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Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has begun a lawsuit against the Biden administration to overturn a no-sailing directive that is depriving his state’s cruise industry of billions of dollars. Mr DeSantis, who has long been a critic of lockdowns and social distancing restrictions, said at a press conference yesterday that “we don’t believe the federal government has the right to mothball a major industry for over a year based on very little evidence and very little data”.
Joe Biden’s sweeping moves yesterday to introduce tighter gun safety regulations have provoked strong reactions on all sides. Gun safety advocates are rejoicing in a president taking actions they’ve demanded for years, while the gun lobby and second amendment advocates are furious both at the actions themselves and that the president has taken them via executive order. Mr Biden says the onus is now on Congress to take more permanent actions.
The trial of Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd yesterday saw an expert witness testify that the drug fentanyl did not play a role in his death, while another explained that Mr Floyd instead “had no oxygen in his body”. He also dismissed an argument from the defence that Mr Floyd might not have died of strangulation because an autopsy found no bruising at his throat.
Governor tweets second amendment defence just before deadly shooting
Texas Governor Greg Abbott faces opprobrium after he tweeting out his strident views on Mr Biden’s gun control orders mere hours before four people were critically wounded and another killed by a shooter at a cabinet manufacturer in Bryan in his home state.
“This tweet didn’t even have time to circulate,” tweeted one user, “much less age before the “let my state freeze to death or die from COVID” Governor had to face a mass shooting. Responsible gun legislation is required.”
Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 12:13
Signs of movement in cases against Capitol insurrectionists
CNN reports that federal prosecutors have been given the go-ahead from the Department of Justice to negotiate plea bargains with defendants charged with taking part in the 6 January storming of the US Capitol.
There is so much evidence, including hours upon hours of video, that many of the cases aren’t thought to be disputable enough to take to trial.
Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 11:53
Hunter Biden’s TV book tour continues
Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been promoting his memoir of grief and addiction on the airwaves this week, and last night appeared with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to talk about his experiences.
Explaining that he wrote the book “to humanise people suffering from addiction” and as “a love letter to the people that are loving someone that’s struggling with addiction. Because it’s so hard for them to understand why it is that their love just can’t get through”.
He and Mr Kimmel also found time to kick around the vicious criticism he’s taken from the Trump family – though Mr Biden insisted that “I don’t spend too much time thinking about them.”
Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 11:35
New Tennessee law goes easy on handgun owners
Amid the fanfare over Joe Biden’s new gun orders came a major legal change in Tennessee, whose governor signed into law a bill that allows most adults over 21 to carry handguns with few checks or requirements.
Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 11:15
Joe Biden calls for “calm” as Northern Ireland violence continues
The White House has added its voice to the list of governments calling on unionists and loyalists in Northern Ireland to end the violence that has now been going on for several days.
“We are concerned by the violence in Northern Ireland,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki yesterday, “wand we join the British, Irish, and Northern Irish leaders in their calls for calm.”
Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 10:55
Tucker Carlson shares “replacement” theory and displays intimate Hunter Biden photos
It was a lurid night on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. The host crossed two particularly shocking lines, both showing lurid pictures ostensibly from Hunter Biden’s laptop – something that critics have compared to “revenge porn” – and approvingly discussing the “great replacement” theory, a white supremacist canard that claims left-wing Democrats are conspiring to demographically re-engineer the US by allowing in Latino people.
On the latter point, he drew a strange comparison with childhood.
“If you were in sixth grade, for example, and without telling you your parents adopted a bunch of new siblings, and gave them brand new bikes, and let them stay up late or helped them with their homework and gave them twice the allowance that they gave you, you would say to your siblings, ‘I think we’re being replaced by kids that our parents love more.’”
Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 10:34
Gaetzgate gets deeper
Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman embroiled in an ever-more-complicated sex scandal involving at least one underage girl, is “feeling very uncomfortable” – at least according to the lawyer representing his sometime associate Joel Greenberg, who faces federal child sex trafficking charges of his own.
As a 2019 video resurfaced showing Donald and Melania Trump meeting another key player in the scandal, Jason Pirozzolo, Mr Gaetz tweeted out a strange statement from “we, the women of Congressman Matt Gaetz’s Office”.
“Congressman Gaetz has always been a principled and morally grounded leader,” it read. “At no time has any one of us experienced or witnessed anything less than the utmost professionalism and respect. No hint of impropriety. No ounce of untruthfulness.”
Meanwhile, a former staffer to Bill Clinton has taken out a billboard targeting Mr Gaetz with an outrageous statement…
Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 10:13
Expert witness: George Floyd “had no oxygen in his body”
The prosecution witnesses in the trial of Derek Chauvin so far have given devastating testimony, but yesterday saw a particularly stunning blow. Whereas many defenders of Mr Chauvin have claimed that Mr Floyd may have died from some underlying cause, including drug use, forensic medical expert Dr Bill Smock said bluntly that “Mr Floyd died of positional asphyxia, which is a fancy way of saying he died because he had no oxygen in his body.”
Another expert witness, pulmonologist Dr Martin Tobin, came to a similar conclusion.
“Mr Floyd died from a low level of oxygen,” he said. “It’s like the left side is in a vice. It’s totally being totally pushed in, squeezed in from each side.”
And with a sentence that directly hits a key argument put forward by Mr Chauvin’s defenders: “A healthy person subjected to what Mr Floyd was subjected to would’ve died as a result.”
Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 09:54
Reaction to Biden’s gun orders continues
Based on the intensity of the response to Mr Biden’s six executive orders on gun safety – and indeed, the euphoria and rage that preceded them – we can expect more analysis and argument today. For now, many on the right are focusing on their basic argument that the president is violating the second amendment, something Mr Biden addressed head-on yesterday.
Dismissing that claim as “a phony argument” and “bizarre” given the amendment’s true history, Mr Biden yesterday called gun violence “an epidemic and an international embarrassment”.
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Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 09:32
Carry on cruising
Ron DeSantis’s lawsuit against the Biden administration is specifically targeted at saving the cruise industry, but the governor’s announcement of it made clear that he and his administration are taking aim at compulsory public health-focused restrictions in general.
“No federal law authorises the CDC to indefinitely impose a nationwide shutdown of an entire industry,” he said. “This lawsuit is necessary to protect Floridians from the federal government’s overreach and resulting economic harm to our state.”
Andrew Naughtie9 April 2021 09:12
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