How Auburn Has Stepped Up On Defense https://digitalalabamanews.com/how-auburn-has-stepped-up-on-defense/
Auburn didn’t score any second-half points in consecutive weeks headed into Saturday’s 2:30 CT game against No. 2 Georgia on CBS at Sanford Stadium. Bryan Harsin’s squad beat Missouri 17-14 in overtime and had a chance in the fourth quarter to overcome blowing a 17-point lead against LSU.
The Tigers held LSU to 85 passing yards. Auburn clamped down in the second half by allowing fewer than 10 yards through the air to keep the Tigers in the game.
Defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding wanted the Tigers to become more aggressive on defense. His unit didn’t get its first turnover until the fourth game of the season against Missouri. Derick Hall leaped into the air and picked off a pass on Missouri’s first possession of the game with Auburn ahead 7-0 and ran it back 20 yards to set Auburn up for a second touchdown.
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Auburn’s second turnover came on an improbable play. Keionte Scott was trying to catch Missouri running back Nathaniel Peat near the end zone. Peat saw Scott coming and tried to switch hands. Peat dropped the ball, and Cayden Bridges sealed the win with an end zone fumble-recovery.
A potentially colossal play was the third turnover created by Auburn. Scott muffed a punt late in the fourth quarter with Auburn down by the eventual 21-17 final score. Neither team had scored since LSU’s go-ahead touchdown in the middle of the third quarter. Tigers’ safety Donovan Kaufman stripped LSU running back John Emery with a little under six minutes left in the game. Defensive lineman and Oregon transfer Jayson Jones recovered the fumble for Auburn.
Robby Ashford’s interception with 2:35 left at the LSU 25 ended the hopes of an Auburn comeback. The Tigers held LSU to 28 yards in the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t enough to win. Schmedding’s defense will need to match the performance and likely exceed it to have a chance of beating the heavily favored defending national champion Bulldogs.
“Coach Schmedding mentioned Tuesday that we hadn’t played our best ball. I mean, yeah, we held the last two opponents to 14 points, but we still haven’t played our best ball,” Auburn defender Colby Wooden told reporters on Wednesday during a press conference. “We can do much better and create more turnovers, get our offense the ball back more. We’ve played well, but we haven’t played dominantly. And I think that’s the key — play dominantly.”
Georgia averages 521.4 yards of total offense and scores 39.0 points per game. Stetson Bennett throws for over 300 yards a game, and the Bulldogs run for 178.6 yards on average.
Auburn’s defense has been stout, other than the third quarter against Penn State, where the Tigers got outscored 17-0 en route to a 29-point loss. Wooden knows the Bulldogs will be the toughest test for his squad so far this season.
“They want to run the ball. It’s gonna be between the hedges, CBS, primetime game,” Wooden said. “They are looking to show dominance after last week, and they’re gonna get back to their bread and butter, which is running the ball. Good old-fashioned counters, duos. All that. So we’ve gotta get back to our fundamentals and playing ball, recognizing your technique, playing behind your pads, you know, getting it on.”
As if playing Georgia isn’t enough of a headache, the Tigers will be without Edge rusher Eku Leota for the rest of the season with a torn pec. Leota had two sacks and five tackles for loss. He is one of the emotional leaders of the team. Marcus Bragg filled in for Leota during the LSU game and had a sack with four tackles in the loss.
“Eku’s a big loss, and this has nothing to do with anybody behind him; it’s just he’s an emotional leader, he’s one of the smartest football players we have,” Harsin said. “I mean, he is a guy that you want on your team—how he prepares, all the things he does, the respect he has for his team.
Auburn will switch up a bit on defense by removing Leota’s position. The Tigers were using two edge rushers with Hall and Leota. Instead, they’ll pivot to a 4-2-5 grouping — with one edge defender.
“We’ll see what that looks like as we put the packages in and who we have to utilize,” Harsin said about replacing Leota. “We still want to get the best front seven we have out on the field, especially against what Georgia does — they run the ball effectively, alright, they obviously can throw it; you got to get pressure on the quarterback. If you give him too much time, those guys create out in the open space.”
Nubyjas Wilborn covers Auburn for Alabama Media Group.
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Kanye Tells Tucker Carlson That Friends Said He https://digitalalabamanews.com/kanye-tells-tucker-carlson-that-friends-said-he/
Rapper Kanye West is pictured wearing a “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) hat during a meeting with then-President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C., on October 11, 2018. West said Thursday during a Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson that his “so-called friends” and handlers warned him that he’d be “killed” for wearing the hat. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
Kanye West says that his “so-called friends” told him he’d be “killed” for wearing a MAGA hat, while threatening his life for supporting former President Donald Trump.
West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that he was warned his “life would be over” if he publicly expressed support for Trump during an interview that aired Thursday on the conservative pundit’s show Tucker Carlson Tonight.
The rapper has previously faced backlash over his support for the former president. West said that he felt a need to express himself on “another level” when Trump became a candidate in the 2016 election.
“I really felt like I think I started to really feel this need to express myself on another level when Trump was running for office and I liked him,” West told Carlson. “My so-called friends [and] handlers around me told me if I said that I like Trump that my career will be over. That my life would be over.”
“They said stuff like ‘people get killed for wearing a hat like that,'” he continued. “They threatened my life … They basically said that I would be killed for wearing the hat.”
West’s interview with Carlson came after West faced heavy criticism for wearing a shirt featuring the slogan “White Lives Matter” at a fashion show in Paris on Monday. He said that he recently received a call from someone who suggested he would be physically attacked for wearing the shirt.
“I had someone call me last night and [say], ‘anybody wearing a White Lives Matter shirt is going to be green lit.’ And that means that they’re gonna beat them up if they wear it. And I’m like, OK, green light me then.”
West said criticism over him wearing the shirt alongside right-wing activist Candace Owens was a “setup,” insisting that he had been unjustly attacked by a “group mob” that was like “liberal Nazis.”
He went on to explain that he believes Trump is “the s**t” because the former president has “his own buildings.” However, West did appear to criticize Trump while suggesting that the former president had used him to boost approval rating among Black voters.
“Older white people [are] quick to classify a Black person only by the fact that we’re Black,” said West. “Even Trump—a person that’s … you know, we’d consider to be a friend of mine … one of the things he said to me was, ‘Kanye, you’re my friend. When you came to the White House, my Black approval rating went up 40 percent.'”
“For politicians, all Black people are worth is an approval rating,” he continued.
West also hinted at making another potential presidential run in 2024. He previously ran as a “Birthday Party” candidate during the 2020 presidential election, with some accusing him of running a spoiler campaign to benefit Trump.
Newsweek has reached out to West’s publicist and Trump’s office for comment.
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Kanye West Defends White Lives Matter Shirt On Tucker Carlson Tonight
Kanye West Defends White Lives Matter Shirt On Tucker Carlson Tonight https://digitalalabamanews.com/kanye-west-defends-white-lives-matter-shirt-on-tucker-carlson-tonight/
Kanye West is doubling down on his latest controversial fashion statement.
The Grammy Award winner, 45, defended his decision to wear a “White Lives Matter” shirt at his recent Yeezy Season 9 presentation during Paris Fashion Week as he appeared Thursday on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.
“I do certain things from a feeling, I just channel the energy. It just feels right. It’s using a gut instinct, a connection with God, and just brilliance,” West explained of the creative choice.
He recounted his father Ray West’s reaction to the shirt, which right-wing pundit Candace Owens also wore in a backstage photo with West.
“You know, my dad is an educated ex-Black Panther, and he put in a text to me today, he said, ‘White Lives Matter. Ha ha ha ha ha,’ ” he recalled. “And I said, ‘I thought the shirt was a funny shirt. I thought the idea of me wearing it was funny.’ And I said, ‘Dad, why do you think it was funny?’ He said, ‘Just a Black man stating the obvious.’ ”
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The Donda artist continued: “That [was] my favorite response. Cause … people, they’re looking for an explanation, and people say, ‘Well, as an artist you don’t have to give an explanation,’ but as a leader, you do.”
“So the answer to why I wrote White Lives Matter on a shirt is because they do. It’s the obvious thing,” West said.
The phrase “White Lives Matter” has been classified by the Anti-Defamation League as a “white supremacist phrase” that originated in 2015 following the start of the Black Lives Matter movement. As the organization details on its website, members of the Aryan Renaissance Society and other white supremacists have promoted the slogan, including the Ku Klux Klan.
West, who previously faced criticism over his support for Donald Trump, also claimed he faced death threats for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, while his ex-wife Kim Kardashian and her mother Kris Jenner allegedly attempted to censor his political opinions.
“I started to really feel this need to express myself on another level when Trump was running for office and I liked him,” he explained. “And every single person in Hollywood, from my ex-wife to my mother-in-law, to my manager at that time, to my so-called friends/handlers around me, told me if I said that I like Trump, that my career would be over, my life would be over.
RELATED VIDEO: Gigi Hadid Slams Kanye West for Attacking Fashion Editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson: ‘You’re a Bully’
“They said stuff like, ‘People get killed for wearing a hat like that.’ They threatened my life … they basically said that I would be killed for wearing the hat. I had someone call me last night and said, ‘Anybody wearing a White Lives Matter shirt is gonna be greenlit, and that means they’re gonna beat them up if they wear it. And I’m like, ‘OK, greenlight me then,’ ” West added.
The second part of West’s Tucker Carlson Tonight interview airs Friday at 8 p.m. ET on Fox News.
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Bidens Saudi Trip Faces New Scrutiny After OPEC Oil Cut
Biden’s Saudi Trip Faces New Scrutiny After OPEC Oil Cut https://digitalalabamanews.com/bidens-saudi-trip-faces-new-scrutiny-after-opec-oil-cut/
Saudi Arabia’s decision to join its partners in announcing a cut to oil production on Wednesday is setting off fresh recriminations over President Biden’s trip to the kingdom this summer, which officials hoped would improve the Saudi relationship across a range of issues, including the global supply of oil.
Some officials in the Biden administration bristled in the aftermath of the cut declared by the OPEC Plus cartel, viewing it as a direct affront to the president that threatens to hurt Democrats’ standing in the 2022 midterm elections because it will drive gas prices up.
U.S. officials now are left grappling with how to respond to a potential price spike that could help finance Russia’s war in Ukraine, compound the major challenges facing the American and European economies, and give Republicans a powerful new argument on inflation.
One White House official called the OPEC decision a “disaster.” Another said administration officials viewed the move as a deliberate provocation designed to boost Republicans’ chances so close to the elections. Other officials said they did not interpret malice in the Saudi decision, but they viewed it as a shortsighted effort to maximize oil profits despite the economic and geopolitical consequences.
Biden said Thursday that the cartel’s decision didn’t undermine the point of his visit in July, but that it was still disappointing. “The trip was not essentially for oil. The trip was about the Middle East and about Israel and rationalization of positions,” he told reporters. “But it is a disappointment.”
National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said Biden’s advisers had all agreed to the trip over the summer. “There was consensus across the President’s senior national security team on the importance of this trip to advance U.S. national security interests,” she said in a statement.
But that didn’t assuage critics of the Saudi government.
“They’re spitting in the face of Joe Biden,” said Dean Baker, a White House ally and an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank. “Whoever thought this trip was a good idea has some explaining to do.”
Even before Biden flew to the Middle East in July and fist-bumped Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, White House aides knew the trip would bring criticism. Biden had declared that human rights would be at the “center” of his foreign policy, and he said he would make the oil-rich monarchy a “pariah.” But the president also remained keenly aware of the burden soaring gas prices were having on middle-class Americans.
Biden’s top aides on Middle East and energy, Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, pushed for the trip as a means to strengthen the relationship and improve Washington’s ability to project influence in the Middle East at a time when oil-rich states were exploring ties with Moscow and Beijing, according to U.S. officials and congressional aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. policy.
Administration officials had long been sharply divided on how to treat the oil-rich autocracy. Those favoring a cold-shoulder approach pointed to Saudi Arabia’s unpopular war in Yemen, Riyadh’s poor human rights record and the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi as reasons to overhaul the relationship.
Many officials in senior roles at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development also said they felt they had room to maneuver, given the United States’ growth as an oil-producing energy superpower. Creating a clean break with former president Donald Trump’s remarkably close rapport with the kingdom also had broad appeal among Biden’s political appointees.
Some U.S. officials said concerns about the Saudi trip were shared by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, even though the top diplomat ultimately supported and participated in the visit.
“Secretary Blinken was fully supportive of the Administration’s engagement with our regional partners on the multiplicity of interests we have,” said State Department spokesperson Ned Price.
McGurk and Hochstein’s support for the trip began to gain favor in the White House in September 2021, as the price of oil rose and resentment in the Gulf led the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to rebuff repeated U.S. requests to increase oil output, according to senior officials and congressional aides familiar with the matter. The decisive moment for the push to draw closer to the Saudis came when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, sending energy prices soaring and turning high gas costs, already a domestic political liability for Biden, into a geopolitical setback.
Some Democrats, already skeptical of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, seized on the OPEC Plus decision to criticize the trip.
“I think it’s time for a wholesale reevaluation of the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate foreign relations subcommittee on the Middle East, told CNBC.
One Democratic congressional aide close to administration officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. policy, said: “This trip was hotly debated inside the administration, and I don’t know how one could argue now that it wasn’t a mistake.”
White House officials have strongly denied that the goal of the trip was to spur Saudi oil production. U.S. officials who favor the U.S.-Saudi relationship said critics misunderstood the objectives of the visit and overestimated Riyadh’s ability to reduce gas prices for average Americans. They also emphasized that Saudi Arabia is pumping 11.1 million barrels per day, a rate the country hadn’t sustained in the past.
But the OPEC Plus decision means that increased production will come to an end sooner than U.S. officials hoped.
Energy analysts also say Saudi Arabia faced financial pressures to cut production, since the price of oil fell close to $80 per barrel for about two weeks last month. U.S. officials argued to Saudi counterparts that the risks of letting the price fall below that point were minimal, but the Saudis would not budge, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. Saudi officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The trip’s defenders also said it was justifiable because of the other objectives of the visit, which included bolstering a truce in the long-grinding civil war in Yemen. Aid groups say the truce, which was first agreed to in April, reduced violence as much as 60 percent. However, the warring sides recently failed to extend the six-month cease-fire, and U.S. officials now fear a “return to war,” Tim Lenderking, the U.S. special envoy for Yemen, told reporters Wednesday.
On the trip, U.S. officials also worked to open Saudi airspace to flights serving Israel, and they pressed the United Arab Emirates to stop the construction of a Chinese military base — an effort that is ongoing.
Even the staunchest defenders of Saudi Arabia concede that the timing of the production cut was a major blow to the United States, and that it came despite the strenuous objections of U.S. diplomats who pressed their counterparts through the early hours of Wednesday morning to delay the decision.
Biden officials across a wide section of the administration — including the Energy Department, State Department and the National Economic Council — raced Thursday to draw up policy responses to the announcement. No obvious solutions are apparent. Energy officials have begun looking at a potential ban on American oil exports.
White House officials have also been exploring the possibility of easing sanctions on Venezuela to supplement some of the oil lost by OPEC’s cut to production. That is a long shot, however: The United States believes Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro needs to engage with the Venezuelan opposition before any sanctions are lifted.
Sullivan and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said in a statement Wednesday that they will consult with Congress on additional mechanisms “to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices” — suggesting that the U.S. policymakers could be interested in repealing a long-standing exemption to federal antitrust law that allows the consortium to effectively coordinate on prices. That measure, however, would require congressional approval and faces industry resistance, strongly reducing its likelihood of being implemented.
Yasmeen Abutaleb contributed to this report.
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GOP Crisis In Herschel Walker Race Was Nearly Two Years In The Making
GOP Crisis In Herschel Walker Race Was Nearly Two Years In The Making https://digitalalabamanews.com/gop-crisis-in-herschel-walker-race-was-nearly-two-years-in-the-making/
In early 2021, as football star Herschel Walker considered running for Senate, he approached some of Georgia’s top Republican operatives about advising his campaign. The operatives were warned about political vulnerabilities in Walker’s past — including allegations of violence against women — that were openly discussed in the state’s political circles, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Walker’s reaction to being confronted with the allegations was also troubling, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. When the consultants would ask the candidate about even incidents in the public record, he would often get simultaneously defensive and aggressive, accusing the questioner of being a Democratic plant or ally of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the minority leader.
Those consultants passed on working with Walker, but he pressed ahead with his campaign. After all, Walker’s overwhelming name recognition in Georgia as a Heisman Trophy-winning football star and backing from former president Donald Trump instantly made him so formidable that state and national Republican leaders didn’t mount a serious challenge in the primary, despite concerns about Walker’s baggage.
Now, less than five weeks before the midterm elections, they’re stuck with him as those liabilities threaten to dominate the news and derail his campaign in a state widely viewed as a must-win for Republicans to retake the Senate.
On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that Walker paid for an abortion in 2009, citing documentation including a receipt, a check image and a get-well card. The Washington Post has not independently verified the allegations. As a candidate, Walker has supported an absolute ban on abortions, with no exception for rape, incest or the health of the mother. Walker’s campaign initially denied the report and promised to sue the next day, but no lawsuit has been filed.
“They keep telling me things like that, and it’s totally, totally untrue,” Walker said in an interview on Thursday with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. Walker added: “If that had happened, I would have said there’s nothing to be ashamed of there. People have done that — but I know nothing about it.”
For now, Republicans are publicly rallying around Walker as his campaign said online donations have skyrocketed. The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the well-resourced Senate Leadership Fund — a super PAC aligned with McConnell that has committed more than $39 million to back Walker — said they would keep supporting him on the airwaves. And Trump, who urged Walker to run in the first place, said he believes Walker’s denials and is widely expected to hold a rally for him, though a close adviser said plans haven’t been finalized.
“This guy is a better-than-even shot to win,” said Curt Anderson, a top strategist for the NRSC. “Herschel Walker has been called everything. Every name in the book. This is not a change in the race.”
More quietly, though, Republican strategists are taking a couple weeks to measure and evaluate the fallout. The impact could take several weeks to register in opinion surveys. Walker was already trailing incumbent Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) in most public polls.
“Even the most staunch Republicans are rattled,” Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) said Wednesday night on CNN. “Every Republican knew that there was baggage out there, but the weight of that baggage is starting to feel a little closer to unbearable at this point.”
This account of Walker’s candidacy is based on interviews with 19 people involved at various times with the Walker campaign, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal matters. The Walker campaign did not respond to a detailed list of questions.
The buzz about Walker running for office in Georgia began even before the current Senate race was open. During the runoff campaigns for Georgia’s two Senate seats leading up to Jan. 5, 2021, Republican operatives were already discussing that if incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue lost, Walker could challenge Warnock in 2022.
Walker had been a repeat guest in the Trump White House as a member of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, and he spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention to vouch for Trump’s character. He also became a regular presence on Fox News as a contributor.
Republican operatives discussed Walker’s potential weaknesses, including his struggles with mental health, which Walker had acknowledged in a book, and a rumored abortion, according to Liz Mair, a GOP opposition researcher working on the runoffs. Mair said she warned others that the abortion rumor would plague Walker as a candidate, but people thought they could keep it hidden.
“Across the board, Republicans in the state knew about it and decided they didn’t care,” Mair said. “I don’t know if it was a moment of collective insanity when a bunch of people all said, ‘Seems like a genius plan.’ ”
In March 2021, Trump went public with an official statement urging Walker to run. “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the legendary Herschel Walker ran for the United States Senate in Georgia?” Trump said. “He would be unstoppable, just like he was when he played for the Georgia Bulldogs, and in the NFL. He is also a GREAT person. Run Herschel, run!”
Walker’s football stardom made him a living legend in Georgia and overwhelmingly popular with Republican primary voters.
“He comes in with 100 percent name ID, which you just don’t have, and high goodwill,” said Brian Robinson, a former spokesman for former Georgia governor Nathan Deal (R) and a political commentator in the state. “He was my first ever hero. I have not lived in a home where there was not some imagery of Herschel displayed. He was like the pope for us.”
Despite those advantages, Walker had trouble from the start attracting top political talent. Early on, he and his wife reached out to Nick Ayers, a former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, who was not taking clients at the time. Walker talked to Austin Chambers, a former aide to Perdue and former president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, and Paul Bennecke, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, but they didn’t come to an agreement.
The campaign started working with Scott Farmer, who has advised Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), and Heath Garrett, an adviser to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and the late Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), then brought in a local team led by campaign manager Scott Paradise. A few months ago, amid widespread concerns that Republican Senate candidates were falling behind, Walker’s campaign brought on communications consultant Gail Gitcho and Timmy Teepell, a partner at Anderson’s firm, OnMessage Inc.
Before he announced, Walker was made aware by other Republicans about much of the opposition research that was likely to confront him, including the mental health struggles he described in his book and the domestic violence allegations. A person familiar with the vetting process said the alleged abortion reported this week did not surface in the early research, and it is not clear whether Walker was directly asked about the rumor.
His family was involved in the early discussions, including his son Christian, who had at one point discussed taking a significant role in the campaign, and his current wife, Julie Blanchard. A Republican involved verified the recent claim by Walker’s son Christian that family members warned him against running. Christian Walker was treated as a constructive adviser early in the process and ultimately decided not to take a role in the campaign. Blanchard also initially resisted a run, though she came around as the candidate showed enthusiasm. Christian Walker did not respond to requests for comment.
Some advisers to McConnell were initially interested in an alternative to Walker, with particular concern about Walker’s documented record of domestic abuse allegations. In the summer of 2021, Republicans made efforts to warn Walker not to mount a campaign before the Associated Press published a report that he had threatened to kill his ex-wife and alarmed associates. McConnell adviser Josh Holmes publicly shared the Associated Press story on Twitter at the time, commenting, “This is about as comprehensive a takedown as I’ve ever read. My lord.”
But challenging Walker in the primary — taking on a folk hero with Trump’s backing — looked futile. The state’s Republican governor, Kemp, stayed out of the Senate race. Kemp was already standing up to the former president in his own reelection, after crossing Trump by certifying Joe Biden’s win in the state.
Walker coasted to the nomination with 68 percent of the vote, overcoming attacks from the distant runner-up, Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, who said Walker’s history of violence was disqualifying.
“Nobody really saw him as beatable,” said Brendan Buck, a Republican consultant who grew up in Georgia. “If he was beatable, there are plenty of people who would love to be United States senators in the state of Georgia. But they all knew that he had the name ID, the general popularity among conservatives, and of course the Trump backing that made it an enormous hill to climb.”
The campaign has struggled to respond to reports since the primary about Walker’s unacknowledged children and, finally, the alleged abortion. Walker was not initially forthcoming with his own advisers about at least some of the out-of-wedlock children, and NRSC staff members did not know about them until they were publicly reported.
After the Daily Beast story about the abortion, Republican operatives discussed the wisdom of sticking with Walker, given the other possible ...
Dozens Of Children Among At Least 36 People Killed In Child Care Center Massacre In Thailand | CNN
Dozens Of Children Among At Least 36 People Killed In Child Care Center Massacre In Thailand | CNN https://digitalalabamanews.com/dozens-of-children-among-at-least-36-people-killed-in-child-care-center-massacre-in-thailand-cnn-2/
Bangkok, Thailand CNN —
Thailand recoiled in horror Thursday after at least 36 people were killed, at least 24 of them children, in a massacre at a child care center in northeastern Thailand believed to be the country’s deadliest incident of its kind.
Authorities immediately launched a manhunt for the suspected attacker, later identified by Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) as Panya Kamrab, a 34-year-old former policeman. According to Thai Royal Police, he was suspended from police duty earlier this year relation to drug possession charges.
Among the dozens of victims are Panya’s wife and stepson, whom investigators say he killed before taking his own life.
His 2-year-old stepson was enrolled at the nursery that he attacked Thursday, but was not present while the attack was carried out, according to a local police chief.
“(Panya) went to look for his two-year-old son, but the boy was not there … so he started shooting as well as stabbing people at the nursery,” police spokesperson Maj. General Paisan Luesomboon told CNN.
Panya then “managed to get into a room where 24 kids were sleeping together,” killing all but one of them.
“He also used a knife to stab both children and staff at the center,” Paisan said.
One of the center’s teachers described a horrific scene to local media, explaining that the attacker entered the center around noon, while two other staff members were having lunch.
“I suddenly heard the sound just sounded like fire crackers. So I looked back [and] the two staffs just collapsed on the floor,” the teacher said.
“Then he pulled another gun from his waist…I didn’t expect he would also kill the kids,” they said.
The teacher also said that the attacker was also carrying a second gun, as well as a knife, which he used to fatally stab another teacher, who was eight months pregnant.
One eyewitness told Reuters she believed the attacker was coming to pick up his child. When he arrived to the center, he “didn’t say anything,” and “shot at the door while the children were sleeping,” she said.
Most of the deaths were the result of “stabbing wounds,” Paisan told CNN.
A teacher also told Reuters that the attacker had mainly used a knife.
“It all went down really fast. He was slashing the knife, he didn’t use the gun, he kept slashing in there. It’s all by a knife,” she said.
Police General Damrongsak Kittiprapas said that the attacker “mainly used a knife” to kill the children.
“Then he got out and started killing anyone he met along the way with a gun or the knife until he got home,” said Damrongsak. “We surrounded the house and then found that he committed suicide in his home.”
The massacre took place at the Child Development Center in Nong Bua Lamphu province’s Uthaisawan Na Klang district, according to a statement from Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who called the incident “shocking” and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.
The province, located approximately 540 kilometers (around 335 miles) northeast of Bangkok, is a largely peaceful and quiet area, and is not known for violence.
Prayut will travel to the province on Friday to meet with families of the victims, according to a statement from his office.
Thai Royal police said Panya was due to receive a verdict in his ongoing case over alleged possession of methamphetamine, on Oct. 7.
In an earlier undated search of his residence, police found a tablet of Yaba in his house, they also said. Yaba is a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine, which is a tablet usually crushed and smoked, known locally as “crazy medicine.”
Charges of possessing the “Category 1” drug led to his suspension from police duty in January.
Gun ownership in Thailand is relatively high compared with other countries in Southeast Asia.
There were more than 10.3 million civilian owned firearms in Thailand, or around 15 guns for every 100 people, according to 2017 data from the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS). Approximately 6.2 million of those guns are legally registered, according to SAS.
