welcome to the midweek edition of the US politics blog.Donald Trump is facing a cold new reality this morning: the total power he thought he still held over the Republican party is no longer a thing. Resounding defeats for his “big lie” candidates David Perdue, Jody Hice and John Gordon in Tuesday’s primaries in Georgia were a stunning rebuke for what critics have called Trump’s “vendetta tour” – his plan to take out the state’s top officials who rebuffed his efforts to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.Former senator Perdue was trounced by incumbent governor Brian Kemp, Hice failed to topple secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, and Gordon fell to attorney general Chris Carr.It wasn’t a total blowout for Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter. But that in itself is alarming Republican leaders, who worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall, and that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.
      In Alabama, Republican congressman Mo Brooks lost Trump’s endorsement, but won enough votes to reach a run-off to hold on to his seat.
      In Texas, attorney general Ken Paxton, who spoke at Trump’s 6 January Washington rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection, saw off a challenge from George P Bush, grandson of former president George HW Bush.
      And the only anti-abortion Democrat in the House, Henry Cuellar, has declared victory over progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros in their Texas district.
      We’ll have lots more reaction coming up to the primary elections in Georgia and other states that voted Tuesday, so please stay with us. More

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      Why can’t America do anything to stop mass shootings?

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      Why can’t America do anything to stop mass shootings?Despite hundreds of mass shootings in the US every year, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass major gun-control legislation Joe Biden’s condolences to the community of Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb elementary school on Tuesday, also came with a demand for action.“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday evening. “It’s time to turn this pain into action. For every parent, for every citizen in this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: it’s time to act.”But despite hundreds of mass shootings unfolding in America every year, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass major gun-control legislation. The hurdles to enacting stricter gun laws in the US are numerous and significant, but activists say they will not give up until change is made.How often are mass shootings happening in the US?This year, 213 mass shootings, defined as incidents in which at least four people were shot or killed, have already occurred in America, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In 2021, 692 mass shootings were recorded, in comparison to 610 over the course of 2020.The US has already seen other devastating examples of mass shootings this month. Less than two weeks before the shooting in Uvalde, a gunman opened fire at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. He fatally shot 10 people, most of them African American.What policies have been proposed to address mass shootings?Gun control advocates have outlined an extensive and specific plan to lower the number of deaths caused by firearms in the US. Those policies include mandating background checks for all gun purchases, including those overseen by unlicensed sellers online or at gun shows, and enforcing a waiting period after someone buys a firearm.Advocates have also called for expanding the restrictions on people who can legally acquire guns. They say abusive dating partners, those convicted of hate crimes and people with mental illness who pose a safety risk, among others, should be barred from buying firearms. Some have proposed prohibiting gun purchases by people under 21, which may have prevented the 18-year-old shooter in Uvalde from acquiring his weapons.Some states have already enacted stricter gun laws, but federal legislation would strengthen restrictions nationwide.Do Americans support stricter gun laws?There is broad support in the US for certain policies championed by gun-control advocates. According to a Morning Consult/Politico survey taken last year, 84% of American voters support universal background checks for gun purchases.But opinions are more varied when Americans are asked about their thoughts on stricter gun laws in general. A November poll conducted by Gallup found that 52% of Americans support stricter gun control, which marked the lowest rating on the question since 2014. Support for a ban on handguns also hit a new low in 2021, with just 19% of Americans telling Gallup that they would be in favor of such a policy.Some of that hesitation may stem from the fact that tens of millions of Americans own guns themselves. Four in 10 Americans live in a household with a gun, while 30% say they personally own one, according to a 2021 survey by Pew Research Center.Has Congress tried to enact stricter gun laws before?Yes, Democrats in Congress have repeatedly pushed to strengthen gun laws that could help lower the number of mass shootings in America. Most notably, Congress tried to pass a compromise bill to expand background checks in 2013, months after the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. That bill failed to overcome a Senate filibuster, as most Republicans and a handful of Democrats opposed the legislation.After the bill was defeated, then President Barack Obama delivered a fiery speech blaming the failure on the National Rifle Association, which vehemently opposed the legislation and vowed to campaign against any senator supporting it.“Instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill,” Obama said at the time. “But we can do more if Congress gets its act together.”What is the path forward for enacting gun-control legislation?The Democratic-controlled House has already passed bills to expand background checks to all firearm sales or transfers and close the so-called “Charleston loophole”. That loophole, which would increase the amount of time that licensed gun sellers must wait to receive a completed background check before transferring a gun to an unlicensed buyer, allowed a white shooter to target a historically Black church in Charleston in 2015.But those House-passed bills currently have very little chance of passing in the evenly divided Senate. Republican senators are likely to filibuster any proposed gun-control legislation, and Democrats do not have the 60 votes necessary to advance those bills. The Democratic senator Joe Manchin also made it clear on Tuesday that he would not support amending the filibuster to pass a gun-control bill, meaning Democrats do not have the votes to create a carveout to the rule.Acknowledging this reality, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on Wednesday that it was unlikely the upper chamber would soon vote on the House-passed bills. “I believe that accountability votes are important,” Schumer said, “But sadly, this isn’t a case of the American people not knowing where their senators stand. They know.”That doesn’t mean Democrats are giving up on their efforts to strengthen gun laws. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who represents the Sandy Hook community and has fiercely criticized congressional inaction on gun control, said voters have a chance in November to oust Republicans who oppose reform.“I’m going to try all day today to try to find some compromise, but this is ultimately up to voters,” Murphy told CNN on Wednesday. “If [candidates] support the current law, if they don’t support reform [instead], then don’t send them back to Congress.”TopicsUS gun controlTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingUS politicsRepublicansUS CongressJoe BidenexplainersReuse this content More

