Irans President Rules Out Meeting With Biden In New York
Iran’s President Rules Out Meeting With Biden In New York https://digitalalaskanews.com/irans-president-rules-out-meeting-with-biden-in-new-york/
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said he is not going to either meet or talk with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, during his upcoming trip to New York.
The Iranian chief executive is slated to address the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“I do not think that such a meeting is going to take place,” Raisi told CBS News’ 60 Minutes program during an interview conducted Tuesday, which the channel is going to broadcast in full on Sunday.
Iran’s president made the comment when he as asked, “Are you open to a meeting with President Biden? A face-to-face?” adding, “I don’t believe having a meeting or a talk with him will be beneficial.”
The Iranian president was also asked whether he could see any differences between the Biden administration and the administration of his predecessor Donald Trump.
“The new administration in the US, they claim that they are different from the Trump administration,” Raisi said, adding, “They have said it in their messages to us. But we haven’t witnessed any changes in reality.”
Under Trump, the United Sates left a 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, reinstating the sanctions that the deal had lifted.
On his campaign trail, Biden alleged that he intended to return Washington to the deal, which is officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
He has, however, stopped short of taking any such measure, and has even imposed more sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
The Austrian capital of Vienna has been hosting many rounds of negotiations between Iran and the JCPOA’s remaining members since last year to examine the potential of the deal’s revival and fresh removal of the sanctions.
The talks have, however, failed to bring about either amid, what Tehran has denounced as, Washington’s continual foot-dragging and inflexibility.
Speaking to Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network on Thursday, Raisi likewise said direct talks with the US over the nuclear agreement were “of no avail.”
The final decision for restoration of the JCPOA rested with the US, he said, adding, “The US has to take trust-building measures” towards the Iranian side.
Raisi also told the Doha-based network that any potential removal of the American sanctions had to be accompanied with relevant “guarantees” that Washington would not return the bans again.
The Iranian president censured a raft of new sanctions that Washington had imposed most recently on Iran, asking, “If Washington is after an agreement, why does it apply new sanctions during the course of the nuclear talks?”
Read More Here
Once McCain https://digitalalaskanews.com/once-mccain-2/
Jonathan J. Cooper | Associated Press
Phoenix — Simmering discontent among a segment of Arizona Republicans over John McCain’s famous penchant for bucking his party boiled over in the winter of 2014 with the censure of the longtime U.S. senator.
McCain’s allies responded with an all-out push to reassert control over the Arizona Republican Party. Censure proponents were ousted or diminished, and McCain went on to defeat his far-right challenger in a blowout during the 2016 primary.
Less than a decade later, the right wing forces that McCain marginalized within the Arizona GOP are now in full control, with profound implications for one of the nation’s most closely matched battlegrounds. Arizona Republicans have traded McCain for Donald Trump.
“We drove a stake in the heart of the McCain machine,” Kari Lake, making a dramatic stabbing gesture, said in a speech days after she won the Republican primary for governor in early August.
Lake, a well-known former television news anchor, has delighted segments of the state’s GOP base that have long been at odds with their party’s establishment and want their leaders to confront Democrats, not compromise with them.
She draws large, enthusiastic crowds that are unusually energized for a midterm election. Her fans erupt in rapturous applause when she takes a shot at the media or pledges to repel the “invasion” at the southern border.
“She’s for border control. She’s a MAGA person. She is fighting the establishment. And that, to me, is enough,” said Bob Hunt, a Republican in Tucson who attended a Lake rally this summer.
McCain, who died in 2018, never lost a race in his home state. But his maverick brand of Republicanism is in retreat after election-denying allies of the former president swept GOP primaries this month from governor and U.S. Senate down to the state Legislature.
Kelli Ward, the primary challenger McCain trounced in his last re-election campaign, was elected state GOP chair in 2019. She broke with precedent for party leaders and campaigned openly for Trump’s slate of candidates ahead of the primary this year.
It is in some ways a return to roots for Republicans in Arizona, a state with a long history as a crucible for emerging strands of conservatism.
Barry Goldwater, an Arizona senator from the 1950s through the 1980s, pushed the GOP in a new direction, laying the groundwork for conservative and libertarian movements. He gave voice to anti-elite grievances and racial anxieties that have contributed to Trump’s appeal.
McCain replaced Goldwater in the Senate, representing an Arizona reshaped by decades of migration. Young families flocked to affordable neighborhoods in and around Phoenix, and retirees escaping the snow settled in new golf communities attracting seniors.
McCain eventually built a national profile as a fiscal conservative unafraid — even eager — to buck GOP leadership. He helped pass campaign finance reform legislation and worked on unsuccessful immigration reform and climate change legislation. In one of his last defiant decisions, he gave a dramatic thumbs down vote to kill legislation that would have repealed former President Barack Obama’s health care law.
McCain won over independents and some Democrats to overwhelmingly win reelection. But the apostasies that appealed to more moderate voters made him a pariah to many within his own party.
Democrats think this year’s slate of Trump-backed nominees gives them a fighting chance to win some of the top offices on the ballot. If the Republicans win, officials who refuse to accept Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election will hold the levers of power with the ability to set election laws and certify results in a state that plays an important role in determining control of Congress and the presidency.
Ideological factions are always at tension within political parties, and Arizona Republicans have long hosted a particularly raucous tug-of-war. Pro-business, limited government conservatives — such as McCain, former Sen. Jeff Flake and termed-out Gov. Doug Ducey — are derided as “Republicans in name only” by a base eager to fight culture war battles.
Still, a large chunk of Republican voters like the establishment brand. Lake had a tough primary race against Karrin Taylor Robson, a conservative businesswoman and longtime donor to mainstream candidates from both parties. Lake, Finchem and the other successful Trump allies all won their primaries with less than 50% of the vote in multi-candidate fields.
“The people we put up are not conservative,” said Kathy Petsas, a Republican activist who backed mainstream Republicans in the primary. “There’s nothing conservative about lying about the results of the 2020 election. When we undermine our democratic institutions, there’s nothing conservative about that.”
But rarely have the insurgents been as dominant as they are now in Arizona. The GOP nominees for nearly all statewide offices push lies about the 2020 election.
Lake incessantly went after Ducey, McCain, Flake and others she labeled “Republicans in name only” on her way to winning the GOP nomination for governor. She joined with Mark Finchem, who won the primary for secretary of state, in a lawsuit seeking to require hand-counting of ballots; they lost, but filed an appeal this week.
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar was censured by the House and lost his committee assignments for posting a video depicting violence against Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The primary winners represent those who control the Arizona Republican Party today and are fiercely loyal to Trump, who was just the second Republican since the 1940s to lose Arizona.
