memeorandum: Yellen, Biden's not-so-secret weapon, sees clout diminished (Politico)

8:50 AM ET, May 26, 2022

Top Items:

Weakened gun laws put Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on the defensive — Amid a spate of mass shootings in recent years, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) responded by focusing on promoting mental health services and convening a task force that produced a 40-point plan centered on “hardening” school campuses and identifying threats.

Discussion: Vox, Mediaite, DCReport.org, NPR, Common Dreams and The Hill

NBC News:

Black, Asian and Latino communities all faced mass shootings in 2 weeks. How they're showing support. — The nation was still reeling from a deadly shooting blamed on an alleged white supremacist in Buffalo, New York, an anti-Asian shooting in Dallas' Koreatown neighborhood and slayings …

Henry Ramos / kens5.com:

'It's time to die' | Fourth-grader who survived Uvalde school shooting gives heartbreaking account of what gunman told students — The Robb Elementary student said he and several of his friends survived after hiding under a table with a tablecloth covering them.

Discussion: New York Post and BizPac Review

Bill Chappell / NPR:
Pope Francis and a cardinal say it's time for the U.S. to act on guns

Discussion: USA Today, Maryland Matters, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, PolitiFact, TIME, americamagazine.org, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Conservative Review

Ja'han Jones / MSNBC:
Texas Republicans offer the same old shameful responses to shootings

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, Politico, POLITICUSUSA and Insider

Houston Chronicle:
Beto O'Rourke confronts Abbott during news conference on Uvalde mass shooting: ‘This is on you’

James Barragán / The Texas Tribune:
Gov. Greg Abbott won't say whether he plans to attend NRA convention in Houston on Friday

Discussion: Fox News, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, CBS News, Bloomberg, Off the Kuff, Politico, Washington Times, CNBC, Talking Points Memo, The Texas Tribune, Vanity Fair, NPR, Political Wire and MySanAntonio.com

Patrick Svitek / The Texas Tribune:
Hours after Uvalde school shooting, Gov. Greg Abbott attended a fundraiser 300 miles away

Discussion: HuffPost, The Hill, Raw Story, CNBC, Buttermilk Sky, Insider, Political Wire, The Texas Observer, Mother Jones, Mediaite, The Daily Caller and Dallas Morning News

Bob Egelko / San Francisco Chronicle:
Just after Texas shooting, California Senate passes Texas-style bill targeting assault weapons, ghost guns

Discussion: The Daily Wire, Breitbart, Snopes.com, POLITICUSUSA and Raw Story

CNBC:
Elon Musk backs ‘tight’ background checks for all gun sales in wake of mass shooting in Texas

Discussion: USA Today, Protocol, Raw Story, Mediaite, The Hill, Insider, The Daily Caller, Louder With Crowder, Conservative Review, The Daily Wire, Washington Post and Forbes, more at Techmeme »

Timothy Bella / Washington Post:
After Texas shooting, Republicans face online anger over NRA money

Discussion: The Hill, Politico, Patterico's Pontifications, The Washington Current, The Hill, Fox News, IJR and Rolling Stone

Mike Hixenbaugh / NBC News:

A teacher in Uvalde, Texas, describes ‘the longest 35 minutes of my life’ — Her students were watching a Disney movie when the gunshots started. Then instinct and practice kicked in. — Americans react to the Robb Elementary school massacre — UVALDE, Texas — The teacher came …

Discussion: The Guardian, Insider, New York Post and HotAir

Tess Owen / VICE:

The Police Timeline of the Texas School Shooting Has a Lot of Holes — Texas law enforcement officials are being strangely opaque about what actually happened during the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. — TO — Texas officials are clapping themselves on the back for what they've described …

Discussion: New York Post, Fox News, Politico, al.com and National Review

NBC News:

Abbott calls Texas school shooting a mental health issue but cut state spending for it — Texas Gov. Abbott: Government must ‘do a better job’ to address mental health — UVALDE, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that the Uvalde school shooter had a “mental health challenge” …

Discussion: Against the Grain, Al Jazeera, Insider, The Sun, Apparently, HuffPost, Tangle and Jezebel

NBC News:

The Uvalde school district had an extensive safety plan. 19 children were killed anyway. — School officials in Uvalde, Texas, promised to do everything they could to protect students from a mass shooting. — Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District had doubled its security budget in recent years …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Dispatch, The Sun, New York Post, Politico, CBS News and Fox News

NBC News:
Texas gunman left home after fight with mom about Wi-Fi, mother's boyfriend says

Discussion: Washington Post, Daily Mail, New York Times, The Intercept, Insider, HotAir and The Daily Wire

Gabrielle Fonrouge / New York Post:
Hero border agent from elite unit rushed into Texas school with no backup, killed Salvador Ramos: reports

Discussion: NBC News, Associated Press, The Gateway Pundit, Breitbart, Mediaite and HotAir

New York Times:

