Less than two weeks ago, Democrats and Republicans managed to bridge the yawning gap between them on the issue of gun control to pass a measure that tightened down domestic abusers’ access to weapons, and allocated money towards mental health programs and schools.
The bill’s catalysts were the mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York and, 10 days later, an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. While it was the most significant piece of legislation targeting gun violence in decades, it won the support of only a minority of Republicans, and Democrats acknowledged they would have passed much stronger legislation, if they had the votes.
The law was only days old when the latest high-profile mass shooting, at an Independence Day celebration in Highland Park, Illinois, occurred. Congress is in recess this week, and many lawmakers are back in their districts, where they may face calls to do more to stop the massacres – or to ensure continued access to guns.
Key events:
Maryland’s governor announced today that his state will change its requirements for licensing concealed weapons in response to last month’s ruling by the supreme court expanding Americans’ ability to possess a gun outside their homes.
In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling and to ensure compliance with the Constitution, I am directing the Maryland State Police to suspend utilization of the ‘good and substantial reason’ standard when reviewing applications for Wear and Carry Permits.
My full statement: pic.twitter.com/0wi1dzD8Aw
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) July 5, 2022
As its term came to a close in June, the court’s conservative majority overturned a New York law that had placed strict limits on carrying a firearm outside the home, which affected states with similar laws on their books, including Maryland.
New York’s governor Kathy Hochul last week signed legislation designed to counter the supreme court’s ruling by prohibiting the carrying of weapons in certain locations such as bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, schools, government buildings and airports, as well as requiring owners to consent to people carrying guns on their property.
In other January 6 news, Adam Kinzinger, one of only two Republicans sitting on the House committee investigating the insurrection, has released a compilation of threatening and profane phone calls his office has received.
Threats of violence over politics has increased heavily in the last few years. But the darkness has reached new lows. My new interns made this compilation of recent calls they’ve received while serving in my DC office.
WARNING: this video contains foul & graphic language. pic.twitter.com/yQJvvAHBVV
— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) July 5, 2022
Last year, Kinzinger announced he would retire from Congress, where he’s served since 2011.
A Georgia grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election result in the state has issued subpoenas to a number of the former president’s attorneys and allies, including senator Lindsey Graham.
The special grand jury empaneled in Fulton county, where the capital and largest city Atlanta lies, issued the subpoenas today, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
In addition to Giuliani, among those being summoned are John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesbro and Jenna Ellis, all of whom advised Trump on strategies for overturning Democrat Joe Biden’s wins in Georgia and other swing states.
The grand jury also subpoenaed South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s top allies in the U.S. Senate, and attorney and podcast host Jacki Pick Deason.
The subpoenas, were filed July 5 and signed off by Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the special grand jury. Unlike subpoenas issued to Georgians, the summons were required to receive McBurney’s blessing since they are for people who reside outside the state.
Viewers of the January 6 committee’s hearings will remember Eastman, the lawyer who, according to testimony from witnesses before the lawmakers, worked with Trump on his plot to undermine the results of the 2020 election. Eastman is among those who asked Trump for a pardon before he left office.
Ramon Antonio Vargas
At the press conference, investigators said the suspect Robert E Crimo III, 21, had legally bought the rifle allegedly used in the shootings and recovered at the scene – a high-powered rifle styled after an AR-15 – along with at least one more, as well as some pistols.
The attack had evidently been planned for weeks, said Covelli, though investigators had not been tipped off to the social media videos posted by the suspect before the shooting.
Authorities have still not said what charges Crimo faces, though another press conference is scheduled for later today.
All six people killed were adults, Covelli said, and more than 30 others went to hospitals with bullet wounds.
Covelli said there is no indication targets were picked out based on race, religion or any other federally protected status.
Suspect pre-planned Highland Park attack and wore ‘women’s clothing’ – police
Chris Michael
The suspect in the 4 July shootings in Highland Park pre-planned the attack for several weeks, according to officials, and wore “women’s clothing” in what investigators said they believed was an effort to conceal his identity.
According to Chris Covelli, the leader of a police taskforce investigating major crimes in the Illinois county that includes Highland Park, local officers recognized the suspect in surveillance footage they reviewed after the shooting, which helped them track him down. The suspect has prominent facial tattoos.
The day so far
Details continue to emerge about the mass shooting in a Chicago suburb yesterday, while two new polls paint a grim picture of Americans’ views of President Joe Biden, his handling of the economy, and the country’s institutions in general.
Here’s a rundown of what’s happened so far today:
- A Chicago Sun-Times journalist wrote a harrowing account of the mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, that killed six during an Independence Day parade.
- Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to four army veterans who fought in Vietnam.
- The head of Planned Parenthood talked to the Guardian about how the group will continue working to help women get abortions.
- Inflation and the overall cost of living remains Americans’ top concern, according to a poll released today that casts doubt on Democrats’ hopes that concerns about abortion and gun access will reverse Biden’s poor approval ratings.
