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A Republican lawmaker in Texas says the state's GOP-controlled Legislature has not done enough to stop mass shootings, and he would like something done "pretty quickly."

State Senator Kel Seliger, while on Don Lemon Tonight on Wednesday evening, broke with his party and joined Texas Democrats who are calling for Governor Greg Abbott to convene a special session of the state Legislature to address gun laws.

"What I would like to see happen is a special session, in which we can pass legislation pretty quickly," Seliger said.

If Abbott does not call for a special session, Seliger told Lemon the alternative is that "we wait until January of 2023, where we will address thousands of issues."

Seliger is not alone among Republicans breaking with their party to push for reforms to gun laws after 21 people, including 19 children, were shot and killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last week. Joe Walsh, a former GOP congressman from Illinois, has taken a similar position by urging gun owners to ramp up pressure on Republicans.

Walsh, who describes himself as a "huge gun rights advocate," appeared on CNN's New Day on Tuesday and called for "passionate Second Amendment people like me" to "get off our ass and pressure these Senate Republicans to do something."

On Wednesday, in response to a question from Lemon about the 2019 shooting in Odessa, Texas, that left seven dead and 21 injured, Seliger said he has had trouble sleeping since the Uvalde shooting because the state Legislature "did nothing" following the 2019 shooting.

"I haven't slept well for eight days because I sat there in the 87th Legislature and the attendant, couple special sessions, and we did nothing. And I've spent sleepless nights since then because we should have done something. We should have at least had a very incisive dialogue about what could be done."

The state senator went on to say that, in his call for a special session, he is asking for legislators to sit down with a number of law enforcement agencies.

"That's what's in my call for a special session. I said we should sit down with the FBI, Department of Public Safety, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and talk about what would work in Odessa, or El Paso, or Santa Fe, or Uvalde, and start coming up with solutions," he said.

On Wednesday, after calls from Texas Democrats for Abbott to convene a special session, the governor issued a letter to Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Speaker of the Texas House Dade Phelan directing them to form committees in order to come up with recommendations on a number of topics, including school safety, mental health and firearm safety.

Newsweek reached out to Seliger's office for comment.

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Texas Republican Calls For 'Quickly' Passing Gun Laws in Break With Party - Newsweek

House Republicans are sounding the alarm over an anti-misinformation partnership between news rating tool NewsGuard and the American Federation of Teachers that put NewsGuard rating tools on the devices of millions of American teachers and school children.

In a letter to both organizations on Wednesday, Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana, Virginia Foxx of North Carolina and Burgess Owens of Utah said both AFT and NewsGuards history of demonstrating left-wing bias raises concern that they aim to politicize the classroom.

As members of Congress, it is our duty to investigate these efforts to politicize classrooms across the United States with a biased misinformation rating system, the lawmakers wrote. We hope you agree that American parents and students deserve full transparency and that this extends to the information delivered to students.

The lawmakers gave NewsGuard and the AFT 30 days to respond to a list of demands, including details behind the events leading to the partnership and whether parents can opt out of installing NewsGuard on their childrens devices.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said it is ironic that committee members charged with finding out the truth would attack a website dedicated to discerning fact from fiction.

These members may prefer to read Russia Today, but with NewsGuard kids can spot propaganda with the click of a mouse, she said.

NewsGuard bills itself as an unbiased, apolitical tool to assess the credibility and transparency of news and information through its scoring system which can warn users of problematic web content through the use of plugins installed on their web browsers.

According to a press release announcing the NewsGuard partnership with AFT in January, 1.7 million schoolteachers and the millions of kids who they teach, were given free access to its traffic light news ratings and Nutrition Label reviews via a licensed copy of NewsGuards browser extension.

The lawmakers, however, say NewsGuard tips the scales in their ratings, citing a Media Research Center analysis that showed clear liberal bias in NewsGuards misinformation scoring system.

According to the analysis cited by the lawmakers, NewsGuard has scored left-leaning news outlets 27 points higher, on average, than right-leaning outlets.

MRC is a nonprofit research and education organization with a self-described commitment to neutralizing leftist bias in the news media and popular culture through its news monitoring capabilities and sophisticated marketing operation.

The lawmakers also say the company has ranked Chinese state-run media outlets as more trustworthy than U.S.-based conservative news outlets.

These factors taken together demonstrate that NewsGuard is not qualified to determine the veracity of any news, let alone determine the truth for millions of American school children, the lawmakers wrote.

NewsGuard CEO Gordon Crovitz, a former publisher and opinion columnist for The Wall Street Journal, rejected the lawmakers claims that his company leans left.

NewsGuards rating process is nonpartisan and apolitical, and NewsGuard rates many conservative outlets [] as credible, Mr. Crovitz said in a statement to The Washington Times.

