Speaking to reporters outside the White House after returning to Washington from a weekend that included a visit to the site of last week’s mass shooting in Texas, Biden recounted a visit to a trauma hospital in New York, where he said doctors had showed him X-rays of gunshot wounds caused by various firearms.

“They said a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life,” Biden said. “A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.

“So the idea of these high-caliber weapons is, uh, there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of thinking about self-protection, hunting,” the president went on.

Later in his remarks, Biden appeared to rule out the possibility of taking major executive action on guns, saying: “I can’t dictate this stuff. I can do the things I’ve done and any executive action I can take, I’ll continue to take. But I can’t outlaw a weapon. I can’t, you know, change the background checks. I can’t do that.”

Biden’s statements about 9mm pistols are in keeping with his rhetoric before entering the White House. At a 2019 fundraiser in Seattle, for example, then-candidate Biden asked his audience: “Why should we allow people to have military-style weapons including pistols with 9mm bullets and can hold 10 or more rounds?”

According to Shooting Industry magazine, 9mm pistols accounted for 56.8% of all handguns made in the US during 2019. In all, more than 15.1 million 9mm guns were produced in this country during the 2010s. The possibility of outlawing or otherwise regulating such weapons is likely to be a non-starter among conservatives and gun rights advocates.

“Remember, the Constitution, the Second Amendment, was never absolute,” Biden said. “You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed. You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weapons.”

Biden has made that claim before, most recently when he announced new regulations to stop the spread of so-called “ghost guns,” and they have been repeatedly declared false by fact-checkers.

“The Second Amendment did not place limits on individual ownership of cannons,” PolitiFact stated in April when it rated his claim false.

The website pointed out the text of the Constitution: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”​

Despite widespread public outrage over Tuesday’s massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the racially motivated May 14 mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, Biden said he had not yet spoken with any Republicans about potential gun control legislation, but expressed hope for a compromise.

“I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it,” he said. “At least, that’s my hope and prayer.”

Asked whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) authorizing Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to work with Democrats could lead to results, Biden said, “I don’t know.”

“I think Senator McConnell is a rational Republican. I think Cornyn is as well,” he added. “I think there’s a recognition in their part that they — we can’t continue like this. We can’t do this.”

Without Republican support, Democrats are powerless to pass any gun legislation in the 50-50 Senate unless they manage to temporarily set aside the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold for passing most bills.

Biden’s comments came less than 48 hours after Vice President Kamala Harris called for an assault weapons ban after attending a funeral for Buffalo shooting victim Ruth Whitfield, 86.

“You know what an assault weapon is? You know how an assault weapon was designed?” Harris said Saturday. “It was designed for a specific purpose — to kill a lot of human beings quickly. An assault weapon is a weapon of war with no place, no place in a civil society.”

Source: https://nypost.com/2022/05/30/biden-goes-on-anti-gun-tirade-suggests-theres-no-rational-basis-for-9mm-pistols/

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President Biden will address the nation on mass shootings and his push for gun control legislation, the White House announced Thursday.

Biden’s Thursday evening address will focus “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,” according to the White House.

Biden’s address comes as Congress is debating the Protect Our Kids Act, an expansive piece of gun control legislation that Democrats argue is common sense, while Republicans say it is unconstitutional.

The renewed push for gun control legislation comes after a pair of mass shootings killed 31 people in recent weeks. Ten Americans were killed in a racially-motivated mass shooting in New York in early April, and 19 children and two teachers were killed at an Uvlade, Texas, elementary school last week.

Biden is expected to appeal to Republicans during his address. He has discounted some Republicans as unreasonable on the issue, however. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is among the “reasonable ones,” Biden said.

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“As a nation, we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name, will we do what we know in our gut what needs to be done?” Biden said last week.

“We have to act. Don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage,” he added.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-primetime-address-mass-shootings-gun-control

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European member-states made some progress by increasing natural gas import capacity and improving regional integration, including the Ukraine-Poland interconnector that could reinforce Ukrainian energy security. However, one nation stood at odds with this progress. Despite previous public commitments, Germany retrenched and instead stood by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline.