- But if Biden is unpopular, he’s not alone. Americans’ confidence in almost all of their institutions has declined compared with last year, according to a different poll.
High inflation is just one reason why economists are worrying that the United States is poised to enter a recession.
But if the economy does contract, The Wall Street Journal reports that it may not look like more recent downturns such as at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic or the global financial crisis. One key difference is that waves of layoffs that accompanied those downturns may not occur.
From their article exploring the “very strange” situation the world’s largest economy finds itself in:
Today, something highly unusual is happening. Economic output fell in the first quarter and signs suggest it did so again in the second. Yet the job market showed little sign of faltering during the first half of the year. The jobless rate fell from 4% last December to 3.6% in May.
It is the latest strange twist in the odd trajectory of the pandemic economy, and a riddle for those contemplating a recession. If the U.S. is in or near one, it doesn’t yet look like any other on record.
Analysts sometimes talked about “jobless recoveries” after past recessions, in which economic output rose but employers kept shedding workers. The first half of 2022 was the mirror image—a “jobful” downturn, in which output fell and companies kept hiring. Whether it will spiral into a fuller and deeper recession isn’t known, though a growing number of economists believe it will.
Some companies, especially in the tech sector, have given indications that they’re pulling back on hiring, though across the broad economy the job market has rarely looked stronger.
Also unpopular with Americans: the country’s institutions.
Gallup has today released a poll showing a decline in confidence for most of the 16 institutions they track, in particular the supreme court and the presidency.
In the yearly survey, confidence in the supreme court dropped 11 percentage points from 2021 to 25 percent, while the presidency suffered a 15 point decline to 23 percent. The least popular institution was Congress, in which only seven percent of respondent had confidence, down five points from last year. Just above them was television news, in which only 11 percent of Americans had confidence.
Small businesses were the most popular institution of those surveyed, with 68 percent confidence, a decline of only two percentage points from last year. The military was up next with 64 percent confidence, followed by the police, with 45 percent confidence.
Biden still unpopular, inflation still Americans’ top concern in new poll
A new poll from Monmouth University has found that President Joe Biden remains unpopular, but for Democrats, that’s not its most troubling finding. The Biden administration has hoped that the supreme court’s recent rulings curtailing abortion access and expanding concealed weapons possession would fire up Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, but the poll instead shows that voters’ biggest issue remains the nation’s high rate of inflation – a trend that Biden has had little success in reversing.
First the bad news about Biden’s approval rating, which Monmouth reports actually worsened last month:
Now for what voters care most about. In response to the question “what is the biggest concern facing your family right now?,” 33 percent of the 978 adults surveyed said inflation, 15 percent gas prices, nine percent said the economy and six percent said everyday bills and groceries. Abortion and reproductive rights was the top concern for only five percent of respondents, while guns and gun ownership was cited by a mere three percent.
The poll was conducted from June 23 to 27, while the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade came out on June 24.
President Biden is today awarding the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, to four Army veterans who fought in the Vietnam War.
Staff Sergeant Edward N. Kaneshiro, Specialist Five Dwight W. Birdwell, Specialist Five Dennis M. Fujii and Major John J. Duffy are set to receive the award in a White House ceremony beginning at 11:15 am eastern time.
Kaneshiro perished in 1967 in Vietnam, but Birdwell, Fujii and Duffy are still alive and presumably will attend. The White House has a rundown of the actions they are being awarded for.
You can watch the ceremony live here.
“You know why I’m writing this.”
So begins a first-hand account of yesterday’s mass shooting by Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau chief of the Chicago Sun-Times, who was there when a gunman opened fire from a rooftop and killed six.
She continues:
I saw, frozen in time, what people left when they fled. So many baby carriages. Folding chairs. Backpacks. Water bottles. Towels. Blankets. Police were asking people to leave the active shooting scene.
As I approached Port Clinton Square, by the reviewing stand, I saw a woman down. I don’t know if she was dead or alive. Two people were leaning over her. I saw another woman on the ground.
Then, near a bench in the square, I came upon a pool of blood, ruby red blood. There was so much blood, that the blood puddle was lumpy because so much already coagulated. The shape of the blood — was this a twisted Rorschach test? — looked like a handgun to me.
I’m going into this gruesome detail because this is what gun violence from a rapid-fire weapon with an apparent high capacity magazine looks like. My sister, Neesa, on Central near the railroad tracks, heard two sequences of rapid fire. The pause is likely when the shooter switched out magazines.
Stephanie Kirchgaessner
When it comes to his relationship with Saudi Arabia, oil production and jailed relatives aren’t the only issues Biden has to deal with. The Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports that his administration is facing a deadline to give its opinion in a lawsuit brought against Riyadh by the fiancee of a murdered journalist:
A US judge has asked the Biden administration to weigh in on whether Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, should be granted sovereign immunity in a civil case brought against him in the US by Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was killed by Saudi agents in 2018.
John Bates, a district court judge, gave the US government until 1 August to declare its interests in the civil case or give the court notice that it has no view on the matter.