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      Biden to sign police reform executive order on George Floyd anniversary

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      Biden to sign police reform executive order on George Floyd anniversaryPresident to take action regulating federal law enforcement agencies after failure of attempts to legislate Joe Biden will on Wednesday sign an executive order meant to improve police accountability.White House officials said the signing would mark the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, who died when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.Minneapolis police engaged in pattern of racial discrimination, inquiry findsRead moreThe order, drafted in the absence of legislative action, directs federal agencies to revise use-of-force policies, banning tactics such as chokeholds and restricting practices like no-knock warrants.It also calls for the creation of a new national standard for accrediting police departments; establishes a national database to track police misconduct; further restricts the transfer of military equipment to police departments; and requires agencies to implement new tools to screen for inherent bias among officers as well as recruits, including those who promote unlawful violence or harbor white supremacist views.The order, which will apply to more than 100,000 federal law enforcement officers, is a reflection of a delicate balance Biden is attempting to strike on policing, as advocates and progressives push him to fulfill a campaign promise to hold police accountable and Republicans seize on such calls to paint Democrats as anti-law enforcement.Officials said the order was written after more than 100 hours’ work and as many meetings with stakeholders including law enforcement officials, lawmakers, civil rights and civil liberties groups and families of victims of police violence. After outcry over a draft version, some major policing organizations have endorsed the order.Pressure has been building on the White House since the collapse of negotiations over a police reform bill named in Floyd’s honor. His death, on 25 May 2020, ignited a national movement against racial injustice and dramatically shifted long-held views on racism and policing.Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 22-and-a-half years in prison. Three other former officers were convicted in federal court of violating Floyd’s civil rights.Family members of Floyd and Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed when police executed a no-knock warrant at her apartment in 2020, will join Biden at the White House on Wednesday afternoon for a ceremony in which the president will speak and sign the order. Police officers and civil rights leaders will also be in attendance.“We know full well that an executive order cannot address America’s policing crisis the same way Congress has the ability to but we’ve got to do everything we can,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who will attend Wednesday’s signing ceremony, said in a statement.“There’s no better way to honor George Floyd’s legacy than for President Biden to take action by signing a police reform executive order.”The order applies only to federal agencies. Biden does not have direct authority over state and local agencies. But White House officials said the order incentivizes all law enforcement agencies to participate in the police registry and to adopt the new accountability standards and de-escalation policies.Less than six months before the midterm elections, Democrats are navigating a complicated political landscape. Republicans have sought to blame Democrats for rises in violent crime in some cities, attributing it to calls from activists after Floyd’s death to slash police funding.As a candidate and as president, Biden has denounced efforts to “defund the police”, repeating, to the frustration of some in his party, that departments need more funding, not less.On a call with reporters on Tuesday night, White House officials said the order was no substitute for legislative action.“We started with the backbone of the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act,” a senior White House official said. “In some places, we went beyond what was in the act based on feedback we heard from stakeholders. In other aspects we were constrained by the inherent limits of executive authority.”When a draft version of the order was leaked earlier this year, some law enforcement groups found some of the language objectionable. Particularly offensive to them, according to a February report in the New York Times, was a reference to “systemic racism” within US criminal justice.A White House official said the text had been revised and improved based on input from stakeholders but would not say if the document made explicit reference to systemic racism.The official said the order “does not hide from the truth that we need reform in policing and in our larger criminal justice system, and that includes addressing systemic racism”.TopicsUS policingJoe BidenUS politicsnewsReuse this content More