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After a 10-day break, members of Congress are returning to work under hefty pressure to respond to the outcry over gun violence. But no plan appears ready to take off despite a long list of proposals, including many from President Donald Trump.

Republican leaders have kept quiet for days as Trump tossed out ideas, including raising the minimum age to purchase assault-style weapons and arming teachers, though on Saturday the president tweeted that the latter was “Up to states.”

Their silence has left little indication whether they are ready to rally their ranks behind any one of the president’s ideas, dust off another proposal or do nothing. The most likely legislative option is bolstering the federal background check system for gun purchases, but it’s bogged down after being linked with a less popular measure to expand gun rights.

The halting start reflects firm GOP opposition to any bill that would curb access to guns and risk antagonizing gun advocates in their party. Before the Feb. 14 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people, Republicans had no intention of reviving the polarizing and politically risky gun debate during an already difficult election year that could endanger their congressional majority.

“There’s no magic bill that’s going to stop the next thing from happening when so many laws are already on the books that weren’t being enforced, that were broken,” said Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the third-ranking House GOP leader, when asked about solutions. “The breakdowns that happen, this is what drives people nuts,” said Scalise, who suffered life-threatening injuries when a gunman opened fire on lawmakers’ baseball team practice last year.

Under tough public questioning from shooting survivors, Trump has set high expectations for action.

“I think we’re going to have a great bill put forward very soon having to do with background checks, having to do with getting rid of certain things and keeping other things, and perhaps we’ll do something on age,” Trump said in a Fox News Channel interview Saturday night. He added: “We are drawing up strong legislation right now having to do with background checks, mental illness. I think you will have tremendous support. It’s time. It’s time.”

Trump’s early ideas were met with mixed reactions from his party. His talk of allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons into classrooms was rejected by at least one Republican, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., both spoke to Trump on Friday. Their offices declined comment on the conversations or legislative strategy.

Some Republicans backed up Trump’s apparent endorsement of raising the age minimum for buying some weapons.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said he would support raising the age limit to buy a semi-automatic weapon like the one used in Florida. Rubio also supports lifting the age for rifle purchases. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., a longtime NRA member, wrote in The New York Times that he now supports an assault-weapons ban.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said he expects to talk soon with Trump, who has said he wants tougher background checks, as Toomey revives the bill he proposed earlier with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to expand presale checks for firearms purchases online and at gun shows.

First introduced after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 in Connecticut, the measure has twice been rejected by the Senate. Some Democrats in GOP-leaning states joined with Republicans to defeat the measure. Toomey’s office said he is seeking to build bipartisan support after the latest shooting.

“Our president can play a huge and, in fact, probably decisive role in this. So I intend to give this another shot,” Toomey said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The Senate more likely will turn to a bipartisan bill from Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., to strengthen FBI background checks — a response to a shooting last November in which a gunman killed more than two dozen people at a Texas church.

That bill would penalize federal agencies that don’t properly report required records and reward states that comply by providing them with federal grant preferences. It was drafted after the Air Force acknowledged that it failed to report the Texas gunman’s domestic violence conviction to the National Criminal Information Center database.

The House passed it last year, but only after GOP leaders added an unrelated measure pushed by the National Rifle Association. That measure expands gun rights by making it easier for gun owners to carry concealed weapons across state lines.

The package also included a provision directing the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to review “bump-stock” devices like the one used during the shooting at a Las Vegas music festival that left 58 people dead and hundreds injured.

Murphy told The Associated Press he was invited to discuss gun issues with the White House and he was interested in hearing the president’s ideas. He said he did not expect the Florida shooting to lead to a major breakthrough in Congress for those who’ve long pushed for tighter gun laws.

“There’s not going to be a turning point politically,” he said. Rather, it’s about “slowly and methodically” building a political movement.

Senate Democrats say any attempt to combine the background checks and concealed-carry measures is doomed to fail.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he was skeptical Trump would follow through on proposals such as comprehensive background checks that the NRA opposes.

“The real test of President Trump and the Republican Congress is not words and empathy, but action,” Schumer said in a statement. He noted that Trump has a tendency to change his mind on this and other issues, reminding that the president has called for tougher gun laws only to back away when confronted by resistance from gun owners. The NRA’s independent expenditure arm poured tens of millions into Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“Will President Trump and the Republicans finally buck the NRA and get something done?” Schumer asked. “I hope this time will be different.”
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U.S. lawmakers return to Washington this week facing heightened pressure to address gun violence in America after yet another mass shooting that claimed 17 lives at a Florida high school. VOA’s Michael Bowman has this report
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President Donald Trump says this month’s mass shooting at a Florida high school will be a key focus Monday as governors from across the country meet in Washington.

“I think we’ll make that first on our list, because we have to end our country of what’s happening with respect to that subject,” he said during a welcome event Sunday night.

Individual states have varying gun laws, and could take yet different approaches in deciding whether and how to enact any new gun controls. The federal government could take its own action, and lawmakers in the House and Senate return to work Monday after a week-long holiday recess back in their home districts.

The U.S. debate over the proper response to try to thwart future school shootings is intensifying, but whether the killings will move Congress to act is open to question. In a country where the U.S. Constitution enshrines gun ownership, lawmakers have been loathe to impose tougher gun controls, even in the face of previous mass shootings in recent years.

Watch: US Lawmakers Face Pressure to Stem Gun Violence

President Trump has suggested arming some gun-adept teachers and paying them a bonus to keep a concealed weapon at the ready to confront a shooter.

A small number of local school districts in the U.S. have already instituted such a system of classroom protection, but numerous national educators are opposed to the idea. Trump also has said he favors increasing the legal age for all gun purchases from 18 to 21, an idea adamantly opposed by the country’s powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.

Trump said he would leave it up to individual states to decide whether to arm teachers. But Rick Scott, the governor of Florida where the shooting occurred and a supporter of Trump, said he opposes the idea.

“I disagree with arming teachers. My focus is on bringing in law enforcement,” Scott said. “Let law enforcement keep us safe, and let teachers focus on teaching.”

NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch told ABC News, “If parents and teachers voluntarily choose to be armed, I think that’s something schools will have to come up with and determine for themselves.”

CNN said its latest national poll shows growing support for more expansive gun controls, with 70 percent favoring new restrictions, compared to 52 percent in an October poll not long after a mass shooting in Las Vegas killed 58 people.

Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School returned to the campus for the first time Sunday since a gunman killed 17 people on February 14.

Classes are scheduled to resume Wednesday, but students were allowed to come back and retrieve what they left behind as they fled the shooting.

“It’s not like you’re going back just to see your friends. You’re going back to see people that are traumatized for the rest of their lives,” said student Navid Rafiee.