The administration’s decision could have a profound effect on the civil case and comes as Joe Biden is facing criticism for abandoning a campaign promise to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah”.
Stephanie Kirchgaessner
President Biden will next week go to the Middle East, including a controversial stop in Saudi Arabia, which is seen as an attempt to reset relations with a top oil producer. Ahead of the trip, Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports that families of Americans detained in the country are worried the White House is ignoring their plight:
Family members of several US nationals who are being held in Saudi Arabia and Egypt were not invited to attend a recent call with Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, in a move that was called “infuriating and discriminatory” by one critic.
The apparent decision to exclude the families from a June 22 call between Blinken and relatives of US nationals who are hostages or otherwise wrongfully detained in Russia, Venezuela, Rwanda, and other countries, was made just weeks before Joe Biden’s controversial trip to the Middle East and an expected rapprochement between the US president and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince.
Biden is due to visit Israel and Saudi Arabia later this month as part of a summit where oil production is likely to be high on the agenda, as well as a focus on improved relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Edward Helmore
The January 6 committee won’t be holding any hearings this week because the House of Representatives is in recess, but Edward Helmore reports that one of its top lawmakers says the committee is gathering more and more evidence about what happened that day – especially since the testimony of an aide to Donald Trump’s chief of staff:
Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger has said that bombshell testimony given by Cassidy Hutchinson to the January 6 hearings last week has inspired more witnesses to come forward and the committee is getting more new evidence by the day.
The panel is investigating the events surrounding the 2021 attack on the US Capitol by a mob of Donald Trump supporters. Kinzinger is one of two Republicans serving on the panel which has publicized explosive testimony about the insurrection and an apparent plot to subvert the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won.
Last week Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, gave sworn testimony that painted the former president as a violent and unstable figure desperately seeking to cling to power.
Jessica Glenza
Americans are continuing to grapple with the supreme court’s ruling last month allowing states to ban abortion – including the founder of the country’s largest provider of the procedure. Jessica Glenza spoke to Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, about how the group plans to help women continue accessing abortions:
In the time after the US supreme court rescinded the constitutional right to abortion in America and thereby allowed nearly a dozen states to outlaw the procedure, the president and CEO of the US’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has worked feverishly with three goals in mind.
Alexis McGill Johnson wants to get women where they need to be to access abortion, whether that means helping patients cross state lines or flying doctors to states where abortion remains legal.
Then, she wants to win in state courts. Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have filed 11 lawsuits seeking to delay abortion bans or, perhaps optimistically, strike them down entirely.
“What we can see, essentially, is just a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion and a lot of concern for patients on the ground being able to get the care they need,” McGill Johnson told The Guardian. “What we’ve also seen is a significant amount of rage.”
That will power her third goal – to win at the ballot box.
“Our work right now is to maximize the care that we can in the states that we can, and also take this moment as an opportunity to maximize mobilization.”
Yesterday’s shooting in a Chicago suburb has already spurred calls for more action to tackle gun violence, The Guardian’s Erum Salam and Coral Murphy Marcos report:
The shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park that left at least six dead and 24 wounded has rocked the small, well-off community in suburban Chicago, and shocked the US as a whole.
It is the latest in a slew of mass killings that have recently included a shooting at a school in Texas and the racist massacre of Black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
But this latest mass murder has struck a particularly symbolic note as the shooter targeted a flag-waving parade celebrating the country’s national day and – once again – forced Americans to wrestle with how and why their nation is so often struck by such bloody attacks.
Highland Park’s mayor, Nancy Rotering, said: “This morning at 10.14, our community was terrorized by an act of violence that has shaken us to our core. Our hearts go out to the victims at this devastating time. On a day that we came together to celebrate community and freedom, we are instead mourning the tragic loss of life and struggling with the terror that was brought upon us.”
Less than two weeks ago, Democrats and Republicans managed to bridge the yawning gap between them on the issue of gun control to pass a measure that tightened down domestic abusers’ access to weapons, and allocated money towards mental health programs and schools.
The bill’s catalysts were the mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York and, 10 days later, an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. While it was the most significant piece of legislation targeting gun violence in decades, it won the support of only a minority of Republicans, and Democrats acknowledged they would have passed much stronger legislation, if they had the votes.
The law was only days old when the latest high-profile mass shooting, at an Independence Day celebration in Highland Park, Illinois, occurred. Congress is in recess this week, and many lawmakers are back in their districts, where they may face calls to do more to stop the massacres – or to ensure continued access to guns.
Gun violence rattles America again, this time during Independence Day celebrations
Good morning US politics live blog readers. The ink has only just dried on compromise legislation Congress passed last month to curb mass shootings across the country, but on Monday, violence interrupted Americans’ celebrations of the United States’ 246th birthday. A gunman killed six people in a Chicago suburb, while crowds fled an Independence Day celebration in Philadelphia after another shooting injured two police officers.
Here’s what else is happening today: