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      Nearly half of Republicans think US has to live with mass shootings, poll finds

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      Nearly half of Republicans think US has to live with mass shootings, poll findsCBS and YouGov poll returned familiar results, including 62% support for a nationwide ban on semi-automatic rifles Nearly half of Republican voters think the US just has to live with mass shootings, according to a poll released in the aftermath of the Texas elementary school murders last month and as politicians in Washington negotiate for gun reform.Bipartisan US lawmakers ramp up gun control talks amid crisis of violence – liveRead moreThe CBS and YouGov poll returned familiar results, including 62% support for a nationwide ban on semi-automatic rifles, the kind of gun used in Uvalde, Texas.Nineteen young children and two adults were killed at Robb elementary school on 24 May by an 18-year-old who bought his weapon legally.But clear national support for a ban on such rifles or changes to purchasing ages and background checks is not mirrored in Congress. Most Republicans, supported financially by the powerful gun lobby, remain implacably opposed to most gun reform.In an effort fueled by horror at events in Uvalde, senators led by Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut elected after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting killed 26 in 2012, and John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, have expressed optimism that some changes may be possible.Such efforts are largely focused on “red flag” laws designed to stop gun purchases by people deemed a potential danger to others or themselves.In the CBS/YouGov poll, support for such laws ran at 72%. Support for federal background checks on all gun purchases ran at 81%.Joe Biden has called for an assault weapons ban, or at least raising the minimum age for purchases of such weapons. In the new poll, 77% said the minimum age for buying an assault rifle should be higher than 18: 32% said it should be 21 and 45% opted for 25.Asked if mass shootings were “unfortunately something we have to accept as part of a free society” or “something we can prevent and stop if we really tried”, 72% of respondents said such shootings could be stopped.Among Democrats, 85% of respondents said mass shootings could be stopped if US politicians would only try. Among independents, the figure was 73%.But 44% of Republicans said mass shootings should be accepted as part of a free society.Following strict messaging guidelines, Republican politicians repeatedly say mental health and security issues are to blame for mass shootings, not access to guns.In the new poll, respondents were also asked: “Regardless of how you feel about the issue, how likely do you think it is that Congress will pass any laws in the next few months that will make significant changes to gun policy?”Only 7% thought it was “very likely” Congress would finally act, while a combined 69% thought it was “not very” or “not at all” likely.Some state governments have moved to introduce reforms. In New York City on Monday, the state of New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, signed a package of laws including licensing measures for assault rifles and a minimum purchase age of 21, expanded red flag provisions and a ban on sales of body armour.Hochul told reporters: “It just keeps happening. Shots ring out, flags come down and nothing ever changes – except here in New York.”Hochul’s state, however, is home to another politician whose fate starkly shows what can happen to Republicans who express openness to gun reform.On Friday, the New York congressman Chris Jacobs abandoned his bid for re-election, after stoking fury by expressing support for a federal assault weapons ban.Jacobs represents suburbs of Buffalo, the city in which 10 people were shot dead at a supermarket on 14 May in what authorities say was a racially motivated attack.Mass shootings, widely defined as shootings in which four people excluding the gunman are hurt or killed, have continued since Buffalo and Uvalde.‘They had no empathy’: for gun violence survivors, police response can be retraumatizingRead moreLast week, at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a gunman killed two doctors, a receptionist and a patient.According to the non-profit Gun Violence Archive, the following weekend saw mass shootings in Philadelphia, Chattanooga, South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, New York and Michigan. Fifteen people were killed and more than 60 wounded.The archive says there have been 246 mass shootings in the US in 2022, considerably more than one a day.On Sunday, Murphy discussed his push for reform. He told CNN: “The possibility of success is better than ever before. But I think the consequences of failure for our entire democracy are more significant than ever.”TopicsUS politicsRepublicansTexas school shootingGun crimenewsReuse this content More

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      DeSantis beats Trump in conservative group straw poll for 2024 nomination

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      DeSantis beats Trump in conservative group straw poll for 2024 nominationDenver poll indicates Trump is losing grip on Republican party as DeSantis wins 71% of the vote to Trump’s 67% Conservative activists in Colorado have again placed Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, a rising star in Republican circles, above former president Donald Trump in their preference for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination.DeSantis won 71% of the vote to the former president’s 67% in the straw poll, which was taken during the weekend’s Western Conservative Summit in Denver and means little in itself. Participants are allowed to offer multiple responses.But there is a growing perception that Trump is losing his previously impenetrable grip on the Republican party, having achieved mixed results in endorsements in recent primary elections ahead of November’s midterms.And a NBC analysis published on Sunday suggests Trump is mulling a third run at the White House which he is considering announcing imminently, in part to deter a growing field of likely other Republican candidates, some of whom might be sensing blood in the water.They are said to include former vice-president Mike Pence, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor whom Trump chose as US ambassador to the United Nations.“I’ve laid out my case on why I think he should do it,” Trump adviser Jason Miller told NBC.