The sheriff of the county where the shooting took place vowed Sunday to investigate every aspect of his department’s response as the attack unfolded as well as numerous missed signals it received about the suspected gunman’s volatility in the weeks beforehand.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told CNN, “We will investigate every action of our deputies.”

But he heaped scorn on one of them, Scot Peterson, the veteran lawman who stayed outside the Parkland, Fla., high school two weeks ago rather than charging inside to confront the shooter.

“It makes me sick to my stomach that he didn’t go in,” Israel said of Peterson, calling his actions “dereliction of duty.” Israel said that when he saw the video of Peterson outside the school during the shooting, he suspended him without pay last week. Peterson has resigned.

Israel said Broward internal investigators are looking at reports that at least three other deputies also arrived on the scene without entering the school while the attack was unfolding. In addition, he said investigators are reviewing 18 calls to the Broward sheriff’s office about 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz in the weeks before the shooting, in which callers said they believed he was amassing an arsenal and was a threat to carry out an attack on a school.

“One deputy was remiss. Everything else is fluid,” Israel said. “We understand everything wasn’t done perfectly.”

One Florida lawmaker called for Israel’s resignation, but the sheriff said he would not quit. Israel said he has given “amazing leadership” to his agency.
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Stricter enforcement of U.S. immigration law has created uncertainty for migrants who have been living in the United States for many years, despite having entered the country illegally. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Los Angeles that a widespread crackdown and recent workplace raids have prompted some to seek legal advice.
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Stricter enforcement of U.S. immigration law has created uncertainty for migrants who have been living in the United States for many years, despite having entered the country illegally. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Los Angeles that a widespread crackdown and recent workplace raids have prompted some to seek legal advice.
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U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke revamped a plan for a sweeping overhaul of his department Friday with a new organizational map that more closely follows state lines instead of the natural boundaries he initially proposed.

The changes follow complaints from a bipartisan group of Western state governors that Zinke did not consult them before unveiling his original plan last month. The agency oversees vast public lands, primarily in the U.S. West, ranging from protected national parks and wildlife refuges to areas where coal mining and energy exploration dominate the landscape.

Zinke said in an interview with The Associated Press that his goal remains unchanged: decentralizing the Interior Department’s bureaucracy and creating 13 regional headquarters.

Regional map redrawn

The redrawn map, obtained by AP, shows that states such as Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming would fall within a single region instead of being split among multiple regions. Other states remain divided, including California, Nevada, Montana and Oregon.

Aspects of the original map remain, with some regions labeled according to river systems, such as the Upper Colorado Basin and the Missouri Basin. But the new lines tend to cut across geographic features and follow state lines, not boundaries of rivers and ecosystems.

The new proposal resulted from discussions with governors, members of Congress and senior leaders at the agency, Interior officials said.

Many department changes

Zinke, a former Republican congressman from Montana, has imposed major changes at the 70,000-employee Interior Department. He has rolled back regulations considered burdensome to the oil and gas industry and reassigned dozens of senior officials who were holdovers from President Barack Obama’s administration.

The vision of retooling the department’s bureaucracy plays into longstanding calls from politicians in the American West to shift more decisions about nearly 700,000 square miles (more than 1.8 million square kilometers) of public lands under Interior oversight to officials in the region.

Some Democrats have speculated that Zinke’s true motivation for the overhaul is to gut the department, noting that more than 90 percent of its employees work outside Washington, D.C.

Zinke contends that he’s trying to streamline Interior’s management of public lands by requiring all of the agencies within the department to use common regional boundaries, including the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service.

Congress has the final word on the proposal.
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U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke revamped a plan for a sweeping overhaul of his department Friday with a new organizational map that more closely follows state lines instead of the natural boundaries he initially proposed.

The changes follow complaints from a bipartisan group of Western state governors that Zinke did not consult them before unveiling his original plan last month. The agency oversees vast public lands, primarily in the U.S. West, ranging from protected national parks and wildlife refuges to areas where coal mining and energy exploration dominate the landscape.

Zinke said in an interview with The Associated Press that his goal remains unchanged: decentralizing the Interior Department’s bureaucracy and creating 13 regional headquarters.

Regional map redrawn

The redrawn map, obtained by AP, shows that states such as Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming would fall within a single region instead of being split among multiple regions. Other states remain divided, including California, Nevada, Montana and Oregon.

Aspects of the original map remain, with some regions labeled according to river systems, such as the Upper Colorado Basin and the Missouri Basin. But the new lines tend to cut across geographic features and follow state lines, not boundaries of rivers and ecosystems.

The new proposal resulted from discussions with governors, members of Congress and senior leaders at the agency, Interior officials said.

Many department changes

Zinke, a former Republican congressman from Montana, has imposed major changes at the 70,000-employee Interior Department. He has rolled back regulations considered burdensome to the oil and gas industry and reassigned dozens of senior officials who were holdovers from President Barack Obama’s administration.

The vision of retooling the department’s bureaucracy plays into longstanding calls from politicians in the American West to shift more decisions about nearly 700,000 square miles (more than 1.8 million square kilometers) of public lands under Interior oversight to officials in the region.

Some Democrats have speculated that Zinke’s true motivation for the overhaul is to gut the department, noting that more than 90 percent of its employees work outside Washington, D.C.

Zinke contends that he’s trying to streamline Interior’s management of public lands by requiring all of the agencies within the department to use common regional boundaries, including the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service.

Congress has the final word on the proposal.
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U.S. governors kicked off their winter meeting Saturday in Washington, an agenda focusing on trade and innovation. International cooperation was highlighted, with Australia’s prime minister delivering opening remarks and Ghana’s president scheduled to give the keynote address Sunday. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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Three more companies say they have ended marketing programs with the National Rifle Association (NRA), as gun control advocates stepped up pressure on firms to cut ties to the gun industry following last week’s school shooting in Florida.

Activists have posted petitions online, identifying businesses that offer discounts to NRA members, in a push to pressure the companies to cut ties to the gun rights organization.

Corporations that ended their discount programs with NRA members on Friday included insurance company MetLife, car rental company Hertz, and Symantec Corp., the software company that makes Norton Antivirus technology.

The move comes after several other companies cut their ties to the NRA earlier this week, including car rental company Enterprise, First National Bank of Omaha, Wyndham Hotels and Best Western hotels.

The NRA is one of the country’s most powerful lobbying groups for gun rights and claims 5 million members.

Florida shooting renews debate

Last week’s shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead has renewed the national debate about gun control.

Gun control activists have been mounting a campaign on Twitter, including using the hashtag #BoycottNRA as well as using social media to pressure streaming platforms, including Amazon, to drop the online video channel NRATV, which features gun-friendly programming produced by the NRA.

On Thursday, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that those advocating for stricter gun control are exploiting the Florida shooting.

