Arlington Cemetery pictured, for Memorial Day weekend.
Uvalde timeline … The big question carrying though the weekend is how long did it take police to enter the Robb Elementary classroom (or classrooms, one of the many confusing pieces) where an 18-year-old with an AR-15 shot 19 children and 2 teachers? Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) has asked FBI Director Christopher Wray to investigate the timeline and take the lead in the case, Castro told NPR’s Morning Edition.
Evidence so far suggests it took police more than an hour to storm the classroom and kill the suspect, which of course flies in the face of NRA President Wayne LaPierre’s comment following the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012 that “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” (It is, sadly, the second time in May LaPierre’s statement was disproven – first being a Tops security guard’s attempt to shoot the Buffalo mass-killing suspect only to be killed himself).
Singer-songwriter Don American Pie McLean was to have provided entertainment for the National Rifle Association convention Memorial Day weekend in Houston, but has cancelled, the Portland Press Herald (Maine) reports, as has Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who will attend a vigil in Uvalde, and address the NRA by video, instead -- and coincidentally, avoid protesters in Houston.
Donald J. Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) are still scheduled to attend. Cruz suggests the solution is to have one lockable door as an entrance to every school – gun safety trumps fire safety, apparently.
As for any Senate action on gun control, it’s Standard Operating Procedure, with Democrats struggling to find any Republicans, let alone the 10 needed for cloture on significant legislation. However, a bipartisan group of senators is trying to do just that, according to Roll Call; Find 60 votes in order to forward a “Red Flag” law to allow courts to order the temporary seizure of firearms from individuals deemed a threat to themselves or others. Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are leading the push, but are having trouble finding sufficient Republican support.
Assault rifle rationale: Of the many rationalizations of the need for legal assault rifles made this week, the one by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to VICE News political reporter Elizabeth Landers played on Twitter is getting a lot of attention: “Well, if you talk to the people who use it, killing feral pigs in … wherever … the middle of Louisiana, they wonder why would you take it away from them.”
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Relief for veterans … In a rare act of bipartisanship the Senate is expected to pass next month a comprehensive $200 billion bill to cover military veterans who have suffered toxic exposure from the Iraq War, Afghanistan, the Gulf War and Vietnam, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has recognized some exposure to Agent Orange since it was identified in 1962 in Vietnam as the source of some service-connected illness in U.S. troops. But the Senate bill will be the largest expansion of authority at the VA, says Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough.
--Todd Lassa
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(THU 5/26/22)
Graph: Debt is expected to rise in relation to GDP over the next decade, mainly because of increasing interest costs and growth in spending for Medicare and Social Security.
No relief from inflation … The sort of high inflation we have been suffering over the last year or so will continue into next year, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicted in a report released Wednesday (hat tip to WaPo). The CBO projects a federal budget deficit of $1.0 trillion in 2022, down from $2.8 trillion in 2021, and the deficit continues to decrease into 2023, though turning to rise thereafter through 2032.
This is not good news for the White House’s stalled Build Back Better plan, which looks to go nowhere through the midterm elections anyway.
The CBO projects that inflation persists at 4.0% through 2022 due to a combination of strong demand and restrained supply in the markets for goods, services and labor. As the Federal Reserve tightens the money supply and interest rates rise rapidly, the U.S. economy slows, with inflation-adjusted Gross Domestic Product up 3.1%. The unemployment rate remains at a very low 3.8%, the CBO projects.
The Fed is expected to announce half-point interest rate increases at each of its next two meetings, in June and July, NPR reports Thursday.
Upshot: The unemployment rate remains a bright spot for the White House and the GDP level is about normal, but inflation and tight credit will hurt the Democrats in the November midterms, piling on to gridlock in the second half of the Biden administration.
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This might test Pence’s loyalty … The House Select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection has heard accounts of Donald J. Trump’s positive reaction to chants about hanging his vice president, Mike Pence, for refusing to overturn the Electoral Vote count, according to The New York Times. The report says that the lame duck president’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on January 6 left the dining room off the Oval Office and told colleagues that Trump was complaining about television coverage of Pence being guided away to safety.
Upshot: Pence lately has been easing up on sycophancy to his former boss. Before Tuesday’s primaries he endorsed incumbent Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp over Trump’s candidate, David Perdue (who lost to Kemp), and is exploring a run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, potentially against Trump himself.
Trump chose Pence as his 2016 running mate to shore up the conservative evangelical vote. Those voters remain among Trump’s fiercest supporters – can Pence claim them back?
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Oz v. McCormick recount … As expected since the dust cleared from the May 17 Pennsylvania GOP primary race for U.S. Senate, ballots for celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick are headed for a recount, The Washington Post reports. As of Thursday, Oz leads McCormick by 947 out of 1.3 million votes, within the 0.5% difference threshold to trigger an automatic recount.
A reminder that this primary race plays into the tally of Trump’s endorsement success. Oz is his man.
Counties are to recount their ballots by June 7 and inform acting Secretary of State Leigh M. Chapman of the final results June 8.
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Anticipating SCOTUS … Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, has signed into law the nation’s strictest abortion law to date, outlawing all abortions from any point in a woman’s pregnancy, except in the case of incest or rape (The Guardian). The Supreme Court is expected to overturn Roe v. Wade before its current-year calendar concludes at the end of June.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics