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Uvalde school’s police chief says he’s ‘in contact’ with state authorities

Uvalde school district Police Chief Pete Arredondo said he is “in contact” with state authorities investigating the police response to the Texas school shooting on a daily basis.

The remarks by the police chief, who is in the spotlight following an acknowledgement by officials that they should have engaged sooner with a gunman who killed 19 children and two educators in last week’s shooting, followed reporting that Arredondo was no longer cooperating with police. 

Arredondo spoke with CNN Wednesday, saying he is in touch with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) every day and declining to comment further while funerals are ongoing for the shooting victims. 

Speaking with a reporter about releasing additional information, he said, “We’re going to be respectful to the family. We’re going to do that eventually. Whenever this is done and the families quit grieving, then we’ll do that obviously.” 

Police responding to the Uvalde shootings initially received praise for their efforts but have since faced criticism for waiting to enter the classroom where the shooter barricaded himself, believing students were no longer in harm’s way. 

A DPS official told NBC News Tuesday that Arredondo had not responded to a request for a follow-up interview from state officials in two days. The official said the police departments for the city and the Uvalde school district have been cooperating with investigators, but ABC News reported Tuesday that multiple law enforcement officials said the two police forces are no longer cooperating.

Officials have repeatedly contradicted themselves in their telling of the timeline of the shooting in the days following the attack. 

The Texas Rangers Division is leading the state’s investigation into the entire incident, including the police response. The Justice Department announced Sunday that it would launch its own independent investigation after receiving a request from Uvalde’s mayor, Don McLaughlin (R).

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New York on brink of major voting rights act

New York state legislators are poised to give final approval to a major overhaul of election rules meant to expand access to the polls and to tilt legal scales toward voters.

The legislation, modeled on Democratic proposals that are stalled in Congress and named for the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), passed the Democratic-controlled state Senate on Tuesday on a party-line vote. The state Assembly, also under Democratic control, is expected to take up the measure before the end of the week.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has signaled she would sign the measure once it wins final passage.

The companion bills would create a so-called pre-clearance program that requires local governments with histories of discrimination against minority voters to prove that any changes they make to voting laws or election procedures would not harm voters of color before taking effect.

That requirement comes after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted a similar provision of the federal Voting Rights Act that forced states and municipalities with histories of discrimination to seek pre-clearance from the federal Department of Justice before making their own changes to election procedures.

The bills would add new penalties for voter intimidation, deception or obstruction. And they would expand language assistance programs for voters who speak limited amounts of English, in a state where huge numbers of voters speak other languages at home.

“This bill, the strongest voting rights act in the nation, calls New York to its highest ideals,” said state Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D), the bill’s lead author. “This is about upholding what the country was founded on.”

Republicans in the legislature and at the state Republican Party did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

For decades, advances in New York voting laws have lagged behind those in other states. As other states adopted early voting, no-excuse absentee voting or online voter registration, New York has remained mired in the legacy of machine politics that valued smaller, more controllable electorates.

In more recent years, Republicans who controlled the state Senate, along with members of what was known as the Independent Democratic Conference, blocked bills to overhaul and modernize election rules.

But a series of major errors by elections administrators brought new scrutiny to voting procedures in what is otherwise one of the more progressive states in the nation, especially after Democrats recaptured control of the state Senate.

The new proposals come after a series of disastrous mistakes made by New York elections officials in recent years. In one glaring error, the New York City Board of Elections mistakenly purged more than 120,000 voters from voting rolls in 2016 — an error that disproportionately fell on majority-Hispanic neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

The city’s Board of Elections has been the center of controversy for years. In 2001, it mistakenly double-counted thousands of votes in the Democratic mayoral primary. In 2012, it failed to count votes from precincts in the Bronx, in the midst of a pitched battle between then-Rep. Charlie Rangel (D) and then-state Sen. Adriano Espaillat (D).

In 2018, the board’s executive director blamed damp weather for jammed vote-counting scanners and the resulting lines of voters who had to wait even after filling out their ballots.

Myrie, who chairs the committee overseeing election administration, promised voting overhauls to reform the agency. Other reforms were essential, he told The Hill earlier this year, in the midst of a congressional stalemate over voting rights legislation.

“There is a concerted effort for us not just to play defense, but to go on offense,” Myrie said in an interview. “It has been only when we have gone on offense, when we have taken the fight to the voters, when we have been successful.”

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Kentucky Senate candidate wears noose in ad to highlight history of lynching

Kentucky Democratic Senate nominee Charles Booker released a new ad on Tuesday in which he wears a noose to criticize his opponent, Sen. Rand Paul (R), for opposing a 2020 bill making lynching a federal hate crime.

The ad begins by showing a noose hanging from a tree before cutting to an image of a noose and gallows erected outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Booker proceeds to wear the noose as he continues narrating.

“In a historic victory for our commonwealth, I have become the first Black Kentuckian to receive the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate,” Booker says.

“My opponent: the very person who compared expanded health care to slavery, the person who said he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act, the person who single-handedly blocked an anti-lynching act from being federal law,” he continued. “The choice couldn’t be clearer.”

Paul had objected in 2020 to a bill making lynching a federal hate crime after it had passed the House, holding up quick passage. 

“We want the bill to be stronger,” he said at the time. “We think that lynching is an awful thing that should be roundly condemned and should be universally condemned. I don’t think it’s a good idea to conflate someone who has an altercation where they had minor bruises with lynching.”

Paul supported the latest version of the bill, named after Emmitt Till, whose 1955 lynching and open-casket funeral helped fuel the civil rights movement. Paul said he had worked with Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) to clarify the language.

The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent and was signed into law by President Biden in March. Booker did not mention Paul’s eventual support in the ad.

“Do we move forward together, or do we let politicians like Rand Paul forever hold us back and drive us apart?” Booker said in the ad.

“In November, we will choose healing,” he said, removing the noose. “We will choose Kentucky.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Most men think they are healthier than others, survey finds

Most men believe they are naturally healthier than other men while nearly a third think they do not need annual health screenings, according to a new survey.  

The Harris Poll, conducted from May 9-11 on behalf of Orlando Health, found that 65 percent of men believe they are generally healthier than others – which experts say is impossible.  

“It is statistically impossible for the majority of men to be healthier than the majority of men,” Thomas Kelley, family medicine specialist at Orlando Health Physician Associates, said in a news release.  

Kelley added that despite one’s personal feelings about their physical health, men should seek out annual screenings to prevent the onset of serious illness that could otherwise go unnoticed.  

“Even if you think you’re healthy and you’re not experiencing any symptoms, there can be developing issues that often go unnoticed and can also be life-threatening if left unchecked. Some of those include rising blood pressure that can be a ticking time bomb for a heart attack or stroke, as well as colon cancer, which is one of the most deadly yet preventable cancers that exist.” 

The survey also found around 38 percent of men polled seek medical advice from social media while the same number said they focus on the health needs of their pet more than their own. These findings, Kelley said, may be directly related to trust.  

“One of the big things that makes it less scary is having that great relationship with a primary care physician, and most men find the process to be easier than they thought,” Kelley said. “It takes about half an hour and by the end of the appointment you have the big picture about where you stand, what you’re at risk for and what you need to do for your health in the future.” 

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. 

A separate survey conducted by the Cleveland Clinic in 2019 found that nearly 72 percent of men would rather do household chores than visit the doctor. Meanwhile, only half of men polled said they considered an annual health screening “a regular part of taking care of themselves.”  

Mayo Clinic recommends annual screenings for men aged 50 and over and once every three to five years for men under 50 despite personal feelings of health and wellness.  

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Biden’s plan to ‘cancel’ student debt passes the buck to all taxpayers

College graduates are being crushed by $1.6 trillion in student loans. Biden’s plan to “cancel” the debt won’t solve the problem. The latest proposal is to cover the first $10,000 owed by borrowers.  This would cost taxpayers $450 billion. Those on the left are marketing this as “cancelling” the debt, but despite their best attempts, Biden’s plan would simply pass the buck to all taxpayers. This includes taxpayers who never took out student loans, those who have already paid off their debt, and those who didn’t attend a four-year college or graduate school in the first place.