“I think that … clarity about what his intentions are [is important] so he can start building that operation while it’s still fresh in people’s minds and they’re still active.”DeSantis, who has earned the admiration of conservatives for a range of Republican “culture war” legislation in Florida including restricting the rights of the LBGTQ+ community, Black voters and even Disney, has refused to rule out a run at the presidency, regardless of whether Trump runs again.The former congressman, favorite to win a second term as governor in November, has played down the speculation but has been fundraising in a number of other states, most recently South Carolina.“There are other candidates and politicians that people like ideologically here, but none have the excitement that DeSantis does,” Republican activist Wesley Donehue told Politico. “DeSantis has almost transcended politics to become a celebrity.”Critics, however, have accused him of focusing on “nonexistent issues” at the expense of problems facing his state.The Colorado poll almost exactly mirrors last year’s result, when DeSantis beat Trump 74%-71%. This year’s distant third place choice, Cruz, drew only 28%.And DeSantis also won a May straw poll of Wisconsin Republicans with 38% to Trump’s 32%. No other candidate reached double figures in that poll.DeSantis’s rise to prominence, and his position as a possible rival, has sometimes irked Trump, who takes credit for elevating his one-time protege from an also-ran in the 2018 Florida governor’s race to victor.In January, the New York Times highlighted disagreements over Covid-19 policy as a source of friction between the two, although Trump’s oldest son Eric later denied the report.Axios, meanwhile, reported more disharmony, claiming that Trump had privately slammed DeSantis as a “dull personality” with no chance of beating him for the 2024 nomination.TopicsUS elections 2024Donald TrumpRon DeSantisUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Can televised hearings bring the truth about January 6 to the US public?

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      Can televised hearings bring the truth about January 6 to the US public? The first of eight congressional hearings will start on Thursday but emulating the impact of 1973’s Watergate sessions will be hard in today’s fractured media and political environmentOn Thursday the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will open the first of eight hearings, marking the turning point when “one of the single most important congressional investigations in history”, as the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney billed it, will finally go public.It will be the culmination of almost a year of intensive activity that, aside from a succession of leaks, has largely been conducted in private. More than 1,000 people have been called for depositions and interviews to cast light on the events of January 6, 2021, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in answer to Donald Trump’s call to “fight like hell” to prevent Congress certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro indicted for defying Capitol attack panelRead moreThe committee has collected 125,000 documents, pursued almost 500 leads through its confidential tip line. It has examined text messages between Trump’s closest advisers and family members discussing how to keep the defeated president in power; reviewed memos from conservative lawyers laying out a roadmap to an electoral coup; and listened to recorded conversations in which top Republicans revealed their true feelings about Trump’s actions “inciting people” to attack the heart of US democracy.Now the nine-member committee, Cheney included, have a different – and arguably more difficult – job to do. They must let the American people into their deliberations, share with them key facts and exhibits, grill witnesses in front of them, and through it all begin to build a compelling narrative of how ferociously Trump attempted to subvert the 2020 election – and how close he came to succeeding.“It’s important that we tell the American public, to the best we are able, exactly what happened,” said Zoe Lofgren, a congresswoman from California who is among the seven Democratic members of the committee. “The public need to understand the stakes for our system of government, and we need to devise potential changes in legislation or procedures to protect ourselves in future.”In an interview with the Guardian, Lofgren was hesitant to get into details of the investigation. But asked whether she has been surprised by the breadth and depth of the plot to overturn the 2020 election and the extent to which it was organized, she replied: “The short answer is yes.”Lofgren brings to Thursday’s opening session her deep personal understanding of the dynamic role played by congressional hearings in recent American history. She has had a ringside seat, initially as a staff observer and then as an elected participant, in many of the most significant hearings stretching back to Watergate.At the time of the Watergate hearings in May 1973, when she was still a young law student, Lofgren worked as an intern for Don Edwards, a Democrat on the judiciary committee. She sees similarities between today’s January 6 investigation and the way Nixon’s cover-up of the Watergate break-in was teased out by Congress, starting with inquiries behind closed doors and then bursting out into explosive televised Senate proceedings.“Much of what the judiciary committee did in Watergate – like January 6 – was behind closed doors,” Lofgren said. “I remember various Nixon functionaries being deposed in the committee back rooms.”Once sufficient intelligence was amassed, it was time to let the public in. “Ultimately, you have to let people know what you have found.”The Watergate hearings became a national obsession, with millions of Americans tuning in to ABC, CBS or NBC which scrapped normal scheduling to broadcast the deliberations live. The New York Times called them “the biggest daytime spectacular in years”.There was so much viewer demand that the networks ran replays at night. It was worth it, to experience such spine-tingling moments as the former White House counsel John Dean being asked: “What did the president know and when did he know it?”, or to be present when another assistant, Alexander Butterfield, revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes.Lofgren does not expect the January 6 hearings to grip the nation to the all-encompassing extent that Watergate did. Times have changed, not least the media.