The Full Belmonte, 6/9/2022
Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP
“House lawmakers voted to raise from 18 to 21 the minimum age to buy semi-automatic rifles, following a day of poignant testimony from survivors of mass shootings, including a fourth-grader, a mother taking care of her wounded son and parents who lost a 10-year-old daughter. The House approved raising the age from 18 to 21 as part of a package of gun reform measures that also would clamp down on gun trafficking, ban bump stocks and require safe storage of firearms. The bill, known as the Protecting Our Kids Act, heads to the Senate where it's not expected to pass because Republicans have enough votes to block gun legislation.” Read more at USA Today
“Miah Cerrillo — a fourth-grader who survived the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas — testified to Congress today in a pre-recorded video about the horror of smearing the blood of a classmate onto herself, then playing dead as the massacre went on.
‘We were just watching TV, and then [the teacher] got an email,’ she told a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing on gun violence. ‘She went to go lock the door and he was in the hallway and they made eye contact.’
‘[He] told my teacher goodnight and shot her in the head,’ the 11-year-old said.
‘When I went to the backpacks, he shot my friend. … I thought he was going to come back to the room, so I grabbed the blood and I put it all over me.’
Cerrillo said she doesn't feel safe at school.
The House committee also heard from several victims' family members from both the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings.
‘Somewhere out there,’ said Kim Rubio, whose daughter was killed in Uvalde, ‘a mom is hearing our testimony and thinking, 'I can’t even imagine their pain,' — not knowing that our reality will one day be hers, unless we act now.’” Read more at Axios
President Donald Trump arrives at the ‘Stop The Steal’ rally on January 06, 2021, in Washington, DC
“The House select committee investigating the US Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, will hold its first prime-time televised hearing today at 8 p.m. ET. The committee's central mission has been to uncover the full scope of former President Donald Trump's unprecedented attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and stop the transfer of power to President Joe Biden. These highly choreographed hearings will be the panel's first opportunity to show the public what it's learned from more than 1,000 witness interviews and 135,000 documents during its 10-month investigation. Today's hearing will also shine a spotlight on the nine-member committee, which features seven Democrats and two Republicans, and set the stage for subsequent hearings in the coming days.” Read more at CNN
“A man with a gun and a knife was detained by police early Wednesday near the Maryland home of Brett M. Kavanaugh after making threats against the Supreme Court justice, according to local and federal officials.
Nicholas John Roske, 26, of Simi Valley, Calif., was charged with attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice after he called authorities and said he was having suicidal thoughts and wanted to kill a specific justice, according to federal prosecutors.
Roske was “upset” by the leaked draft of an opinion by the Supreme Court signaling that it is positioned to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 49-year-old decision that guarantees a person’s constitutional right to abortion, as well as the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Tex., according to an affidavit filed Wednesday in federal court.
‘Roske stated that he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice …,’ the affidavit said, adding that he allegedly planned to break into the justice’s home to kill him as well as himself.” Read more at Washington Post
“Ukrainian officials say they are considering pulling back troops to more fortified positions as intense fighting continues for the key eastern city of Severodonetsk, the epicenter of the confrontation in Donbas region. ‘The Russians are destroying everything,’ Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military administration, said in a televised announcement Wednesday, ‘They are firing tanks and artillery at residential buildings,’ he added. Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that ‘millions of people may starve’ if Russia continues its blockade of Ukraine's ports. The UN secretary-general made similar remarks Wednesday, saying the war threatens to ‘unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution’ around the world.” Read more at CNN
“The White House is set to announce a Covid-19 vaccine rollout plan today for children under 5. The Biden administration is partnering with state and local governments, health care providers, federal pharmacy partners, national and community-based organizations and other entities to ship and distribute vaccines across the country following next week's meeting of the FDA's vaccine advisers -- who will review data on vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna -- and the expected authorization from the full FDA. Following that expected authorization, the first vaccinations could start as early as the week of June 20-- with the program ramping up as more doses are delivered and more appointments become available, the White House wrote in a fact sheet.” Read more at CNN
