COMPLETE FAILURE: A federal report on the police response to the Uvalde, Texas school massacre during which officers waited 77 minutes to enter the school a complete “failure.”

  The report from the Department of Justice says, “Officers on scene should have recognized the incident as an active shooter scenario and moved and pushed forward immediately and continuously toward the threat until the room was entered, and the threat was eliminated.”

  Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the shooting on May 24, 2022. Seventeen others were wounded and the 18-year-old gunman was killed.

  Police commanders treated the incident as a barricaded suspect even while there was still gunfire and victims were dying of wounds. As many as 370 officers stood by doing nothing until a special tactics team from the Border Patrol went in and ended it.

  The justice report says the cops and authorities failed at just about every step, from not responding when a student trapped with the gunman called on the phone, to how students were evacuated, and how families were told that their children were dead.

  Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Had law enforcement agencies followed generally accepted practices in an active shooter situation and gone right after the shooter to stop him, lives would have been saved and people would have survived.”

STOPGAP GOVERNMENT: The House and Senate passed a short-term spending bill to avoid the shutdown of several major government agencies tonight and keep the government open and running through early March. Now, some agencies would run out of money on March 1 and others would remain funded through March 8th.

  Speaker Mike Johnson said he agreed to short term spending so he can negotiate a better agreement. Far right members of the House Freedom Caucus have stuck to an anti-compromise approach, refusing any deal that doesn’t include major priorities like deep spending cuts and immigration reform, even if those demands would die in the Senate.

THE INNOCENCE PROJECT:  Donald Trump’s lawyers filed a forceful brief with the Supreme Court asking the justices to end efforts to block their client from primary ballots under the 14^th Amendment ban on insurrectionists holding office.

  “The court should put a swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification efforts, which threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and which promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead and exclude the likely Republican presidential nominee from their ballots,” the brief said.

  The filing claimed Trump never engaged in the January 6^th insurrection and that, “In fact, the opposite is true, as President Trump repeatedly called for peace, patriotism, and law and order.”

  In actual fact, Trump allowed the riot to go on for 187 minutes before telling the insurrectionists they were “very special” and should go home.

ASK E. JEAN: former advice columnist E, Jean Carroll said under cross examination in a New York court yesterday that “I’m more well-known, and I’m hated by a lot more people” since Donald Trump trashed her for accusing him of sexual assault.

  Already awarded $5 million in a previous trial, Carroll seeks $10 million to compensate for damage to her reputation.

  Questioned by Trump lawyer Alina Habba who asked whether Carroll whether her social status had actually been elevated by publicity from the Trump case, she relied, “No, my status was lowered. I’m partaking in this trial to bring my old reputation and status back.”

  “So you sued Donald Trump to bring your old reputation back?” Habba asked. “Yeah,” Carroll answered.

  Following Carroll, a professor of marketing and communications at Northwestern University testified that she believes the damage to Carroll’s reputation is in the range of $7.3 million to $12.1 million. 

THE SPIN RACK: An American Airlines jet carrying 53 people skidded off an icy runway into the grass yesterday afternoon while landing in Rochester, NY. No one was hurt. — Two ticketholders are suing pop star Madonna for starting her recent Brooklyn concerts two hours late. — The Macy’s department store chain, which ain’t what it used to be, is laying off more than three percent of its work force and shutting five of its 560 stores. 

BELOW THE FOLD: In Beverly Hills, California, the city of $100 million houses, homeowners have been blocked from getting a permit to improve a million dollar bathroom or build a much-needed pool house for the dogs.

  A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has blocked the city from issuing all building permits except for new residential development because the city has failed to plan for affordable housing.Under state law, Beverly Hills is supposed to be planning for about 2,300 affordable homes for low and middle income residents and they are not doing it.

  For now, Beverly Hills homeowners will have to live with the same old $5 million kitchen they installed last year.

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