President Biden’s proposal represents a massive redistribution of wealth. The cost of this proposal will significantly increase our debt and transfers the burden to all workers and families. Thirteen percent of Americans currently have federal student debt. More than half of this debt is held by Americans with graduate degrees, meaning they attended school for six years or more. Many of these students have used their graduate degree to receive a high-paying job. This includes doctors, dentists, and lawyers.

The rationale behind this plan is fundamentally unfair. How many students made tough choices not to attend a costly out of state school, or decided to forgo college entirely, to avoid student debt? Many students worked to pay their way through school. Does the Biden administration really want to make every plumber, truck driver, and waiter pay for the student loans of doctors and lawyers? 

Many scholars believe this provision is unconstitutional. No president should be able to unilaterally redistribute billions of dollars with the stroke of a pen. This action will likely lead to lawsuits and confusion.

If this proposal became law, yet another industry would be heavily subsidized by Washington. When Washington aggressively subsidizes, prices go up. If you thought the federal government would pay off your car loan, would you have purchased a different car? Maybe car debt forgiveness will be the administration’s plan for Americans to afford an $80,000 Tesla, as Democratic policies drive up the price of gas.

As a former regent of the University of Wisconsin system, I was directly responsible for controlling the costs of higher education. On the Board, we never once raised undergraduate in-state tuition. We worked hard to keep college affordable. Our efforts had an impact. The cost of in state tuition in Wisconsin is roughly $11,000 a year, whereas Harvard is $54,000 a year. All universities should be working to lower costs. We need to hold colleges accountable for their tuition, rather than force every American to pay for it. Forgiving student debt doesn’t fix the problem of rising college tuition costs. Instead, it will lead to higher tuition and more debt, clobbering taxpayers.    

We need to address the cost of higher education. The gimmick proposed by the Biden administration will make the problem worse. The real answer is in holding college administrators accountable.

Bryan Steil represents Wisconsin’s 1st District.

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Ukraine assured US it will not strike within Russia

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said Ukraine has given the U.S. strict assurances that it would not use American-delivered heavy weapons for strikes within Russia, part of efforts to avoid a wider conflict between Moscow, Europe and the U.S.

“Specifically with regard to weapons systems we provided, the Ukrainians have given us assurances that they will not use these systems against targets on Russian territory,” Blinken said during a press conference alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

The secretary’s remarks followed President Biden on Tuesday evening announcing a drawdown of $700 million in advanced weapons for Ukraine, including rocket launchers that can reach a distance of nearly 50 miles, but with the strong caveat that the U.S. does not seek to provoke Moscow directly. 

“President Biden was very clear with [Russian President Vladimir Putin] about what the United States would do if Russia proceeded with its aggression, including continuing to provide security systems that Ukraine needs to defend itself against the Russian aggression,” Blinken said. 

“And it is Russia again that chose to launch this aggression, despite all of our efforts … They can end it at any time and we will avoid any concerns about miscalculations or escalation.”

Biden’s announcement of heavy weapons to Ukraine on Tuesday evening was his first use of presidential drawdown authority from the package of $40 billion of military, economic and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine provided by Congress. Biden signed the package into law last month.

The president made the announcement through a guest essay in The New York Times, in which he outlined the conditions of the assistance. “We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia … We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia,” Biden wrote.

The U.S. earlier provided nearly $14 billion in heavy weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine over the course of its more than three-month defensive war against Russia. It has also rallied a coalition of allies and partners to supplement military, economic and humanitarian assistance and increase NATO’s force posture along allied borders.

Congress passed the $40 billion aid package for Ukraine with the expectation that the fighting with Russia is expected to drag out, if not reach a stalemate, as Ukrainian forces seek to expel the Russian army from the south and east of the country, a more difficult battlefield where Russia has maintained a strong presence since it first invaded in 2014. 