Mr. Crovitz called the MRC study unscientific and said the group cherry-picked data to skew the results.

He also said the lawmakers claim that it has rated Chinese state media outlets as credible is simply false.

There are no Chinese state-run media outlets rated as credible by NewsGuard, he said.

Originally posted here:
Republican lawmakers knock NewsGuard and American Federation of Teachers partnership - Washington Times

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Hosts of ABC's "The View" called for getting "rid of the Republican Party" to pass gun control on Thursday, saying that they were the "party of White Supremacy" and "massacres."

"I always say don't vote for Republicans," co-host Joy Behar said. "Right now, I mean you can go back to it after you have gun laws."

Behar said Republicans would be voted out if they vote for gun control laws in Congress because that's not what their constituents want. "In 1994, the assault weapons ban went into effect and many of the Republicans who voted for it lost their jobs," Behar claimed.

She argued that the only way to "preserve" the Republicans' jobs was to vote for Democrats, "then they can do whatever they want in the Republican Party" and there would be more Democrats to "get the laws done."

Joy Behar said on Thursday's episode of "The View" that Americans need to "get rid of Republicans." REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

THE VIEW' CO-HOST WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I DONT WANT ALL YOUR GUNS, I WANT THAT AR-15'

"That is my answer to this problem right now," Behar concluded.

Co-host Sunny Hostin reemphasized Behar's position a little later in the discussion, saying that Republicans "get in lock step against gun safety because all they care about is power."

Joy Behar repeated her calls for getting rid of Republicans on Thursday's episode of "The View." (Screenshot/ABC/TheView)

She said the solution was to "get the AR-15s off the planet."

WHOOPI GOLDBERG SUGGESTS BANNING AR-15S, ARRESTING OWNERS: REPORT THEM AND WELL PUT THEM IN JAIL'

"Get rid of these weapons of war, and it's not going to happen with Republicans in power. So I am now with you, Joy. Get rid of Republicans, get rid of the party, the party as it stands now, because it's a party of White Supremacy, it's the party of insurrectionists, it's the party of massacres at this point," Hostin said. "You can't trust it."

Guest host Tara Setmayer responded saying, "That's why I left the Republican Party."

Hosts of "The View" on Thursday called on voters to "get rid of Republicans" so that Democrats can pass gun legislation. (Screenshot/ABC/TheView)

The hosts discussed whether action on gun control would be taken in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting and the Tulsa hospital shooting on Wednesday that left five dead, including the suspected gunman.

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On Wednesday co-host Whoopi Goldberg called for banning AR-15s and arresting their owners if they do get banned, saying, "Report them and we'll put them in jail."

She has also said that they were going to "come for" guns if women cannot get an abortion.

Link:
'The View' hosts call for getting 'rid of Republicans:' They're the 'party of White Supremacy,' 'massacres' - Fox News

In his campaign heyday, Donald Trump would declare it the greatest movement in the history of politics and promise: Were going to win so much, youre going to be so sick and tired of winning.

What never occurred to him was that the Make America Great Again movement or Maga might get sick and tired of him first.

The former US president suffered some humiliation on Tuesday when four candidates he handpicked in Georgia lost Republican primary elections in a landslide. It was a stinging rebuke in what has become ground zero for his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

But it was no rebuke of Maga and all it stands for.

The hard-right, nativist-populist strain of Republican politics predates Trump and will surely survive him. This years primary season winners in Georgia and elsewhere have been careful not to disavow the movement, or its patriarch, even when they lack his blessing.

Donald Trump has transformed the Republican party over the past five years and it is now a solid majority Trumpist party with everything that entails in policy and in tone, said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington. On the other hand, Republicans, including very conservative ones, are clearly willing to entertain the possibility of Trumpism without Trump.

Trump is now 75 and could be living a quiet, golf-playing retirement like other past presidents. But against the counsel of some of his inner circle, he chose to make this years midterm elections about him and the primaries votes in states and districts to decide which Republicans will take on Democrats in November a referendum on his continued influence.

Trump endorsed candidates in nearly 200 races, from governor to county commissioner, often in contests that are not particularly competitive and help bolster his list of wins. But others have been reckless, vengeful bets aimed at dislodging incumbents who defied his claims of election fraud. So far, the results have been a mixed bag.

The month began well enough in Ohio, where venture capitalist and author JD Vance leaped from third to first place following Trumps late-stage endorsement in the Senate primary.

In North Carolina, Trump helped the 26-year-old former college football player Bo Hines win the nomination for a seat in the House of Representatives. In Pennsylvania, voters chose his preferred candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano, who said he would not have certified Joe Bidens 2020 win of the state.