We implored Germany to develop natural gas import terminals, which it continued to promise but didn’t progress, and to retain its nuclear power plants until viable alternatives were identified. Unfortunately, we left Munich unconvinced that Germany could whither Russian lobbying efforts, that the EU could make realistic energy security decisions or that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries would raise the priority of energy security within the alliance. We also traveled to the Balkans to in efforts to reduce Russian gas dependency in Serbia and to Greece, to support its new gas terminals which can supplant Turkstream- Russia’s southern Nord Stream 2.

A year later, President Biden’s reversal of bipartisan sanctions on Nord Stream 2, billed as a “return to normalcy,” returned the pipeline to center-stage. Despite this concession, Germany reaffirmed its reluctance to be a reliable NATO ally and has proffered only reactionary consequences should Russia invade. The reversal of sanctions appears to have only furthered Putin’s gambit to undermine Germany’s resolve.

Throughout this energy security crisis, Putin has also gambled that he can exploit political divisions as a multi-continent opportunity. He is likely pleased with the partisan deadlock in Washington over Nord Stream 2 and the fallout in Ukraine, and his ability to bend Germany to the point where Berlin at times looks closer to Moscow than Brussels or NATO.

Despite how we got here, the current Russia-Ukraine crisis should be an opportunity for political unity and bipartisan solutions in Washington. Historically, decisive U.S. action in Europe didn’t depend on multilateral consensus, but it did require a unified American polity. The same is true today.

The U.S must not only lead the transatlantic community in deterring Putin and returning Europe’s focus to energy security but also provide an enduring solution worthy of the special relationship bridging the Atlantic. What has changed is that now the U.S. is not only a military superpower that underpins NATO, but an energy superpower that can underpin future energy security. Americans should all agree that this is essential to U.S. interests in Europe, regardless of our political preferences.

Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should engage in good-faith discussions to outline a path for the United States and other large gas-producing nations to deliver the energy independence from Russia that Europe desperately needs. This would demonstrate to Putin that he cannot exploit American political division and that the U.S. remains Europe’s most reliable partner on security and economic cooperation.

The Biden administration’s discussions with global leaders in natural gas production are a good first step but will have to contend with market fundamentals and limited spare capacity. These discussions can no longer be in the background but a declarative statement that the U.S. will leverage its leadership and energy dominance to forestall Russia’s grip on Germany.

But Germany must respond in kind and accept American conditions for such a solution to be more than ephemeral. In exchange for leading diplomatic efforts to once again rescue Germany, the U.S. should demand that Germany immediately deploy a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal capable of receiving volumes in the near-term, while also resuming plans for a large-scale terminal, oppose nuclear power deals by Russia and China throughout Europe, support natural gas project financing, as well as terminate Nord Stream 2. These actions shouldn’t be controversial or partisan because they are objectively necessary for European and German energy security.

America’s industrial and military power was once decisive and essential for the Allies in WWII. Now, it is the time for America to utilize its newfound energy leadership to rescue Europe from Putin’s suffocating grip, and Germany from itself. Nothing would alarm Putin more than unexpected bipartisan action.

After offering the U.S. solution, the president must relentlessly engage on several critical European security questions. How can the West restore NATO consensus around Russia’s territorial expansion and regional energy security? How can the U.S. better partner with the EU and Germany to insist on real-world energy solutions, even when consensus among European capitals yields sub-optimal outcomes? A necessity of modern life, energy security shouldn’t be a zero-sum game that our adversaries in Beijing and Moscow seek to exploit.

Samuel Buchan is an energy and foreign policy strategist who served on the National Economic Council and as senior adviser to the secretary of Energy.

Matthew Zais served on the National Security Council and as principal deputy assistant secretary for international affairs in the Department of Energy and is now a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Source: https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/594182-american-unity-is-key-to-a-europe-whole-and-free

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed Democrats in a floor speech Wednesday for using the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to justify proposed filibuster reform to pass election legislation.

“It is surreal to hear sitting senators invoke Jan. 6 to justify breaking the rules to grab outcomes they have not earned,” said McConnell, R-Ky. “It is jaw-dropping for colleagues to propose to commemorate that by breaking the Senate themselves.”

SCHUMER TARGETS FILIBUSTER REFORM TO PASS VOTING RIGHTS LEGISLATION

McConnell’s condemnation comes one day after he accused Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of trying “to break the Senate” by gutting the filibuster.