Receiving a rousing reception, LaPierre said, “There is no greater personal individual freedom than the right to keep and bear arms, the right to protect yourself and the right to survive.”

Arming teachers

On Friday, President Donald Trump reiterated to CPAC for the third time this week the need to arm teachers with concealed weapons to prevent more shootings in U.S. schools.

“It’s time to make our schools a much harder target for attackers. We don’t want them in our schools,” Trump said.

Trump has also proposed raising the age to buy assault-style rifles from 18 to 21, which is opposed by the NRA.

In his speech to CPAC, Trump indicated he does not intend to battle the powerful organization.

“They’re friends of mine,” Trump said of the NRA, which gave more than $11 million to his presidential campaign in 2016 and spent nearly $20 million attacking his Democratic Party general election challenger, Hillary Clinton.

The mass shooting in Florida on Feb. 14 has sparked a wave of rallies in Florida, Washington and in other areas of the United States in an attempt to force local and national leaders to take action to prevent such attacks.

 
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U.S. President Donald Trump repeated his call to arm some teachers in the wake of the high school shooting in Florida. Trump spoke before a conservative group near Washington. He is the latest in a series of U.S. presidents forced to deal with the impact of a mass school shooting and with the question of what can be done to prevent them. VOA national correspondent Jim Malone reports that presidents have often been frustrated when trying to bridge the great divide over guns in the United States.
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President Donald Trump’s first year in office has at times been racially charged, from his push to temporarily ban citizens from certain countries to his comments after a race riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, when some said he didn’t swiftly condemn white supremacists. But no matter the controversy, he remains the U.S military’s commander-in-chief. At the president’s home base, Joint Base Andrews, just outside of Washington, airmen from all backgrounds are celebrating their diversity and sharing their stories of race relations with our Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb.
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A new congressional map in Pennsylvania on Friday survived a request from eight of the state’s Republican congressmen that federal judges throw it out immediately, but the case remained far from settled days before candidates will start collecting signatures to get on the primary ballot.

Hours after they were appointed to the case, a three-judge panel declined to temporarily hold up implementation of the map put in place by the state Supreme Court on Monday. The new map substantially overhauls a Republican-drawn one that has helped produce a predominantly Republican delegation and was widely viewed as among the nation’s most gerrymandered.

The three federal judges laid out a schedule for the parties to elaborate on their legal positions, including a March 9 hearing in Harrisburg.

Congressional candidates in Pennsylvania are scheduled to start collecting signatures Tuesday to get their names on the primary ballot.

The GOP congressmen and two Republican state senators sued two high-ranking state elections official Thursday, asking the federal court to require the use of a Republican-drawn 2011 congressional district map for this year’s primary and general elections.

They argued the map the state justices produced was biased in favor of Democrats, and that the state court did not give state lawmakers sufficient time to produce a replacement map.

A lawyer for Democratic Governor Tom Wolf wrote the court Friday on behalf of the elections officials, noting that two other Republican leaders in the Legislature had a request for a stay of the new map pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Deputy General Counsel Thomas Howell asked the federal court to defer action on the congressmen’s lawsuit until that request has been resolved.

‘Rife’ with errors

Howell claimed that the lawsuit against Wolf’s acting secretary of state and the head of the Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation had “significant hurdles” and was “rife with legal and factual errors.”

The judicial panel, named pursuant to a federal law governing constitutional challenges to congressional reapportionment, consists of Judge Christopher Conner, a Pennsylvania-based district judge; Judge Jerome Simandle, a senior district judge from New Jersey; and Judge Kent Jordan, a circuit judge who was formerly a district judge in Delaware.

Conner and Jordan were chosen for the federal bench by President George W. Bush, while Simandle was nominated by President George H.W. Bush.

In the parallel case, House Speaker Mike Turzai and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put the new map on hold, arguing state justices had overstepped their authority. On Thursday, the leaders also asked the state Supreme Court to delay the map. Wolf and other parties were given until noon Monday to weigh in.

The 2011 map has helped Republicans maintain a 13-5 edge in the congressional delegation for three elections.

The Democrats who are the majority on the state Supreme Court ruled in January that the 2011 map violated the state constitution’s guarantee of free and equal elections. After lawmakers did not enact a Wolf-supported plan during a two-week window, the judges drew their own map.

Democrats have about 800,000 more registered voters in Pennsylvania, but President Donald Trump, a Republican, narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton in the state during the 2016 election.

Democrats are hopeful that new Pennsylvania congressional districts will help them flip enough Republican seats to retake majority control of the U.S. House this year. Six Pennsylvania congressmen elected in 2016 are not running again, an unusually large number.
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A new congressional map in Pennsylvania on Friday survived a request from eight of the state’s Republican congressmen that federal judges throw it out immediately, but the case remained far from settled days before candidates will start collecting signatures to get on the primary ballot.

Hours after they were appointed to the case, a three-judge panel declined to temporarily hold up implementation of the map put in place by the state Supreme Court on Monday. The new map substantially overhauls a Republican-drawn one that has helped produce a predominantly Republican delegation and was widely viewed as among the nation’s most gerrymandered.

The three federal judges laid out a schedule for the parties to elaborate on their legal positions, including a March 9 hearing in Harrisburg.

Congressional candidates in Pennsylvania are scheduled to start collecting signatures Tuesday to get their names on the primary ballot.

The GOP congressmen and two Republican state senators sued two high-ranking state elections official Thursday, asking the federal court to require the use of a Republican-drawn 2011 congressional district map for this year’s primary and general elections.

They argued the map the state justices produced was biased in favor of Democrats, and that the state court did not give state lawmakers sufficient time to produce a replacement map.

A lawyer for Democratic Governor Tom Wolf wrote the court Friday on behalf of the elections officials, noting that two other Republican leaders in the Legislature had a request for a stay of the new map pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Deputy General Counsel Thomas Howell asked the federal court to defer action on the congressmen’s lawsuit until that request has been resolved.

‘Rife’ with errors

Howell claimed that the lawsuit against Wolf’s acting secretary of state and the head of the Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation had “significant hurdles” and was “rife with legal and factual errors.”

The judicial panel, named pursuant to a federal law governing constitutional challenges to congressional reapportionment, consists of Judge Christopher Conner, a Pennsylvania-based district judge; Judge Jerome Simandle, a senior district judge from New Jersey; and Judge Kent Jordan, a circuit judge who was formerly a district judge in Delaware.

Conner and Jordan were chosen for the federal bench by President George W. Bush, while Simandle was nominated by President George H.W. Bush.

In the parallel case, House Speaker Mike Turzai and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put the new map on hold, arguing state justices had overstepped their authority. On Thursday, the leaders also asked the state Supreme Court to delay the map. Wolf and other parties were given until noon Monday to weigh in.