But other governor races, which often turn on specific local issues, have proved more elusive. Trumps pick in Nebraskas primary, Charles Herbster, lost after allegations surfaced that he had groped women. In Idaho a week later, Governor Brad Little comfortably beat a Trump-backed challenger.

In North Carolina, meanwhile, voters rejected Trumps plea to give a scandal-plagued congressman Madison Cawthorn a second chance. And in Pennsylvania, a Senate primary featuring Trump-endorsed TV doctor Mehmet Oz remains too close to call.

This week Trump again notched some wins including Sarah Sanders, his former White House press secretary, in the primary for governor of Arkansas. But it was all overshadowed by Georgia, where he has pushed his personal vendetta hardest and so squandered political capital.

It was not just that former senator David Perdue, whom Trump had lobbied to run, lost to Governor Brian Kemp, who had refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election in his state. It was also the crushing margin: Kemp beat Perdue by a staggering 52 percentage points.

Rubbing salt into the wound, Georgias secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who defied Trumps call to find the votes to change the outcome two years ago, also won his partys nomination. Attorney general Chris Carr and insurance commissioner John King, both opposed by Trump, prevailed in their primaries too.

Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, commented: The results in Georgia were really stunning. Few, if any Republicans, have aroused Donald Trumps ire so much as Governor Kemp and Brad Raffensperger and they both did substantially better than expected. Donald Trump went all out in Georgia and he ended up an egg on this face, which is significant.

It may be that the people who have been in the bulls eye of Trumps big lie campaign have started resenting it and took their resentment out. More generally, I think an increasing number of people are asking themselves a question that they werent asking previously: would we be better off with a Trumpist candidate whos not named Donald Trump?

Among those asking the question is Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who campaigned for Kemp in Georgia and told the Politico website: Trump picked this fight. Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have also felt at liberty to campaign for midterm candidates denied Trumps imprimatur.

Then there is Mike Pence, the former vice-president, who defied his old boss by rallying with Kemp on Monday and telling the crowd: Elections are about the future. Pence, himself a former governor of Indiana, has made a habit of speaking with pride about the accomplishments of the Trump-Pence administration while distancing himself from the big lie.

Should he run for president in 2024, he may pay close attention to how Little, Kemp and others have studiously avoided criticising Trump while capturing swaths of his base by shifting right on abortion, gun rights and culture wars issues and signing legislation to prove it. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is another likely student of the formula.

That means there is still little room for more old school Republicans such as Senator Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, who lost the presidential election in 2012. Few are making an impact in the primaries. A Republican who wants to pretend that 2016 through 2020 never happened and go back to the Romney-Ryan era is not going to do well in todays Republican party, said Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington.

But Trump does face a further challenge to his authority from the far right.

Some on this wing effectively accuse him of not being Trumpy enough, as demonstrated last year when he was booed for urging supporters to get vaccinated against the coronavirus (he now barely mentions vaccines in his speeches).

Kathy Barnette, a Senate candidate who mounted a late surge in Pennsylvania with ideas even more extreme than Oz, told the Reuters news agency: Maga doesnt belong to him. Trump coined the word. He does not own it.

Kandiss Taylor, a similarly far-right candidate for governor of Georgia, backs Trumps false claims of voter fraud but is unsure whether she would vote for him again in 2024. She said in an interview with the Guardian: Its not about him. The people of America chose him and hes the one that we elected. Will I vote for him in 2024? It all depends on what happens between now and then and who runs against him.

A further sign of fracturing came this week when Cawthorn, smarting from his defeat in North Carolina, swore revenge on cowardly and weak members of his own party and declared: Its time for the rise of the new right, its time for Dark Maga to truly take command.

The anti-democratic implication was that the end justifies the means in an existential struggle for America. Cawthorn named allies including the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Trump himself, suggesting that the former president has already turned to the dark side.

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who belonged to the rightwing Tea Party movement, said: Magas dark enough on its own Trumpism has metastasised beyond Trump and itll go in a bunch of different dark, eerie places but its all the same thing. Trumpism now is the dominant strain in the party.

Magas identity crisis comes as Biden and other Democratic leaders seek to brand their opponents as Ultra-Maga Republicans in the hope that labelling the entire party as extremist will be more effective in the midterms than a singular focus on Trump (though he and his supporters have embraced Ultra-Maga in merchandise and fundraising emails).

Yet while Trumps status as a kingmaker has been diminished, and his Stop the steal obsession is wearing thin, it would be unwise to extrapolate too much from primaries where it was always going to be hard to oust popular, well-funded incumbents.

Trump continues to raise vast sums of money and command loyalty from most Republicans in Congress as well as from the Republican National Committee. Polls suggest that he is more popular with the Republican base now than when he won the nomination for president in 2016. His America first mantra is now in the partys DNA; even the candidates he does not endorse typically do endorse him.