In a Monday letter to his Democratic colleagues, Schumer said the upper chamber would debate rule changes in an attempt to carve a path for voting reform legislation.

Schumer said the move was necessary to circumvent situations like the Jan. 6 attack that could jeopardize the legitimacy of the current democratic process.

“We must adapt,” he wrote. “The Senate was designed to evolve and has evolved many times in our history.”

But McConnell, who told Politico Wednesday that he may support making changes to the 1887 Electoral Count Act, has taken issue with making any sweeping changes to Senate rules or broader election reform.

SCHUMER TO USE JAN. 6 ANNIVERSARY TO MAKE PUSH FOR FEDERAL VOTING RIGHTS BILL

“No party that would trash the Senate’s legislation traditions can be trusted to seize control over election laws all across America,” McConnell said Wednesday from the Senate floor. “Nobody who is this desperate to take over our democracy on a one-party basis can be allowed to do it.”

“Finally, it is beyond distasteful for some of our colleagues to ham-fistedly invoke the Jan. 6 anniversary to advance these aims,” he said.

McConnell has faced criticism for his stark condemnation of filibuster reform after he amended the rule during Donald Trump’s presidency in order to confirm Supreme Court nominees by a simple majority – securing the former president three justices to the high court.

But despite the majority leader’s recent push to amend the filibuster, he continues to face an uphill battle from within his own party.

Moderate Democrat Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have repeatedly said they do not support filibuster reform.

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This means Democrats will still need to secure 60 votes in favor of voting reform in order to pass legislation – a tough feat in a 50-50 split Senate.

Schumer has said the upper chamber will consider rule changes on or before Jan. 17 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day – in an attempt to push through voting rights legislation by simple majority and bypass the 60-vote margin needed to avoid threat of filibuster.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcconnell-slams-senate-democrats-for-invoking-jan-6-to-push-filibuster-changes-surreal

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The House and Senate on Thursday passed a short-term funding bill that staved off a government shutdown and ensured funding to resettle thousands of Afghan refugees.

In a 65 to 35 vote the Senate approved funding that would provide $6.3 billion for Afghan resettlement, along with ensuring the federal government remains operational through Dec.  3.

“This is a good outcome — one I am happy we are getting done,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said from the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “With so many things happening in Washington, the last thing the American people need is for the government to grind to a halt.”

HOUSE ALIGNS WITH SENATE AND VOTES TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN WITH SHORT-TERM FUNDING BILL

The House voted 254-175, and President Biden signed the bill Thursday evening.

The administration has said it expects upwards of 95,000 refugees to be brought to the U.S. over the next year, following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

The funds will be designated for housing evacuees at facilities, screening, and resettlement.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that “Overall, this is encouraging progress,” though both the McConnell and Schumer noted ticket items they would have liked to see included in the legislation.

But some Republicans are frustrated over language included in the bill at the request of the White House.

If an Afghan refugee enters the U.S. between July 2021 and the end of September 2022, they will be permitted to apply for a green card after residing in the U.S. for one year through an expedited process.

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Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton accused President Biden of trying “to award unlimited green cards to people who didn’t serve alongside our troops and who may even threaten our safety and health — all while exempting them from the normal refugee screening process.”

Cotton introduced legislation that would have cut aid from resources like housing and medical benefits for Afghan refugees admitted into the U.S. after March 31, 2023, first reported The New York Times. But a tied vote on the senator’s amendment struck down the proposed changes.

The bill now heads to President Biden’s desk ahead of a federal funding lapse, which would occur at midnight.

Fox Business’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/government-short-term-funding-bill-includes-billions-afghan-resettlement-funds

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Things seemed fine in Washington for about five minutes Thursday, when President Biden and a coalition of bipartisan senators announced a pact on an infrastructure plan.

“No one got everything they wanted in this package,” said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., in the White House driveway. “We gave some to get some.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, echoed Sinema.

“We’ve agreed on the price tag, the scope, and how to pay for it,” said Collins. “It was not easy to get agreement on all three.”

But this accord is fragile. There is no bill text yet. There is a broad set of principles and pay-fors. Some outside groups are already questioning whether the calculus adds up. We probably won’t start to see formal legislative text until early July.

