Republicans

Politico reports: Twitter today reversed course and unlocked the campaign account of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, moving to defuse a growing controversy with the Republican political establishment. The company on Wednesday had frozen the McConnell account over a post featuring a profanity-laced video of protesters hurling threats toward the GOP lawmaker’s Kentucky home. The post, the company said, violated …

The Associated Press reports: Shifting the gun violence debate, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday he now wants to consider background checks and other bills, setting up a potentially pivotal moment when lawmakers return in the fall. The Republican leader won’t be calling senators back to work early, as some are demanding. But he told a Kentucky radio station …

The Hill reports: House Republicans in the Illinois delegation are calling for President Trump to not commute the prison sentence of former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving 14 years on federal corruption charges. The push comes in the wake of Trump telling reporters Wednesday he was “very strongly” considering commuting the sentence of the former Celebrity Apprentice …

The Tampa Bay Times reports: The Republican Party of Florida is planning to hold two voter registration drives at a South Florida gun show one week after two mass shootings ended with 31 people dead in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. The party’s regional field director emailed supporters Thursday asking for volunteers to help register voters at the Pembroke …

Roll Call reports: According to several people familiar with the process, Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby, an Alabama Republican, wrote an allocation for the fiscal 2020 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill that is about $5 billion lower than it would have been to provide funding for the wall. Congress and the White House reached agreement on a budget deal raising discretionary …

Politico reports: Senate Republicans’ campaign arm announced today it will stop spending money to advertise on Twitter after the social media platform locked Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s account for posting a video of violent threats against him. “Twitter’s hostile actions toward Leader McConnell’s campaign are outrageous, and we will not tolerate it,” said Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump is slated to appear at a pair of fundraising events in the Hamptons on Friday, including one that charges up to $250,000 for lunch, a photo and a private roundtable with the president. The fundraisers are the latest sign that Trump is embracing the world of wealthy contributors who served as punching bags in …

NBC News reports: Ten new pro-gun laws will take effect in Texas in four weeks, less than a month after 22 people died in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the measures after they were passed in a 2019 legislative session that the National Rifle Association, or NRA, called “highly successful” at the …

Reuters reports: A federal appeals court revived former U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, over an editorial that she said maliciously linked her to the 2011 mass shooting that seriously wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords. In a 3-0 decision on Tuesday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the lower court …

The Salt Lake Tribune reports: U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman is returning home to Utah where he is reportedly mulling another run for governor. Huntsman sent President Donald Trump a resignation letter Tuesday morning and is planning to move back to the Beehive State in October. “American citizenship is a privilege and I believe the most basic responsibility in …

USA Today reports: A crowd of frustrated mourners yelled at Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Sunday night to “do something” about gun violence. DeWine said he heard them. “Some chanted ‘do something’ and they were absolutely right,” DeWine said at Tuesday morning news conference. “We must do something, and that is exactly what we are going to do.” DeWine unveiled …

The Washington Post reports: The young men wear matching shirts from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)’s campaign, and cluster around a cardboard cutout of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Several of them hold their thumbs down. One grasps the life-size poster by the waist and pretends to kiss the congresswoman. Another appears to mime his hand around her neck. To …

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports: Ohio Republican Party leader Jane Timken has called on Rep. Candice Keller [photo] to resign from her Butler County seat after the lawmaker’s “shocking” comments about Sunday’s mass shooting in Dayton. Keller, R-Middletown, posted on Facebook Sunday comments that blamed “drag queen advocates,” the Democratic Congress, former President Barack Obama, violent video games and the hatred …

The Week reports: This tweet was questionable to begin with. The timing made it even worse. Over the weekend, a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas left 22 people dead, and another in Dayton, Ohio killed nine people. But that didn’t stop Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) campaign Twitter account from sharing a photo of his political opponents’ names …

The San Diego Union=Tribune reports: After months of speculation former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio made it official: he’s going to challenge fellow Republican Rep. Duncan D. Hunter in 2020. On Monday DeMaio announced he will run in 2020 for the congressional seat currently held by Hunter, the embattled six-term incumbent representing California’s 50th District, an area that includes …

Rough weekend for Kentucky senators. The Louisville Courier-Journal reports: U.S. Sen. Rand Paul says he’ll be sidelined from the Senate until September after undergoing lung surgery over the weekend. Part of Paul’s lung was damaged when he was assaulted by his neighbor in November 2017, the senator said Monday morning in a Twitter post. He underwent an operation over the …

The Washington Post reports: A Republican state lawmaker in Nebraska is calling out President Trump and his party for “enabling white supremacy” in the United States. In a series of tweets written Sunday night in the wake of mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, that left 29 people dead, state Sen. John McCollister said it pained him to …

The New York Times reports: Representative Kenny Marchant of Texas is planning to announce his retirement on Monday, according to two Republican officials, becoming the fourth Republican House member from Texas in recent weeks to head for the exits rather than face re-election in 2020 in a state that is rapidly becoming more competitive. Mr. Marchant, who was first elected …

“I’m calling on the president and the Congress to come back in session. Let’s do the work in Washington. Do the background check bill that we passed out of the House. We’ve got to ban these assault weapons. This is ridiculous. Honestly for a guy to drive 10 hours to go kill Mexicans like what happened in El Paso is …

Obviously only Americans have video games. Mediaite reports: Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) embarked on an tirade about video games on Sunday in response to the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton this weekend. In an interview with Fox & Friends, Patrick mourned for the dead before pivoting to argue that video games were the root cause of …