Thailand ranks as the Southeast Asian country with the second-highest gun homicides after the Philippines, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s 2019 Global Burden of Disease database.
In a statement, UNICEF said it was “shocked” by the tragedy and sent its condolences to the families affected.
It condemned the attack, saying: “No child should be a target or witness of violence any where, anytime,” adding, “Early childhood development centers, schools and all learning spaces must be safe havens for young children to learn, play and grow during their most critical years.”
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss said in a tweet that she was “shocked to hear of the horrific events,” and said that her “thoughts are with all those affected and the first responders.”
“The UK stands with the Thai people at this terrible time,” she said.
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Tempe To Offering Grants For Micro-Manufacturers https://digitalalabamanews.com/tempe-to-offering-grants-for-micro-manufacturers/
The Daily Beast
Court Screwup Reveals Mar-a-Lago Judge’s Latest Legal Absurdity in Trump Case
Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily BeastFirst, she stopped FBI special agents from even glancing at the classified documents they recovered from Mar-a-Lago. Then she appointed a special court referee that former President Donald Trump wanted to slow down the investigation over his mishandling of classified documents.But now, it’s clear District Court Judge Aileen Cannon already knew the Department of Justice was ready to hand Trump back a ton of personal records six days before she cla
The Daily Beast
Top Putin Ally Threatens ‘Cruel’ Attacks on New Country
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty ImagesTop officials in Belarus, a key Russian ally, are growing increasingly on edge this week about what they see as provocations—and warning that they might soon be forced into a harsh response. The head of the border committee of Belarus, Anatoly Lappo, claimed that Poland was acting “provocatively,” and that if any Polish attack takes place against Belarusian border officials, Belarus will not hold back.“[If] there will be at least one bullet in our border guards, the a
The Daily Beast
Showgirls Among the 2 Dead, 6 Wounded in Mass Stabbing Attack on Las Vegas Strip
George Rose/GettyAt least eight people were stabbed, two fatally, on the Las Vegas Strip on Thursday by a suspect wielding a large kitchen knife, witnesses and Nevada authorities said.The attack occurred around 11:45 a.m. near the Wynn hotel and casino, according to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. The wounded victims, three of whom remain in critical condition, were brought to local hospitals.A suspect was taken into custody in front of The Venetian, a resort less than a mile away from the Wynn.
The Daily Beast
Putin’s Dueling Foot Soldiers Are Now Apparently Killing Each Other Off
AFP via GettyWhile Ukraine’s military has been successfully chasing Russian troops out of one territory after another, Vladimir Putin’s foot soldiers have apparently been turning their weapons on each other as the Russian leader’s “special military operation” continues to come apart at the seams in spectacular fashion.The Kremlin’s flailing bid to get an edge on the battlefield by deploying mercenaries from the Wagner Group—which now includes hundreds of prison inmates—has reportedly backfired a
NASCAR.com
National Motorsports Appeals Panel amends Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 penalty
The National Motorsports Appeals Panel on Thursday amended the September penalty to NASCAR Cup Series driver William Byron for his intentional contact to Denny Hamlin under caution at Texas Motor Speedway, which sent the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing driver spinning into the infield and out of the top five. MORE: Byron: ‘I didn’t mean […]
NASCAR.com
Rick Hendrick sends gift to Petty GMS to congratulate, thank team
Hendrick Motorsports sets a standard of excellence for how to run a professional NASCAR Cup Series organization — and that precedent comes from the top down, starting with team owner Rick Hendrick. Look no further than this tweet from fellow Chevrolet-backed Petty GMS Racing — a team that, in some form or another through its […]
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Kanye West Defends 'White Lives Matter' Shirts Slams Liberals Who Threatened Assaulted MAGA Hat Wearers
Kanye West Defends 'White Lives Matter' Shirts, Slams Liberals Who Threatened, Assaulted MAGA Hat Wearers https://digitalalabamanews.com/kanye-west-defends-white-lives-matter-shirts-slams-liberals-who-threatened-assaulted-maga-hat-wearers/
Rapper and entrepreneur Kanye West joined Fox News’ Tucker Carlson for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview on Thursday where addressed the controversy arising over the “White Lives Matter” t-shirt he wore alongside friend and commentator Candace Owens.
West, now legally known as Ye, caused an uproar particularly on the left after showcasing the shirt. Carlson noted liberal media branded him as “legitimizing extremist behavior” and that the decision was inexcusable.
West responded that he was privately warned that people wearing the shirt would be “greenlit” (vernacular for being assaulted) like some Americans who wear Donald Trump’s signature red trucker hats emblazoned with his “Make America Great Again” mantra.
“[They] said that I like Trump, that my career will be over, that my life would be over. They said stuff like people get killed for wearing a hat like that,” he said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
West also explained why his lanyard-borne credential for Milan Fashion Week featured a photograph of a baby’s ultrasound.
NADLER FLEES CRIME WAVE QUESTIONS, CHICAGO CONGRESSMAN DEFENDS LORI LIGHTFOOT
Candace Owens posted a photo of her and Kanye West wearing “White Lives Matter” shirts (Candace Owens Twitter)
“It just represents life – I’m pro-life,” he said, adding that believing in the sanctity of life, just like supporting Trump or wearing his White Lives Matter shirt, unduly causes concern among the elites and “influencers.”
“I don’t care about people’s responses. I care about the fact that there’s more Black babies being aborted than born in New York City at this point, that 50% of Black Death in America is abortion. So I really don’t care about people’s response.”
“I perform for an audience of one and that’s God,” West continued, adding that Black Americans should take the issue seriously because Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was an avowed eugenicist and a member of the Socialist Party.
West said he began thinking more about expressing his true beliefs during Trump’s 2016 campaign, when – despite his own favorable view of the mogul – his friends in Hollywood and ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s family warned his political support was ill-advised.
BIDEN TURNS TO VENEZUELA AS EUROPE COMMITS ECONOMIC ‘SUICIDE BY GENUFLECTING TO GREEN AGENDA’: PAYNE
President Donald Trump hugs rapper Kanye West during a meeting in the Oval office of the White House on October 11, 2018. (Getty)
West cited the biblical Book of Samuel, wherein David, son of Jesse, would kindly tend sheep – later being underestimated for such by the Philistine giant Goliath – suggesting the importance of faith and believing in oneself no matter how one is viewed by the masses.
“[Goliath] thought because he was a sheepherder, that he didn’t have the skill set to take down Goliath,” West said. “And the thing that I have is the position I have, my heart. But the number one thing is we have God on our side. And for the people, even if you don’t believe in God, God believes in you.”
The hip-hop artist was reportedly criticized by the mother of Ahmaud Arbery – the Black man murdered in Brunswick, Ga., while jogging – who told Rolling Stone through an attorney that his White Live Matter shirt “legitimizes extremism.” West however also received some public support from controversial NFL star Antonio Brown – captioning a social media post “All Lives Matter.”
West went on to say a main foil to this dynamic is the media, which he described as having a “godless agenda.”
Margaret Sanger (1883-1966), American leader of Birth Control Movement. Undated. (Bettmann / Contributor)
He spoke glowingly of his father, Ray – a former Black Panther and retired award-winning photographer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. West cited his father’s past, but added that he is one of the most informed, caring and intelligent people he knows.
When West texted Ray about the shirt, he said his father replied it was “just a Black man stating the obvious.”
He explained how his father had faced racial discrimination throughout his life, including in business and when he was living in Delaware as a young man in a military family. That discrimination, he suggested, led him to be well-versed in the United States; overall sociopolitical dynamic.
“The same people that have stripped us of our identity and labeled us as a color, have told us what it means to be Black and the vernacular that we’re supposed to have,” West said, adding that when his dad lived in the First State, his was one of few Black families there.
HUNTER BIDEN BUSINESS PARTNER: FBI ALTERED HISTORY WITH HANDLING OF LAPTOP BEFORE ELECTION
Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from Kanye West in February after nearly seven years of marriage. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
“[Ray] would be discriminated against because he was Black. So by the time he got into college… they said he talked too White.”
West criticized the fact his father was reportedly barred from most contact with him when his parents divorced and he moved with his mother Donda to Chicago.
“She told my dad, ‘if you come for us, you’ll never see [Kanye] again’,” adding that that memory came to mind when he was criticized for paying close attention to Kardashian’s relationship with Staten Island comic and “SNL” player Pete Davidson, as his children were often living with them.
West later said that he has realized that when a celebrity like himself goes against the accepted company line, “liberal Nazis will go up and attack you.”
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He accused some in the fashion and journalism sectors of intentionally criticizing his “White Lives Matter” shirts, calling it a “set-up.”
West compared the dynamic to a scene from Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” where “Jamie Foxx[‘s Django] sat on that horse and Samuel L. Jackson[‘s character] said he’s not allowed.”
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and breaking news, and has covered the annual CPAC conference for Fox News Digital.
Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.
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Trump Bashes Ben Sasse As Author Urges Former President To Take Senate Seat
Trump Bashes Ben Sasse As Author Urges Former President To Take Senate Seat https://digitalalabamanews.com/trump-bashes-ben-sasse-as-author-urges-former-president-to-take-senate-seat/
Nebraska GOP Senator Ben Sasse is expected to resign from his seat two years early after being selected as the unanimous finalist for the presidency of University of Florida (UF), while a conservative author calls for ex-President Donald Trump to fill the potential vacancy.
The news was announced by UF’s Twitter account Thursday, which said Sasse was chosen after an “exhaustive search process that included outreach to over 700 applicants and a dozen highly qualified top-tier candidates for interviews.”
According to the tweet, Sasse will visit the university in Gainesville on Monday to meet with faculty, staff and students. The UF Board of Trustees will make its final decision on his candidacy November 1.
Sasse earned his Ph.D. from Yale University and his B.A. from Harvard University. He was selected following an exhaustive search process that included outreach to over 700 applicants and a dozen highly qualified top-tier candidates for interviews. pic.twitter.com/QmowAI5pHS
— FLORIDA (@UF) October 6, 2022
Sasse, who was elected as senator in 2020, posted a statement on Twitter that he had been pursued by UF for two years, and had “resisted to be named a finalist” in the past.
“This time is different because the University of Florida is very different,” Sasse wrote. “I think Florida is the most interesting university in America right now.”
The news reinvigorated backlash from GOP leaders against Sasse, who in 2021 was the first Republican senator to say that he would consider action to remove Trump from office and spoke out against Nebraskan GOP leaders who wanted to censure him for criticizing the outgoing president.
Sasse was later one of the seven Republican senators in February 2021 to vote in favor of convicting Trump for inciting an insurrection.
Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse speaks on his cellphone as he walks through the U.S. Capitol on September 28, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Sasse is expected to resign from his seat early after being announced as the top choice for the next president of the University of Florida. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Trump posted about Sasse’s new position offer on his Truth Social account Thursday, writing that it was “great news for the United States Senate, and our country itself.”
“The University of Florida will soon regret their decision to hire him as their president,” Trump added. “We have enough weak and ineffective RINOs in our midst.”
The phrase “RINO” stands for “Republican in Name Only,” a term used derisively by some Republicans to describe fellow members of the GOP whose views are inconsistent with the extreme MAGA sector.
Trump’s comments were shortly followed by conservative author Nick Adams posting on Twitter that the former president should be the one to replace Sasse in the Senate.
“Donald Trump should purchase a home in Nebraska and [Nebraska] Governor Pete Ricketts should appoint president Donald J. Trump to the U.S. Senate to replace Ben Sasse,” Adams wrote.
Donald Trump should purchase a home in Nebraska and Governor Pete Ricketts should appoint President Donald J Trump to the US Senate to replace Ben Sasse.
— Nick Adams (@NickAdamsinUSA) October 6, 2022
Adams’s work has been praised by Trump in the past, including his book Retaking America that calls for an end to “political correctness.”
In his Truth Social post, Trump said that he was looking “forward to working with the terrific Republican Party of Nebraska to get a real Senator to represent the incredible people of that state, not another fake RINO.”
If Sasse does resign, Ricketts, a Republican, would appoint a replacement. Politico reported Thursday that Ricketts, who has reached his term limit and cannot run for reelection as governor, is viewed as a potential appointee for Sasse’s seat.
Ricketts has had a complicated history with the former president, and asked Trump in December 2021 to “stay out” of the midterm election by not endorsing any candidates for the Nebraska primary, reported ABC affiliate KETV 7 in Omaha.
Trump’s endorsed candidate for Nebraska governor, Charles Herbster, lost in the primary to GOP nominee Jim Pillen.
Newsweek has reached out to Sasse’s team for comment.