“President Joe Biden appeared on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ Wednesday and explained his refusal to issue an executive order on gun control. The comedian asked the president why he can't use his office to implement the gun control measures he wants, but Biden said he's done ‘everything within the power of the presidency’ and does not want to ‘emulate Trump's abuse of the Constitution and Constitutional authority.’ Kimmel said he understood Biden's position, but questioned how the president plans to ‘make any progress.’” Read more at USA Today
President Joe Biden speaks with host Jimmy Kimmel during a commercial break during the taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Wednesday, June 8, 2022, in Los Angeles prior to attending the Summit of the Americas.Evan Vucci, AP
“The immigration challenges facing the Biden administration along the southern border are ‘beyond anything that anyone has seen before,’ US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN Wednesday. US officials have said immigration will be a key focus of a summit of regional leaders taking place this week in Los Angeles. Notably, however, the leaders of several countries that are crucial to addressing the influx of migrants at the border -- including Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala -- are boycotting the summit, dealing an embarrassing blow to the White House at a time when it is scrambling to handle the issue. At the US southern border, US Customs and Border Protection stopped more than 310,000 migrants from the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador from October through April, according to the latest agency data.” Read more at CNN
U.S. gymnasts Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols arrive to testify during a Senate Judiciary hearing about the Inspector General's report on the FBI handling of the Larry Nassar investigation of sexual abuse of Olympic gymnasts, on Capitol Hill, September 15, 2021, in Washington, DC.
“(Detroit) — Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles and dozens of other women who say they were sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar are seeking more than $1 billion from the FBI for failing to stop the sports doctor when the agency first received allegations against him, lawyers said Wednesday.
There’s no dispute that FBI agents in 2015 knew that Nassar was accused of assaulting gymnasts, but they failed to act, leaving him free to continue to target young women and girls for more than a year. He pleaded guilty in 2017 and is serving decades in prison.” Read more at Time
“WASHINGTON — The owner of an inn on the Canadian border who said he had been assaulted by a Border Patrol agent may not sue the agent for violating the Constitution by using excessive force, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.
The decision, by a 6-to-3 vote along ideological lines, stopped just short of overruling a 1971 precedent, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, that allowed federal courts, rather than Congress, to authorize at least some kinds of lawsuits seeking money from federal officials accused of violating constitutional rights.
But the basic message of Wednesday’s decision, Egbert v. Boule, No. 21-147, was that only Congress can authorize such suits.
The case was brought by Robert Boule, the owner of a bed-and-breakfast in Blaine, Wash., called the Smuggler’s Inn. Mr. Boule said he had served as a confidential informant for the federal government, helping agents find and apprehend people crossing the border illegally.
In March 2014, he told Erik Egbert, a Border Patrol agent, that a Turkish citizen was scheduled to arrive at the inn.
When the guest’s car reached the inn, Mr. Egbert entered Mr. Boule’s property without a warrant. Mr. Boule said he told the agent to leave, only to be thrown against the vehicle and then to the ground.
Mr. Egbert inspected the guest’s paperwork and found it to be in order. That night, the guest unlawfully entered Canada.
Mr. Boule sued the agent, saying he had violated the Fourth Amendment by using excessive force and the First Amendment by contacting the Internal Revenue Service and prompting an audit of Mr. Boule’s tax returns.
A federal trial judge dismissed the case, saying the Bivens decision did not allow the sorts of claims Mr. Boule pressed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that dismissal, allowing Mr. Boule to pursue both theories.” Read more at New York Times
“The Brookings Institution placed its president, retired four-star Marine Gen. John Allen, on administrative leave yesterday — a day after an errant court filing revealed a federal probe into his role in an illegal lobbying campaign on behalf of Qatar.
A spokesman for Allen, who led U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told AP: ‘We look forward to correcting the falsehoods about General Allen that have been improperly publicized.’
Executive vice president Ted Gayer will be acting president.
Brookings pays Allen more than $1 million a year.” Read more at Axios
“Seville, Spain, is poised to become the first city to start naming heat waves, as part of a growing effort to categorize heat waves the way we do hurricanes, Jennifer A. Kingson writes for Axios What's Next.