Last year, the party censured McCain’s widow, Cindy McCain, for endorsing Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, along with Flake and Ducey. Flake decided not to run for re-election in 2018 after his criticism of Trump infuriated the base and promised a fierce primary battle.
“Unfortunately, all these election deniers were successful here in Arizona, in a swing state,” said Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which has faced vitriolic backlash for defending the 2020 election against Trump’s false claims of fraud. “So we’ll see if those folks are able to win in the general election. I think that will give us a feel on where this party is headed in the future.”
Gates was censured by Legislative District 3 Republicans last month for saying election-denying GOP candidates may have to lose for the party to find its way.
Rusty Bowers, the staunchly conservative speaker of the state House, also has found himself ostracized by his party for taking a stand against Trump’s lies. He lost the primary in his bid to move to the state Senate.
Bowers last month said Trump has “thrashed our party” and that the Arizona GOP faces a “hard reckoning” if it continues to bully those who don’t fall in line with the former president’s demands.
For now, the far-right wing of the party is ascendant and sees no need to moderate.
Days after Lake won the primary for governor, her campaign shared a video of Goldwater’s speech accepting the 1964 Republican nomination for president.
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” he said. “And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
The crowd erupted. Goldwater went on to win just six states in the second most lopsided defeat in a presidential race in U.S. history, but he remained a hero to many in his home state.
Lake’s official campaign Twitter account said a united party would bring “a Conservative revival” to the state in the general election: “The Party of Goldwater has risen like a Phoenix.”
Read More Here
Letters To The Editor September 19 2022: Next Year In The UAE
Letters To The Editor September 19, 2022: ‘Next Year In The UAE’ https://digitalalaskanews.com/letters-to-the-editor-september-19-2022-next-year-in-the-uae/
Rabbi Levi Duchman tells us how he fell in love with the United Arab Emirates in 2014 (“UAE’s first rabbi: Jewish life is flourishing here,” September 18). “This is where my community is and this is where I will stay for the rest of my life,” he says.
I’d be interested to know whether he ends the Passover service with “Next year in the UAE.” It certainly cannot be “Next year in Jerusalem,” the capital of the Land of Israel which God promised to our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their progeny in perpetuity. That, Rabbi Levi, means you!
He is hoping that within ten years, there will be a Jewish community that had 20,000-30,000 people. Shame on you and all the Jewish people like you who have forsaken God’s words that we are a people meant to dwell alone, which is why he returned us to our historic land as promised. Forgotten are the tragic events prior to and during WWII where our people also had a ‘wonderful’ life in Germany.
EDITH OGNALL
Netanya
I found it somewhat jarring to read under the headline “Jewish life is flourishing here,” a description of Jews coming to live in Dubai. Whereas I applaud the newly open relations between Israel and the UAE as a result of the Abraham Accords, I hardly see Dubai as a new destination for Jewish aliyah.
Even as a place for students to spend their Passover vacations, it cannot compare in Jewish meaning to Israel. I think that “falling in love” as quoted regarding the UAE, is a term more expected regarding the Land of Israel, where Jewish life is truly flourishing.
MARION REISS
Beit Shemesh
Have grown to be leaders
I was delighted to read your article “German chancellor, Claims Conference announce $1.2 billion for Holocaust survivors” (September 16).
Let the world, and Germany in particular, see that despite the absolute horrors of the Holocaust, Israel and the Jewish people have grown to be leaders in many fields: hi-tech, medicine and so much more. We are true examples to the world.
We truly mean – never again!
SHALVA DAVIES
Jerusalem
Failed utterly to achieve
Douglas Bloomfield (“The GOP’s revenge agenda,” September 15) provides a perfect example of psychological projection, accusing Republicans of actions in which Democrats themselves have engaged. For the past six years, Donald Trump has been subjected to a stream of unsuccessful impeachments, dishonest allegations of Russian collusion, unjustified investigations and, most recently, an armed FBI invasion of his home.
All of this was revenge for the original sin of winning the presidency in 2016. Democrats’ hatred of Trump was exacerbated when he did what he had promised, resulting in a strong economy, energy independence, low inflation, rising wages, and a secure border.
Bloomfield’s frightened prediction is that the Republicans will abolish the Congressional committee investigating January 6. He cannot admit that the committee is an extension of the “Get Trump” mentality. Their work has focused on a single goal that they have so far failed utterly to achieve – proving that Trump was directly responsible for the attack on the Capitol.
The committee, comprised entirely of people who voted for impeachment, has ignored president Trump’s repeated offers of National Guard assistance that were rebuffed by Washington’s Mayor Muriel Bowser and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. Nor have they considered that federal agents embedded in organizations later accused of fomenting the January 6 riot may have acted as agents provocateurs.
Bloomfield’s apparent outrage at what he calls an “insurrection” would be more believable if he had condemned fire bombings of federal courthouses and police stations and attacks on the White House and Supreme Court that were an integral part of the BLM/Antifa riots in 2020. He was also silent regarding the early Antifa riots and the calls to impeach Trump as an “illegitimate president” even before he took office.
Freedom of speech and equality under the law are hallmarks of any free country. But Bloomfield seems to approve of President Biden’s assertion that anyone who disagrees with the present government’s policies is by definition a “semi-fascist” who must be eliminated.
Bloomfield’s fear of Republican actions should they gain power suggests a deeper terror: They might reveal the truth of what the weaponized DOJ and FBI have done to stifle legitimate dissent and shield the Biden family from an entirely warranted investigation.
EFRAIM COHEN
Zichron Ya’acov
Leader with infinite powers
The politics of today and of the last few years in Israel really have nothing to do with beliefs, opinions or policies (“Time to remove liberal from the Likud name,” September 16).
Benjamin Netanyahu and other Likud members make a number four gesture (credit: LIKUD SPOKESPERSON)
Most of the politicians running for election just want to be on TV and to be written about in the newspapers. Editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post Yaakov Katz, in this column, calls it “political idolatry,” referring to the support that members of the Likud party give to their party chairman.
Actually, I myself prefer to call it egomania. The top gun egomaniac is, of course, Benjamin Netanyahu himself. He has the cunning, and amazing (and difficult to grasp by myself as uninitiated in the realms of psychology) ability to make crowds love him just by making speeches saying the things that he knows they want to hear. He is perceived by his crowds as their leader with infinite powers. Those in the crowds who are simple minded enjoy feeling that his strong personality of the “can do all” leader is never wrong.