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Colts Vs. Broncos: Time Television Radio And Streaming Schedule
Colts Vs. Broncos: Time, Television, Radio And Streaming Schedule https://digitalalabamanews.com/colts-vs-broncos-time-television-radio-and-streaming-schedule/
Who: Indianapolis Colts (1-2-1) at Denver Broncos (2-2)
When: Thursday, Oct. 6, 8:15 p.m. ET
Where: Empower Field at Mile High — Denver, CO
Channel: Amazon Prime (National), WRTV (ABC 6) Indy
Broadcast: Al Michaels (play-by-play), Kirk Herbstreit (color analyst), Kaylee Hartung (sideline)
Sirius XM Radio (Colts) — SiriusXM 81 or 226, SiriusXM App
Sirius XM Radio (Broncos) — Channel 83 or 225, Sirius XM App
ESPN Radio — Spero Dedes, Ryan Harris
WFNI – 107.5 FM INDIANAPOLIS
WFNI – 93.5 FM INDIANAPOLIS
WLHK – 97.1 FM INDIANAPOLIS
WRZQ – 107.3 FM COLUMBUS
WGCL – 1370 AM BLOOMINGTON
WQLQ – 96.1 FM SOUTH BEND
WROI – 92.1 FM ROCHESTER
WZDM – 92.1 FM VINCENNES
WYFX – 106.7 FM MT VERNON
WREB – 94.3 FM GREENCASTLE
WWBL – 106.5 FM WASHINGTON
WQLK – 96.1 FM RICHMOND
WIMC – 103.9 FM CRAWFORDSVILLE
WDAN – 1490 AM DANVILLE, IL
WWVR – 98.5 FM PARIS, IL (TERRE HAUTE)
WZBD – 92.7 FM BERNE
WPGW – 1440 AM PORTLAND
WXVW – 1450 AM JEFFERSONVILLE
WMYK – 98.5 FM PERU/KOKOMO – Lic. to Peru
WMXQ – 93.5 FM HARTFORD CITY
WXFN – 92.5FM/1340AM
WAXL – 103.3 FM SANTA CLAUSE
WRZR – 94.5 FM LOOGOOTEE
WORX – 96.7 FM MADISON
WCJZ FM 105.7 – TELL CITY, OWENSBORO KY
WCRA – 1090 AM, 100.5/99.5 FM EFFINGHAM, IL
WZUS – 100.9 FM DECATUR, IL
WKJG – 1380 FM FT. WAYNE
WKJG – 101.9 FM FT. WAYNE
WMRI – 860 AM MARION
WSLM – 97.9 FM SALEM
WABX – 107.5 FM EVANSVILLE
WEFM – 95.9 FM MICHIGAN CITY
WBIW – 1340 AM BEDFORD
WRSW – 1480 AM, 99.7 FM WARSAW
WIBN – 98.1 FM EARL PARK
WAWK – 1140 AM and 95.5 FM KENDALLVILLE
WAWK – 94.3 FM – AUBURN
WJOT – 105.9 FM AND 1510 AM – WABASH
WHBE – 680 AM LOUISVILLE
WHBE – 105.7 FM LOUISVILLE
WTRE – 1330AM GREENSBURG
WASK – 1450 AM FM LAFAYETTE
WASK – 101.7 FM LAFAYETTE
Colts – S Julian Blackmon (out), LB Shaquille Leonard (out), DE Tyquan Lewis (out), RB Jonathan Taylor (out).
Broncos – OL Jonathon Cooper (out), S P.J. Locke (out), G/C Quinn Meinerz (out), OLB Aaron Patrick (out), WR Tyrie Cleveland (questionable), CB Darius Phillips (questionable), OL Billy Turner (questionable)
Full injury report for both teams
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Russians Flee By Boat To Alaska After Putins Military Mobilization
Russians Flee By Boat To Alaska After Putin’s Military Mobilization https://digitalalabamanews.com/russians-flee-by-boat-to-alaska-after-putins-military-mobilization/
Two Russian nationals fleeing President Vladimir Putin’s call-up of military reservists landed by boat on a remote Alaskan island in the Bering Sea and are seeking asylum in the United States, the state’s two senators and U.S. government officials said Thursday.
The unusual incident highlights the lengths some Russians have gone to avoid a mobilization of up to 300,000 as Putin’s military, having suffered heavy losses in Ukraine, has made multiple retreats in recent weeks amid an aggressive offensive push by Ukrainian forces. An estimated 200,000 Russians have fled since the call-up.
The two appeared this week at a beach near Gambell, a tiny community on the northwest tip of St. Lawrence Island about 40 miles from mainland Russia, where they reported having fled “to avoid compulsory military service,” a spokesperson for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told the Associated Press.
Murkowski and fellow Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said the incident has exposed a need of greater security in the Arctic, where Russian military ships and aircraft have increasingly asserted their presence. Seven military vessels from Russia and China were spotted in the Bering Sea last month sailing in international waters.
“We are actively engaged with federal officials and residents in Gambell to determine who these individuals are, but right now, we already know that the federal response was lacking,” Murkowski said. “Only local officials and state law enforcement had the capability to immediately respond to the asylum seekers, while Customs and Border Protection had to dispatch a Coast Guard aircraft from over 750 miles away to get on scene.”
The Coast Guard referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which said the Russians were transported to Anchorage for processing.
Sullivan said in a statement that the incident made clear that “the Russian people don’t want to fight Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, following staged referendums that were widely denounced as illegal. Follow our live updates here.
The response: The Biden administration on Friday announced a new round of sanctions on Russia, in response to the annexations, targeting government officials and family members, Russian and Belarusian military officials and defense procurement networks. President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Friday that Ukraine is applying for “accelerated ascension” into NATO, in an apparent answer to the annexations.
In Russia: Putin declared a military mobilization on Sept. 21 to call up as many as 300,000 reservists in a dramatic bid to reverse setbacks in his war on Ukraine. The announcement led to an exodus of more than 180,000 people, mostly men who were subject to service, and renewed protests and other acts of defiance against the war.
The fight: Ukraine mounted a successful counteroffensive that forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September, as troops fled cities and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment.
Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground from the beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work.
How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.
Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video.
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Dozens Of Children Among At Least 36 People Killed In Child Care Center Massacre In Thailand | CNN
Dozens Of Children Among At Least 36 People Killed In Child Care Center Massacre In Thailand | CNN https://digitalalabamanews.com/dozens-of-children-among-at-least-36-people-killed-in-child-care-center-massacre-in-thailand-cnn/
Bangkok, Thailand CNN —
Thailand recoiled in horror Thursday after at least 36 people were killed, at least 24 of them children, in a massacre at a child care center in northeastern Thailand believed to be the country’s deadliest incident of its kind.
Authorities immediately launched a manhunt for the suspected attacker, later identified by Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) as Panya Kamrab, a 34-year-old former policeman. According to Thai Royal Police, he was suspended from police duty earlier this year relation to drug possession charges.
Among the dozens of victims are Panya’s wife and stepson, whom investigators say he killed before taking his own life.
His 2-year-old stepson was enrolled at the nursery that he attacked Thursday, but was not present while the attack was carried out, according to a local police chief.
“(Panya) went to look for his two-year-old son, but the boy was not there … so he started shooting as well as stabbing people at the nursery,” police spokesperson Maj. General Paisan Luesomboon told CNN.
Panya then “managed to get into a room where 24 kids were sleeping together,” killing all but one of them.
“He also used a knife to stab both children and staff at the center,” Paisan said.
One of the center’s teachers described a horrific scene to local media, explaining that the attacker entered the center around noon, while two other staff members were having lunch.
“I suddenly heard the sound just sounded like fire crackers. So I looked back [and] the two staffs just collapsed on the floor,” the teacher said.
“Then he pulled another gun from his waist…I didn’t expect he would also kill the kids,” they said.
The teacher also said that the attacker was also carrying a second gun, as well as a knife, which he used to fatally stab another teacher, who was eight months pregnant.
One eyewitness told Reuters she believed the attacker was coming to pick up his child. When he arrived to the center, he “didn’t say anything,” and “shot at the door while the children were sleeping,” she said.
Most of the deaths were the result of “stabbing wounds,” Paisan told CNN.
A teacher also told Reuters that the attacker had mainly used a knife.
“It all went down really fast. He was slashing the knife, he didn’t use the gun, he kept slashing in there. It’s all by a knife,” she said.
Police General Damrongsak Kittiprapas said that the attacker “mainly used a knife” to kill the children.
“Then he got out and started killing anyone he met along the way with a gun or the knife until he got home,” said Damrongsak. “We surrounded the house and then found that he committed suicide in his home.”
The massacre took place at the Child Development Center in Nong Bua Lamphu province’s Uthaisawan Na Klang district, according to a statement from Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who called the incident “shocking” and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.
The province, located approximately 540 kilometers (around 335 miles) northeast of Bangkok, is a largely peaceful and quiet area, and is not known for violence.
Prayut will travel to the province on Friday to meet with families of the victims, according to a statement from his office.
Thai Royal police said Panya was due to receive a verdict in his ongoing case over alleged possession of methamphetamine, on Oct. 7.
In an earlier undated search of his residence, police found a tablet of Yaba in his house, they also said. Yaba is a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine, which is a tablet usually crushed and smoked, known locally as “crazy medicine.”
Charges of possessing the “Category 1” drug led to his suspension from police duty in January.
Gun ownership in Thailand is relatively high compared with other countries in Southeast Asia.
There were more than 10.3 million civilian owned firearms in Thailand, or around 15 guns for every 100 people, according to 2017 data from the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS). Approximately 6.2 million of those guns are legally registered, according to SAS.
Thailand ranks as the Southeast Asian country with the second-highest gun homicides after the Philippines, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s 2019 Global Burden of Disease database.
In a statement, UNICEF said it was “shocked” by the tragedy and sent its condolences to the families affected.
It condemned the attack, saying: “No child should be a target or witness of violence any where, anytime,” adding, “Early childhood development centers, schools and all learning spaces must be safe havens for young children to learn, play and grow during their most critical years.”
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss said in a tweet that she was “shocked to hear of the horrific events,” and said that her “thoughts are with all those affected and the first responders.”
“The UK stands with the Thai people at this terrible time,” she said.
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Chester County Faith-Based Groups Helping With Disaster Relief
Chester County Faith-Based Groups Helping With Disaster Relief https://digitalalabamanews.com/chester-county-faith-based-groups-helping-with-disaster-relief/
Long after the TV cameras are gone and the Weather Channel reporters are off on other assignments, after first responders have moved on, after insurance claims have been processed and paid, repairs made, and life for those with insurance begins to approach some sense of normal-then the true victims of a weather disaster clearly stand out-those victims without insurance or the financial ability to make repairs.
This is where a Chester County group gets started.
First Crew of West Chester National Disaster Relief team’s mission is to come on site nine months — about one year after the natural disaster to focus solely on those victims who cannot afford to repair their homes.
Formed in 2006 following Hurricane Katrina, First Crew of West Chester is a volunteer collaboration of three West Chester faith-based organizations: First Presbyterian Church, Westminster Presbyterian Church, and 938 Church of West Chester.
Each year in October First Crew volunteers have found themselves in Mississippi (Hurricane-7 trips), Louisiana (Hurricane-5 trips), Tuscaloosa AL (tornadoes), Houston (hurricane), New Bern North Carolina (Hurricane- two trips). For the past five years, First Crew has been working with Fuller Center Disaster Rebuilders, an organization who set up multiyear operations on site to focus on those victims who do not have the means to recover.
This month, First Crew’s 18 volunteers are heading to Western Kentucky to rebuild homes destroyed by the December 2021 tornadoes that stayed on the ground for 165 miles.
This is First Crew’s 19th trip and work teams have ranged from 8 to 32 volunteers. No skills are needed just a passion to help those impacted by these natural disasters.
For more information about First Crew ‘s Disaster Relief mission, contact Jim Serum (jwserum@gmail.com) or Bob Curran (curranbob@verizon.net)
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AL Lawmakers Considering Spending Budget Surplus On One-Time Tax Rebates
AL Lawmakers Considering Spending Budget Surplus On One-Time Tax Rebates https://digitalalabamanews.com/al-lawmakers-considering-spending-budget-surplus-on-one-time-tax-rebates/
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WIAT) — Alabama’s fiscal year 2022 has ended on a strong note, with a nearly $2 billion surplus between the state’s two biggest budgets.
The fiscal year ended Sept. 30 and, based on the latest available data from Sept. 1, both the General Fund and Education Trust Fund budgets brought in record revenue.
For the General Fund, that’s about $2.5 billion — an 8.15% uptick (about $94 million) over last year. The Education Trust Fund Budget is at about $9.2 billion, a 20% gain of about $1.6 billion from 2021.
Considering the surplus and current economic challenges, Gov. Kay Ivey is planning to propose a tax relief plan to the legislature next session, saying in a statement: “I do believe that some form of rebates should be considered, but rest assured that every option we are exploring will be focused on the interests of our citizens and keeping our people first.”
But some lawmakers would rather see long-term investments over one-time payments.
“Rebates and those things sound good, but is it sustainable long term? A one-time opportunity doesn’t solve a long-term problem,” House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels (D- Huntsville) said.
Daniels says he’d like to see lawmakers consider using that money on grocery tax holidays, universal Pre-K investments or even saving it for when the budgets aren’t so flush.
“We’ve experienced over the course of the last 20 or more years the economy going up and down, so we’ve got to make certain that we’re preparing for a rainy day,” Daniels said.
With the inflation the state has seen this year, Sen. Gerald Allen says one-time payments could be helpful.
“It’s important because taxpayers all over the state is hurting because of the inflation that’s coming and what we all feel,” Allen said.
Allen says he’ll be working with the budget committee chairmen next session to further discuss sending out rebates and how much they could be. Allen says however they decide to provide relief will be with consideration to inflation and any possible future economic concerns.
“The rebate will be a one-time issue, and certainly it’s a great idea and one that we need to explore,” Allen said.
The next legislative session starts in March of 2023.
