memeorandum: U.S. Speeds Up Reshaping of Taiwan's Defenses to Deter China (New York Times)

6:30 AM ET, May 25, 2022

Top Items:

Live Updates: ‘We Have to Act,’ Biden Says After 21 Killed at Texas Elementary School — It was the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Conn. — 19 children and two adults are killed in a Texas elementary school shooting, the authorities say.

Discussion: Associated Press, Daily Mail, The Daily Beast, KEYE, KSAT-TV, Austin American-Statesman, CBS News, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, NPR, NBC News, CNN, National Review, New York Times, The White House, Mediaite, The Texas Tribune, The Forward, New York Post, YouTube, Reuters, CNN, The Wrap, Fox 59, Politico, Greensburg Tribune-Review, Associated Press, Metro.co.uk, Wall Street Journal, Insider, Bloomberg, Breaking911, KRON4, ABC News, New York Magazine, The Atlantic, Reason, The San Francisco Standard, Breitbart, The Future, Now and Then, My Journey to Judaism, Boston.com, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, Associated Press, PolitiFact, Florida Phoenix, New York Post, The Daily Wire, Otago Daily Times Online News, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, Mediaite, Boston.com, The Daily Caller, ASBA Government Relations, The Daily Dot, KRON4, Washington Examiner, New Jersey Online, Deadline, WTOP News, The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit, East Bay Times, CNBC, Mother Jones, Politico, The Daily Beast, Political Wire, Sports Illustrated, KNWA FOX24, Lawyers, Guns & Money, American Greatness, HuffPost, FOX40, Fortune, Daily Kos, CBS Philly, Disaffected and it Feels …, The Gateway Pundit, Rolling Stone, Talking Points Memo, Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, The Hill, Patterico's Pontifications, No More Mister Nice Blog, Variety, Metro.co.uk, PennLive, Ace of Spades HQ, New York Post, USA Today, The Daily Caller, Slate, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, Twitchy, CBS News, El American, al.com, HotAir, Lawyers, Guns & Money, CBS News, Washington Free Beacon, WCCO | CBS Minnesota, CBS Denver, The Irish Sun, NBC 6 South Florida and Vanity Fair

ABC13:

Death toll in Texas elementary school shooting rises; 19 children, 2 adults killed by shooter — The suspect was identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a student at Uvalde High School — Death toll rises to 22, mostly children, in TX school shooting — UVALDE, Texas …

Discussion: San Antonio Express-News, Kyodo News+, abc7NY, ABC7, Josh off The Press, The Wrap, Shore News Network, The Sun, Rolling Stone, Breitbart, NBC Chicago and NewsNation

Washington Post:

Biden urges end to ‘carnage’ of gun violence after 19 children killed at Texas school … President Biden on Tuesday evening urged Congress to end the “carnage” of gun violence after more than a dozen elementary schoolchildren were killed by an 18-year-old in Texas.

Discussion: Rolling Stone

Claire Goforth / The Daily Dot:

EXCLUSIVE: 'That's the picture of him buying a gun': Uvalde mass shooting suspect bought an AR-15 online last week — The Uvalde, Texas mass shooter frequently posted about guns and purchased a rifle online days ago. — Authorities say that 18 children and one teacher were killed …

Discussion: The Daily Beast, The Texas Tribune, The Professional Ignoramus, BreezyScroll and MEL Magazine

NBC News:

19 children, 2 teachers killed in Texas elementary school shooting — ‘Why do we keep letting this happen?’: Biden speaks after Texas school shooting — UVALDE, Texas — At least 19 children and two teachers were killed Tuesday when a gunman opened fire in a Texas elementary school …

Discussion: CNN, KSAT-TV, Breitbart, Al Jazeera, The Mahablog, Mediaite, Conservative Review, RedState, CBS News, The Gateway Pundit, TheBlaze and Blue Virginia

St. John Barned-Smith / Houston Chronicle:

Uvalde school shooting: Teen gunman bought AR-15 style rifle day after he turned 18 — Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate — The gunman who authorities say killed 21 people in a South Texas community - 19 of them elementary school students - legally purchased two rifles …

Discussion: Breitbart

Dareh Gregorian / NBC News:

‘Spare me the bullshit’: Sen. Chris Murphy rips GOP colleagues after Texas shooting — Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., took to the Senate floor after Tuesday's deadly school shooting in Texas and pleaded with his Republican colleagues to take action against gun violence, saying what happened wasn't “inevitable.”