They imagine that his strength becomes part of themselves and gives them an assumed and quite fictitious idea that they participate in his strength thus they themselves are strong and confident about the present and future. The parallel to this exaggerated imagining is that Netanyahu’s crowds are afraid of falling victim to the (political) enemy which would be followed by upset and aimlessness if their leader were suddenly not there. All these phenomena are completely out of proportion and out of place in a civilized democracy with normal values.
So for Benjamin Netanyahu’s crowd, Bibi must stay and no other can take his place. They are simple minded enough not to be able to grasp the importance of planning for the day when, inevitably, their king will be gone and they will be left as helpless orphans. But at the present time, he is there and the common knot is fastened when they know that also he needs their support to be victorious.
Those in Netanyahu’s party, the Likud, who are more able to see what’s going on are, for the present, either pretending to be part of the crowd so as not to lose their standing in the Likud, or naively believe that Netanyahu will not betray them and will fulfill his promises to them.
So it looks like that we are in for another stalemate and inconclusive election. I am pleased that none of our political stupidity has invaded the minds of the military.
NAHUM FROUMIN
Ramat Hasharon
Continuing virus of hate
In “Healing the disease, not the symptoms” (September 15), Gershon Baskin wants us to concentrate on healing the disease but he neglects to mention that the symptoms are precisely what this conflict is all about.
The Palestinians from birth and onward are indoctrinated and thereby infused with a mindset that Israel is a pariah state that should not exist, let alone be recognized.
From school textbooks to their leaders’ pronouncements, the falsehood is to the fore that the Jewish people have usurped their lands and violence is the only course of action.
With a terrorist organization running Gaza and a failing leadership in the West Bank, a healing process for the so-called disease cannot be initiated when one side is determined to spread a continuing virus of hate.
A permanent cure can only be achieved when the Palestinians are willing to accept that what ails them is self inflicted, and that by rejecting violence and through a willingness to seek out that path to peace, the disease itself might well be fully eradicated.
STEPHEN VISHNICK
Tel Aviv
Tradition, pomp and circumstance
Thank you for your editorial “A royal welcome” (September 12) which provides an excellent synopsis of the messages of praise by the leaders of our country to the people of the United Kingdom on the passing of the Queen Elizabeth II and the ceremonials we have been witnessing during these momentous days.
No country can compete with Britain in matters of tradition, pomp and ceremony, of Golden Coaches and Coldstream Guards, of Beefeaters and town criers, of castles and banquets, of lords and ladies, barons and dukes – indeed every man’s fairyland.
The entire world has been watching and totally enchanted and spellbound by the processions and ceremonies which we will continue to witness, both at the royal funeral and at the coronation. The Queen is dead! Long live the King!
I can imagine the festivities in the streets of London when the new king is crowned as I remember so clearly the celebrations in 1953, at the crowning of Queen Elizabeth, that young beautiful and vivacious girl, as Queen of England. I was a young lad, just before my bar mitzvah. Street parties spontaneously sprouted across the country and I, together with my brother and two sisters, entered and won the street fancy dress competition.
At the end of the reign of the longest-serving British monarch, let us hope that the advent of a new figure, who will undoubtedly bring new ideas into the world of British royalty, will portend good news for his realms and territories in general and for the Jews of the British Isles in particular.
LAURENCE BECKER
Jerusalem
Free exercise of religion
“US Supreme Court requires YU to allow LGBT student club” (Septe...
Western Alaska Confronts Damage After Historic Storm
Western Alaska Confronts Damage After Historic Storm https://digitalalaskanews.com/western-alaska-confronts-damage-after-historic-storm-2/
Floodwaters began receding in Alaska on Sunday, revealing the damage after the remnants of a typhoon lashed the state with its fiercest storm in years.
The full extent of the storm’s impact may not be clear for days, but residents across the state’s low-lying western coast are still grappling with water damage, power outages and other hazards. The impacted areas span well over 1,000 miles of coastline, including “some of the most remote areas of the United States,” according to Jeremy Zidek, public information officer with Alaska’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
“It’s a very large area and the damages across that area really vary quite a bit,” Zidek said. “Access to these areas is very difficult.”
The storm is still ongoing in the northwest part of the state, Zidek said. No injuries or fatalities tied to the storm have been reported yet, but Alaska State Troopers are conducting a search for a young boy missing from Hooper Bay, one of the heavier-hit villages.
For years, scientists have expressed concern that climate change has set the stage for greater impacts from large nontropical cyclones in Alaska. Warmer summers and oceans have caused a greater-than-normal seasonal loss of sea ice, which makes the region more vulnerable to ocean inundation.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) declared an emergency Saturday in the face of the “unprecedented” storm. Communities along the low-lying western coast saw severe flooding and violent winds.
Roads — of which there few in the region — have been battered and washed away. The storm surge knocked out lines of communication, prompted evacuations and wrenched homes from their foundations. One unoccupied house drifted until it got stuck under the Snake River Bridge.
The tide gauge in Nome, which is known for being the endpoint of the famed Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, showed water levels more than nine feet above normal levels early Saturday, exceeding the peak seen during ferocious storms in 2011 and 2004, according to the National Weather Service. A fire broke out Saturday at the Bering Sea Bar and Grill in Nome amid the heavy winds.
An offshore ocean buoy reported waves at or above 35 feet for 12 hours, peaking at more than 50 feet, while winds gusted over 70 mph for 11 hours.
Dozens of small, primarily Indigenous communities dotting the coast face unique challenges as they try to recover from the damage before winter comes, according to Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the International Arctic Research Center.
“All of these communities, there’s basically no road connections to any of them,” Thoman said. “It’s a very different setup than anywhere in the Lower 48.”
Runways will have to be safely cleared before communities can receive critical supplies, Thoman said, as most goods are moved by air or by barge in the region. Without power, people with packed freezers risk losing their food for the upcoming season.
“If your power plant goes out, you can’t get power from somewhere else if it isn’t a generator at your house,” Thoman said.
The system punishing Alaska over the weekend was the remnants of Pacific Typhoon Merbok, which merged with a pair of nontropical storms as it veered toward the Bering Strait, the thin strip of water between Russia and Alaska. It’s not new for Alaska to be hit with the fallout from a former typhoon, Thoman said, but this one came fast and furious, taking a shorter path than usual.
“This one was special because of how strong it developed,” Thoman said.
It was also unusually massive, larger than Texas and almost as big as Alaska proper, according to Kaitlyn Lardeo, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks. Most of the affected areas saw winds between 60 and 80 miles per hour, she said.
“It’s important for people to understand that these things are possible for us,” Lardeo said. “It was devastating for a lot of communities.”