But the sides are trying to make this work.

And it did for about five minutes.

President Biden briefly huddled with the senators at the White House midday Thursday. It was clear that the audience with the president wasn’t another set of negotiations or even a meeting to clarify the proposal or run through particulars.

This was about a photo-op. An important photo-op when it comes to actually legislating.

Mr. Biden made a point of making a rare appearance in the White House driveway with bipartisan senators clustering around him. The president wanted to show that he was all-in with their deal.

This was not a sound byte. This was a “sight bite.” A sight bite is more powerful. And Mr. Biden was sending a message to Democrats and Republicans by visually showing he supported this plan.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said this week he expected to dual-track the bipartisan plan, and, a partisan, expensive, $6 trillion plan which Democrats may pass on their own in July. Democrats could do this alone via the special budget reconciliation process which sidesteps filibusters.

BIDEN, BIPARTISAN SENATORS REACH DEAL ON $953B INFRASTRUCTURE COMPROMISE

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., indicated she wouldn’t budge until the Senate sent over the reconciliation plan — the measure Democrats will likely prefer.

“I use the word ‘ain’t,’” said Pelosi. “There ain’t going to be an infrastructure bill unless we have the reconciliation bill passed by the United States Senate.”

The enterprise of trying to advance things through the Senate will likely consume more time than you expect. Astrophysicists often describe how black holes warp time in outer space. The same is true on Capitol Hill. If they say it will take a month, expect six weeks. That’s just kind of how the congressional time arrow bends.

So this may bleed well into August. That said, there is talk about the House advancing this bill in July. But frankly, if the House is going to wait on the Senate, the House may not really crank on anything until August. This is all contingent on how expeditiously the Senate advances the plans.

President Biden said he expected to get these bills “this summer” adding, before “the fiscal year is over.” So, that’s Sept. 30.

Mr. Biden also indicated the two bills must be “in tandem.” He said he wouldn’t sign anything “if only one comes to me.”

That could prove to be his most critical statement in this entire gambit. Watch to see if the president sticks to that comment or reverses if Democrats are on the precipice of passing some form of infrastructure legislation — and nothing else is in reach.

WHAT’S IN THE BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE DEAL REACHED BY BIDEN, SENATORS?

I am often asked by colleagues to predict when the House or Senate will vote on a certain bill. When a committee will prepare a piece of legislation. How a given lawmaker will vote.

I rely on the same refrain. My crystal ball is broken. It’s in the shop. And they’re struggling to get the part in to fix it.

Parts and equipment were hard to come by during the pandemic. There were shortages. Supply chain issues. It was difficult to find washers, dryers, and air conditioners. But surprisingly, parts for crystal balls were in abundance. As a result, my crystal ball is now repaired and dialed-in. My crystal ball provides an incredible level of congressional clairvoyance.

As I always say each summer, “Beware the Ides of August.” August is the most intense month politically. More volatile than the “Ides of March” which William Shakespeare wrote about.

This is why I took vacation in June.

You’ve heard of infrastructure week? This is going to be infrastructure summer. August is going to be a monster this year when it comes to dealing with infrastructure — and the debt ceiling.

REP. JASON SMITH SLAMS BIDEN’S SPENDING PRIORITIES: ‘ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE’

Lawmakers will probably have to attach the debt ceiling hike to whatever infrastructure measure they can muster.

Meantime, Democrats are digging in on their own, $6 trillion reconciliation infrastructure package, stocked with Democratic goodies. Provisions on health care. The climate. Potential taxes for the wealthy and corporations.

It’s possible Democrats laid a trap for Republicans.

Why would the GOP go along with the narrow infrastructure bill presented today if Democrats still intend to simultaneously assemble their own massive bill — and pass both?

Republicans may have secured a reasonable deal on the bipartisan package. But Democrats could take them to the cleaners with the reconciliation infrastructure bill.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the bipartisan plan “an encouraging sign of progress.” But McConnell argues Pelosi and Schumer “literally pulled out the rug” from the bipartisan coalition by continuing to push their own bill.