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Alabama Inmate Strike Enters Its Second Week https://digitalalabamanews.com/alabama-inmate-strike-enters-its-second-week/
A historic strike by Alabama inmates entered its second week on Monday.
Taken up with the support of prison advocacy organization Both Sides of the Wall, work stoppages began last Monday and spread rapidly throughout all the state’s prisons. Unpaid inmate labor is used by prisons in areas such as laundry and food service and the strike has effectively brought some of those functions to a halt. Inmates have reported that prison staff has refused to serve them anything more than two cold meals daily since the strike began.
The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) has been swift to underplay the significance and ramifications of the strike. Hours after Alabama news outlets reported on the strike reaching its second week, the ADOC released statements saying that most state inmates had returned to work. The ADOC also denies claims that they are withholding food and visitation privileges from inmates in retaliation.
Inmates disagree. On the first day of the strike, prisoners reported to family members that they had not been given any lunch hours past the appointed time. Kelly Betts, spokesperson for the ADOC, countered that they were lagging due to the work stoppages but that no one had been deprived of food. Over the past week, inmates from multiple facilities complained that they sometimes received nothing but a bologna sandwich or a single slice of cheese instead of a full meal.
“They are trying to starve us out at Staton,” one inmate posted on Facebook last week about conditions for more than 1,300 inmates at the Staton Correctional Facility north of Montgomery.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an inmate at Ventress Correctional Facility told the Montgomery Advertiser that he had overheard a captain in the prison tell officers, “If they don’t want to work, starve them.”
Other prisoners told the Montgomery Advertiser that no considerations were being made for prisoners with allergies or other dietary restrictions; leaving it to the inmates themselves to sort, much like food service usually is. The ADOC has placed all state prisons on lockdown, confining inmates to their cells or dorms with no allowance for movement—inmates are therefore unable to go to the commissary, where overpriced food items can be purchased to supplement the sub-par fare. Betts and company claimed that the inadequate rations are not orchestrated retaliation but are strictly the outcome of the work stoppages. Because inmates make up the largest share of prison food service, she said, the ADOC was “forced” to go on what she called a “holiday schedule” for meals.
Diyawn Caldwell, founder of the advocacy group Both Sides of the Wall, countered that the ADOC is responsible for ensuring that inmates are fed three times daily whether inmates are striking or not.
“Their regulations say they’re supposed to be fed three times a day, two being hot meals,” she told AL.com. “And due to their shortage of staffing, they’re feeding them on the holiday schedule. Which shouldn’t be the burden of the inmates. It’s the burden of the staff because it’s their responsibility to make sure that the inmates are fed.”
Shannon Barlow, who is imprisoned at Limestone Correctional Facility in northern Alabama, told WBHM Public Radio reporters, “There’s no hope, there’s no promise of a future, and we’re the ones basically who have been holding the ceiling up over our own heads all these years and we’re just waking up to the fact that this is wrong.”
In addition to scaling back food service, the ADOC canceled weekend visitation, a move that Caldwell believes will only fan the inmates’ discontent.
“These men/women look forward to seeing their family. This is the only contact they physically have with them and this is why a lot of them stay out of any trouble. Many families have taken off work, paid for travel and hotels in preparation of visitation this weekend and they abruptly cancel it because they want to punish the men/women inside for exercising our 1st Amendment rights.”
“They are doing exactly what they have been doing for so long, which is trying to maintain control through loss of privileges for no misconduct, retaliation and fear,” Caldwell explained to AL.com.
Inmates have drawn up eight demands which they delivered to Both Sides of the Wall ahead of the strike: a guarantee of parole to all eligible prisoners, repeal of the habitual offender act and a retroactive application of relaxed sentencing laws, abolition of life without parole, reduction of the 30-year maximum sentence for juvenile capital offenders to 15 years, mandatory parole reviews for all inmates who have served 25 or more years, a streamlined review process for medical furlough or release of elderly inmates, and the creation of a conviction integrity unit to investigate possible cases of wrongful conviction.
According to Caldwell, a steep reduction in paroles has led to a simmering despair that fuels violence inside the prisons.
“They have no way out…Because they’re sitting there, everybody is aggravated, they’re agitated and their tolerance level is very low. So they need some kind of hope, some type of incentive, and some type of window to be able to enter back into society. And basically, that’s through the parole board. And we need some relief there,” Caldwell said to the press.
“You’re working on free labor,” a prisoner at Fountain Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama told Montgomery Advertiser. “But you ain’t letting us go. You’re not giving us a chance of parole. So something’s got to break.”
ADOC Commissioner Jon Hamm has scoffed at criticism of the use of unpaid inmate labor. Most prisons, he says, rely upon inmate labor for essential tasks like food service and laundry. However, Alabama is one of only seven states—all of them in the Deep South—where inmates are denied even nominal compensation for their labor.
Last week, Republican Governor Kay Ivey dismissed the inmates’ demands out-of-hand, calling them “absurd.” According to Ivey, two 4,000 bed prisons being built with pandemic relief funds will ease tensions in the prisons; they are expected to be ready for occupation sometime in 2026.
She praised Commissioner Hamm for his handling of the strike, saying he had “things well under control…Everything’s still operational; there’s no disruption in essential services. We still got our two prisons being built so we can better provide for the safety of the inmates as well as the workers.”
Betts parroted Ivey and further asserted that inmates should know that their demands have to be handled through legislation—legislation Ivey has already denounced as “unwelcome in Alabama.”
The ADOC has long functioned with no oversight; its abuses of inmates are myriad. The agency refuses to share the state’s lethal injection protocol, even after botching numerous executions. Corrections officers look the other way when inmates are beaten or sexually assaulted by their peers; this violence is an added punishment in Alabama’s backwards criminal justice system. Medical care is likewise abysmal; pregnant inmates have been forced to labor in restraints.
In 2020, prisoners were instructed to endorse their COVID-19 stimulus checks from the government but were denied the funds; they were channeled instead to inmate debts and fees. The ADOC forces inmates to purchase essentials such as toiletries and feminine hygiene products at a high mark-up through what is basically a monopoly; the stimulus checks could have alleviated the strain of those expenditures for inmates and their families. It could also have allowed some prisoners to save for their release.
More recently, the treatment of Kastellio Vaughan, an inmate at Staton Correctional Facility, raised alarm nationwide.
Days before the strike, Vaughan’s sister Kassie Vaughn received an SMS message containing photos of her brother looking insensate and emaciated; “Get help,” the accompanying text read. Vaughan had recently undergone surgery for a bowel obstruction; when Kassie raised questions with prison staff, she was put on a no-contact list.
The ADOC waffled, saying on one hand that Vaughan had requested and received care 11 separate times between July and September; they later said he had turned down medical care. They published statements by corrections officers in his files detailing the times he had asked for treatment and the times he supposedly turned treatment down; his family claims that the documents violate Kastellio’s Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) rights to privacy.
In an October 4 Facebook post, Kassie reported that her brother was doing better, but that other inmates were feeding him and cleaning the diapers he has had to wear since his obstruction.
The state’s prisons are such an embarrassment that the United States Department of Justice, representatives of the industrialized world’s most draconian judicial system, sued the ADOC in 2020. The trial set for 2024 cannot be expected to bring the ADOC to account—that will require the mobilization of the entire working class to overturn the rotten social and economic system, capitalism, which fills Alabama’s prisons.
Read More…
Trump Lawyer Chris Kise Joins National Boutique As Large Firms Retreat From Political Battles | Daily Business Review
Trump Lawyer Chris Kise Joins National Boutique As Large Firms Retreat From Political Battles | Daily Business Review https://digitalalabamanews.com/trump-lawyer-chris-kise-joins-national-boutique-as-large-firms-retreat-from-political-battles-daily-business-review/
What You Need to Know
Former Florida solicitor general and current Trump lawyer Christopher Kise has joined the Tallahassee office of national boutique Continental PLLC.
Kise quit his job at Foley & Lardner to represent Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, a deal that included a $3 million retainer for Kise.
Boutique firms in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., are stepping up to take controversial cases involving politics, an area where large firms used to be more active.
After quitting the Tallahassee office of Foley & Lardner in late August to represent former President Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, former Florida Solicitor General Christopher Kise has landed at national litigation, bankruptcy and government boutique Continental PLLC, the firm announced Thursday.
The arrival of Kise and his $3 million retainer corresponds with small firms’ increasing dominance of contentious litigation not only in the Trump orbit, but in Florida politics as well. Large firms have contributed to that shift, said boutique firm leaders in Tallahassee, by declining to take on polarizing right-wing clients such as Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
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Why Wisconsins Senate Race May Be The Most Important In The Country
Why Wisconsin’s Senate Race May Be The Most Important In The Country https://digitalalabamanews.com/why-wisconsins-senate-race-may-be-the-most-important-in-the-country/
If current polling holds, Democrats could control 52 seats–enough to codify abortion rights, if Mandela Barnes defeats incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson this November.
According to the latest FiveThirtyEight Senate race forecasts, all Democratic incumbents in competitive races (Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, & New Hampshire) are favored to win. The polling analysis website also shows Democrat John Fetterman is favored in his race against Republican Mehmet Oz to fill the seat of Pat Toomey.
If all of the above holds true, Democrats would control 51 seats in the US Senate. They need 52, however, to get rid of the filibuster and codify abortion rights into law, a move supported by two-thirds of the country.
That’s why all eyes should be on Wisconsin, according to FiveThirtyEight: a toss-up race where incumbent Republican senator Ron Johnson leads Democrat Mandela Barnes by 1.5 points. Recently, the polling situation has improved for Johnson. He trailed in every poll in August but has a slight lead in three of four polls conducted in September.
What Wisconsin Voters Care About
In addition to forecasting which candidates are most likely to win this November, the latest survey shows what issues are most likely to drive voters to the polls.
According to September’s Marquette Law School Poll, the top three issues for Wisconsin voters are inflation, crime, and a tie between election integrity and public schools.
Here is what Sen. Johnson and Lt. Gov. Barnes have said and done about each of those issues, so you are aware how your life could change if either is elected or re-elected next month.
Inflation
Sen. Ron Johnson
What He’s Said: “I don’t think there’s one organization thing that’s actually going to reduce inflation. Every Democrat policy created inflation.”
What He’s Done:
Voted against August’s Inflation Reduction Act, which included lowering health care costs, lowering energy costs, and cutting the national deficit
Voted against additional stimulus payments for families during the pandemic
Forced a 10-hour reading of the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus plan to help the country emerge from the pandemic in 2021, to obstruct and delay its passage
Cut taxes for the biggest corporations from 35% to 21% and approved a tax cut that benefited his donors
What He’d Do:
Push for higher taxes for one-third of Wisconsinites, specifically on the state’s lowest income earners
Continue to cut taxes for the top 1%, like himself (Johnson’s net worth is an estimated $40 million)
Put Medicare and Social Security benefits for more than 1 million residents at risk; Johnson believes both programs should be put up for a yearly vote and subject to budget negotiations
Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes
What He’s Said: “We need an economy that works for working people, so let’s tackle inflation head-on by giving Americans a raise.”
What He’s Done:
Alongside Evers, sent COVID relief funds to Wisconsin small businesses
Supported the governor’s push for more relief checks for lower and middle class families
What He’d Do:
Cut middle class taxes by raising taxes on the top 1%
Expand the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit
Reduce child care costs by implementing universal pre-kindergarten and ensuring that no family spends more than 7% of their income on child care
Allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices to cut prescription costs
Incentivize companies to manufacture their products in America and crack down on Big Ag
Crime
Sen. Ron Johnson
What He’s Said: “You have criminals and you have shooters. OK? I don’t know why the left always wants to blame guns.”
What He’s Done:
Cosponsored a bill that would prohibit the Department of Justice from tracking and cataloging people who purchase multiple guns
Voted against a bill that would’ve required background checks on all gun sales
Received $1.2 million in campaign donations from gun-related special interest groups
What He’d Do:
Block any legislation that includes gun safety and reform, including Pres. Biden’s proposed “ghost gun” legislation
Continue accepting money from gun lobby groups
Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes
What He’s Said: “When our communities don’t have opportunity, gun violence and crime is what fills the void.”
What He’s Done:
Implemented common-sense police reform like banning chokeholds and de-escalation training
Gave law enforcement the resources they need, like access to proper training and the ability to hire social workers to answer crisis calls
What He’d Do:
Invest in good-paying jobs, education, and child care to prevent crime before it starts
Put violent criminals in jail
Get illegal guns off the streets through gun safety legislation
Election Integrity
Sen. Ron Johnson
What He’s Said: “There has always been some voter fraud that the mainstream media and unfortunately, many officials just simply ignore. I’m not alleging anything because I have no proof. All I’m saying is there are enough irregularities to raise concerns [about the results of the 2020 election.]”
What He’s Done:
Agreed with Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud after the 2020 election
Made baseless claims that Democrats had “gamed the system” in Wisconsin
Refused to acknowledge Biden’s victory until December 16th, 2020, when he conceded the election was legitimate and he would not object to the counting of electoral votes
Push conspiracy theories about the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, at one point blaming Nancy Pelosi
Downplayed the storming of the Capitol and voted to acquit Trump for his role in the insurrection
What He’d Do:
Support Trump’s projected 2024 campaign
Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes
What He’s Said: “It’s time to deliver a clear message that America won’t allow those who would undermine our democracy to keep leading it. We must hold our leaders accountable.”