“During Watergate there were three TV channels and that’s how everybody got their news – if Walter Cronkite said it was true, it must be true, right?” Lofgren said. “Today people are getting their information from a multiplicity of sources, and we need to deal with that and make sure we are finding people where they are.”It’s not just how media is consumed that has changed, it’s also how media itself approaches public hearings. During Watergate, TV anchors responded to Nixon’s jibes that they were peddlers of “elitist gossip” – a foreshadow of Trump’s “fake news” – by keeping their commentary to a bare minimum.In today’s universe, by contrast, the January 6 hearings are likely to be subjected to heavy spin that will leave individual Americans with drastically different impressions according to which media bubble they are in.Kathryn Cramer Brownell, associate professor of history at Purdue University, has studied the measured way television handled the Watergate hearings. She said it stands starkly apart from, say, how Robert Mueller’s testimony before the House judiciary committee on his Russia investigation was transmitted to the American people in 2019.“Fox News tried to spin the information as it was coming out of the Mueller proceedings, so people were receiving the information as it was filtered through that instant spin. That can change their understanding,” she said.Brownell has highlighted how the advent of the TV age elevated congressional hearings to another level. Before television, hearings such as those into the Titanic disaster in 1912 or the 1923 Teapot Dome scandal could still command the nation’s attention, but it was the small screen that supercharged them into major political events.By being beamed into millions of Americans’ living rooms, they had the power to turn individual Congress members into superstars. Ironically the beneficiaries included Nixon who came to prominence in the 1948 Red Scare investigation against Alger Hiss; he was followed soon after by Estes Kefauver in the 1950 investigation against organized crime.Oliver North became a bogey figure for progressives and a darling of the right after his appearance in the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings.Hearings also have the reverse power to tear down politicians who go too far, as the Republican senator Joe McCarthy discovered to his cost in his 1954 televised hearings into alleged communist infiltration of the US army. McCarthy’s reign of terror was abruptly brought to a close when the army’s lawyer Joseph Welch challenged him with the now legendary refrain: “Have you no sense of decency?”In the end, congressional hearings are likely only to be as compelling as the matter they are addressing – whether anti-communism, organized crime or presidential misconduct. That should play to the January 6 committee’s advantage: it would be hard to imagine more essential subject material than an assault on democracy itself.“If we believe in the rule of law and democratic norms, then we have to make this effort,” said Jeannie Rhee, a partner in the law firm Paul, Weiss who frequently represents witnesses in congressional hearings. “What we do in this moment, how we proceed – that is imperative.”Rhee led the team investigating Russian cyber and social media interference in the 2016 presidential election within the Mueller investigation. She now represents the attorney general of Washington DC in the prosecution of far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for their part in the January 6 insurrection.As an immigrant, Rhee said, for her, the upcoming hearings are deeply personal. Her father was a student protester in the 1960s fighting for democratic reforms in South Korea, and it was America’s free and fair elections and peaceful transition of presidential power that led him to relocate their family to the US.“I came to the US with my parents in 1977 and it was my father’s greatest dream to be able to stay here. I remember my mother dressing me up in my Sunday church clothes to pay respects to the nation’s Capitol. I live here now, and my father has passed away. I think about him often in relation to what is unfolding, and whether this is the country he knew.”Rhee sees the challenge facing the January 6 committee as bridging the growing political divide by laying out facts around which most Americans can coalesce. She thinks the best way to conduct the hearings is to let what happened on that fateful day speak for itself.“The less the members talk and the more the witnesses and victims and people who were there tell their own truth, the more powerful that will be,” she said.The job of letting the facts do the talking will be complicated, though, by the fact that the Republican leadership in the House is effectively boycotting the hearings. Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, decided not to appoint members to the panel after the Democratic speaker, Nancy Pelosi, rejected two of his choices.The two participating Republican members – Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – have both been censured by the Republican National Committee. The official view of the House leadership is that January 6 – which led to the deaths of seven people and injured more than 140 police officers – was “legitimate political discourse”.Many of the most important witnesses around Trump have refused to play ball with the investigation. Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino have all been held in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to respond to subpoenas, and Bannon and Navarro have been indicted by a federal grand jury (the justice department said on Friday it would not charge Scavino and Meadows).Many other top Republicans have invoked their fifth amendment right to silence in answer to every question they were posed. Those resisting testifying include five members of Congress, McCarthy among them.That’s a sign of how far the canker of political discord has spread within Congress, and how far the Republican party has shifted in a fundamentally anti-democratic direction. Consider by contrast the fact that the lethal Watergate question about what the president knew and when he knew it was asked by a senator from Nixon’s own Republican party, Howard Baker from Tennessee.