Here’s the trap for Republicans: If Democrats do their own bill, why should the GOP stay engaged? And if Republicans walk away from the bipartisan bill, Democrats will immediately blame the GOP for blowing up that accord. Democrats could accuse the GOP of failing to work together in good faith. Democrats will then do their own bill.

McConnell sees the potential peril for Republicans if Democrats pursue both bills at once.

“What it does is put my members, including myself, who were optimistic about doing a bipartisan infrastructure bill, in a position of our Democratic friends having to guarantee that the 2017 tax bill is unwound. That is our red line,” said McConnell on Fox News.

McConnell’s right. Liberals are insisting on their gargantuan bill.

“I’m not asking for perfect,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “But understand this. We’re not leaving child care behind. We’re not leaving home health care behind. We are not leaving the green energy changes that we need to save our planet behind.”

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Warren added that she’d push for “the billionaires and the big corporations to step up and those parts must be in this package.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., blasted the bipartisan deal. She tweeted that to get GOP support Democrats had to give up on helping the middle class. She also said the bill lacked diversity. A statement from the House Progressive Caucus also expressed skepticism about working with the GOP.

So, the accord on this “bipartisan infrastructure bill” is brittle at best.

But it was solid for about five minutes.

That’s why July and August will likely seem like five years on Capitol Hill.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/agreement-washington-dc-biden-five-minutes

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Biden signs American Rescue Plan

President Biden on Thursday signed into law the sweeping $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that Democrats muscled through Congress without any Republican support, securing the first big legislative win of his presidency.

“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving the people of this nation, working people, the middle-class folks, people who built the country a fighting chance,” Biden said.

The measure includes a $1,400 check for many Americans and an extension of a $300 weekly unemployment aid supplement through Sept. 6, as well as a generous one-year expansion of the child tax credit. It also provides hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for state and local governments, vaccine distribution efforts, and small businesses still reeling from the pandemic.

BIDEN’S CORONAVIRUS RELIEF BILL INCLUDES $60B IN SURPRISE TAX HIKES

Biden had initially been scheduled to sign the bill on Friday, but the White House moved up the timeline to Thursday afternoon in order to distribute the aid “as fast as possible,” Ron Klain, the president’s chief of staff, wrote on Twitter. Klain added: “We will hold our celebration of the signing on Friday, as planned, with Congressional leaders!”

Biden’s signature caps off a two-month sprint by Democrats to unleash another torrent of federal money intended to bolster the economy‘s recovery from the pandemic nearly one year after the crisis began.

Democrats have touted the law as one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in history, pointing to some estimates that suggest it will slash poverty by a third this year and potentially cut child poverty in half and have argued it’s needed to revive the virus-battered economy. More than 20 million Americans are collecting some type of jobless aid, and there remain about 9.5 million fewer jobs than there were one year ago before the crisis began.

SOME FAMILIES COULD RECEIVE UP TO $14,000 FROM BIDEN’S RELIEF BILL

But Republicans, none of whom voted for the bill, have blasted the bill as a wasteful spending frenzy that does more to address liberal wishlist items than the dual health and economic crises.

“The American people already built a parade that’s been marching toward victory,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday. “Democrats just want to sprint to the front of that parade and claim the credit.”

The sheer size of pandemic-related spending in the U.S. is entirely without precedent: Lawmakers already approved about $4.1 trillion in relief measures under former President Donald Trump, according to a COVID-19 money tracker published by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, bringing total federal spending on the crisis to roughly $6 trillion.

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The exorbitant level of spending has pushed the nation’s deficit to a record $3.1 trillion for the 2020 fiscal year (which does not include the $900 billion relief plan approved in December). The national debt is on track to hit $30 trillion by the end of 2021.

Biden signed the measure in the Oval Office just hours before he is set to deliver a primetime televised address, during which he said he plans to “talk about what we’ve been through as a nation this past year.”

“But more importantly, I’m going to talk about what comes next,” he said. “I’m going to launch the next phase of the COVID response and explain what we will do as a government and what we will ask of the American people.”

From here, the president is set to kick off an aggressive travel campaign to sell the relief plan to American voters and convince them it’s responsible for the economy’s recovery.

“Help is here,” Biden tweeted Wednesday. “And brighter days lie ahead.”

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-signs-coronavirus-relief-bill-first-major-legislative-win

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