President Obama and the First Lady take part in a moment of silence on January 10 in honor of the victims of the shooting in Tucson. (REUTERS/Jim Young)
–President Obama will travel to Arizona Wednesday to speak at a memorial for the victims of Saturday’s shooting.
–Gun control advocates Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy plan to introduce legislation that would ban the type of extended magazine allegedly used by the Tucson shooter. It’s unlikely to go anywhere and, as Scherer points out, public interest in the issue has waned.
—Giffords’s doctor: “every day that goes by and we don’t see an increase [in swelling], we’re slightly more optimistic.”
–A neighbor describes Loughner’s parents’ fragile state.
—David Brooks: “the political opportunism occasioned by this tragedy has ranged from the completely irrelevant to the shamelessly irresponsible.”
–Josh Kraushaar sees a media culture feeding off conflict.
–The Great Recession has seen a precipitous and unprecedented drop in wages.
—Vice President Biden in Afghanistan: “We are not leaving if you don’t want us to leave.”
–Iraq veteran and TIME correspondent Nate Rawlings’s dispatches from the county are well worth reading: parts one, two and three.
–Stan Collender writes debt default alarm is overblown and makes this prediction:
…those who think refusing to increase the federal debt ceiling when it is reached later this year will force the White House to accept budget changes will likely find the administration surprisingly unmoved, perhaps for months to come.
–Mike Murphy handicaps the race for RNC chair.
–Mark McKinnon holds out hope for a Jeb Bush presidential run.