Walsh, who challenged Trump in the 2020 presidential primary and now hosts a podcast, added: Nothing has changed. This is Trumps party and everything thats happened this primary season just continues to reflect that Wake me up when an anti-Trump Republican wins a primary. That would be news.

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Republican primaries offer look into future of Trumpism without Trump - The Guardian US

Political strategists from both sides of the aisle are sounding off about what issues they think voters will care most about as they head to the polls for this year's midterm elections.

A number of those strategists spoke with Fox News Digital to give their predictions about which direction voters might swing in an election cycle that historically sees the party not in power, the Republicans in this case, make significant gains in Congress and other races.

Despite differences in opinion as to how the hot-button issues of abortion and gun control would sway voters, the one thing they all agreed on was that the economic challenges plaguing the country would take center stage when it came to which party Americans would ultimately support.

Democratic strategist James Carville pointed to the country's economic woes as the main indicator for how the midterms could go. Munoz for ICSS Livepic/Getty Images

TEXAS HOUSE COULD DOUBLE NUMBER OF GOP WOMEN IN NOVEMBER: WERE SICK OF HAVING THE LEFT SPEAK FOR US'

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville poured water on the idea that concern over guns would make a significant impact in the elections and pointed to the country's economic woes as the main indicator for how the midterms could go.

"Historically it hasn't been a dominant issue," he said, referencing the impact guns could have on election results, but noted it could have a specific effect on some Democratic voters concerned about other "cultural" issues like the environment and abortion.

Carville admitted that the outlook for Democrats in the midterms was "not going in a very good direction," but that they could potentially "cut their losses short" if voters did decide to turn out over fears that a Supreme court decision ending Roe v. Wade would lead to future decisions they might oppose.

Earlier in the spring, voters' concerns centered largely on the Biden administration's handling of the numerous economic challenges facing Americans, including a near 40-year-high inflation rate and record-high gas prices. However, the discussion on the political landscape surrounding the midterms was upended in May with the leaking of a Supreme Court draft memo suggesting the nation's highest court might be set to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision legalizing abortion nationwide.

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The leaked draft memo was followed by the shooting deaths of 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, as well as the shooting last week at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school that killed 19 children and two teachers.

OHIO SENATE SHOWDOWN: REPUBLICAN JD VANCE HAS SLIGHT EDGE OVER DEMOCRATIC REP. TIM RYAN

Each of those events sparked intense political rhetoric from Democrats over future access to abortions, as well as potential gun control legislation, that began making its way into conversations surrounding the elections.

Carville ultimately predicted Democrats' performance would depend on the economy, specifically pointing to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and income growth.

He argued "Democrats might do better" if those two indicators improved, but that for now it was "like watching two horses race back and forth."

"The big problem for this White House and the Democratic Party, is they've created so many other problems that are competing with abortion or guns among voters, and it's going to be hard to put those aside," said former Trump administration adviser Kellyanne Conway, specifically mentioning high gas prices, supply chain issues, and the shortage of baby formula affecting families with newborns.

Conway argued that Democrats were trying to capitalize on issues like abortions and guns, two topics she discussed at length in her new memoir, "Here's the Deal," but that they were "competing with themselves for voters" because of their handling of the economic challenges affecting Americans.

She added that Democrats were making "significant miscalculations" by thinking that voters only cared about certain issues, but noted that the recent shooting tragedies and concern over Roe v. Wade could still drive more people to the polls.

People use voting machines to fill out their ballots in the Georgia primary at the Metropolitan Library on May 24, 2022, in Atlanta. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

TRAILING OZ BY JUST OVER 900 VOTES IN GOP SENATE PRIMARY, MCCORMICK ASKS FOR HAND RECOUNT IN 12 PA COUNTIES

Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor Kevin Walling talked about the importance of issues like guns and abortion, but repeated the same argument made by Carville and Conway that voters' intentions would come down to the "bread and butter issues."

"It's still going to be inflation as the core focus, I think, of voters going to the polls," he said.

Walling stated that Roe v. Wade and guns could come into play in some races across the country where those issues stand out specifically for certain constituents, but that "it really is going to be the economy."

He added that "the million-dollar question" was which party would come out on top in November, but that he was "bullish" about Democrats' chances despite their economic challenges.

President Biden clears his throat as he announces new steps requiring government to buy more made-in-America goods on March 4, 2022. Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein

Voters' concerns about the economy have also been evident when it comes to President Biden's approval rating.

According to a poll published last month by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research, only 18% of respondents said Bidens policies had helped more than they had hurt the economy, while 51% said his policies had hurt more than they had helped.

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Democratic, Republican strategists agree economy will trounce guns, abortion as 'number one issue' in midterms - Yahoo News