“Congressional hearings have become increasingly partisan-driven,” said Stanley Brand, a former general counsel to the House who has legally represented numerous people called to testify before Congress spanning decades. “From the Clinton administration, through the Republican House’s investigation of the IRS and Benghazi, political lines are being drawn quicker and harder, and now there’s much more effort put on political point scoring.”Brand, who is representing Scavino in his battle to resist the January 6 committee, thinks that by opting out over the hearings the Republicans have fundamentally changed their nature. “Every party has to decide how much it wants to participate, but I’ve never known a big hearing like this with only one side represented – that’s a major difference.”Secret Service were warned of security risk to Pence day before Capitol attackRead moreBrand, a Democrat, thinks that partisanship is also being displayed by the Democratic leadership. He accuses the January 6 committee of straying well beyond its official remit as laid down by the US supreme court – an oversight role in which Congress informs itself for the purpose of writing legislation.He interprets the committee’s aggressive pursuit of witnesses as an attempt to push the justice department into bringing charges against key Trump individuals. “This committee has acted more like a prosecutorial agency than a legislative agency of any congressional investigation in which I’ve been involved in 50 years,” Brand said.Lofgren disputes the claim. “We’ve made it very clear that we are a legislative committee and the Department of Justice are the prosecutors,” she said.Any consideration of bringing prosecutions after the hearings have concluded, she added, “is beyond our purview”.As she prepares for the momentous start of the public hearings, Lofgren had some tough words for the Republican holdouts. She noted that in Watergate Republican leaders were also initially resistant, disputing claims that Nixon had acted improperly. But as soon as he admitted key details, they changed tack.“The difference with the Republican leadership today is that they know they are lying. It’s pretty clear that some of my Republican colleagues – not all – are willing to lie for power,” Lofgren said.What does she hope the hearings will achieve?“I hope they will tell the complete truth about what happened in a way that can be accepted and understood by the broad spectrum of American society, leading to a reinvigorated love of our democratic republic and system of elections.”That is a tall order.“You know, you don’t get anywhere by thinking small,” she said. “We’ll do the best we can, that’s all we can do, and hope this will be an important moment for America.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Chris Jacobs withdraws reelection bid amid GOP fire on his gun control stance

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      Chris Jacobs withdraws reelection bid amid GOP fire on his gun control stanceRepublican congressman said he would support measures limiting access to highly lethal firearms used in recent mass shootings A Republican New York congressman who recently voiced support of gun control legislation announced on Friday that he will no longer seek reelection after receiving backlash over his stance.Chris Jacobs’ support of such legislation – which came in the wake of deadly mass shootings at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store and Uvalde, Texas, elementary school – had prompted his conservative and GOP colleagues to withdraw their support.Jacobs, who was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in 2020 and recently introduced legislation to protect bankrupt gun owners’ rights, did not back any policy that would dramatically impact gun ownership. Rather, Jacobs expressed his favor for several measures that would limit access to the particularly lethal weaponry used in recent mass killings.Grim body count unlikely to be enough for Republicans to act on gun reformRead more“A ban on something like an AR-15, I would vote for,” Jacobs said on 27 May. “So I want to be clear, I would vote for it.”“Individuals cannot buy beer, they cannot get cigarettes [until] 21,” Jacobs said. “I think it’s perfectly reasonable that the age limit, at least for these highly lethal, high capacity semi automatic weapons, should be 21.”Jacobs said that he planned on introducing legislation that would limit access to body armor and would name the bill after Aaron Salter, a retired police officer who was killed in the mass shooting at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo on 14 May, reported Ashley Rowe, an anchor with 7 Eyewitness News. Salter worked as a security guard at the supermarket and opened fire on the shooter in an attempt to stop him, but the gunman was wearing body armor and killed 10.In explaining his support of such measures, Jacobs told the Buffalo News: “Being a father and having young children and visualizing what those parents are going through and, I guess, being able to feel it more personally certainly has had an impact as well.”Jacobs’ comments on gun legislation stood in stark contrast to his GOP counterparts, who have often blamed mass shootings on mental illness and suggested that school safety hinged on armed security. Some conservatives and Republicans effectively framed Jacobs as a traitor to his party due to his comments.“This is not the person we endorsed. We did not endorse this Chris Jacobs … he’s actually to the left of [US House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi on this,” said Gerard Kassar, New York’s Conservative party state chair, to the New York Post on Thursday.The Erie county, New York, Conservative chairman, Ralph Lorigo, described Jacobs’ position as “very disappointing” and said “we can’t support him in this district”, according to Rochesterfirst.com.“‘Republican @RepJacobs already caved to the gun-grabbers whose proposals won’t do a single thing to protect our families & children from criminals & murderers,” Donald Trump Jr said on Twitter. “He knows this but he can’t resist getting a few glowing headlines from the mainstream media.”Jacobs insisted he did not decide to withdraw from the race over backlash, saying: “I didn’t feel any heat on this issue. No one called me about the assault weapon ban.”“This is purely a personal contemplation, prayer, and talking to people, that I felt this was the right thing to do,” he said. “And the time was now to do it.”Jacobs’ announcement came one day after Joe Biden made an impassioned plea for an assault weapons ban and prohibition on high-capacity magazines.Reactions to the president’s speech largely followed party lines, with Democrats supporting his proposals and Republicans slamming them as unduly politicized.Movement on gun control legislation at the state and federal levels suggests the prospect of mixed results rather than unified policy. While Maine Republican senator Susan Collins recently said that a bipartisan group of senators made significant progress in negotiating gun law reforms, GOP opposition in the senate could easily stymie these efforts.States have taken different approaches in addressing gun violence. New York’s legislature on Thursday passed a set of bills that barred most civilians from purchasing body armor and upped the age requirement for buying a semiautomatic rifle to 21, the New York Times reported.In Texas, Republican governor Greg Abbott asked his lieutenant and a high-level state legislator “to each convene a special legislative committee”. Abbott insisted “we must reassess the twin issues of school safety and mass violence,” but Texas has historically eased firearms restrictions following mass shootings.TopicsUS gun controlNew YorkRepublicansUS politicsBuffalo shootingTexas school shootingReuse this content More