The 2011 map has helped Republicans maintain a 13-5 edge in the congressional delegation for three elections.

The Democrats who are the majority on the state Supreme Court ruled in January that the 2011 map violated the state constitution’s guarantee of free and equal elections. After lawmakers did not enact a Wolf-supported plan during a two-week window, the judges drew their own map.

Democrats have about 800,000 more registered voters in Pennsylvania, but President Donald Trump, a Republican, narrowly defeated Hillary Clinton in the state during the 2016 election.

Democrats are hopeful that new Pennsylvania congressional districts will help them flip enough Republican seats to retake majority control of the U.S. House this year. Six Pennsylvania congressmen elected in 2016 are not running again, an unusually large number.
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It will be up to the White House chief of staff to decide whether the U.S. president’s son-in-law is able to maintain his security clearance.

That is what President Donald Trump told reporters Friday, declaring that his daughter’s husband, Jared Kushner, had “been treated very unfairly.”

Trump, during a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, was asked whether Kushner would still be allowed access to classified information.

Chief of Staff John Kelly, in a memo last week, said White House personnel whose clearances had been pending since last June would no longer have access to top-secret documents.

Kushner falls into that category.

Federal process

Trump expressed frustration with the federal government’s process for security clearances, calling it a “broken system and it shouldn’t take this long.”

“People without a problem in the world” are facing unreasonable delays to receive clearances, he said. 

Trump could personally intervene and grant his son-in-law an exemption, but he replied Friday — the day interim clearances are being revoked — that he would not do that.

“I will let General Kelly make that decision and he’s going to do what’s right for the country and I have no doubt he’ll make the right decision,” Trump said.

In a lengthy response in the East Room during the nationally televised news conference, Trump praised Kushner, 37, saying he is “a high-quality person” who “doesn’t get a salary.”

Kushner, a second-generation real estate developer, is “working on peace in the Middle East and some other small and very easy deals.”

Trump said the U.S. effort to make a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians is “actually making great headway.”

Administration officials are said to be examining ways that Kushner can continue to be engaged in sensitive discussions and his diplomatic missions, which have also included China, without needing a top-level security clearance.

Visiting Seoul, Pyeongchang

Kushner is married to the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, who is currently engaged in her own diplomatic foray.

She received a red-carpet welcome in Seoul on Friday before dining with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the presidential compound.

Ivanka Trump is leading the presidential delegation to Sunday’s closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. 

A top North Korean official is also scheduled to be at the event.

When asked whether the president’s daughter or any other member of the U.S. delegation would be meeting with Kim Yong Chol — vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee — a senior U.S. official succinctly responded, “No.”

Donald Trump on Thursday and Friday, when asked by VOA during brief encounters with reporters whether he wanted his daughter to meet the North Koreans, did not respond.

During Friday’s news conference he said, “We cannot get a better representative” than Ivanka Trump in South Korea.

The current administration has not nominated an ambassador to Seoul. The top diplomat at the embassy there is interim U.S. Charge d’Affaires Marc Knapper, a top-ranking career foreign service officer.

While in Seoul, Ivanka Trump said she was there “to reaffirm our bonds of friendship and partnership.” But she explained she wanted to “reaffirm our commitment to our maximum-pressure campaign to ensure that the Korean Peninsula is denuclearized.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday recited the lyrics of a song seen as anti-immigration called “The Snake” to drive home his point about restricting immigration — an inflammatory move that harkened back to his days on the campaign trail.

In a speech to conservatives at a convention outside Washington, he also bashed opposition Democrats for failing to back his proposal for putting 1.8 million so-called Dreamer immigrants on a pathway to citizenship in exchange for tightening border security and severely restricting legal immigration.

During his hourlong address, Trump pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and read “The Snake,” a ballad by Al Wilson about a reptile who repays a “tender woman” that nurses it back to health with a deadly bite.

During his campaign, as well as in a speech early in his presidency, Trump used the song, based on one of Aesop’s fables, as a less-than-subtle allegory about immigrants entering the United States. 

Some Republicans recoil

On Friday, he made no secret about the comparison he was making.

“Think of it in terms of immigration,” he urged attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) as he launched into the song.

“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in,” he said, reading the final line of the song, before returning to his speech.

“And that’s what we’re doing with our country, folks — we’re letting people in, and it’s going to be a lot of people. It’s only going to be worse.”

Some mainstream Republicans have recoiled at Trump’s continued recitation of the lyrics.

“Trump’s snake story is vicious, disgraceful, utterly racist and profoundly un-American,” tweeted Steve Schmidt, a former campaign aide for president George W Bush.

Democrats ‘totally unresponsive’

In his wide-ranging speech, Trump warned that efforts to reach a deal on the status of undocumented migrants brought to the US illegally as children could fail — and blamed his opponents.

“The Democrats are being totally unresponsive. They don’t want to do anything about DACA, I’m telling you,” he said, referring to negotiations on Capitol Hill on replacing an expiring program that defers deportation for some undocumented migrants.

“It’s very possible that DACA won’t happen.”

Former president Barack Obama launched the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, whose recipients were given legal permission to work, live and go to school in the United States. 

DACA-related bills

Last September, Trump announced he was rescinding DACA and called on Congress to craft a solution before March 5, setting off months of bipartisan negotiations.

The Senate held votes on several DACA-related bills last week, but none of them advanced. 

Many conservatives in Congress including Senator Ted Cruz have been outspoken in their opposition to any legislation that provides “amnesty” to people who are in the United States illegally. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump has called a meeting early next week with key senators and Cabinet officials to discuss potential changes to biofuels policy, which is coming under increasing pressure after a Pennsylvania refiner blamed the regulation for its bankruptcy, according to four sources familiar with the matter.

The meeting comes as the oil industry and corn lobby clash over the future of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a decade-old regulation that requires refiners to cover the cost of mixing biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into their fuel.

Trump’s engagement reflects the high political stakes of protecting jobs in a key electoral state. Oil refiner Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), which employs more than 1,000 people in Philadelphia, declared bankruptcy last month and blamed the regulation for its demise.

Oil, farm state senators

The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, will include Republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst of Iowa, along with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, and potentially Energy Secretary Rick Perry, according to the four sources, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

One source said the meeting would focus on short-term solutions to help PES continue operating. PES is asking a bankruptcy judge to shed roughly $350 million of its current RFS compliance costs, owed to the EPA which administers the program, as part of its restructuring package.

The other sources said the meeting will consider whether to cap prices for biofuel credits, let higher-ethanol blends be sold all year, and efforts to get speculators out of the market.

Officials at the EPA, Agriculture Department, and Energy Department declined to comment. A White House official, Kelly Love, said she had no announcement on the matter at this time.