Efforts for peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow have floundered amid the discovery of mass atrocities against Ukrainians uncovered with the retreat of Russian forces, although the U.S. has encouraged them.

Blinken on Wednesday said that the U.S. support for Ukraine’s military is a “continuation of a strategy that began even before Russia’s invasion.” 

“We move quickly to send Ukraine significant amounts of weapons and ammunition so that they can repel Russia’s aggression and in turn, can be in the strongest possible position at any negotiating table that may emerge,” he said. 

Source: TEST FEED1

How 1 million more teachers of color can transform American education

Our nation’s education system is at an inflection point. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended traditional teaching structures, exposing and exacerbating pervasive inequities in our schools. Teachers are leaving the workforce in droves. And, let’s face it, the pressures on teachers during the pandemic has dissuaded potential new teachers from entering the profession.    

This is not to impart doom. On the contrary, we have a prime opportunity for a reset in our education system — one that will uplift all students and create a stronger workforce for decades to come.  

To be successful, it is imperative that we recruit and retain more teachers of color.  

It’s hard to overstate the impact of teachers. Students spend nearly a third of their day in school, sometimes interacting more with teachers than their parents. Teachers help mold and cultivate the minds of their students during critical phases of development. I am willing to bet that all of us can name a favorite teacher within seconds even though it’s been years since we’ve been in school. I know I can. 

My 11th-grade pre-calculus teacher, Mr. Lane, saw something in me that I did not fully appreciate at that time. I recall him pulling me aside and talking to me about applying to Boys State, a program dedicated to building future civic leaders. I realized quickly the application was due within a week, so Mr. Lane sat with me several afternoons and took time to craft a thoughtful recommendation for me. He believed in me, which fueled me to work harder and never settle. So often we think about the impact teachers have on our academic development, but Mr. Lane impacted my social, emotional and certainly professional development as I carried his approach into my classroom when I started my teaching career. 

Historically, people of color have been underrepresented in these crucial positions. That’s due to a host of issues. Before educators of color can even get to the classroom, they face innumerable challenges, including insufficient access to postsecondary programs, unduly restrictive certification requirements and inadequate pay. Once they enter, staying in is tough. Many educators of color experience unique discrimination, psychological stress and a lack of support often called the “invisible tax.” 

As a result, just 1 in 5 teachers is a person of color. Forty percent of schools don’t have a single teacher of color even though students of color make up a majority of our K-12 population  

There’s no question: This diversity dearth is harmful for students of all races. Research shows that teachers of color produce positive academic, social-emotional and behavioral student outcomes. That’s largely because these educators tend to build strong relationships with students and their families and tailor instruction to the needs of individual students.  

Teachers of color are particularly impactful for groups that have long been left behind in the classroom. For example, there’s evidence that Black students perform better on achievement tests when they have a Black teacher. Latinx students also have fewer unexcused absences when they have a Latinx teacher.  

Those academic benefits ripple across our nation. Students can emerge from school more prepared than ever to succeed in the workforce, spur innovation and propel our economy forward.  

We need a teacher workforce that reflects the diversity of our nation. That’s why the Hunt Institute, the organization I lead, is working with a dynamic steering committee of leading educator organizations to add 1 million new teachers of color and 30 thousand school leaders of color to the workforce by 2030. We aim to break down the barriers that prevent teachers of color from entering and staying in the classroom. That means revamping educator preparation programs, proactively recruiting more people of color for education careers, improving mentorship opportunities, and much more.   

We have the potential to transform our education system in unprecedented ways — and consequently, strengthen our entire nation. Join us.

Javaid Siddiqi, Ph.D., is president & CEO of The Hunt Institute.

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Biden's inner Trudeau: On guns, he seems to be operating under the wrong Constitution

In our increasingly hateful and divisive politics, there are times when our nation seems incapable of coming together for a common purpose. Tragedies — moments of shared national grieving and mutual support — once were the exception. Yet one of the most chilling aspects of the aftermath of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was how the moment of unity was quickly lost to political posturing.