What He’s Done:
Advocated for fair maps and pushed back against lobbyists who made Wisconsin one of the most gerrymandered states in the country
Encouraged every Wisconsinite to vote
What He’d Do:
End partisan gerrymandering
Pass a new voting rights act
Enhance election security to stop foreign interference
End the Senate’s filibuster
Strengthen ethics rules for elected officials
Public Schools
Sen. Ron Johnson
What He’s Said: “We stopped teaching values in so many of our schools. Now we’re teaching wokeness, we’re indoctrinating our children with things like CRT, telling some children they’re not equal to others, they’re the cause of other people’s problems.”
What He’s Done:
Supported less federal funding for public schools
Advocated for charter schools and parental school choice
Opposed Biden’s student loan forgiveness program for college students
What He’d Do:
Prioritize private school funding over public school funding
Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes
What He’s Said: “[Technical college students] are getting a good education and putting themselves on a pathway to get good-paying jobs that are absolutely essential to our communities.”
What He’s Done:
Advocated for more resources and support for technical colleges
Alongside Evers, increased state funding to Wisconsin public schools to ensure students of every income and ethnicity have access to the same educational opportunities
What He’d Do:
Lower the cost of college at both four-year colleges and two-year technical schools
Help families by introducing universal Pre-K
Invest in better school nutrition programs
Champion free technical education
The Bottom Line
Your vote matters–especially in Wisconsin. With multiple neck-and-neck races and important issues on next month’s ballot, make your plan to vote today, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.
Click here to check your registration status.
Visit our Voter Hub for more information on who and what is on your ballot.
Christina Lorey A former producer, reporter, and anchor for TV stations in Madison and Moline, Illinois, Christina has been a coach and mentor for Girls on the Run and has organized events for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network and the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
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Will Abortion Be Enough To Save Democrats In November?
Will Abortion Be Enough To Save Democrats In November? https://digitalalabamanews.com/will-abortion-be-enough-to-save-democrats-in-november/
This weekend, when I ran into the former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile, she told me that she was not super optimistic about the midterm elections—a message she had shared in a recent meeting with top White House aides about how to mobilize the Party’s voters. “Democrats have to defy history,” she later told me. “It’s tough. That’s my worry.” There was, however, one issue that gave Brazile some hope: the backlash to the Supreme Court’s decision this summer to throw out Roe v. Wade, the abortion-rights decision from 1973. It has resulted in a brewing voter rebellion neatly summed up in a T-shirt that Brazile recently saw, which read “Roe, Roe, Roe to Vote.” She has taken to singing the slogan like a refrain.
By Monday evening, the revelation of an alleged abortion paid for by Herschel Walker, the vocally anti-abortion Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, threatened to stop the G.O.P. from reclaiming one of the state’s two Senate seats, a potential blow to the Party’s hopes of capturing the chamber. The Walker abortion story, published by the Daily Beast, swiftly escalated into something more than a tale of Republican hypocrisy on an issue that Democrats hope to use against many G.O.P. candidates in November. After Walker denied paying for the abortion or even knowing the woman in question, she responded by disclosing that she had also had a child by Walker. (“Totally, totally untrue,” he said, of both claims.) One of Walker’s sons, himself an outspoken conservative, publicly bashed his father as an abusive liar. National and state Republicans, though, publicly stuck with Walker, a former football player turned hard-right Christian activist whose entrée to politics has been facilitated by his decades-old ties to Donald Trump.
Just as in 2020, control of the Senate, which is currently deadlocked at 50–50, may well come down to Georgia, lending the Walker abortion scandal a national resonance that it might not otherwise command. Democrats are attacking Republican candidates on the issue of abortion in many other races this fall—if nowhere quite so dramatically as in the Walker case. “Democrats stake their House majority on abortion,” Politico reported this week, citing that the Party has spent some eighteen million dollars on abortion-themed ads for about four dozen battleground seats. In an exhaustive analysis of more than three hundred of this season’s campaign ads, for the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, Kyle Kondik also found that “abortion dominates Democratic advertising.” Many of the ads he watched attacked Republican candidates for supporting a national ban on abortion, or for opposing exceptions that would allow abortions to protect the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.
The Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg is one of those who believes in the “Roe, Roe, Roe” theory for Democrats in 2022. “In terms of over-all national mood, it’s been a game changer,” she told me, of the Supreme Court’s June abortion decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. “Dobbs changed everything.” Greenberg said she’s seen two types of attacks that are working for Democrats: hits on specific candidates, such as Walker, whose own words on abortion are being used against them, and more general calls to action, particularly in Republican-dominated states where legislatures are moving to restrict access to abortion. In those races, it’s easier to make the argument that women’s rights are directly on the ballot in November.
Rallying to save abortion rights has given Democrats, and particularly younger women, a push to vote this fall, at a time when other indicators for the Party have not been looking good. The Democratic strategist Tom Bonier points to a spike in new registrations since the Supreme Court ruling. “Substantially more women, especially younger women, have registered to vote since the Dobbs decision,” he told me—a notable data point, given that people who newly register close to an election tend to vote at a higher rate. Bonier found that there are more women registering than men so far this year, and also an expanding gender gap in new registrations in forty-six states, a change he called “unique.” The trend applies even in conservative states, such as Idaho, where Bonier has noted that young women are out-registering young men by twenty percentage points since Dobbs, and in Kansas, where abortion-rights supporters scored a major upset this summer by defeating a ballot measure that would have banned abortion with few exceptions.
There is, however, clearly a limit to how much the abortion issue can deliver for Democrats. Polls suggest that Joe Biden remains a highly unpopular President, if somewhat less unpopular than he was at his lowest point, over the summer. Republicans have seized on higher crime rates and concerns about immigration in ads aimed at motivating their voters to turn out. And Democrats, although they lead among voters who prioritize other issues such as climate change and health care, are behind in surveys that ask voters focussed on the economy and the country’s highest-in-decades inflation rate whom to trust. The Economist’s G. Elliott Morris, summing up a new survey from the magazine and YouGov, called this an “Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?” problem, given how much the economy tends to dominate American voters’ concerns.
The main impact of the abortion issue at this point may well be that it got Democrats back in the game in an election that was looking like it would be a blowout for Republicans as recently as a few months ago. “Without Dobbs,” Greenberg said, “we’d have an election just about inflation.”
The stakes for getting it wrong, however, are fantastically high. Something more than just control of the House or Senate is at stake in these midterm elections, in the ongoing age of Trump. On Thursday, the Washington Post published an analysis showing that a majority of Republican nominees for the Senate, House, and key statewide races have adopted the former President’s 2020-election denialism as their own—a finding with profoundly worrisome consequences not just for the next Presidential election or the balance of power in Washington but for American democracy. Many of the two hundred and ninety-nine election deniers identified by the Post, in fact, are already all but assured election, for seats that are safely Republican—a hundred and seventy-four of them, by the Post’s count. They will constitute pro-Trump shock troops in Congress and in state capitals for a Republican Party remade in Trump’s image.
Many of the G.O.P.’s candidates in marquee races around the country seem determined to conduct politics in Trump’s inflammatory, divisive fashion. They’re not adopting only election denialism as their own but the whole constellation of Trumpist provocation. In one ad, the Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake—whom Trump has endorsed—smashes television sets with a sledgehammer and lights a face mask on fire with a blow torch. She promises to finish Trump’s wall. Seemingly unaware of the irony, Lake, a former television journalist, trashes the “corporate media” for warning that Trump’s attacks on the 2020 election were “extremely dangerous to our democracy.”
Also on the Arizona ballot this fall is Blake Masters, a Trump-supported Senate candidate whose ad “Invasion!” is a direct homage to Trump’s false claims during the 2018 midterms about an “invasion” at the southern border by a “caravan” of migrants. In it, Masters demands that the government build Trump’s wall and “lock this border down.” He warns that, “if we don’t do these things right now,” in a phrase ripped right from Trump’s rally playlist, “we’re not gonna have a country.”
Perhaps Masters forgot that Trump and the G.O.P. lost the House in 2018 with that message. Or perhaps, as with Trump’s 2020 defeat, he simply prefers to wish away an unpleasant political reality.
But both history and an awful lot of the evidence are on the Republicans’ side in 2022. The wishful thinking might well be on the Democratic side this time around. “Dems can win,” Brazile wrote me in an e-mail, on Thursday, but not unless voters are clear on the consequences. “To the extent this is a referendum on Biden and Washington, Dems lose,” she said. The only way it works out otherwise is for the electorate to grasp that democracy itself is on the ballot.
Read More…
Auburn Freshman Chance Westry Out 3-4 Weeks After Knee Procedure
Auburn Freshman Chance Westry Out 3-4 Weeks After Knee Procedure https://digitalalabamanews.com/auburn-freshman-chance-westry-out-3-4-weeks-after-knee-procedure/
Auburn Basketball
Published: Oct. 06, 2022, 4:46 p.m.
Auburn freshman Chance Westry is being asked to learn three positions in Bruce Pearl’s system ahead of the 2022-23 season. (Tom Green/tgreen@al.com)TNS
Auburn freshman Chance Westry and coach Bruce Pearl both underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on Thursday, the program announced.
The four-star freshman and the ninth-year head coach each had procedures performed on their right knees, with orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews performing the surgery. According to a release from the team, Andrews “was pleased with the outcome” of both surgeries.
Read more Auburn basketball: Tipoff times, TV networks set for Auburn’s West Coast trip
Bruce Pearl excited about Auburn’s depth, wants to see “cream rise to the top”
Allen Flanigan out indefinitely as Auburn begins preseason practice
Westry is expected to miss three to four weeks while recovering before he will be cleared to return to the court. That will further impact Auburn’s rotation on the wing, where the team is already without senior Allen Flanigan, who is away from the team while dealing with personal family matters, this preseason.
Westry is a versatile 6-foot-6 freshman who could play small forward and both guard positions in Auburn’s offense. He was rated as the No. 38 player in the 2022 class, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, and Pearl has compared his skillset to that of former All-SEC guard Samir Doughty.
Pearl will return to practice with the team Monday when the Tigers reconvene after the university’s fall break.
Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.
If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation.
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Ukraine Regains 150 Square Miles Of Land In Expanding Counteroffensive; Russia Blames NATO For Nuclear Rhetoric: Live Updates
Ukraine Regains 150 Square Miles Of Land In Expanding Counteroffensive; Russia Blames NATO For Nuclear Rhetoric: Live Updates https://digitalalabamanews.com/ukraine-regains-150-square-miles-of-land-in-expanding-counteroffensive-russia-blames-nato-for-nuclear-rhetoric-live-updates/
As Ukraine consolidates the territory it has recaptured in the northeastern Kharkiv province, it continues to make gains in the east and south of the country.
Since the start of October, Kyiv’s forces have taken back more than 150 square miles of land in the southern Kherson province that had fallen to the Russians early in the war, Ukraine’s southern military command said Thursday. Spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk added the situation along the southern front remains fluid.
At the same time, the Ukrainian counteroffensive that drove Russian troops out of Kharkiv and across the border has extended to the neighboring provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, which make up the industrial Donbas region that Russia covets. Among the prize gains was the strategically important city of Lyman.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his officials announced Wednesday the retaking of villages in those provinces. Zelenskyy proclaimed, “The return of the Ukrainian flag means that a peaceful and socially secure life is once again possible for Donbas.”
With the attempted Russian annexation of four provinces as a backdrop, further Ukrainian progress in parts of Luhansk appears probable because of favorable terrain and lack of Russian reinforcements, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
“Ukraine’s ongoing northern and southern counteroffensives are likely forcing the Kremlin to prioritize the defense of one area of operations at the expense of another, potentially increasing the likelihood of Ukrainian success in both,” the institute said.
TURNING POINT IN THE WAR? As Russia admits defeat in Kharkiv, Ukraine regains land, confidence
Other developments:
►The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Samantha Power, met Thursday in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and praised not only Ukraine’s success on the battlefield but the country’s “ongoing efforts to strengthen its democracy and its economy.” She said the U.S. would provide an additional $55 million to repair heating pipes and other equipment.
►Sweden’s domestic security agency said its preliminary investigation of leaks from two Russian gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea confirmed they were caused by “detonations,” and that the findings have “strengthened the suspicions of serious sabotage.”
►Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., a prominent Kremlin critic who was jailed for allegedly spreading “false information” about the war in Ukraine, has been charged with treason by Russian authorities.
►The European Union on Thursday froze the assets of an additional 37 people and entities tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine, including officials involved in the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces.
►Polish officials said they are distributing potassium iodide tablets to regional firefighter stations in case Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is damaged.
PUTIN SEIZES EUROPE’S LARGEST POWER PLANT: Putin also signs laws annexing Ukraine land; OPEC cuts oil production, helps Russia
2 Russians escaping draft seek US asylum after landing in Alaska
Two Russians who said they’re escaping President Vladimir Putin’s military conscription are requesting U.S. asylum after landing on a remote Alaskan island in the Bering Sea, the office of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said.
Murkowski and fellow Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, said the Russians arrived at a beach near Gambell, an isolated community of about 600 people on St. Lawrence Island. Gambell is about 36 miles from the Chukotka Peninsula in Russia’s region of Siberia.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement the Russians arrived on a small boat Tuesday and were taken to Anchorage for screening and processing. The statement did not provide information on their asylum request.