Discussion: New York Post, Insider, ABC News, Raw Story, USA Today, The Hill and The Daily Wire

Cami Mondeaux / Washington Examiner:
Texas AG facing runoff says banning guns for public safety ‘ridiculous’ after school shooting

Discussion: HuffPost, Mother Jones, Politico, National Review and Mediaite

Alex Isenstadt / Politico:

'We're going to go f—ing scorched-earth': How Brian Kemp crushed Trump in Georgia — When Brian Kemp's top donors huddled with the Georgia governor and his lieutenants at Atlanta's Capital City Club earlier this year, they had reason to worry that his political career was about to come to an end.

Discussion: Associated Press, Rolling Stone, The Hill, Georgia Recorder, Boston.com, Washington Examiner, New York Post, Breitbart, Bloomberg, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Shore News Network

Washington Post:

Donald Trump recalibrates his standing in GOP after primary setbacks — The former president is seeking out information on potential 2024 rivals after a series of defeats for his chosen candidates have raised questions about his continued dominance of the Republican Party.

Discussion: The Dispatch, CNN, New York Times, Shore News Network and Associated Press

Washington Post:

Katie Britt, Rep. Mo Brooks headed to a runoff in Alabama GOP Senate primary … Welcome to special coverage of the Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas primaries and runoffs in Texas from Post Politics Now. — Today, Katie Britt and Rep. Mo Brooks are headed to a runoff in Alabama's GOP Senate primary, the Associated Press said.

Stephen Fowler / Georgia Public Broadcasting:
Raffensperger declares victory over election denialism in Georgia GOP Secretary of State's race

Discussion: The Guardian, Mediaite, New York Magazine, The Daily Beast, Politico, Bloomberg, Associated Press, NPR, HuffPost, The Hill, Shore News Network, WTOP News, Election Law Blog, CNN, Washington Post, Peach State Politics … and Insider

Politico:
Kemp notches huge primary win in Georgia as Cuellar tries to hang on in Texas

Discussion: New York Times, The Guardian, East Bay Times, Washington Examiner, CNN, Bloomberg and CNBC

Adam Edelman / NBC News:
Brad Raffensperger, targeted by Trump, wins Ga. GOP primary for secretary of state

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Brookings, National Review and Los Angeles Times

David French / The French Press:

Pass and Enforce Red Flag Laws. Now. — We know they can save lives. — I was intending to write about the Georgia Republican primary, but then—just as I was walking back to my hotel—I saw the horrific news out of Uvalde, Texas. Another school shooting. Another elementary school.

David Frum / The Atlantic:

America's Hands Are Full of Blood — Thoughts and prayers. It began as a cliché. It became a joke. It has putrefied into a national shame. — If tonight, Americans do turn heavenward in pain and grief for the lost children of Uvalde, Texas, they may hear the answer delivered in the Bible through the words of Isaiah:

Discussion: ABC13

Ryan Busse / The Bulwark: Even the Gun Industry Knew We Would End Up Here

Zeeshan Aleem / MSNBC:

Why conspiracy theorist extraordinaire Marjorie Taylor Greene just easily won her primary — ‘Shocked!’: Black Georgians on being represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene — According to NBC News projections, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has won the Republican primary in Georgia's 14th …

Discussion: New York Post, RedState, East Bay Times, Raw Story, National Review, Washington Examiner and WTOP News

Jonathan Weisman / New York Times:
Marjorie Taylor Greene wins her primary, dashing establishment G.O.P. hopes.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Associated Press and Insider

CNN:

‘They were shooting directly at the journalists’: New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces — This story contains a disturbing image. — (CNN)Several shots ring out in quick succession, cutting through a clear, blue spring morning in Jenin, in the West Bank.

Discussion: Associated Press, Al Jazeera, The Great Awakening, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Mediaite and The Times of Israel, more at Mediagazer »

New York Times:

U.S. Speeds Up Reshaping of Taiwan's Defenses to Deter China — WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has accelerated its efforts to reshape Taiwan's defense systems as it projects a more robust American military presence in the region to try to deter a potential attack by the Chinese military, current and former U.S. officials say.