The offices of Cruz, Ernst and Grassley did not immediately return requests for comment.

The sources said the options moving forward would be constrained by political and legal realities that have derailed previous efforts at reform.

The Trump administration has considered changes to the RFS sought by refiners this year, including reducing the amount of biofuels required to be blended annually under the regulation or shifting the responsibility for blending to supply terminals, only to retreat in the face of opposition from corn-state lawmakers.

​Narrow options, broad resistance

The EPA is expected to weigh in officially in the coming weeks on request by PES to the bankruptcy judge to be released from its compliance obligations. But any such move would likely draw a backlash from other U.S. refiners, who have no hope of receiving a waiver.

Under the RFS, refiners must earn or purchase blending credits called RINs to prove they are complying with the regulation. As biofuels volume quotas have increased, so have prices for the credits, meaning refiners that invested in blending facilities have benefited while those that have not, such as PES, have had to pay up.

PES said its RFS compliance costs exceeded its payroll last year, and ranked only behind the cost of purchasing crude oil.

Other issues may have contributed to PES’ financial difficulties. Reuters reported that PES’ investor backers withdrew from the company more than $594 million in a series of dividend-style distributions since 2012, even as regional refining economics slumped.

Regulators and lawmakers have been considering how to cut the cost of the RFS to the oil industry.

In recent months, for example, the EPA has contemplated expanding its use of an exemption available to small refineries, a move that would likely push down RIN prices, but which both the oil and corn industries have said would be unfair.

Cruz last year proposed limiting the price of RINs to 10 cents, a fraction of their current value — an idea that was roundly rejected by the ethanol industry as a disincentive for new ethanol blending infrastructure investment.

Senator John Cornyn, also a Texas Republican, is preparing draft legislation to overhaul the RFS in Congress that would include the creation of a new specialized RIN credit intended to push down prices, but it too faces resistance from both the corn and oil lobbies.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump has called a meeting early next week with key senators and Cabinet officials to discuss potential changes to biofuels policy, which is coming under increasing pressure after a Pennsylvania refiner blamed the regulation for its bankruptcy, according to four sources familiar with the matter.

The meeting comes as the oil industry and corn lobby clash over the future of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a decade-old regulation that requires refiners to cover the cost of mixing biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into their fuel.

Trump’s engagement reflects the high political stakes of protecting jobs in a key electoral state. Oil refiner Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), which employs more than 1,000 people in Philadelphia, declared bankruptcy last month and blamed the regulation for its demise.

Oil, farm state senators

The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, will include Republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst of Iowa, along with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, and potentially Energy Secretary Rick Perry, according to the four sources, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

One source said the meeting would focus on short-term solutions to help PES continue operating. PES is asking a bankruptcy judge to shed roughly $350 million of its current RFS compliance costs, owed to the EPA which administers the program, as part of its restructuring package.

The other sources said the meeting will consider whether to cap prices for biofuel credits, let higher-ethanol blends be sold all year, and efforts to get speculators out of the market.

Officials at the EPA, Agriculture Department, and Energy Department declined to comment. A White House official, Kelly Love, said she had no announcement on the matter at this time.

The offices of Cruz, Ernst and Grassley did not immediately return requests for comment.

The sources said the options moving forward would be constrained by political and legal realities that have derailed previous efforts at reform.

The Trump administration has considered changes to the RFS sought by refiners this year, including reducing the amount of biofuels required to be blended annually under the regulation or shifting the responsibility for blending to supply terminals, only to retreat in the face of opposition from corn-state lawmakers.

​Narrow options, broad resistance

The EPA is expected to weigh in officially in the coming weeks on request by PES to the bankruptcy judge to be released from its compliance obligations. But any such move would likely draw a backlash from other U.S. refiners, who have no hope of receiving a waiver.

Under the RFS, refiners must earn or purchase blending credits called RINs to prove they are complying with the regulation. As biofuels volume quotas have increased, so have prices for the credits, meaning refiners that invested in blending facilities have benefited while those that have not, such as PES, have had to pay up.

PES said its RFS compliance costs exceeded its payroll last year, and ranked only behind the cost of purchasing crude oil.

Other issues may have contributed to PES’ financial difficulties. Reuters reported that PES’ investor backers withdrew from the company more than $594 million in a series of dividend-style distributions since 2012, even as regional refining economics slumped.

Regulators and lawmakers have been considering how to cut the cost of the RFS to the oil industry.

In recent months, for example, the EPA has contemplated expanding its use of an exemption available to small refineries, a move that would likely push down RIN prices, but which both the oil and corn industries have said would be unfair.

Cruz last year proposed limiting the price of RINs to 10 cents, a fraction of their current value — an idea that was roundly rejected by the ethanol industry as a disincentive for new ethanol blending infrastructure investment.

Senator John Cornyn, also a Texas Republican, is preparing draft legislation to overhaul the RFS in Congress that would include the creation of a new specialized RIN credit intended to push down prices, but it too faces resistance from both the corn and oil lobbies.
…

Pennsylvania’s highest court overstepped its authority in drawing new congressional district lines and did not give state lawmakers enough time to produce a map of their own, eight Republican congressmen said in a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The complaint in Harrisburg federal court argued against the legality of the map put in place Monday by the state Supreme Court, and said a 2011 Republican-crafted map should remain in use this year.

The plaintiffs are suing top elections officials under Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, asking for an injunction to prevent the Department of State from implementing the new plan.

“Far from being free of politics, it appears every choice in the court-drawn plan was to pack Republicans into as few districts as possible, while advantaging Democrats,” the plaintiffs alleged.

The Philadelphia-based Public Interest Law Center, which helped argue the successful case against the 2011 map in the state courts, on Thursday called the Republican lawsuit “baseless” and in a federal court filing said independent analysts found the court’s map shows no sign of partisan bias. The law center also said that Republicans who control the state Legislature never tried to pass a replacement map in the time allotted by the court.

A separate legal challenge to the new map by two senior Republican legislative leaders is currently awaiting action by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A spokesman for Wolf said he and the elections agency “are complying with the court’s order to implement the remedial map and assuring the commonwealth is prepared for the primary election.”

The 2011 map is widely considered among the nation’s most gerrymandered, a mélange of jagged lines and odd shapes that include one likened to the cartoon character Goofy kicking Donald Duck. Some Republicans acknowledge the map was gerrymandered, but say that is not unconstitutional.

It has proven to be a political winner for the GOP, helping the party maintain a 13-5 edge in the state’s congressional delegation over three straight election cycles. Democrats have about 800,000 more registered voters and a recent winning record in statewide elections, although Republicans hold wide majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. Republican President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania in 2016.

‘Partisan skew’

An analysis conducted through PlanScore.org concluded the state court’s redrawn map would eliminate “much of the partisan skew” favoring Republicans on the old GOP-drawn map, but not all of it.