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      Ron DeSantis blocks funds for Tampa Bay Rays after team’s gun safety tweets

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      Ron DeSantis blocks funds for Tampa Bay Rays after team’s gun safety tweetsFlorida governor defends vetoing funds for training facilityRays had joined Yankees in tweeting about gun safety The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has defended his veto of $35m in funding for a potential spring training site for the Tampa Bay Rays, after the Major League Baseball team used social media to raise awareness about gun violence after mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.“I don’t support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums,” DeSantis said on Friday, when asked about the veto of the sports complex funding. “Companies are free to engage or not engage with whatever discourse they want, but clearly it’s inappropriate to be doing tax dollars for professional sports stadiums. It’s also inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”On 26 May, in the wake of what they called “devastating events that took place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation”, the Rays said they would donate $50,000 to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and use their social media channels to offer facts about gun violence. The New York Yankees also used social media to address the shootings, during a game between the two teams last week.On Friday, citing an unnamed source, CNN reported that DeSantis’s decision to block the funding was influenced in part by the Rays’ tweets about the shootings.pic.twitter.com/9DpyuwEzJo— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 26, 2022
      In Uvalde, an 18-year-old gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school. The shooting happened days after a gunman shot and killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo.“In lieu of game coverage and in collaboration with the Tampa Bay Rays, we will be using our channels to offer facts about the impacts of gun violence,” the Yankees said in a statement.“The devastating events that have taken place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation are tragedies that are intolerable.”The Rays said shootings “cannot become normal”.Throughout their game last Thursday, both teams posted facts about gun violence on their social media pages, with links to sources and helpline numbers. Neither team posted the result of the game.Following the Uvalde shooting, Steve Kerr, coach of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, refused to talk about basketball at a pre-game news conference, instead calling for stricter gun control legislation.02:55DeSantis has made culture war issues including gun control a calling card in his rise to prominence as a possible Republican candidate for president.On another front on Friday, DeSantis announced that the Special Olympics had dropped a coronavirus vaccine mandate for its forthcoming games in Orlando, after he moved to fine the organization $27.5m for violating a state law against such rules.The Special Olympics competition in Florida is scheduled to run from 5 to 12 June.At a news conference in Orlando, DeSantis said: “In Florida, we want all of them to be able to compete. We do not think it’s fair or just to be marginalizing some of these athletes based on a decision that has no bearing on their ability to compete with honor or integrity.”The Florida health department notified the Special Olympics of the fine in a letter on Thursday that said the organization would be fined $27.5m for 5,500 violations of state law, for requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination for attendees or participants.Florida law bars businesses from requiring documentation of a Covid-19 vaccination. DeSantis has strongly opposed vaccine mandates and other virus policies endorsed by the federal government.In a statement on its website, the Special Olympics said people who were registered but unable to participate because of the mandate could now attend.TopicsMLBTampa Bay RaysNew York YankeesBaseballUS sportsRon DeSantisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Florida man arrested for threatening far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert

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      Florida man arrested for threatening far-right congresswoman Lauren BoebertMatthew Lee Comiskey was charged on Friday with five felony counts for making interstate threats starting 31 August last year A Florida man has been arrested for allegedly threatening the life of Lauren Boebert, the far-right Republican congresswoman from Colorado.Ex-Trump aide Peter Navarro indicted for defying Capitol attack panelRead moreAuthorities arrested Matthew Lee Comiskey of Palm Beach county, Florida, on Friday and charged him with five felony counts of making interstate threats.Starting on 31 August 2021, Comiskey allegedly made several Twitter posts threatening Boebert’s life, as was first reported by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.According to court documents that were unsealed on Friday, Comiskey posted about hurting the US House representative several times. In one tweet posted on 31 August 2021, Comiskey wrote: “If I ever see Lauren I’d be glad to take her out and go to prison. Would be job well done.”In other posts, Comiskey encouraged others to harm Boebert, tweeting on 15 September 2021: “Someone needs to put Lauren down like a sick dog. She is a true waste of life! Someone exercise their second amendment right to her face! Since the [CIA] is a failure and [FBI] is incompetent at charging her for being a terrorist it’s time to do it ourselves! Pew pew Lauren.”In a final post on 17 September 2021, Comiskey wrote: “[D]on’t come to Florida us libs have big guns here and we stand our ground. Take you down like Trayvon,” referring to the 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager, in Florida.On Friday, a federal magistrate set Comiskey’s bond at $50,000. His arraignment is scheduled for 8 June.If indicted, Comiskey could face a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.Boebert could not immediately be reached for comment.TopicsUS newsUS politicsFloridaColoradoRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Until the US senate is accountable to America, we’ll never get gun control | Osita Nwanevu