Discussion: Bloomberg, The Daily Caller, nationalinterest.org, ragnar_forseti's newsletter, CDR Salamander and РИА …

Steve Inskeep / NPR:
Ukraine's stand is a model for fighting a Chinese attack, Taiwan's top diplomat says

Discussion: HotAir

Jared Yates Sexton / Dispatches From A …:

This is Going to Get Really Ugly, Really Soon — Tucker Carlson and the Right have created imaginary rivals in order to legitimize their antidemocratic actions — To watch Tucker Carlson Tonight is to punish yourself. Tucker Carlson's act is obnoxiously acidic. The sneering cruelty.

Discussion: Mediaite

Alex Seitz-Wald / NBC News:

Crypto billionaire says he could spend a record-breaking $1 billion in 2024 election — Democratic cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried says he expects to spend “north of $100 million” in 2024, with “soft ceiling” of $1 billion — WASHINGTON —Democratic billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried …

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

Senate heads for gun control reckoning after Texas school shooting — Senate Democrats say a major floor debate on gun control is inevitable after a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, left at least 19 children and two adults dead, only 10 days after another massacre killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo.

Discussion: CNN

Techno Fog / The Reactionary:

How FBI HQ hamstrung the Alfa Bank investigation — The latest from the Michael Sussmann Trial — Today in the Michael Sussmann trial, we received additional information regarding the FBI leadership's involvement in the opening - and execution - of the Alfa Bank/Trump investigation.

Alex Pareene / The AP (Alex Pareene) Newsletter:

The Unanswered Question — If an entire generation thinks the system is broken, might that be a “you” problem? — Believers in American institutions, and the people who control those institutions, should know that they are forging a generation of Americans with no faith in them.

The Guardian:

'I'm never going back': the high-profile Russian defectors rejecting war — Gazprombank's Igor Volobuyev and diplomat Boris Bondarev are among the Russian elite to oppose Putin's invasion of Ukraine — gor Volobuyev spent two decades working in the heart of the Russian business establishment …

Michael Luciano / Mediaite:

'It's Pathetic!' Irate Steve Kerr BLASTS Mitch McConnell and Senate GOP on Opposition to Gun Background Checks — Steve Kerr reacted forcefully to Tuesday's shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which resulted in the deaths of 18 children and three adults.

Discussion: ABC13, Daily Kos, al.com and New York Post

Voice of America:

Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Campaigners See No Misuse of Western Military Aid — Prominent Ukrainian anti-corruption campaigners say they have seen no signs that their armed forces are misusing Western military supplies in the three months since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine …

Discussion: The Liberal Patriot

BBC:

North Korea fires missiles hours after Biden leaves Asia — North Korea has fired three ballistic missiles early Wednesday morning, South Korea's military has said. — Authorities in Seoul said the missiles were fired in the space of less than an hour from the Sunan area in Pyongyang.

Discussion: Metro.co.uk, Kyodo News+, CNSNews, Euractiv, Voice of America, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg

Kurt T. Lash / SSRN:

Roe and the Original Meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment — Abstract — The current debates over Roe v. Wade as a substantive due process right have prompted a number of scholars to investigate alternative sources for a constitutional right to abortion. One approach argues …

Discussion: New York Times, Balkinization and Reason

Matt Stieb / New York Magazine:

Republicans May Have Sabotaged Their Best Chance to Beat Gretchen Whitmer — The GOP's efforts to unseat Michigan's Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, ran into some trouble on Tuesday when the state's elections bureau determined that five of the ten Republican candidates had faked …

Discussion: Raw Story and TheBlaze

Amy B Wang / Washington Post:
5 GOP candidates in Michigan ineligible after fraud, election office says

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, CNN, Bridge Michigan, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller, Daily Kos and MLive.com

Jay Michaelson / Rolling Stone:

The Right-Wing Lie That's Killing Our Children — Republicans have twisted the 2nd Amendment to suit their extremist purposes, blocking sensible checks on gun ownership and enabling the unceasing procession of mass shootings — In 2014, after a mass shooting in California …

Discussion: Letters from an American