Why it matters: Heat waves are the deadliest type of weather emergency in the U.S. They're bigger killers than floods, tornadoes or hurricanes — and they're growing in frequency and intensity due to global warming.
Five other cities — L.A.; Miami; Milwaukee; Kansas City, Missouri; and Athens, Greece — are trying a naming pilot.” Read more at Axios
“Iran tensions. Iran switched off two monitoring cameras at one of its uranium enrichment sites on Wednesday in apparent retaliation for the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors’ decision to adopt a censure resolution put forward by Britain, France, Germany and the United States.
That same day, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had sent a new proposal to U.S. officials in a bid to resolve an impasse over reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Europe’s electric push. The European parliament voted on Wednesday to effectively ban the manufacture of new gasoline and diesel-powered cars by 2035 and to cut current carbon emissions by 55 percent for cars made in 2030. Germany’s auto industry lobby group VD criticized the vote, saying that charging infrastructure was not advanced enough and that synthetic fuels should still be considered by the cutoff point.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Belgium’s reckoning. In Kinshasa on Wednesday, Belgian King Philippe, acknowledged the violence, ‘paternalism, discrimination and racism’ inflicted on the Congo during Belgium’s colonial rule, but stopped short of a full apology. Congolese opposition Senator Francine Muyumba Nkanga expressed her disappointment at the king’s comments, calling for an apology and reparations as ‘the price to definitively turn the page.’
FP columnist Howard French, addressed Belgium’s brutal colonial legacy in Congo in a Monday article, finding that the Western European country ‘still has considerable distance to travel before it can be said to not only have recognized the full truth of its imperial actions there but also, and even more importantly, to have made meaningful amends.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
“BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand made it legal to cultivate and possess marijuana as of Thursday, like a dream come true for an aging generation of pot smokers who recall the kick delivered by the legendary Thai Stick variety.
The public health minister’s plan to distribute 1 million marijuana seedlings, beginning Friday, has added to the impression that Thailand is turning into a weed wonderland.
The decision by the Food and Drug Administration to remove all of the plant from the category of narcotic drugs makes Thailand the first nation in Asia to decriminalize marijuana for medical and industrial use. But it is not following the examples of Uruguay and Canada, the only two countries so far that have legalized recreational marijuana on a national basis.
So far, it appears there will be no effort to police what people can grow and smoke at home, aside from registering to do so and declaring it is for medical purposes.” Read more at AP News
Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) goes up for a shot against the Golden State Warriors during Game 3 of basketball's NBA Finals, Wednesday, June 8, 2022, in Boston.Kyle Terada, AP
“Jaylen Brown scored 27 points, Jayson Tatum added 26 and the Celtics rode the energy of a raucous TD Garden crowd to beat back another third-quarter onslaught by Golden State in a 116-100 victory Wednesday night that gave them a 2-1 lead in the NBA Finals. Boston improved to 6-4 at home, compared to 8-3 on the road this postseason – and the Celtics haven't lost two straight games since the end of March. On the opposition, Stephen Curry led Golden State with 31 points and six 3-pointers. He had 15 points in a 33-25 third quarter by the Warriors but was hurt late in the fourth after Al Horford rolled into his leg on a loose ball. Curry said it was similar to a play during the regular season in which Marcus Smart dove into Curry’s legs while chasing a loose ball but ‘not as bad.’ Game 4 is Friday in Boston.” Read more at USA Today
“The British authorities have authorized criminal charges against Harvey Weinstein on two counts of indecent assault against a woman in 1996 in London, the country’s Crown Prosecution Service announced in a news release Wednesday.