Mark Springer, the mayor of Bethel, said his town, which is about 60 miles inland from the Bering Sea, is far enough away from the worst of the flooding to avoid much of the property damage. But the water is rising “boot high” in some places.
Springer said he heard that villages lost their fish racks and smokehouses as well as the subsistence sheds where people keep their gear and motors. His social media timelines have been full of pictures of floodwaters and evacuations. Many boats floated away and sank, cutting off another vital means of transportation.
“Boats are going to be scattered all over the tundra,” Springer said. “In some cases, they’re going to have to wait until the ground freezes and go over with snow machines and try to drag them.”
Massive storm surge and gigantic waves would cause heavy beach erosion at any time of year, but the fact that the storm struck in September heightened the erosion risk. It also arrived during hunting season, meaning that hundreds of people who might have been hunting in the remote Alaskan wilderness would be without access to updates about the storm and might be stuck off the grid. The Nome-Council Road, used by hunters and Alaskans to travel inland from the Bering Sea coast, has been partially washed away.
Major flooding was also reported in the small coastal communities of Chevak, Kotlik, Newtok, Golovin and Shaktoolik, where multiple evacuations were necessary.
The area is particularly vulnerable to erosion, with some sections of the coastline losing up to 100 feet of land to the sea each year, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive climate change report looking at impacts in the United States published in 2018.
“Longer sea ice-free seasons, higher ground temperatures, and relative sea level rise are expected to worsen flooding and accelerate erosion in many regions, leading to the loss of terrestrial habitat and cultural resources, and requiring entire communities, such as Kivalina in northwestern Alaska, to relocate to safer terrain,” the report states.
In Shaktoolik — home to more than 200 people — the berm made of gravel, sand and driftwood that shielded the settlement from the sea was destroyed, according to the Anchorage Daily News. Residents were forced to evacuate and shelter inside a school.
Update: The storm has destroyed Shaktoolik’s berm, its main protection from the sea, says mayor Lars Sookiayak. “We’re pretty heartbroken,” he said. He’s worried about tonight, when seas are expected to pound the coastline again. Photo from Gloria Andrew.https://t.co/Zn4sph3NjO pic.twitter.com/H0J4fqHfxj
— Alaska Public Media News (@AKpublicnews) September 18, 2022
“That was a pretty hard one to take,” Mayor Lars Sookiayak told the paper. “Pretty heartbreaking.”
Read More Here
All Of Puerto Rico Is Without Electricity As Hurricane Fiona Makes Landfall
All Of Puerto Rico Is Without Electricity As Hurricane Fiona Makes Landfall https://digitalalaskanews.com/all-of-puerto-rico-is-without-electricity-as-hurricane-fiona-makes-landfall/
Nelson Cirino secures the windows of his home as the winds of Hurricane Fiona blow in Loiza, Puerto Rico, on Sunday. Alejandro Granadillo/AP hide caption
toggle caption
Alejandro Granadillo/AP
Nelson Cirino secures the windows of his home as the winds of Hurricane Fiona blow in Loiza, Puerto Rico, on Sunday.
Alejandro Granadillo/AP
Hurricane Fiona made landfall in southwestern Puerto Rico on Sunday afternoon, as the entire island continues to reel from the knockout of its electricity grid.
The Category 1 hurricane was predicted to produce dangerous landslides and heavy flooding on an already storm-battered island.
As of Sunday afternoon, the storm was centered 15 miles south of Mayagüez, a community on Puerto Rico’s western coast, according to the National Hurricane Center. It had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph and was moving northwest at 9 mph.
Fiona is expected to trigger 12 to 16 inches of rainfall in Puerto Rico but up to 25 inches across the island’s eastern and southern regions.
More than 1,400,000 customers have lost electricity due to a transmission grid failure from the current hurricane, according to utility companies’ reports tracked by PowerOutage.US.
Luma Energy, the island’s private electric utility, says full restoration of power service on Puerto Rico “could take several days.”
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi wrote on Facebook that the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and Luma Energy responders “are active and ready to respond to the situation once conditions allow.”
The storm will move toward the Dominican Republic by Monday
The National Hurricane Center expects Fiona to stick around Puerto Rico into Sunday evening and move toward the Dominican Republic by Monday. It’s poised to travel to the east of the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday.
The flash flooding will likely be “life threatening and catastrophic” across Puerto Rico and the eastern Dominican Republic, according to officials monitoring the storm. The combination of a storm surge and the tide could produce rising waters up to three feet in the southern coast of the island.
So far, Fiona has wreaked havoc on the eastern Caribbean, damaging roads, destroying properties and killing person in the French territory of Guadeloupe, Sylvie Gustave Dit Duflo, an official for the region, wrote on Twitter.
The storm is also forecast to be potentially devastating for parts of the Dominican Republic, northern Haiti and the southern end of the Bahamas in the coming days.
A fragile power grid makes matters worse
It was not long ago when the island’s power grid was devastated by Hurricane Maria — a category 4 storm that caused about 3,000 deaths in 2017. More than 80% of the transmission and distribution system was ruined and the restoration process has been slow.
As a result, blackouts have been an ongoing issue on the island.
Leomar Rodríguez González, from Utuado, a town in central Puerto Rico, told NPR he and his family have been anxious as the scenes of heavy flooding and landslides reminds them of Hurricane Maria.
“I’m worried about a lot of things but in the moment, flooding is worrying me,” he said.
Rodríguez González said Maria devastated his family’s home and businesses. It’s why they have been preparing for the storm for several days: they stocked up on canned foods, bought extra batteries and trimmed trees near electric poles.
President Biden approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico on Sunday, which authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.
Read More Here
Western Alaska Confronts Damage After Historic Storm
Western Alaska Confronts Damage After Historic Storm https://digitalalaskanews.com/western-alaska-confronts-damage-after-historic-storm/
Floodwaters began receding in Alaska on Sunday, revealing the damage after the remnants of a typhoon lashed the state with its fiercest storm in years.
The full extent of the storm’s impact may not be clear for days, but residents across the state’s low-lying western coast are still grappling with water damage, power outages and other hazards. The impacted areas span well over 1,000 miles of coastline, including “some of the most remote areas of the United States,” according to Jeremy Zidek, public information officer with Alaska’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
“It’s a very large area and the damages across that area really vary quite a bit,” Zidek said. “Access to these areas is very difficult.”
The storm is still ongoing in the northwest part of the state, Zidek said. No injuries or fatalities tied to the storm have been reported yet, but Alaska State Troopers are conducting a search for a young boy missing from Hooper Bay, one of the heavier-hit villages.