Democrats hope a new map in Pennsylvania will help them retake majority control of the U.S. House this year. Six congressmen elected in 2016 are not running again, an unusually large number that has helped draw a slew of would-be candidates seeking to replace them.

The plaintiffs include seven Republican members of Congress who are expected to seek re-election: Reps. Ryan Costello, Mike Kelly, Tom Marino, Scott Perry, Keith Rothfus, Lloyd Smucker and Glenn Thompson.

Not among them is U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from the Philadelphia suburbs who wants to turn over redistricting to an independent, non-partisan commission.

Incumbents said they have already spent money on re-election campaigns in their existing districts, and that ongoing work to help constituents they may no longer represent is likely to be disrupted.

Legal scramble

The federal lawsuit was filed the day after Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the court-ordered map from being implemented. Some of the same lawyers worked on both filings, and the approaches are notably similar.

In throwing out the 2011 map in January, all five Democrats on the state Supreme Court sided with Democratic voters who challenged the map, saying it ran afoul of the state constitution’s guarantee of free and equal elections. One of the Democratic justices, Max Baer, has been critical of the compressed time frame. The new lawsuit drew heavily from the minority opinions in the state case filed by Baer and the court’s two Republican justices, Thomas Saylor and Sallie Mundy.

The legal scramble comes on the eve of a very busy time for congressional candidates hoping to get on the May 15 primary ballot. Congressional candidates have from Feb. 27 to March 20 to collect and submit enough signatures to qualify.
…

Pennsylvania’s highest court overstepped its authority in drawing new congressional district lines and did not give state lawmakers enough time to produce a map of their own, eight Republican congressmen said in a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The complaint in Harrisburg federal court argued against the legality of the map put in place Monday by the state Supreme Court, and said a 2011 Republican-crafted map should remain in use this year.

The plaintiffs are suing top elections officials under Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, asking for an injunction to prevent the Department of State from implementing the new plan.

“Far from being free of politics, it appears every choice in the court-drawn plan was to pack Republicans into as few districts as possible, while advantaging Democrats,” the plaintiffs alleged.

The Philadelphia-based Public Interest Law Center, which helped argue the successful case against the 2011 map in the state courts, on Thursday called the Republican lawsuit “baseless” and in a federal court filing said independent analysts found the court’s map shows no sign of partisan bias. The law center also said that Republicans who control the state Legislature never tried to pass a replacement map in the time allotted by the court.

A separate legal challenge to the new map by two senior Republican legislative leaders is currently awaiting action by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A spokesman for Wolf said he and the elections agency “are complying with the court’s order to implement the remedial map and assuring the commonwealth is prepared for the primary election.”

The 2011 map is widely considered among the nation’s most gerrymandered, a mélange of jagged lines and odd shapes that include one likened to the cartoon character Goofy kicking Donald Duck. Some Republicans acknowledge the map was gerrymandered, but say that is not unconstitutional.

It has proven to be a political winner for the GOP, helping the party maintain a 13-5 edge in the state’s congressional delegation over three straight election cycles. Democrats have about 800,000 more registered voters and a recent winning record in statewide elections, although Republicans hold wide majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. Republican President Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania in 2016.

‘Partisan skew’

An analysis conducted through PlanScore.org concluded the state court’s redrawn map would eliminate “much of the partisan skew” favoring Republicans on the old GOP-drawn map, but not all of it.

Democrats hope a new map in Pennsylvania will help them retake majority control of the U.S. House this year. Six congressmen elected in 2016 are not running again, an unusually large number that has helped draw a slew of would-be candidates seeking to replace them.

The plaintiffs include seven Republican members of Congress who are expected to seek re-election: Reps. Ryan Costello, Mike Kelly, Tom Marino, Scott Perry, Keith Rothfus, Lloyd Smucker and Glenn Thompson.

Not among them is U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from the Philadelphia suburbs who wants to turn over redistricting to an independent, non-partisan commission.

Incumbents said they have already spent money on re-election campaigns in their existing districts, and that ongoing work to help constituents they may no longer represent is likely to be disrupted.

Legal scramble

The federal lawsuit was filed the day after Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the court-ordered map from being implemented. Some of the same lawyers worked on both filings, and the approaches are notably similar.

In throwing out the 2011 map in January, all five Democrats on the state Supreme Court sided with Democratic voters who challenged the map, saying it ran afoul of the state constitution’s guarantee of free and equal elections. One of the Democratic justices, Max Baer, has been critical of the compressed time frame. The new lawsuit drew heavily from the minority opinions in the state case filed by Baer and the court’s two Republican justices, Thomas Saylor and Sallie Mundy.

The legal scramble comes on the eve of a very busy time for congressional candidates hoping to get on the May 15 primary ballot. Congressional candidates have from Feb. 27 to March 20 to collect and submit enough signatures to qualify.
…

The widow of an Uber driver killed in a suspected drunken driving crash said her family has been “devastated” by a political ad featuring her deceased husband, an Indianapolis Colts player who was also killed and the Guatemalan immigrant charged with their deaths.

Deb Monroe, the widow of driver Jeffrey Monroe, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Braun should take his ad off the air.  

“Why would you do this? He has not even been in the ground two weeks,” said Monroe. “You could have had the decency to wait and let us deal with our loss.”  

The ad by Braun, who has yet to address to Monroe’s concerns, comes in the midst of a heated GOP Senate primary. And it’s just the latest example of a political figure, among them President Donald Trump, seizing on the Feb. 4 deaths of Monroe and Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson. 

The two were struck while standing outside Monroe’s car along Interstate 70 after Jackson, 26, became ill while Monroe, 54, was transporting him for the ride-hailing company, police said.

​Trump tweeted about the tragedy, calling it “disgraceful” that the man charged with the crime, Manuel Orrego-Savala, 37, was a twice-deported immigrant in the country illegally. Braun’s GOP primary rivals both released statements in the wake of the fatal crash. 

The ad, which is narrated by Braun, displays Orrego-Savala’s mug shot as well as pictures of Monroe and Jackson.

“Politicians in Washington have ignored this issue for far too long,” Braun intones. “We must build the wall, ban sanctuary cities and put an end to chain migration. There are lives at stake.”

Deb Monroe said calls for a crackdown on immigrants are beside the point. 

“Immigration didn’t kill my husband,” said Monroe, 62, of Avon, Indiana. “The idiot that chose to drink and get behind the wheel of a 5,000 pound vehicle did.”

She added: “If he had been sober and gone by them on the road, you wouldn’t even know he was in the country.”

Furthermore, she said her husband of 26 years was against building a wall along the southern U.S. border. 

“He felt the wall was a waste of money, that it could be used better someplace else,” she said. 