Mr. Weinstein, 70, has been convicted of felony sex crimes in New York and is awaiting trial in Los Angeles, where he has been charged with several counts of forcible rape, among other charges.” Read more at New York Times
“Harvard President Larry Bacow, 70, announced in a post titled "My Plans" that he'll step down in June 2023 after five years in office: ‘[W]e have found our way through the pandemic. We have worked together to sustain Harvard through change and through storm.’” Read more at Axios
“A giant underwater chasm about a hundred miles off the coast of New York City could be the newest national marine sanctuary. The Hudson Canyon is home to a number of sensitive species including sperm whales and sea turtles.” Read more at NPR
“The Interior Department says it will phase out single-use plastics— like cutlery, bags, cups, bottles, straws and food containers — at national parks by 2023.” Read more at NPR
“LGBTQ+ activists are calling the recent unveiling of a Nancy Reagan stamp at the beginning of Pride Month a ‘slap in the face.’ President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan were silent on the HIV/AIDS crisis for several years, at the cost of tens of thousands of American lives.” Read more at NPR
Juana Summers, a veteran political correspondent, will start as “All Things Considered” co-host on June 27.Credit...Jared Soares for The New York Times
“NPR said on Wednesday that Juana Summers would be the newest co-host for “All Things Considered,” its flagship newsmagazine, replacing Audie Cornish, the longtime co-host who left this year to start a program for the short-lived CNN+ streaming service.
Ms. Summers, a veteran political correspondent whose peripatetic career has taken her to news media start-ups including Mashable and traditional news organizations such as The Associated Press, will start on June 27.
“Juana has all of the things: She’s a first-rate journalist with an enviable track record, she’s a natural leader who connects people and makes them feel heard, and she has an instinct for creative storytelling that is second to none,” said Nancy Barnes, NPR’s senior vice president for news.
Ms. Summers, 33, takes over the job in the wake of several high-profile departures from the public radio network. Ms. Cornish said in January that she was leaving NPR to host a weekly show for CNN+, a streaming service that CNN’s new owners shut down shortly after it started. Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a co-host of “Weekend Edition,” left in November to host a podcast for The New York Times. And Noel King, a co-host of “Morning Edition,” left to join Vox Media to host “Today, Explained,” a daily podcast.” Read more at New York Times
“Minnesota Public Radio received an anonymous cash gift of $56 million — the largest in MPR's 55-year history.” Read more at Axios
“Lives Lived: Oris Buckner, New Orleans’s only Black homicide detective in the early 1980s, exposed police violence against civilians. He died at 70.” Read more at New York Times
“In a post-practice meeting with reporters, Washington Commanders defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio minimized the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol building by calling it a ‘dust-up’ in comparison to the racial justice protests that followed George Floyd’s death in 2020.
‘I can look at images on the TV [of the Floyd protests] — people’s livelihoods are being destroyed. Businesses are being burned down. No problem,’ he said Wednesday. ‘And then we have a dust-up at the Capitol, nothing burned down, and we’re going to make that a major deal. I just think it’s kind of two standards, and if we apply the same standard and we’re going to be reasonable with each other, let’s have a discussion.’
Del Rio’s comments were in response to questions related to one of his social media posts this week. The 59-year-old coach has been outspoken on Twitter in each of the three offseasons he has been with the Commanders, often on conservative political issues.
The latest tweet came Monday night in response to a report by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, about the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, which after 11 months and more than 1,000 interviews will begin holding hearings Thursday. Del Rio wrote, ‘would love to understand ‘the whole story’ about why the summer of riots, looting, burning and the destruction of personal property is never discussed but this is ??? #CommonSense.’” Read more at Washington Post
Phil Mickelson will take part in the LIV Golf Invitational Series.Paul Childs/Action Images Via Reuters
A controversial golf tour
“An upstart professional golf circuit, the LIV Series, will hold its first event today in Britain. The tour has attracted stars including Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson to help it compete with the dominant PGA Tour. But it has also attracted scorn because of its biggest investor: the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.
Why are golfers going to LIV? The Saudis’ remarkably large purse. Mickelson was reportedly paid $200 million to join, and Johnson $150 million. The prize money for this weekend’s event alone is $25 million; Tiger Woods, by contrast, has won $120 million over his entire PGA career.
What’s the controversy? Critics have accused Saudi Arabia of using its oil profits to buy major sports organizations and sanitize its image. Mickelson lost endorsements after joining, and he acknowledged that Saudi Arabia had a ‘horrible record on human rights,’ including the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
What is the PGA’s reaction? It has aggressively sought to thwart the Saudi tour. The PGA has said it will discipline players who compete and it could bar them from most major American golf events.
The latest: A news conference yesterday grew tense as players evaded questions about Saudi Arabia’s record.” Read more at New York Times