For years, scientists have expressed concern that climate change has set the stage for greater impacts from large nontropical cyclones in Alaska. Warmer summers and oceans have caused a greater-than-normal seasonal loss of sea ice, which makes the region more vulnerable to ocean inundation.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) declared an emergency Saturday in the face of the “unprecedented” storm. Communities along the low-lying western coast saw severe flooding and violent winds.
Roads — of which there few in the region — have been battered and washed away. The storm surge knocked out lines of communication, prompted evacuations and wrenched homes from their foundations. One unoccupied house drifted until it got stuck under the Snake River Bridge.
The tide gauge in Nome, which is known for being the endpoint of the famed Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, showed water levels more than nine feet above normal levels early Saturday, exceeding the peak seen during ferocious storms in 2011 and 2004, according to the National Weather Service. A fire broke out Saturday at the Bering Sea Bar and Grill in Nome amid the heavy winds.
An offshore ocean buoy reported waves at or above 35 feet for 12 hours, peaking at more than 50 feet, while winds gusted over 70 mph for 11 hours.
Dozens of small, primarily Indigenous communities dotting the coast face unique challenges as they try to recover from the damage before winter comes, according to Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the International Arctic Research Center.
“All of these communities, there’s basically no road connections to any of them,” Thoman said. “It’s a very different setup than anywhere in the Lower 48.”
Runways will have to be safely cleared before communities can receive critical supplies, Thoman said, as most goods are moved by air or by barge in the region. Without power, people with packed freezers risk losing their food for the upcoming season.
“If your power plant goes out, you can’t get power from somewhere else if it isn’t a generator at your house,” Thoman said.
The system punishing Alaska over the weekend was the remnants of Pacific Typhoon Merbok, which merged with a pair of nontropical storms as it veered toward the Bering Strait, the thin strip of water between Russia and Alaska. It’s not new for Alaska to be hit with the fallout from a former typhoon, Thoman said, but this one came fast and furious, taking a shorter path than usual.
“This one was special because of how strong it developed,” Thoman said.
It was also unusually massive, larger than Texas and almost as big as Alaska proper, according to Kaitlyn Lardeo, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks. Most of the affected areas saw winds between 60 and 80 miles per hour, she said.
“It’s important for people to understand that these things are possible for us,” Lardeo said. “It was devastating for a lot of communities.”
Mark Springer, the mayor of Bethel, said his town, which is about 60 miles inland from the Bering Sea, is far enough away from the worst of the flooding to avoid much of the property damage. But the water is rising “boot high” in some places.
Springer said he heard that villages lost their fish racks and smokehouses as well as the subsistence sheds where people keep their gear and motors. His social media timelines have been full of pictures of floodwaters and evacuations. Many boats floated away and sank, cutting off another vital means of transportation.
“Boats are going to be scattered all over the tundra,” Springer said. “In some cases, they’re going to have to wait until the ground freezes and go over with snow machines and try to drag them.”
Massive storm surge and gigantic waves would cause heavy beach erosion at any time of year, but the fact that the storm struck in September heightened the erosion risk. It also arrived during hunting season, meaning that hundreds of people who might have been hunting in the remote Alaskan wilderness would be without access to updates about the storm and might be stuck off the grid. The Nome-Council Road, used by hunters and Alaskans to travel inland from the Bering Sea coast, has been partially washed away.
Major flooding was also reported in the small coastal communities of Chevak, Kotlik, Newtok, Golovin and Shaktoolik, where multiple evacuations were necessary.
The area is particularly vulnerable to erosion, with some sections of the coastline losing up to 100 feet of land to the sea each year, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive climate change report looking at impacts in the United States published in 2018.
“Longer sea ice-free seasons, higher ground temperatures, and relative sea level rise are expected to worsen flooding and accelerate erosion in many regions, leading to the loss of terrestrial habitat and cultural resources, and requiring entire communities, such as Kivalina in northwestern Alaska, to relocate to safer terrain,” the report states.
In Shaktoolik — home to more than 200 people — the berm made of gravel, sand and driftwood that shielded the settlement from the sea was destroyed, according to the Anchorage Daily News. Residents were forced to evacuate and shelter inside a school.
Update: The storm has destroyed Shaktoolik’s berm, its main protection from the sea, says mayor Lars Sookiayak. “We’re pretty heartbroken,” he said. He’s worried about tonight, when seas are expected to pound the coastline again. Photo from Gloria Andrew.https://t.co/Zn4sph3NjO pic.twitter.com/H0J4fqHfxj
— Alaska Public Media News (@AKpublicnews) September 18, 2022
“That was a pretty hard one to take,” Mayor Lars Sookiayak told the paper. “Pretty heartbreaking.”
Read More Here
Curley: DeSantis Forces Dems To Acknowledge Immigration Problem Begrudgingly
Curley: DeSantis Forces Dems To Acknowledge Immigration Problem, Begrudgingly https://digitalalaskanews.com/curley-desantis-forces-dems-to-acknowledge-immigration-problem-begrudgingly/
Did all of President Biden’s brilliant cabinet members and White House staffers get their Ivy League degrees from Denial University?
As non-existent as their actual accomplishments are, Joe’s caregivers are truly world-class when it comes to their commitment to refusing to accept reality.
The left finally begrudgingly acknowledged illegal immigration this week—not because of the humanitarian crisis at the southern border, but because Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida flew 50 illegal aliens to Martha’s Vineyard.
Just days before the catastrophic consequences of open borders finally landed with a thud on the island of the beautiful people, Kamala Harris was singing a very different tune.
While appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, the vice president told Chuck Todd—with a straight face— that there was nothing to see here, move along.
“The border is secure,” she claimed. “But we also have a broken immigration system, in particular over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed.”
Harris, who visited the border once since becoming “border czar,” has clearly buried her head in the sand.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, another ranking apparatchik in the regime’s Ministry of Truth, echoed the Vice President’s abject lies.
“We agree with her,” Jean-Pierre told the White House press corps. “She is saying that there’s a lot of work to do. Right. She also said that in that very statement, we agree that the border is secure, but there is still more work to be done.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has apparently failed to inform Kamala or Jean-Pierre that the number of migrants encountered at the border has officially exceeded two million this fiscal year.
Most likely he doesn’t like sharing that inconvenient truth because it gets in the way of his own bogus narrative. That’s right, the Homeland Security Secretary is likewise peddling the Border is Secure nonsense.
In July, while speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, the secretary told the audience, “Look, the border is secure. We are working to make the border more secure. That has been a historic challenge.”