Politicians have long admitted that a crisis is an opportunity not to be missed — the greater the tragedy, the greater the opportunity. After the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called for censorship to “silence the voices of hatred and racism.” After the Uvalde massacre, some Democrats renewed calls for everything from court packing to ending the Senate filibuster. 

The most immediate response, however, was a call for gun bans. Vice President Kamala Harris got out front of the White House by demanding a ban on AR-15s, the most popular weapon in America. Then President Joe Biden created a stir by suggesting he might seek to ban 9mm weapons.

Such calls are not limited to the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government is introducing legislation to “implement a national freeze on handgun ownership.” He said Canadians would no longer be able “to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” adding that “there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives.”

The difference between the push in the two countries is the existence of the Second Amendment in the United States — a constitutionally mandated “reason” why Americans are allowed to have guns; they don’t have to prove it to the government.

While the White House subsequently tried to walk back his comments, Biden saying there’s “no rational basis” to own 9mms and AR-15s sounds like he’s channeling his inner Canadian.

There is now a strong majority for gun control reforms. However, politicians are once again ignoring what is constitutionally possible by focusing on what is politically popular with their voting base. 

In the past, politicians in cities like New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., have proven to be the gun lobby’s greatest asset. They have pushed ill-considered legislation and litigation that only served to create precedent against gun control. The same pattern seems to be playing out as leaders like Biden and Harris voice sweeping, unsupportable statements about guns and constitutional protections. For example, despite being repeatedly corrected, President Biden continues to repeat the same false statements about bans on weapons when the Second Amendment was ratified. 

Those false statements can be dismissed as just another “Corn Pop” story, but they refer to the constitutional foundation for gun control. This concern is magnified by other recent claims that would quickly collapse in court. For example, in support of the ban on AR-15s, Harris declared: “Do you know what an assault weapon is? 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.”

Courts do not interpret the Constitution by soundbites but, rather, by sound historical and textual arguments. Courts likely would press the Biden administration on why it is seeking to ban this model when other higher-caliber weapons are sold. AR-15s can handle a variety of calibers. However, they are no more powerful than other semi-automatic rifles of the same caliber and actually have a lower caliber than some commonly sold weapons which use .30-06, .308 and .300 ammunition; many of these guns fire at the same — or near the same rate — as the AR-15. None of these weapons are classified as actual military “assault weapons,” and most civilians cannot own an automatic weapon.

President Biden showed the same disconnect as Harris between the factual and the rhetorical basis for some gun-control measures. He condemned “high-caliber weapons” like 9mm handguns and 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. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body.”

While gun experts mocked the notion that 9mm rounds blow organs out of bodies, the president’s singling out of these handguns led many to cry foul about using the Uvalde massacre to impose a Canadian-like ban or moratorium. The 9mm round is the most popular handgun caliber in the U.S., with more than half of all handguns produced in 2019 using that round, according to Shooting Industry magazine. If Biden pushed a ban, he would target more than 40 percent of all pistols produced in the U.S.

In addition to repeating (for the second time in two days) a false claim that certain weapons were banned at the ratification of the Second Amendment, Biden made the claim that an assault weapons ban in the 1990s “significantly cut down mass murders.”

There is small support for saying that earlier ban on assault weapons had any appreciable impact on mass murders; there is no support for saying it caused a reduction in gun violence overall. Thankfully, mass shootings are statistically rare. Even studies that noted a drop in mass shootings during this earlier period noted that such a cause-and-effect claim is “inconclusive.”

Moreover, the earlier ban was imposed in 1994 — before the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the right to bear arms is an individual right. Any such ban today would face a far greater court challenge and would require a far more compelling factual foundation to pass constitutional muster.

While making these dubious claims, President Biden stressed that “I can’t dictate this stuff … I can’t outlaw a weapon.” He added: “I think things have gotten so bad that everybody is getting more rational about it. At least, that’s my hope and prayer.” 

There is room for rational reforms, ranging from better funding of mental illness treatment to “red flag” laws. However, a “hope and prayer” is unlikely to succeed if the president continues to inject hype and politics into our national debate over gun control.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

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