A statement from Sullivan urged federal authorities to come up with a plan in case “more Russians flee to Bering Strait communities in Alaska.”
Kremlin accuses NATO of ‘pumping up’ nuclear talk
A Kremlin spokeswoman on Thursday appeared to tamp down controversy over any nuclear option in Ukraine and blamed NATO for an escalation in nuclear rhetoric.
“The Russian Federation is fully committed to the principle of the inadmissibility of nuclear war,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Zakharova said she won’t “participate in pumping up the degree of nuclear rhetoric,” saying it served the interests of NATO countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in announcing a partial military mobilization for his country last month, vowed to use “all available means” to deter attacks against Russia, an allusion to Russia’s tactical nuclear arsenal. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg then warned of “severe consequences for Russia” if Putin were to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The U.S. issued a similar warning.
Missile attacks draw close to Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia
Russia launched two missile attacks Thursday that hit more than 40 apartment buildings in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, close to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, authorities said. At least seven people were killed and five were missing, regional Gov. Oleksandr Starukha said.
The strikes came hours after Ukraine announced that Russian occupation forces had been driven out of three more villages in regions illegally annexed by Moscow.
Each side has blamed the other for rocket attacks roaring harrowingly close to the Zaporizhzhia plant. Putin on Wednesday declared the plant Russian property, a decree quickly rejected by Ukraine.
Contributing: The Associated Press
SIX MONTHS OF WAR: The entire world is losing. A look at where we go from here.
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M&M Food Mart Homicide Suspect Pleads Not Guilty Judge Sets Bond
M&M Food Mart Homicide Suspect Pleads Not Guilty, Judge Sets Bond https://digitalalabamanews.com/mm-food-mart-homicide-suspect-pleads-not-guilty-judge-sets-bond/
MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — The mother of a man murdered in Mobile, cried in court Thursday as her son’s accused killer faced a judge.
Anthony Alston, 19, is charged with murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle. On Thursday, Oct. 6, he pleaded not guilty. The judge set his bond at $360,000, as the victim’s mother watched from the front row.
“This is just sudden right now, and he was granted bond and I’m just hurting behind what was said in the courtroom,” said Jessica Wright, Jamarcus Lewis’ mother.
Jamarcus Lewis, 27, was shot and killed inside his vehicle outside the M&M Food Mart in Theodore on Saturday, Sept. 24. One other person was inside the vehicle, she was not injured.
Alston surrendered to Mobile police Tuesday, Oct. 4.
Prosecutors said four shell casings were found at the scene, and the shooting was caught on surveillance video, which has not been made public. Lauren Walsh with the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office said the two may have known each other.
Maxine Walters, who represents Alston, made a statement following the bond hearing.
“Mr. Alston maintains his innocence. He comes from a good family, he has lots of support from them,” said Maxine Walters, Alston’s lawyer.
Throughout the court hearing, Lewis’ mother sat in the front row wearing a button with her son’s picture. “I wear Jamarcus every day now,” said Wright.
Wright hopes no other parent has to feel the same pain she is feeling right now.
“Parents allowing their kids having guns and stuff, let’s get the guns off the streets and let the law enforcement handle everything,” said Wright.
Alston is expected to be back in court on Nov. 14.
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Alabama Urged To Follow Biden On Marijuana Possession Pardon: It Would Give People Hope
Alabama Urged To Follow Biden On Marijuana Possession Pardon: ‘It Would Give People Hope’ https://digitalalabamanews.com/alabama-urged-to-follow-biden-on-marijuana-possession-pardon-it-would-give-people-hope/
President Joe Biden announced Thursday he is pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law and urged governors to do the same for people convicted of the offense in their states.
The move will affect about 6,500 convicted of federal marijuana possession but will have no impact on Alabamians convicted in the state, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“While we’re absolutely thrilled to see the President’s statement and the steps that he’ll be taking to pardon federal marijuana convictions, we would call the state of Alabama and Governor Ivey’s attention to his request for governors here as well as across the country to take steps within their own state to pardon those convictions,” said Jerome Dees, Alabama Policy Director at SPLC.
But the Governor’s office said there is little likelihood of that, and it would have to come from the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles.
“In Alabama, pardons are granted on a case-by-case basis by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, according to applicable laws and policies. In reality, though, even if the Parole Board could grant pardons to a general class of individuals, such an action would affect only a very small fraction of individuals currently serving prison sentences in our state,” read an emailed statement from Gina Maiola, Communications Director for the governor.
Marijuana possession is the fourth most frequent felony of conviction statewide, according to the Alabama Sentencing Commission.
The SPLC says there are nearly 2,000 Alabamians convicted of the crime every year. In 2016, Alabama spent $22 million on the enforcement of its marijuana possession laws.
Beyond state pardons, pardons for crimes in municipal courts can be granted on a city-level.
In April 2021 and 2022, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin issued pardons to anyone in the city convicted of misdemeanor marijuana possession charges in municipal court , which has released over 15,000 people.
“Pardons for Alabamians convicted of marijuana possession would create such a positive impact on thousands of people statewide. It would give people hope that punishment for a simple, victimless crime is not permanent,” said Carla Crowder, executive director of Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, a legal nonprofit that has researched the impact of marijuana criminalization in Alabama.
“Tens of thousands of Alabamians have a felony on their records for possession of a substance that’s legal in states where half of Americans live, and now that the President of the United States has said is deserving of a pardon at the federal level, we need to fix this.”
The organization released a research report, Alabama’s War on Marijuana, which found that Black Alabamians are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Alabamians and in at least seven law enforcement jurisdictions, Black people were 10 or more times as likely as white people to be arrested for the offense.
“That felony conviction makes it harder to obtain a good job, access educational and housing opportunities, and enter certain careers. It’s a major barrier. Now it would be so easy for Governor Ivey to remove that barrier and help get more people into Alabama’s workforce,” said Crowder.
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Professor Spread Conspiracy Theories About Jan. 6 Insurrection In Online Lecture Long Beach Post News
Professor Spread Conspiracy Theories About Jan. 6 Insurrection In Online Lecture • Long Beach Post News https://digitalalabamanews.com/professor-spread-conspiracy-theories-about-jan-6-insurrection-in-online-lecture-long-beach-post-news/
A South Orange County community college says it is investigating a professor for incorporating extremist propaganda about the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol into a recorded lecture for an online course about video game design.
In the lecture, professor Tom DeDonno, who chairs the Computer Information Management Department at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, said the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection was staged to implicate Trump supporters, called the killing of Ashli Babbitt by Capitol Police during the attack a “joke” and said all of it is part of a larger campaign from the Chinese military to impose an “atheist theocracy” on the U.S.
The course that included the pre-recorded lecture was Introduction to Video Game Design, which is intended to teach video game design concepts such as strategies, scripting and game history, according to the course syllabus.
Saddleback, which is a public community college with about 20,000 students, launched the investigation following a complaint from a Long Beach student who also contacted the Post about the lecture. Reporters at the Post were able to watch the lecture before it was removed this week.
Jennie McCue, a spokesperson for Saddleback College, said the school is looking into the student’s complaint. She said it’s unknown how long the inquiry will take.
“The inappropriate content on Jan. 6 has already been removed” from the lecture, said McCue.
Screenshot of slide from Intro to Video Game Design lecture by Saddleback College Professor Tom DeDonno.
McCue said DeDonno is still employed at the school, but couldn’t comment on any past complaints that might have been directed against him, saying it was a personnel matter.
DeDonno did not return several calls and emails for this story.
The lecture in question concerns the role military strategy plays in the development of video games like Age of Empires and Civilization. It was apparently originally recorded on Feb. 17, 2021, according to its document name and statements DeDonno makes at the start of the lecture.
The student who complained about the video said it’s not unusual for remote learning classes to include lectures recycled from earlier semesters. There were about 20 students in the video game design class, according to the student.
In the lecture, which runs a little over an hour and a half, DeDonno shows slides and talks at great length about the design elements that go into strategy games, which are often based on real historical events, such as the battles fought by the Spartans against the Persian empire or the Scottish insurgent William Wallace. For much of the lecture, DeDonno goes into detail about why wars have been fought historically, as well as the concepts of strategic objectives and tactical advantages.
Then about an hour and 15 minutes into the lecture, DeDonno put up a slide titled “Modern Day Warfare.”
“We’re actually in another war now,” DeDonno says. “The only problem is it’s not looking good for us.”
Over the next 10 minutes, DeDonno described to his students how he believes the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a “false flag operation” that’s part of a current assault on this country by the Chinese military, which has “taken full control of our mass media, our mainstream media,” he said during the lecture.
DeDonno, through slides and his own statements, told his students that the Chinese military is using “racism” to “divide and conquer” the U.S. so that it can impose a “government atheist theocracy” on the country. DeDonno also insisted that the Chinese military is using fifth-generation mobile networks, known as 5G, to “spy on Africans,” conspired with Mexican drug cartels to flood American streets with fentanyl and strongly hinted that COVID-19 is a biological weapon purposely released by the Chinese government.
One of the ways DeDonno claimed China has attacked the U.S. is by using leftist forces to stage the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to look like it was carried out by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
For evidence, DeDonno said video footage of the attack showed people storming the Capitol wearing helmets, even though “Trump supporters don’t wear helmets,” he insisted. DeDonno also said the killing of Ashli Babbitt by Capitol Police was a “staged murder.”
There is no factual evidence for any of DeDonno’s assertions. The U.S. Department of Justice has charged more than 900 individuals with crimes related to the assault on the Capitol. More than 325 of those charged have since pleaded guilty, according to Politico.
The Long Beach student, who asked not to be identified because of the possibility of retribution, watched the lecture on Sept. 24. The student was taking DeDonno’s course because they “thought it would be fun.” The student said they had not witnessed DeDonno say anything objectionable in any prior course lectures.
“What is happening?” the student said they wondered when DeDonno began talking about Jan. 6. “This is unprofessional, and I can’t be the only student that was uncomfortable.”
That day, the student emailed Penelope Skaff, Saddleback College’s Dean of Counseling, stating that the material was not appropriate for any course, much less one concerned with video game design.
“At no point should we be discussing something like the January 6th attack, or individual freedoms and vaccines, and quite frankly, it’s disappointing that this person is a representation of this school,” the student said in the email.
According to emails provided by the student, Skaff responded within the hour, saying that she appreciated the student’s “thorough” email and would share the concerns with DeDonno’s dean.
Though Skaff told the student that someone from the college would follow up the next week, the student said no school official has reached out since that initial Sept. 24 email.
The deadline for the student to drop the class had passed prior to Sept. 24, according to the student. Since then, the student said they have not participated in any further coursework for the class.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now, honestly,” the student said. “I don’t want to drop the class and have it on my record. I’d like to just wipe it from my record and move on.”
This article is the copyrighted work of the Long Beach Post and Pacific Community Media. To read more about our policy click here.
LBCC professor fired over alleged elbow incident during graduation ceremony
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Analysis: Another Republican Trump Critic Heads For The Exits
Analysis: Another Republican Trump Critic Heads For The Exits https://digitalalabamanews.com/analysis-another-republican-trump-critic-heads-for-the-exits/
(CNN)The news that Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse is planning to resign from his position by the end of the year to take over as the president of the University of Florida means that another prominent Republican critic of former President Donald Trump will be stepping off the political stage.
Sasse was one of only seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.
“President Trump lied that he ‘won the election by a landslide,'” Sasse said in explaining his vote at the time. “He lied about widespread voter fraud, spreading conspiracy theories despite losing 60 straight court challenges, many of his losses handed down by great judges he nominated.”
At a May rally in Nebraska, Trump went after Sasse, calling him “Little Ben Sasse” and referring to him as a “grandstanding, little-respected senator.”
Sasse also criticized the Trump-led Republican Party in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in June.
“We can either continue to drift as a party that exists as a vehicle for the grievances of the angriest, oldest folks, or we can be the future-focused party of 2030 — with policies centered on the future of work and the future of war,” he said.
In that same speech, he said that the GOP wanted a “strongman daddy figure.” (Sasse didn’t mention Trump but, well, he didn’t have to.)
That speech was seen by many — myself included — as the early rumblings of a possible presidential campaign by Sasse. He had made clear that he didn’t enjoy the Senate — and its glacial pace — and clearly had bigger aspirations.
That Sasse is now preparing to willingly remove himself from the playing field is yet another striking testament to the whole-scale takeover of the Republican Party under Trump.
Of the 17 Republicans — 10 in the House, seven in the Senate — who voted to either impeach or convict Trump last year, no more than six will be returning to Congress in 2023. And several of those remaining Republicans face stiff competition this fall, meaning that number could sink even lower by the time the next Congress rolls around.
Sasse, who won a second term easily in 2020, would not have had to face voters again until 2026.
The Point: Sasse’s departure further thins the group of Republicans who have been willing to disagree with Trump publicly. And the message his leaving sends is unmistakable: There is no room in today’s GOP for anyone who doesn’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time.
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Kanye West: Trump Support Led To Death Threats https://digitalalabamanews.com/kanye-west-trump-support-led-to-death-threats/
Kanye West said he has received death threats over his political unorthodoxy including his embrace of former President Donald Trump.
In a clip that aired Thursday evening on Fox News Channel before the whole interview’s scheduled airing on Thursday’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” show, the rap star detailed the backlash he has received.