No wonder the president goes on vacation so often! He thinks everything is hunky dory.
Biden, deeply concerned about his limousine liberal mega-donors on the Vineyard, blasted Republicans for their “political stunts.” Clad in a tuxedo, Lunch-bucket Joe somberly informed the audience at a gala event Thursday night that his administration has a “process in place to manage migrants at the border.”
According to the Commander in Chief, his administration is working to make sure that process is “safe and orderly and humane.”
Let’s look at some of the headlines that have emerged while Team Biden’s “process” has been underway.
CNN: A record number of migrants have died crossing the US-Mexico border.
Fox News: Texas border town requests refrigerators to store migrant bodies after drownings overwhelm mortuaries.
KATV: “Stack of bodies:”51 migrants found dead inside 18-wheeler in sweltering Texas heat.
How safe, orderly and humane does any of that sound?
As far as Joe and his team of Avengers “working” to fix the problem, does anyone believe that?
Besides pointing the finger at former President Trump, claiming they inherited a “broken” system and denying the crisis exists, what work have Democrats done exactly?
It isn’t just the border that Joe’s best and the brightest can’t come to grips with.
Recently, Pete Buttigieg appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box. Joe Kernan asked the Secretary of Transportation if Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act party featuring a guitar-strumming James Taylor was a good idea.
“To be popping champagne corks about conquering inflation on a day when the stock market at that very moment was down almost 1300 points…Did you say to yourself at that time, ‘What are we doing?’”
Pete’s answer? No.
According to the former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, the $369 billion dollar “Inflation Reduction Act” is going to tackle climate change for decades to come. I don’t know what’s scarier – the possibility that Buttigieg might actually believe his own snake oil, or that he may think that the American people are so stupid that we believe it.
The disconnect would be amusing if it weren’t so appalling.
Americans cannot afford to wait months—or years— for this administration to acknowledge the reality we are all facing every day. Their disastrous policies, lack of common sense and failure to accept responsibility are ruining this nation. Let’s hope voters put an end to this insanity in November and perhaps then we can all wake up from the left’s progressive dream that has turned into our real-life nightmare.
Listen to Grace Curley’s show from 12-3 every weekday on WRKO AM 680.
Read More Here
North Dakota Renews Claim To Oil And Gas Royalties The Federal Government Says Belong To Tribe
North Dakota Renews Claim To Oil And Gas Royalties The Federal Government Says Belong To Tribe https://digitalalaskanews.com/north-dakota-renews-claim-to-oil-and-gas-royalties-the-federal-government-says-belong-to-tribe/
NEW TOWN, N.D. — North Dakota is notifying oil companies that it claims ownership of the bed of the Missouri River — and associated mineral wealth — as it flows through the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in the latest salvo in a legal feud over ownership.
At stake are claims to oil and gas royalties the state estimated at more than $116 million as of August 2020.
The state’s latest action, in letters sent to oil companies active in the Bakken Formation, comes despite a determination by the U.S. Department of Interior that the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation owns the riverbed and therefore is entitled to royalties on oil and gas produced beneath the historic riverbed, now within Lake Sakakawea.
The ownership dispute is pending before a U.S. District Court judge in the District of Columbia in a lawsuit the tribe filed after the Trump administration reversed decades of federal policy holding that the riverbed and mineral wealth belongs to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, held in trust by the U.S. government.
The Biden administration in February overturned the Trump administration’s opinion, restoring federal policy recognizing the tribe as the owner in a line of decisions dating back eight decades. The tribe also asserts ownership under a series of treaties dating back to 1825.
In a letter dated July 1, the director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs wrote to oil companies, noting the Department of the Interior and state of North Dakota disputed ownership of the minerals and directing all producers to escrow bonuses and royalties owed on production of riverbed oil and gas.
Bureau of Indian Affairs Director Darryl LaCounte also noted the Interior’s position that the riverbed minerals belong to the tribe.
“Given these developments, the Department is directing all oil and gas producers to provide an accounting of the royalties and bonuses you have derived from Riverbed minerals, and the location of the funds,” LaCounte wrote in the letter.
The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, which is suing in part to force an accounting of the disputed royalties, began contacting Bakken oil producers seeking payment of royalties for oil and gas pumped from beneath the riverbed.
That, in turn, prompted Matthew Sagsveen, North Dakota’s solicitor general, to write to oil and gas producers to notify them that the state claimed ownership of the riverbed and royalties.
In the letter, Sagsveen challenged the Department of the Interior’s position that the tribe owns the riverbed and royalties, saying the latest opinion “errs and omits key legal and factual information in its review of historical background relating to ownership of the affected mineral interests.”
North Dakota bases its claim on the Constitution’s equal footing doctrine, which holds that a state holds ownership of navigable waters within its boundaries unless Congress specifies otherwise.
“No court to date has ruled that the MHA Nation owns the riverbed and mineral interests at issue,” Sagsveen wrote.
Mark Fox, chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, denounced the state’s claim of ownership in letters to oil companies, which he called “contrary to the legal and historical record.”
“The State of North Dakota continues to show their lack of respect for the legal precedents and people who have paid with their lives to preserve these fragments of our ancestral lands and waters,” Fox said in a statement. “For centuries, the federal government has affirmed our right to the Missouri Riverbed.”
The state is trying to deprive the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation of money that would benefit more than the tribe, said Timothy Purdon, a lawyer who represents the tribe.
“This money could be used to help the tribe, tribal citizens, which strengthens the state of North Dakota, as well,” he said.
Patrick Springer first joined The Forum in 1985. He covers a wide range of subjects including health care, energy and population trends. Email address: pspringer@forumcomm.com
Phone: 701-367-5294
Read More Here
Trump’s Favorability Rating Drops To New Low: Poll https://digitalalaskanews.com/trumps-favorability-rating-drops-to-new-low-poll/
Rachel Scully
Posted: Sep 18, 2022 / 03:02 PM CDT | Updated: Sep 18, 2022 / 03:02 PM CDT
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Former President Trump’s favorability rating has dropped to a new low after slowly trickling down over the past few months.
A new NBC News poll released Sunday found that 34 percent of registered voters said they have a positive view of Trump, while 54 percent say they have a negative view of him. Trump’s favorability rating was at its lowest in April 2021, when his rating fell to 32 percent in the same NBC poll.
The former president’s favorability score is down slightly since last month, with the same 54 percent saying they have a negative view of Trump, but 36 percent saying they had a positive view of him.
While Trump’s favorability score has trickled down, President Biden’s score has gone up, though only slightly. This month, 45 percent said they approve of the president — a two-point increase since last month.