Where Senate Republicans Stand on Gun Legislation — The New York Times reached out on Wednesday to all 50 Republicans in the Senate to see whether they would support a pair of House-passed measures to strengthen background checks for gun buyers. Within hours of the elementary school shooting in Uvalde …

Discussion: Politico, CNN, The Hill, Erick Erickson's Confessions … and Common Dreams

Roxane Gay / New York Times:

The Uvalde Shooting Shows America's Deep Incivility — There is a cultural obsession nowadays with civility, with the idea that if everyone is mannered enough, any impasse or difference of opinion can be bridged. But these are desperately uncivil times. And there is nothing more uncivilized …

Discussion: The Guardian and NewsNation

New York Times:

In More Than 100 G.O.P. Midterm Ads This Year: Guns, Guns, Guns — In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey unpacked lipstick, an iPhone and something else from her purse in one campaign advertisement — “a little Smith & Wesson .38,” she said. A Republican candidate for governor in Georgia declared in a different spot …

Ryan Cooper / American Prospect:

The Senate Has Forfeited Its Right to Exist — Not even 19 butchered children can break through its idiotic traditions. — A policeman talks to people asking for information outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, May 24, 2022, after an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at the school, killing 21 people, 19 of them children.

Discussion: Slate, Townhall and NBC News

Ronald Brownstein / The Atlantic:
The Real Reason America Doesn't Have Gun Control

Nicholas Kristof / New York Times:
These Gun Reforms Could Save 15,000 Lives. We Can Achieve Them.

Discussion: Gideon's Substack

Steve Israel / The Hill:
The haunting reason Congress won't pass sensible gun laws

Discussion: The Message Box, The Atlantic, Kansas Reflector, No More Mister Nice Blog, Bloomberg and Insider

Politico:

‘Trump picked this fight’: Why heavyweight Republicans no longer fear Trump — They're weary of the incessant conflicts. The inability to get past the 2020 election results. An endorsement strategy seemingly driven by a bruised and restless ego, rather than the party's best interests.

Discussion: FOX News Radio and Raw Story

Washington Post:
Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams are in a rematch. A lot has changed since 2018.

Discussion: Politico, The Racket News, WTOP News, CNN, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, Wall Street Journal, The Root, New York Times, The Current and Bloomberg

Associated Press:
‘Trump is in the past’: Mounting losses show limits of power

Discussion: Raw Story and Breitbart

Zach Montellaro / Politico:
How Raffensperger went from Trump outcast to MAGA vanquisher

Discussion: Puck, Sabato's Crystal Ball, Washington Post and The Kitchen Pundit

Jeff Greenfield / Politico:
A Trump Repudiation? Look at the Big Picture.

Discussion: Bernard Goldberg's Commentary, Washington Post, USA Today, New York Times, Al Jazeera, The American Independent and Axios

New York Times:

Trump Said to Have Reacted Approvingly to Jan. 6 Chants About Hanging Pence — The House committee investigating the Capitol assault has heard accounts of the former president's remarks as he watched the riot unfold on television. — Give this article- - - Read in app

Politico:

Yellen, Biden's not-so-secret weapon, sees clout diminished — When Janet Yellen was tapped to join the Biden administration as Treasury secretary, she came with celebrity status — one of the world's preeminent economists and the first woman to have led the Federal Reserve.

Discussion: HotAir

Politico:

POLITICO Playbook: New poll shows huge support for gun restrictions — With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross — DRIVING THE DAY — In the first full day after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, we gained a much clearer picture of the victims and the scope of the loss — almost unbearable, radiating outward.

Discussion: Political Wire and Bloomberg

Sam Whiting / San Francisco Chronicle:

SFUSD drops the word ‘chief’ from job titles to avoid connotation with Native Americans — The word “chief” will no longer be used in reference to job titles in the San Francisco Unified School District in an effort, school officials said, to avoid the word's connotation with Native Americans.

San Francisco Chronicle: New data shows shift at Lowell High School: More students given failing grades after admissions change

Francisco E. Jimenez / MyRGV.com:

Source: Donna ISD shuts down campuses after AK-47 found amid credible mass shooting threat … Donna ISD will be shutting down all campuses Thursday and Friday after a credible threat was reported to police, according to a source familiar with the situation.

NBC News:

Trans woman's photo used to spread baseless online theory about Texas shooter — Sam, a transgender woman who lives in Georgia, said that on Tuesday evening, Reddit users started commenting on a photo of her that she had shared on the platform three months ago.

Discussion: PolitiFact, Trans Safety Network, Mashable, Mediaite, MEL Magazine, Lead Stories, Daily Kos and Media Matters for America

Timothy P. Carney / Washington Examiner:

Biden blames ‘gun lobby’ when his real enemy is culture — “When in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” asked an impassioned President Joe Biden Tuesday night after a horrific massacre at a Texas elementary school. — This has been the cry of gun controllers for decades …

Discussion: TIME, The White House, Insider and TheBlaze