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      Until the US Senate is accountable to America, we’ll never get gun controlOsita NwanevuDemocrats are heading into this year’s elections without having tried even basic steps to balance the chamber, including ending the filibuster or admitting liberal Washington DC as a state What more can be said about mass shootings in America? We who find ourselves outraged anew by each fresh massacre have settled into a routine⁠. There’s now a canon of essays and satirical pieces to share on social media; in conversations online and off, we offer familiar rebuttals to familiar Republican diversions and deflections. Democratic politicians, for their part, have just about perfected their own boilerplate language⁠. “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden asked in his Tuesday speech on the Uvalde shooting. “When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?”Eighteen-year-old Americans can’t drink. Why can they buy assault rifles? | Ross BarkanRead moreFor the first time since the Sandy Hook shooting a decade ago, the Democratic party has the power to do what needs to be done. It controls the White House. It controls the House of Representatives. And it controls the Senate, where a bipartisan group of senators has talked in recent days about measures ⁠– from universal background checks to incentives for states to allow the confiscation of guns from threatening individuals ⁠– that probably would not have a prayer if Republicans were in the majority. But they still might not even now. While we will not have a clear sense of where everyone stands until the Senate returns from a fortuitously timed holiday, gun control legislation faces the same basic obstacles that have hobbled the rest of the Democratic party’s agenda ⁠– the filibuster and the rhetoric of consensus.As many weary Democratic voters are now well aware, it effectively takes 60 votes in the US Senate, not the simple majority that Democrats hold, to break a filibuster and pass non-fiscal measures. And while rage at Republicans, the NRA and the gun lobby remains well justified, it is moderate Democrats who support keeping the filibuster ⁠– Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and Democratic colleagues who might privately back their position ⁠– who are preventing the party from simply advancing gun control legislation on its own. Instead, they will need the support of at least 10 Republicans ⁠– a daunting hurdle Manchin and Sinema have defended on the grounds that major policy changes should win broad bipartisan support.“It makes no sense why we can’t do commonsense things to try to prevent some of this from happening,” Manchin told reporters this week. “The filibuster is the only thing that prevents us from total insanity.”As Manchin knows personally, the filibuster is actually the only thing preventing the Senate from passing the commonsensical reforms he putatively supports. In 2013, he and the Republican Senator Pat Toomey co-authored a bill expanding background checks to gun shows and gun sales over the internet. The majority of the chamber supported it ⁠– 54 votes, including four Republicans. But it needed 60 to overcome the filibuster. It died ⁠– a failure that gives lie to the canard that the filibuster actually facilitates bipartisanship. With an extremely modest bipartisan compromise on the table, the Senate instead passed nothing.That same fate may await the bill Senate negotiators are piecing together now; there’s a plot in the graveyard alongside Biden’s other legislative priorities already waiting for it. And if it fails, the design of the Senate itself will bear most of the blame. The reality Democrats are loth to admit is that if the NRA and the whole gun lobby sank into hell tomorrow, the chamber would still disproportionately empower voters in the most sparsely populated and conservative states in the country ⁠– the voters most likely to vehemently oppose not only regulations on gun ownership, but most of the major policies that Democrats, backed by majorities of the American public, hope to pass. And while significantly altering or eliminating the Senate obviously will not be in the cards anytime soon, Democrats are heading into this year’s midterms and the potential loss of at least one chamber of Congress without having taken more basic steps to balance the chamber, including the elimination of the filibuster or the admission of liberal Washington DC as a state.Instead, they have left the American public chained to a fantasy ⁠– the idea that the surest and most defensible route to meaningful change is bipartisan action, no matter how intransigent the Republican party proves itself to be. That’s a delusion pushed not only by moderate politicians who have an interest in constraining the Democratic party’s capacity to pass left-of-center policies, but by the mainstream press, which mourns these shootings with calls for the parties to set aside their differences and “come together” on the issue.But there will not be a grand coming-together on guns. The modest reforms on the table, even if passed, would do little to change the outcome of a culture war one side has already won. For all the ranting and raving we have heard from the right in the last few months about the cultural power liberals wield, the values of rural and exurban conservatives plainly govern the country here. It matters not a whit what liberals in cities like Buffalo or Pittsburgh think about living in a country where people are gunned down in stores and synagogues with legal assault weapons. An inescapable reality has been imposed upon them ⁠– there are more firearms than people in the United States.If recent history is any guide, the conversations we are having now about improving the situation at the margins will be drowned out and defeated by noise and nonsense in a matter of days. Arming schoolteachers, outfitting the nearly 100,000 public schools in this country with the kind of trip wires and traps you might see in the next Mission Impossible film ⁠– this is the blather of degenerates who know they have already succeeded, who know they have no need for arguments that might convince most Americans. The status quo they defend is being upheld by the deference of Democrats now in a position to upend it.