Contrarily, 52 percent of voters say they disapprove of Biden, which has gone down three percentage points since last month.
Pollsters also questioned voters about their views on the different investigations against Trump, specifically asking whether the various investigations should stop or continue. The poll found that 56 percent of voters believe the investigations should continue, while 41 percent say they should stop.
The poll comes amid an FBI investigation into former President Trump and the documents he was holding at Mar-a-Lago. The government recovered thousands of government documents from the Florida property since Trump left office, including more than 300 documents with various classified markings.
The NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters between Sept. 9-13, and has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.
Read More Here
Hurricane Fiona Makes Landfall Along Southwestern Coast Of Puerto Rico | CNN
Hurricane Fiona Makes Landfall Along Southwestern Coast Of Puerto Rico | CNN https://digitalalaskanews.com/hurricane-fiona-makes-landfall-along-southwestern-coast-of-puerto-rico-cnn/
Latest Videos
Power has gone out across all of the US territory of Puerto Rico on Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us, as Hurricane Fiona bears down on the islands, which are already grappling with the threat of flooding and mudslides stemming from the Category 1 storm. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers has the latest.
” data-duration=”01:45″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”Complete blackout in Puerto Rico as Hurricane Fiona nears island” data-index=”idx-0″ data-show-name=”” data-show-url=”” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_bc2f93a653f3de25341780c6e058fcbb-h_a9305b941bcba55b514ed55bcf0c4d5e@published” data-video-id=”weather/2022/09/18/hurricane-fiona-puerto-rico-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_bc2f93a653f3de25341780c6e058fcbb-h_a9305b941bcba55b514ed55bcf0c4d5e@published”
CNN
Now playing
Complete blackout in Puerto Rico as Hurricane Fiona nears island
President Joe Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine after Russia was forced to retreat.
” data-duration=”02:15″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”See Biden’s warning to Putin over nuclear weapons” data-index=”idx-1″ data-show-name=”Newsroom” data-show-url=”https://www.cnn.com/shows/newsroom” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_ce9018d962107eb9759dc1b8da89e9ec” data-video-id=”politics/2022/09/18/biden-warns-putin-60-minutes-nuclear-weapon-nr-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_ce9018d962107eb9759dc1b8da89e9ec”
Getty Images
Now playing
See Biden’s warning to Putin over nuclear weapons
Surveillance footage captured the moment a gymnasium collapsed following a 6.9-magnitude earthquake in southeastern Taiwan. CNN’s Will Ripley reports.
” data-duration=”02:39″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”Video shows people fleeing as gymnasium collapses during earthquake” data-index=”idx-2″ data-show-name=”” data-show-url=”” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_1ec41757d5f4ba57588a78da557a305d” data-video-id=”world/2022/09/18/earthquake-taiwan-southern-coast-intl-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_1ec41757d5f4ba57588a78da557a305d”
SET TV
Now playing
Video shows people fleeing as gymnasium collapses during earthquake
A routine training military jet was supposed to land at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth. Instead, a bird flew into the aircraft and caused a crash in a Lake Worth neighborhood that hospitalized the pilot instructor and the student.
” data-duration=”01:11″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”Video shows moment US military jet is taken down over neighborhood” data-index=”idx-3″ data-show-name=”” data-show-url=”” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_1c44503d70a7d347c199ee43aa589b8d” data-video-id=”us/2022/09/17/military-jet-crash-texas-orig-jc.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_1c44503d70a7d347c199ee43aa589b8d”
Now playing
Video shows moment US military jet is taken down over neighborhood
After less than 48 unexpected hours in Martha’s Vineyard, nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants were given a warm sendoff as they embarked on next leg of their journey. Their unannounced arrival was part of a campaign by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to send migrants to “sanctuary cities” by surprise. CNN’s Miguel Marquez reports.
” data-duration=”03:38″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”Migrant tells CNN what he was promised to get on plane” data-index=”idx-4″ data-show-name=”Situation Room” data-show-url=”https://www.cnn.com/shows/situation-room” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_7a46643d5ec90ba22e50fe1ce5a469ac” data-video-id=”us/2022/09/18/marthas-vineyard-venezuela-migrants-marquez-sitroom-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_7a46643d5ec90ba22e50fe1ce5a469ac”
CNN
Now playing
Migrant tells CNN what he was promised to get on plane
Susan Glasser, one of the authors of an explosive new book about Donald Trump’s presidency, discusses a new interview where Trump said he would not pick Mike Pence to be his Vice President if he runs in 2024.
” data-duration=”01:48″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”Author of explosive new book reveals what Trump told her” data-index=”idx-5″ data-show-name=”State of the Union” data-show-url=”https://www.cnn.com/shows/state-of-the-union” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_45d9bd7027aba88b9d3b0a6d7a009234″ data-video-id=”politics/2022/09/18/dividers-trump-book-susan-glasser-sotu-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_45d9bd7027aba88b9d3b0a6d7a009234″
Getty/CNN
Now playing
Author of explosive new book reveals what Trump told her
CNN anchor Jake Tapper asks New York City Mayor Eric Adams if he has a message to Republican Governors Greg Abbott (TX) and Ron DeSantis (FL). An estimated 2,500 migrants have been bused to New York from Texas.
” data-duration=”02:09″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”Hear Mayor Adams’ message to Abbott and DeSantis on bused migrants” data-index=”idx-6″ data-show-name=”State of the Union” data-show-url=”https://www.cnn.com/shows/state-of-the-union” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_332b16eb9eb963cbff154067f324c7e9″ data-video-id=”politics/2022/09/18/nyc-mayor-eric-adams-greg-abbott-ron-desantis-busing-migrants-sotu-tapper-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_332b16eb9eb963cbff154067f324c7e9″
CNN/Getty
Now playing
Hear Mayor Adams’ message to Abbott and DeSantis on bused migrants
Melania Trump criticized her husband’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic during his presidency, according to a new book by reporters Peter Baker and Susan Glasser.
” data-duration=”01:59″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”New book reports what Melania Trump told her husband during pandemic” data-index=”idx-7″ data-show-name=”Newsroom” data-show-url=”https://www.cnn.com/shows/newsroom” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_90593e2cbf29f095a09de83a594b4639″ data-video-id=”politics/2022/09/18/melania-trump-covid-19-new-book-nr-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_90593e2cbf29f095a09de83a594b4639″
Now playing
New book reports what Melania Trump told her husband during pandemic
Kennedy Wainaina, brother of Irene Gakwa, tells CNN’s Anderson Cooper about the family’s last contact with her and the ongoing efforts to find his missing sister.