Immigration has been a hot button issue in Indiana’s Republican Senate primary, which features two sitting congressman squaring off against Braun. Rep. Todd Rokita has embraced Trump’s anti-immigration stances and Rep. Luke Messer recently sharpened his own tone. 

But the ad by Braun, a businessman and former state lawmaker, takes it to a new level. 

Monroe said she phoned Braun’s campaign to request that they take the ad off the air, but they have not returned her call. 

Campaign spokesman Josh Kelley declined to address questions about whether Braun would heed her request, or if they plan on returning her call. 

“Mike Braun believes that Washington needs to stop illegal immigration, build the wall, and keep criminal illegals like the one that killed Jeffrey Monroe and Edwin Jackson out of Indiana,” Kelley wrote in an emailed statement. He added: “Mike and his family are praying for the families of the victims.”

Deb Monroe said politicians have been all too happy to “exploit” her husband’s death.  

“Everyone is upset over this,” Monroe said. “I can’t let them do this to his name. I just can’t.” 
…

The widow of an Uber driver killed in a suspected drunken driving crash said her family has been “devastated” by a political ad featuring her deceased husband, an Indianapolis Colts player who was also killed and the Guatemalan immigrant charged with their deaths.

Deb Monroe, the widow of driver Jeffrey Monroe, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Braun should take his ad off the air.  

“Why would you do this? He has not even been in the ground two weeks,” said Monroe. “You could have had the decency to wait and let us deal with our loss.”  

The ad by Braun, who has yet to address to Monroe’s concerns, comes in the midst of a heated GOP Senate primary. And it’s just the latest example of a political figure, among them President Donald Trump, seizing on the Feb. 4 deaths of Monroe and Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson. 

The two were struck while standing outside Monroe’s car along Interstate 70 after Jackson, 26, became ill while Monroe, 54, was transporting him for the ride-hailing company, police said.

​Trump tweeted about the tragedy, calling it “disgraceful” that the man charged with the crime, Manuel Orrego-Savala, 37, was a twice-deported immigrant in the country illegally. Braun’s GOP primary rivals both released statements in the wake of the fatal crash. 

The ad, which is narrated by Braun, displays Orrego-Savala’s mug shot as well as pictures of Monroe and Jackson.

“Politicians in Washington have ignored this issue for far too long,” Braun intones. “We must build the wall, ban sanctuary cities and put an end to chain migration. There are lives at stake.”

Deb Monroe said calls for a crackdown on immigrants are beside the point. 

“Immigration didn’t kill my husband,” said Monroe, 62, of Avon, Indiana. “The idiot that chose to drink and get behind the wheel of a 5,000 pound vehicle did.”

She added: “If he had been sober and gone by them on the road, you wouldn’t even know he was in the country.”

Furthermore, she said her husband of 26 years was against building a wall along the southern U.S. border. 

“He felt the wall was a waste of money, that it could be used better someplace else,” she said. 

Immigration has been a hot button issue in Indiana’s Republican Senate primary, which features two sitting congressman squaring off against Braun. Rep. Todd Rokita has embraced Trump’s anti-immigration stances and Rep. Luke Messer recently sharpened his own tone. 

But the ad by Braun, a businessman and former state lawmaker, takes it to a new level. 

Monroe said she phoned Braun’s campaign to request that they take the ad off the air, but they have not returned her call. 

Campaign spokesman Josh Kelley declined to address questions about whether Braun would heed her request, or if they plan on returning her call. 

“Mike Braun believes that Washington needs to stop illegal immigration, build the wall, and keep criminal illegals like the one that killed Jeffrey Monroe and Edwin Jackson out of Indiana,” Kelley wrote in an emailed statement. He added: “Mike and his family are praying for the families of the victims.”

Deb Monroe said politicians have been all too happy to “exploit” her husband’s death.  

“Everyone is upset over this,” Monroe said. “I can’t let them do this to his name. I just can’t.” 
…

President Donald Trump sought to clarify his idea of arming educators in the classroom to deter school shootings, saying he wants to look at the possibility of giving “concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience.”

A day after an emotional exchange at the White House with victimized students and parents of school shootings, Trump, in a pair of tweets, said “only the best 20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions.”

 
At the White House listening session Wednesday, Trump said “If you had a teacher who was adept with the firearm, they could end the attack very quickly.” He added that “This would be obviously only for people who were very adept at handling a gun, and it would be, it’s called concealed carry, where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them.”

Also spreading former military service members throughout schools “could very well solve your problem,” Trump said in the White House State Dining room. “We’re going to be looking at it very closely.”

At one point, Trump asked: “Does everybody like that idea?”

A few people raised their hands. The president then asked who opposed it and more hands went up from the approximately 40 people in the room, mainly students, family members and educators directly affected by school shootings.

Later at a CNN town hall event in Florida that included survivors of last week’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where a 19-year-old former student has been charged in the killing of 17 people, Senator Marco Rubio told the audience he does not support arming teachers.

Under questioning by students, parents and teachers, Rubio also said tighter gun laws alone will not prevent future shootings, while he does support a minimum age for buying rifles and a ban on an accessory called a bump stock that can allow the weapons to shoot more bullets more quickly.

Scott Israel, the sheriff in the county that includes Parkland, said trained deputies would carry rifles on school grounds, but rejected the idea of giving guns to teachers.

Trump is set to hold another meeting on school safety Thursday at the White House, this time with state and local officials.

During Wednesday’s event, the president also called for an end to gun-free zones near schools, declared his administration “is going to be very strong on background checks” and that it will also examine raising the minimum age for purchase of guns (28 states have no such restrictions).

“If he’s not old enough to go buy a beer. He should not be able to buy a gun. It’s just common sense,” said Stoneman Douglas student Samuel Zeif.

“It should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it and I’m pissed. Because my daughter, I’m not going to see again,” said Andrew Pollack, whose daughter, Meadow, was shot nine times and died. “King David Cemetery, that is where I go to see my kid now.”

Pollack questioned, “How many children have to get shot?”

Some students from the school declined invitations to attend Wednesday’s White House event and instead rallied at Florida’s state Capitol in Tallahassee to call for gun control reforms.

The president also referred to shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz as a “sick guy…who should have been nabbed.” Cruz is being held without bond on 17 counts of premeditated murder at the Broward County jail.

Trump put more emphasis on the mental health issue than gun control in his remarks, saying “there’s no mental institution, there’s no place to bring them” in many communities.

Since 1990, there have been 22 shootings at elementary and secondary schools in the United States, in which two or more people were killed (not counting gunmen who committed suicide).

The president on Tuesday ordered the Justice Department to look at outlawing bump stocks, which were used in the shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, last October that killed 58 people and wounded 851 others.