      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist
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      Biden plans primetime address on gun violence following mass shootings – live

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      President Joe Biden will address Americans at 7.30pm eastern time following mass shootings across the country, including at a Texas elementary school last week that left 19 children and two teachers dead.Biden will deliver “remarks on the recent tragic mass shootings, and the need for Congress to act to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is taking lives every day”, the White House said.The speech comes on the same day that the House judiciary committee is holding a hearing to mark up Democrats’ omnibus gun-control bill, the Protecting Our Kids Act.Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator from Connecticut who was sworn into office shortly after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, has published an op-ed in Fox News calling for gun reform. Appealing to a conservative Fox News audience, he wrote: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I believe that the Second Amendment protects a citizen’s right to buy and own firearms. But I also believe that like every constitutional right, there are limits. I don’t believe the Constitution protects the right of criminals or people with serious mental illness to own weapons. And while all of us might draw the line in a different place, I think we all agree that the Constitution allows Congress to decide which weapons are so dangerous as to be kept exclusively in the hands of the military.
      And as I said on the Senate floor last week, I also acknowledge that in order to find common ground, I will need to agree to a smaller set of reforms than I would prefer. I’m willing to pass incremental change, like tightening up our background checks system and helping states pass laws to allow law enforcement to temporarily take guns away from individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others. I’m also very supportive of providing more mental health resources to help young men in crisis and more funding to pay for security upgrades at our schools.
      For me, the only thing we cannot do is nothing.
      The White House expects that Covid-19 vaccinations for children under 5 could begin as early as 12 June, said Dr Ashish Jha, Covid response coordinator. “Our expectation is that within weeks, every parent who wants their child to get vaccinated will be able to get an appointment,” he said. Children under 5 are the last remaining Americans who are not yet eligible for vaccines. Within weeks, “every parent who wants their child to get vaccinated will be able to get an appointment”, Jha said. A decision on authorizing the vaccine for young kids is expected soon after the panel of experts advising the US Food and Drug Administration meets 14 and 15 June. Donald Trump will “fight even harder” on the road to a possible White House run in 2024 because of the acquittal of a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign on a charge of lying to the FBI.“If anything, it makes me want to fight even harder,” the former president told Fox News Digital. “If we don’t win, our country is ruined. We have bad borders, bad elections and a court system not functioning properly.”Full story:Trump says Clinton lawyer acquittal fuels 2024 election ambitionsRead moreOhio is poised to allow teachers and other school employees to forgo hundreds of hours of training normally needed to carry a gun at work under a bill awaiting the governor’s signature.House Bill 99 will streamline the process for school employees to carry weapons on campus, and has been welcomed by Republican governor Mike DeWine. “My office worked with the general assembly to remove hundreds of hours of curriculum irrelevant to school safety and to ensure training requirements were specific to a school environment and contained significant scenario-based training,” he said in a statement.The bill, which passed the Senate Wednesday, has raised eyebrows given its passage following a wave of mass shootings, including at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The Associated Press reported that it’s opposed by teachers unions, gun control advocates and law enforcement groups, and supported by some police departments and school districts. Republicans who backed the law see it as a work around for a recent court ruling that said school employees must undergo a lengthy training process before coming to work armed.That’s it from me today. I’m handing the blog over to my west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, to cover Joe Biden’s speech tonight on gun violence. Here’s where the day stands so far:
      Biden will deliver a primetime address at 7.30pm ET on “the need for Congress to act to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence”, the White House said. The speech comes less than two weeks after a mass shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers. The massacre has intensified calls for national gun-control legislation, but it remains unclear whether any bill can pass Congress.
