Sandy, Ross and Marjory 

Guns, Guns, Death: Yesterday was supposed to be all about primaries but instead the news quickly pivoted to guns in Texas rather than in war torn Ukraine after a body armor protected teen who had supplemented his personal gun arsenal with an AR 15 rifle the day after his eighteenth birthday seriously wounded his grandmother before going on to kill at least nineteen children and two adults at Ross Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.  Ross Elementary has now passed Parkland Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to become the site of the second deadliest US school (as opposed to university) shooting on record;   Sandy Hook maintains the dubious distinction of still being number one.  Naturally, most Republican politicians responded to the sickening tragedy with the usual bull sh-t pablum, saying that the victims and their families were in their prayers. Three of those prayerful hypocrites were Texas Senators Ted Cruz who though he’s “grieving horrifically…..still doesn’t see gun reform as a solution” and John Cornyn and another is Governor Greg Abbott who along with eliminating access to abortion counts making gun sales even easier among his major accomplishments in a state where purchasing a gun was already easier than buying cold medicine and way easier than voting but where the electrical grid routinely fails because who needs power when you’ve got an assault rifle? Proving that these days there is always an implicating old tweet to drag out, Abbott of course has one as back in 2015 he tweeted “I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans.” Alongside the Former Guy and South Dakota Governor Kristin Noem, Abbott and Cruz are still scheduled to speak at this weekend’s NRA’s conference which will take place in Houston, Texas of course. Wonder if SCOTUS still expects to make it easier to get guns before they go off for summer break? Probably.

Sounds of Silence:  Speaking of hypocrites, Mitt Romney responded to the Uvalde shooting by saying “grief overwhelms the soul….parents hearts are wrenched…incomprehensible…We must find answers” Worth noting with over $13.6 million of their blood money in his coffers, the many times over multi-millionaire Mittens is by far the leading recipient of NRA cash. He's not alone: among sitting Senators Richard Burr banked $6.9 million, Roy Blunt $4.6, Thom Tillis $4.4 million, Marco Rubio $3.3 million, Joni Ernst $3.1 million, Rob Portman $3.0 million, Todd Young $2.9 million, Bill Cassidy $2.9 million, Tom Cotton $1.9 million and so on down a list that includes virtually every other sitting Republican Senator.  On the Democratic side, VP Kamala Harris was the first to speak out with an “enough is enough” even though we know it won’t be while an especially weary and sad President Biden also spoke about the shooting after his long Korea flight landed.  An anguished Senator Chris Murphy, who represents Connecticut, the home of all time worst school shooting, Sandy Hook, took to the Senate floor to plead with his Republican colleagues to vote for something, anything, to chip away at the ease of obtaining killer weapons while also asking his Democratic colleagues to compromise because something is better than nothing.  One more thing, if you have time for just one speech listen to what Golden Warriors Coach Steve Kerr who like most of us is “tired of the moments of silence” had to say about yesterday’s horror.  At a time when the likes of college football Coach Tommy Tuberville is a Senator and Herschel Walker is trying to become one, Kerr’s speech is a reminder of the type of sports heroes that should be elevated.      

Midterm Madness:  Though it wasn’t a washout, neither was it a good day for the Former Guy.  In Georgia, the state which currently has two Democratic Senators largely due to his 2020 election theatrics, the FG’s least favorite Governor Brian Kemp cruised to a victory, beating the FG endorsed former Senator David Perdue by 52 points. Kemp will face Democratic darling Stacey Abrams again in the fall; she’s the long term Georgia resident who Perdue said should go back to wherever it is she came from as part of his last ditch effort to secure votes by acting as racist as possible.  While Kemp’s primary victory was expected, many thought and the FG hoped that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger might find his career on the chopping block but instead he received more than 50% of the vote in his primary, beating out his challenger the FG endorsed Congressman Jody Hice.  By crossing the 50% threshold, Raffensperger even managed to avoid a runoff, a remarkable feat given he was considered a “dead man walking” over his refusal to come up with those 11,780 votes that the FG needed to “secure” a victory in 2020.  In Alabama, Mo Brooks who the FG endorsed before he didn’t came in second, garnering enough votes to make it to a run off against Katie Britt, outgoing Senator Richard Shelby’s chief of staff.  In Arkansas former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who lies like she breathes, easily won her primary and will likely be the state’s next Governor and who knows, if the FG runs again, she could be his VP pick because why not?  One more Republican thing, in Texas the Bush legacy took another hit after George P Bush, son of Jeb, failed to beat the state’s sitting Attorney General, the FG endorsed Ken Paxton who is currently under indictment for securities fraud.  On the Democratic side, Georgia Congresswoman Lucy McBath, who lost her son to gun violence and who had been redistricted out of her seat beat another Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux in another district and, lastly, the results in the run off race between the House’s one anti-choice Democrat Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar and his challenger progressive Jessica Cisneros remain too close to call.