The Trump administration and lawmakers are facing a backlash — including from some of the student survivors of the latest school mass shooting — that they are too focused on the mental health of gunmen rather than the weapons they carry.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week said 86 percent of respondents who identified themselves as Democrats said stricter gun control laws could have prevented the Florida shooting, while 67 percent who identified as Republicans said stricter laws could not have prevented the massacre.

 
…

President Donald Trump sought to clarify his idea of arming educators in the classroom to deter school shootings, saying he wants to look at the possibility of giving “concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience.”

A day after an emotional exchange at the White House with victimized students and parents of school shootings, Trump, in a pair of tweets, said “only the best 20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions.”

 
At the White House listening session Wednesday, Trump said “If you had a teacher who was adept with the firearm, they could end the attack very quickly.” He added that “This would be obviously only for people who were very adept at handling a gun, and it would be, it’s called concealed carry, where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them.”

Also spreading former military service members throughout schools “could very well solve your problem,” Trump said in the White House State Dining room. “We’re going to be looking at it very closely.”

At one point, Trump asked: “Does everybody like that idea?”

A few people raised their hands. The president then asked who opposed it and more hands went up from the approximately 40 people in the room, mainly students, family members and educators directly affected by school shootings.

Later at a CNN town hall event in Florida that included survivors of last week’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where a 19-year-old former student has been charged in the killing of 17 people, Senator Marco Rubio told the audience he does not support arming teachers.

Under questioning by students, parents and teachers, Rubio also said tighter gun laws alone will not prevent future shootings, while he does support a minimum age for buying rifles and a ban on an accessory called a bump stock that can allow the weapons to shoot more bullets more quickly.

Scott Israel, the sheriff in the county that includes Parkland, said trained deputies would carry rifles on school grounds, but rejected the idea of giving guns to teachers.

Trump is set to hold another meeting on school safety Thursday at the White House, this time with state and local officials.

During Wednesday’s event, the president also called for an end to gun-free zones near schools, declared his administration “is going to be very strong on background checks” and that it will also examine raising the minimum age for purchase of guns (28 states have no such restrictions).

“If he’s not old enough to go buy a beer. He should not be able to buy a gun. It’s just common sense,” said Stoneman Douglas student Samuel Zeif.

“It should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it and I’m pissed. Because my daughter, I’m not going to see again,” said Andrew Pollack, whose daughter, Meadow, was shot nine times and died. “King David Cemetery, that is where I go to see my kid now.”

Pollack questioned, “How many children have to get shot?”

Some students from the school declined invitations to attend Wednesday’s White House event and instead rallied at Florida’s state Capitol in Tallahassee to call for gun control reforms.

The president also referred to shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz as a “sick guy…who should have been nabbed.” Cruz is being held without bond on 17 counts of premeditated murder at the Broward County jail.

Trump put more emphasis on the mental health issue than gun control in his remarks, saying “there’s no mental institution, there’s no place to bring them” in many communities.

Since 1990, there have been 22 shootings at elementary and secondary schools in the United States, in which two or more people were killed (not counting gunmen who committed suicide).

The president on Tuesday ordered the Justice Department to look at outlawing bump stocks, which were used in the shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, last October that killed 58 people and wounded 851 others.

The Trump administration and lawmakers are facing a backlash — including from some of the student survivors of the latest school mass shooting — that they are too focused on the mental health of gunmen rather than the weapons they carry.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week said 86 percent of respondents who identified themselves as Democrats said stricter gun control laws could have prevented the Florida shooting, while 67 percent who identified as Republicans said stricter laws could not have prevented the massacre.

 
…

A major liberal policy group is raising the ante on the health care debate with a new plan that builds on Medicare to guarantee coverage for all. 

Called “Medicare Extra for All,” the proposal to be released Thursday by the Center for American Progress gives politically energized Democrats more options to achieve a long-sought goal.

Still, the plan would preserve a role for employer coverage and for the health insurance industry. Employers and individuals would have a choice of joining Medicare Extra, but it would not be required.

That differs from the more traditional “single-payer” approach advocated by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, in which the government would hold the reins of the health care system. 

Even though the plan has no chance of passing in a Republican-controlled Congress, center president Neera Tanden said, “We think it’s time to go bolder. There is consensus on the progressive side that universal coverage should be the goal and health care is a right.”

Picking up on the leftward shift among Democrats, Republicans are already working up rebuttals. President Donald Trump tweeted earlier this month that “Dems want to greatly raise taxes for really bad and non-personal medical care. No thanks!”

The Center for American Progress is a think tank that was closely aligned with President Barack Obama and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. A 2005 proposal from the center foreshadowed Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Medicare Extra would use Medicare’s thrifty payment system as framework to pool working-age people and their families, low-income people now covered by Medicaid, and seniors. A major missing piece: There’s no cost estimate for the plan, although its authors say that’s in the works.

The proposal comes at a time when polls show intense interest among Democrats and some independents in a government-run system that would guarantee coverage and benefits while reducing the complexity and out-of-pocket costs associated with private insurance. The future of health care is expected to be a defining issue in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, and political messages will be tested and honed in this fall’s midterm elections.

A nonpartisan expert who independently reviewed the Medicare Extra plan said it could provide Democrats with a middle way to achieve their longstanding goal of coverage for all.

“It’s an attempt to capture the enthusiasm for a single-payer system among the Democratic base, but trying to create a more politically and fiscally realistic roadmap,” said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

To be sure, taxes would rise and the federal government would take on a larger role.

“It is in some ways ‘repeal and replace,’ but from the left rather than the right,” Levitt added.

Medicare Extra envisions a complex transition that would take the better part of a decade. Among its major elements:

-All U.S. citizens and lawful residents would be automatically eligible for coverage.

-Preventive care, treatment for chronic disease, and generic prescription drugs would be free. Dental, vision and hearing services would be included.

-Low-income people would pay no premiums or copays. Premiums and cost-sharing would be determined according to income for everyone else.

-Employers would have the option of maintaining their own plans or joining Medicare Extra. Workers could pick the government plan over their employer’s. The proposal would preserve the tax-free status of employer-provided health care, subject to a limit.

-Seniors with private Medicare Advantage insurance plans through Medicare would be able to keep similar coverage, although the program would be redesigned and called “Medicare Choice.” Seniors would gain coverage for vision, dental and hearing services not now provided by Medicare. Long-term care services would be covered.

-Government would negotiate prices for prescription drugs, medical devices and medical equipment.

Although costs and financing are not spelled out in the proposal, its authors acknowledge significant tax increases would be required. Options include rolling back some of the recently enacted GOP tax cuts for corporations and upper-income people, raising Medicare taxes on upper-income earners, and higher taxes on tobacco and sugary soft drinks.
…