      The House judiciary committee held a markup hearing on Democrats’ omnibus gun-control bill, the Protecting Our Kids Act. The bill would raise the age requirement for purchasing semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, and it would also establish severe restrictions on the sale and possession of high-capacity magazines, among other reforms. The committee hearing could set up a full House vote on the bill, but the legislation currently has no path to passage in the evenly divided Senate.
      Democrats on the House judiciary committee accused Republicans of being “complicit” in mass shootings by refusing to amend gun laws, while Republicans argued Democrats were moving too quickly to pass gun-control legislation days after the Uvalde tragedy. Noting that it has been 23 years since the shooting at Columbine High school, committee chairman Jerry Nadler asked his Republican colleagues, “What the hell are you waiting for?”
      Donald Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr, met with the House select committee investigating January 6. Barr’s conversation with the lawmakers investigating the Capitol attack lasted for two hours, CNN reports, and he discussed his interactions with Trump before and after the 2020 election.
      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.A Florida legislative map that favors Republicans is set to stay in place during the state’s upcoming elections after a court declined on Thursday to block it.The ruling, reported by Politico, adds to the woes facing Democrats in Congress, where court rulings have given Republicans an edge in redistricting, while President Joe Biden faces low approval ratings. The Florida case centered on a Congressional district map drawn, in an unusual move, by Republican governor Ron DeSantis, rather than the legislature. Civil rights and voting groups had sued over the map, arguing it violates anti-gerrymandering clauses in the state’s constitution.The decision by the state supreme court not to intervene in the case means an appeals court will likely decide the matter, but not before the state’s August 23 primary. The map gives Republicans an advantage in congressional districts and also dismantles the district of House Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat representing North Florida.William Barr, who served as attorney general under former president Donald Trump, on Thursday met with the House select committee investigating January 6, CNN reports.Barr met for two hours with lawmakers investigating the assault on the US capitol, and discussed his interactions with Trump before and after the 2020 election, CNN said, citing sources familiar with the investigation. The network also saw him in the room where interviews are done. The meeting dealt with Barr’s interactions with Trump before and after the election, as well as his conclusion that the 2020 election was not affected by fraud, as the former president claims.The committee’s chairman Bennie Thompson said in January that the former attorney general had spoken to the panel repeatedly. Barr was accused of turning the Justice Department into the then-president’s tool during his time as attorney general, but ultimately resigned before the end of Trump’s term.John Hinckley, who shot and injured then-president Ronald Reagan in 1981, will have all court restrictions on him lifted later this month, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.Declaring 67-year-old Hinckley is “no longer a danger to himself or others,” US district court Judge Paul L. Friedman said as he decided to release Hinckley from court oversight on June 15, the Associated Press reports.A jury found Hinckley not guilty by reason of mental insanity in the March 30, 1981 shooting that also partially paralyzed Reagan’s press secretary James Brady and injured a Secret Service agent and a Washington police officer. Hinckley was obsessed with actress Jodi Foster and the movie “Taxi Driver,” in which a character attempts to kill a presidential candidate.Hinckley spent more than two decades in a mental hospital following the shooting before being gradually allowed to visit and eventually live in his parents’ Virginia community. The remaining restrictions include giving notice before traveling more than 75 miles from his home, allowing officials access to his electronic devices and online accounts and avoiding travel to areas where someone under Secret Service protection might be present. Friedman had made the decision to end the restrictions in September of last year but delayed its effective date to ensure Hinckley was fitting in well to his community.Reagan died in 2004, and his foundation issued a statement objecting to the end of restrictions on Hinckley, particularly his plans to pursue a career in music. “We strongly oppose his release into society where he apparently seeks to make a profit from his infamy,” the Reagan Foundation and Institute said.President Joe Biden’s approval rating has risen by six percentage points from the low point it hit last week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday found, but it still lingers at an unpopular 42 percent.A spike in inflation coupled with the chaotic US military pullout from Afghanistan sent Biden’s approval rating sinking last August, and it has struggled to recover in the months since. The poll conducted over two days of more than 1,000 US adults found that 52 percent of Americans disapprove of Biden’s performance.The low numbers have raised alarms that Biden’s Democrats, who control both the House and Senate by narrow margins, could lose control of one or both chambers in the midterm elections set for November. Abortion rights groups have filed a lawsuit in Florida to stop its ban on abortions after 15 weeks from taking effect next month.The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two Planned Parenthood affiliates and six abortion providers, attempts to block the law signed by governor Ron DeSantis from being enforced starting July 1, arguing it violates the state’s constitutional guarantee of privacy.The law “will force Floridians to remain pregnant against their will, violating their dignity and bodily autonomy, and endangering their families, their health, and even their lives,” the ACLU said in a statement announcing a suit.Florida’s law was one of a host of measures passed by states in anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling expected later this month that could see the Roe v Wade decision allowing abortion in the United States reversed or greatly weakened. Flordia’s law is modeled on similar legislation approved in Mississippi, which is the subject of the supreme court’s deliberations. More