“My so-called friends-slash-handlers around me told me if I said that ‘I liked Trump’ that my career would be over, that my life would be over,” he told Mr. Carlson.
Fashion counts, he said, mentioning the reaction to his wearing the iconic red Make America Great Again cap and his new “White Lives Matter” T-shirts, which he unveiled earlier this week in Paris.
“They said stuff like ‘people get killed for wearing a hat like that.’ They threatened my life … They basically said that I would be killed for wearing the hat,” Mr. West said.
Mr. West made the provocative fashion choice while speaking Monday at his YZY SZN 9 presentation, sporting a black sweatshirt bearing the phrase “White Lives Mater” in white lettering on its back.
Another image showed Mr. West with conservative commentator Candace Owens wearing a black-letters-on-white-fabric inversion of the same design.
“I had someone call me last night,” Mr. West said in his interview with Mr. Carlson, “and said anybody wearing a ‘White Lives Matter’ shirt is gonna be green-lit and that means they gonna beat ‘em up if they wear it.”
In the words of another iconic musician, Mr. West won’t back down.
“I’m like, y’know, OK, green-light me then,” he said.
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First Proud Boys Leader Pleads Guilty To Jan. 6 Seditious Conspiracy
First Proud Boys Leader Pleads Guilty To Jan. 6 Seditious Conspiracy https://digitalalabamanews.com/first-proud-boys-leader-pleads-guilty-to-jan-6-seditious-conspiracy/
A lieutenant of longtime former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio became the group’s first member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on Thursday, deepening the government’s case against an organization accused of mobilizing violence to prevent the inauguration of Joe Biden.
Jeremy Bertino, 43, of Belmont, N.C., agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department against Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders with ties to influential Donald Trump supporters Roger Stone and Alex Jones. The Proud Boys defendants are set to face trial in December on charges including plotting to oppose by force the presidential transition, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly in Washington, Bertino pleaded guilty to that count and to one count of illegal possession of firearms as a former felon, punishable by 51 to 63 months in prison at sentencing under advisory federal guidelines, prosecutors said.
In a sign of the sensitivity and potential importance of Bertino’s testimony, prosecutors agreed that in exchange for “substantial cooperation,” they could seek leniency at sentencing and enter Bertino into a Justice Department witness protection program.
In plea papers, Bertino said Proud Boys leaders “agreed that the election had been stolen, that the purpose of traveling to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, was to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote, and that the [Ministry of Self Defense] leaders were willing to do whatever it would take, including using force against police and others, to achieve that objective.”
He admitted that at least two days earlier he received encrypted chat messages indicating that members of the Proud Boys leadership group who called themselves the Ministry of Self Defense “believed that storming the Capitol would achieve the group’s goal” and would require using violence.
Bertino had a place in the inner circle of Proud Boys leaders accused of conspiring to impede Congress with angry Trump supporters as lawmakers met to certify the election results. Bertino’s home in North Carolina was searched in March at the same time that Tarrio was arrested on charges that he and at least the four others “directed, mobilized and led” a crowd of 200 to 300 supporters onto Capitol grounds. Many in that crowd are accused of leading some of the earliest and most aggressive attacks on police and property.
At the time of the search, Bertino allegedly possessed two pistols, a shotgun, a bolt-action rifle and two semiautomatic AR-15-style rifles with scopes. Bertino was convicted in 2004 of first-degree reckless endangerment in New York state, a felony, and sentenced to five years of probation with a period of local jail time, according to court filings.
Bertino’s testimony could implicate Tarrio, a former aide to GOP strategist Stone, and co-defendant Joe Biggs, a former employee of Jones’s online Infowars show. Stone and Jones are two prominent right-wing figures who promoted Trump’s incendiary and baseless assertions that the election was stolen.
Stone remained in contact with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida and in Washington in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, coordinated post-election protests and privately strategized with figures such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander, The Washington Post has reported.
Stone also communicated via encrypted texts after the 2020 election with Tarrio as well as Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of a second right-wing extremist group, the Oath Keepers, accused of playing an outsize role in planning for and organizing violence at the Capitol. Rhodes was on trial Thursday on seditious conspiracy charges in the same courthouse where Bertino pleaded.
Before Bertino, all four of 14 people hit with the historically rare charge of seditious conspiracy in the Capitol riots who have pleaded guilty were affiliated with the Oath Keepers.
Tarrio and Rhodes were part of a Signal chat group titled F.O.S. — or Friends of Stone, and the pair met in an underground parking garage next to the Capitol the evening before Jan. 6 with leaders of two pro-Trump grass-roots groups.
Jones, meanwhile, promoted a Nov. 20, 2020, podcast by Tarrio with Biggs and co-defendant Ethan Nordean in which Tarrio suggested in an expletive-laden call that Trump supporters infiltrate the Biden inauguration and turn it into a “circus, a sign of resistance, a sign of revolution.”
Rhodes, Tarrio, Nordean and Biggs have pleaded not guilty to seditious conspiracy and other charges. Stone, who has not been charged, has denied involvement in the Jan. 6 riot. He has previously told The Post: “Any claim, assertion or implication that I knew about, was involved in or condoned the illegal acts at the Capitol on Jan. 6 is categorically false and there is no witness or document that proves otherwise.”
An attorney for Alexander said he testified before a federal grand jury this summer after being assured he was not a target of the investigation. Jones has said he did not lead but followed the crowd to the Capitol that day, grew alarmed by the chaos and recorded himself urging calm and directing others not to fight police.
Tarrio and Bertino were not in Washington on Jan. 6, the only two of more than 870 federally charged defendants who were elsewhere. But in sworn plea papers that largely restated the 10-count indictment against Tarrio and others, Bertino corroborated many of prosecutors’ allegations against the others, and admitted joining in calls for violence including against police, whose support the Proud Boys have long tried to cultivate.
Released videos show Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio meeting Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes the day before the attack on the Capitol. (Video: U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia)
Bertino was a regional leader in charge of recruiting handpicked members for the MOSD. He said the group was trying on Dec. 30, 2020, to prepare for the expected arrest of Tarrio for burning a Black Lives Matter flag at an earlier pro-Trump rally in Washington, speculating that it might cause Proud Boys and others gathering for Jan. 6 to “riot.”
“Maybe it’s the shot heard round the world and the normies will f— up the cops,” Bertino admitted saying.
Tarrio was arrested Jan. 4, released on bond and later pleaded guilty and completed a jail term this year.
On Jan. 4, according to his indictment, Tarrio posted a voice message to an MOSD leaders group of Proud Boys, stating, “I didn’t hear this voice note until now, you want to storm the Capitol.” After the Capitol was breached, Tarrio wrote in a Telegram group chat, “We did this,” prosecutors said.
That night, Bertino — previously identified as “Individual A” or “Person 1” in charging papers — acknowledged messaging Tarrio, “Brother you know we made this happen,” and “1776,” exulting with a profanity. Tarrio replied, “The Winter Palace,” according to Tarrio’s indictment. Prosecutors allege it is a reference to a Proud Boys planning document that had a section called “Storm the Winter Palace,” referring to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the former imperial palace in St. Petersburg that was raided by Bolsheviks, CNN first reported.
Bertino has been on the radar of both the FBI and a House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6. Bertino told the House panel that membership “tripled” after Trump famously urged the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a 2020 presidential debate, according to a video clip of his interview played during a House hearing in June.
Social media posts, video recordings from Jan. 6 and earlier charging papers by the FBI also indicate that Nordean and Proud Boys leaders were motivated to confront police that day in part by what they perceived to be an insufficient response to the stabbing of Bertino outside Harry’s Bar in downtown Washington after a pro-Trump demonstration the previous month.
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Longtime WVAS-FM Broadcaster Killed In Macon County Crash
Longtime WVAS-FM Broadcaster Killed In Macon County Crash https://digitalalabamanews.com/longtime-wvas-fm-broadcaster-killed-in-macon-county-crash/
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – Longtime WVAS 90.7 FM broadcaster Melvin “Mel” Marshall has died after a single-vehicle crash in Macon County.
Officials said the crash happened Thursday on County Road 13, shortly after Marshall finished his early morning show on the Alabama State University radio station.
Marshall is credited with helping to launch jazz station WVAS-FM in 1983, where he hosted “The Mel Marshall Morning Show” for more than 30 years. He retired as the station’s program director in 2014, according to his online bio.
“This is an immeasurable loss to WVAS, to our community, and to his listeners around the globe,” said Station Manager Candy Capel. “Our WVAS family will cherish every moment of music and laughter that we shared with our beloved Mel Marshall.”
The Shorter native and Tuskegee University graduate was also a 28-year halftime show announcer for ASU’s Mighty Marching Hornets. He was inducted into the Alabama Broadcaster’s Association Hall of Fame in 2013.
“Mel Marshall was a broadcasting legend in this area,” said ASU President, Dr. Quinton T. Ross, Jr. “I recall listening to Mel during my college years at ASU, and there really was no other voice like his. We are grateful for his contributions to the industry and for his work with ASU’s student interns over the years. His voice and his radio presence will be greatly missed.”
Marshall began his career in 1974 and previously held positions at WQIM-FM in Prattville and WBIL-AM in Tuskegee.
According to a news release, Marshall was contacted by his friend Ronald LaPread to handle promotions for new a R&B group, The Commodores.
The university said Marshall will be best remembered for his raspy voice, incomparable humor and song selections as he served as the “wake up call” for thousands of listeners each day.
Funeral arrangements have not been released.
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Hodgson Addresses Bristol County Jail Suicide Shrugs Off Healey
Hodgson Addresses Bristol County Jail Suicide, Shrugs Off Healey https://digitalalabamanews.com/hodgson-addresses-bristol-county-jail-suicide-shrugs-off-healey/
Republican Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson appeared on WBSM’s SouthCoast Tonight on Wednesday to attempt to set the record straight on the suicide of a high-profile detainee that occurred at Ash Street Jail in New Bedford, as well as discuss his campaign for reelection, and take calls from the audience.
Hodgson vehemently defended his staff’s handling of the now-deceased 34-year-old Adam Howe, who died by apparent suicide in the sheriff’s custody after Howe was accused of killing his mother and setting her body on fire outside of their home in Truro.
According to Hodgson, his staff went “above and beyond” the suicide prevention protocols that were required given the fact that Cape Cod Hospital had medically cleared Howe for police custody. The sheriff accused the hospital of misdiagnosing Howe and thus misleading his staff on the extent to which Howe needed to be monitored.
Throughout his two-hour appearance on Wednesday, Hodgson spent most of the time taking calls from both his supporters and detractors in the audience.
“Sheriff Hodgson, thank you for your service; I will probably cast my vote for you on November 8,” said one caller
“While I think you’re a great politician, you’re just running a jail that is out of control,” said another caller.
One of the issues brought up by a caller was Bristol County’s high rate of recidivism, which is the rate at which convicted offenders re-offend. Hodgson’s Democratic opponent, Attleboro Mayor Paul Heroux, has cited a report by the Massachusetts Department of Correction that shows Bristol County has the highest rate of recidivism in the Commonwealth.
Heroux has said that this report demonstrates that Hodgson isn’t doing enough to focus on rehabilitation and ensure inmates can effectively reenter society, which has an adverse effect on public safety because it makes them more likely to re-offend.
Hodgson rebuffed the results of the DOC report, saying that it doesn’t show the rate inmates of his correctional facilities re-offend and end up back in prison, but rather it shows only the rate of reoffending for people who have an address in Bristol County, and that the subjects in the report who lived in Bristol County could have also been in incarcerated in state prison and federal prison or other county jails as well.
“This is what happens when people try to grab things and use them to their advantage without really understanding what’s going on,” Hodgson said.
Hodgson maintains that there is no methodology available to accurately determine the rate at which county jail inmates re-offend, and that the Commonwealth and sheriff’s departments are working on uniform formula and definition of recidivism to get a clearer picture.
The longtime Republican incumbent also shrugged off the news that Heroux has been endorsed by Democratic Attorney General and longtime political adversary Maura Healey and her running mate, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, widely expected to be the next governor of and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.
When asked if he is concerned whether or not Healey’s more than 30-point polling lead over Republican opponent Geoff Deihl in the gubernatorial would help Democrats in down-ballot races like Heroux, Hodgson expressed confidence that voters in Bristol County would split their ticket.
“I always put my faith in the people in this county to make decisions on what they believe is best for them,” Hodgson said.
“He has Maura Healey’s endorsement, God bless her.” Hodgson added. “I wasn’t seeking Maura Healey’s support, trust me.”
Hodgson then pivoted to endorsements he received from law enforcement unions such as Taunton Police, Customs and Border Patrol as well as Democrat Francis Bellotti, former Attorney General of Massachusetts.
Hodgson similarly brushed off an internal poll by the Heroux campaign recently reported in Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook that shows the sheriff’s race in a statistical tie with Hodgson leading Heroux 47-45 percent and a margin for error of 4.9 percent.
“I would tell you our internal polling is very different than my opponents.” Hodgson said.
Listen to Chris McCarthy and Marcus Ferro’s full interview with Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson on SouthCoast Tonight.
LOOK: What major laws were passed the year you were born?
Data for this list was acquired from trusted online sources and news outlets. Read on to discover what major law was passed the year you were born and learn its name, the vote count (where relevant), and its impact and significance.
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