Members of the U.S. Senate announced today a bipartisan bill arising from gun safety concerns.
No, Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman were not among the 10 Republicans who joined in the announcement.
It contains precious little about guns, with money for mental health and school safety as marquee components. But people from President Biden on down praise the ability to put forward anything in a chamber controlled by the NRA. These gun-related elements are likely the reason for the lack of broad Republican support:
… enhanced background checks to give authorities time to check the juvenile and mental health records of any prospective gun buyer under the age of 21 and a provision that would, for the first time, extend to dating partners a bar on domestic abusers having guns.
It would also provide funding for states to implement so-called red-flag laws that allow authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed to be dangerous …
Would Arkansas pass a red-flag law if the federal government paid for it? What do you think?
And speaking of Tom Cotton: This from a Washington Post report on Republicans angling for a run for president in 2024.
Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, has developed a long PowerPoint presentation about how previous candidacies for president failed — and has shown it to donors and others during meetings on how he would run a successful campaign.
Cotton gets less attention in the article than, for example, Ron DeSantis. Asa Hutchinson also gets a mention.
Similarly, Cotton, who has been to Iowa and spoke at the Reagan library, has been revising his slide presentation, which at once point featured five policy areas that explain why he’s electable. “He is diligently putting together a foundation to run,” said Eberhart, the donor who has met with him. “He is very dialed in on New Hampshire.”
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a former homeland security undersecretary, has been among the most diligent potential candidates, planning a trip to New Hampshire, appearing repeatedly on Sunday news talk shows and recently founding a nonprofit, America Strong and Free, to pay staff and fund his policy efforts. He said last month at a Wall Street Journal event that the GOP needs to de-link from Trump and “stay away from the culture of personality.”
“There are going to be very few people standing on the stage that have the breadth of national security experience that he has,” said one Arkansas Republican operative who has tracked Hutchinson’s activities. “He is a party guy, he spoke at the convention in 2016. He is also the first to say it is time to move on.”
Tom Mars, a former Republican administration official in Arkansas during the Mike Huckabee era, touches in a Tweet on a point that probably isn’t covered in the Cotton PowerPoint nor well-addressed by his public appearances:
Catchy title. pic.twitter.com/bJMdnIZDCg
— Tom Mars (@TomMarsLaw) June 12, 2022
In other news today, the COVID report.
Here’s the daily rundown of changes in the Arkansas COVID count based on the Arkansas Department of Health’s online summary:
Total cases: 850,203, an additional 449 since Saturday.
Active cases: 6,850, up from 6,564
Deaths: 11,526, an additional nine.
Hospitalized: 158, up from 154
In ICU: 21, down from 23
On ventilators: 5, same as yesterday.
Vaccinations to date: 4,088,456, about 1,500 more in the last 24 hours.
The line is open.