” data-duration=”04:09″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”Irene Gakwa’s brother shares the last time he spoke to her” data-index=”idx-8″ data-show-name=”” data-show-url=”” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_028629ca599af6b571ed09d82f55a47a” data-video-id=”us/2022/09/17/irene-gakwa-wyoming-missing-kennedy-wainaina-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_028629ca599af6b571ed09d82f55a47a”
Now playing
Irene Gakwa’s brother shares the last time he spoke to her
Pieper Lewis, a girl who was 15 years old when she killed a man she said raped her multiple times, must pay his family $150,000 in restitution, an Iowa judge ruled. CNN’s Lucy Kafanov has the details.
” data-duration=”03:57″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”Teen who killed her alleged rapist ordered to pay his family $150,000″ data-index=”idx-9″ data-show-name=”The Lead” data-show-url=”https://www.cnn.com/shows/the-lead” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_0ed7df9bffaef6d98077dbef51c6c710″ data-video-id=”us/2022/09/15/iowa-teen-sex-trafficking-rape-victim-pieper-lewis-restitution-lead-kafanov-pkg-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_0ed7df9bffaef6d98077dbef51c6c710″
Now playing
Teen who killed her alleged rapist ordered to pay his family $150,000
In campaign remarks, Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for governor Doug Mastriano commented on the “privileged” school his rival Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro attended. CNN’s Jake Tapper calls out Mastriano’s claims and explains his own perspective.
” data-duration=”03:50″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”GOP candidate hits rival over past school. Tapper, an alumnus of the school, reacts” data-index=”idx-10″ data-show-name=”The Lead” data-show-url=”https://www.cnn.com/shows/the-lead” data-source=”CNN” data-uri=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_cb2c07419ad6638e725dca969c5d96d3″ data-video-id=”us/2022/09/15/doug-mastriano-republican-nominee-governor-josh-shapiro-background-the-lead-vpx.cnn” data-video-instance=”archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/video-resource/instances/h_cb2c07419ad6638e725dca969c5d96d3″
Now playing
GOP candidate hits rival over past school. Tapper, an alumnus of the school, reacts
CNN speaks to a Venezuelan migrant unexpectedly flown to Martha’s Vineyard as well as volunteers scrambling to help the sudden influx sent by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. CNN’s Miguel Marquez reports.
” data-duration=”02:42″ data-editable=”settings” data-headline=”Hear from Venezuelan migrant sent to Martha’s Vineyard” data-index=”idx-11″ data-show-name=”The Lead” data-show-url=”https://www.cnn.com/shows/the-lead...
Pelosi In Armenia Condemns Azerbaijans illegal Attacks As Cease-Fire Holds
Pelosi, In Armenia, Condemns Azerbaijan’s ‘illegal’ Attacks As Cease-Fire Holds https://digitalalaskanews.com/pelosi-in-armenia-condemns-azerbaijans-illegal-attacks-as-cease-fire-holds/
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a visit to Armenia this weekend, accused Azerbaijan of “illegal and deadly” attacks that led to clashes along the border, saying “we strongly condemn those attacks.”
Pelosi traveled with a congressional delegation to Armenia, where a fragile cease-fire has temporarily halted border fighting with neighboring Azerbaijan that killed more than 200 soldiers in recent days. In Yeravan, the capital of Armenia, the delegation on Sunday met with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, whom Pelosi described as “a valued partner in advancing security, prosperity and democracy in the Caucasus region.”
Pelosi said the trip had been planned before deadly clashes erupted Sept. 12 along the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia near the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in a flare-up of a decades-long conflict, as Azerbaijan may have been trying to take advantage of Russia’s preoccupation with its invasion of Ukraine. Armenia is a close ally of Russia, while Azerbaijan is aligned with Turkey.
Military officials in Azerbaijan acknowledged the strikes but accused Armenia of a “wide-scale provocation,” planting mines near border facilities and shelling Azerbaijani positions earlier on Monday. Armenia called these allegations “an absolute lie” and blamed Baku for the renewed hostilities.
At a joint news conference Sunday with Armenian National Assembly President Alen Simonyan, Pelosi said it was clear the attacks were initiated by Azerbaijan and must stop, and that the United States should use its influence and leverage to show support for Armenia.
“The immediate response from the United States was to stop the violence and to have a cease-fire,” Pelosi said. “Our delegation had been very outspoken, saying that this was initiated by Azeris and that there has to be recognition of that and how that will stop.”
Pelosi said President Biden was a strong supporter of Armenia, and vowed the two countries would “work together on what the next steps may be” to address the flare up of violence.
“The democracy in Armenia is a value to the world, a joy to the world,” Pelosi said. “We have to enlarge the issue though … What does security in Armenia mean to regional and global security? What does democracy in Armenia mean to end the fight between democracy and autocracy which is going on in the world now? In both cases, it means a great deal.”
Pelosi’s office said she is the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Armenia since the country’s independence in 1991 from the former Soviet Union.
Other members of the U.S. delegation include Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., (D-N.J.) chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Jackie Speier (D.-Calif.), who is of Armenian descent, and Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.), who is of Armenian Assyrian descent.
The period leading up to the visit has been marked by days of heavy fighting that represent the largest outbreak of hostilities since a full-scale war in 2020, in which Azerbaijan recaptured territories that Armenia had occupied for decades. The six-week war ended with military victory for Azerbaijan and a fragile Moscow-backed truce, in which Armenia surrendered large swaths of territory.
The Southern Caucasus region has long been a source of diplomatic sensitivities for the United States. But after lobbying by members of Congress and Armenian Americans, Biden last year formally recognized a massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century as a genocide, a term that the United States had long avoided for fear of harming its relationship with Turkey. Historians estimate that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a campaign of forced marches and mass killings during World War I.
Pelosi invoked those deaths in the context of the continuing war in Ukraine. “It is the moral duty of all to never forget: an obligation that has taken on heightened urgency as atrocities are perpetrated around the globe, including by Russia against Ukraine,” Pelosi said in a statement ahead of her trip.
Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.
Read More Here
Maine Rematch Could Be A Bellwether For Control Of Congress
Maine Rematch Could Be A Bellwether For Control Of Congress https://digitalalaskanews.com/maine-rematch-could-be-a-bellwether-for-control-of-congress/
By PATRICK WHITTLE
Associated Press
AUBURN, Maine (AP) — Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District this year, but his brand of politics is.
In a race that will help decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democratic Rep. Jared Golden will defend his seat against Republican former Rep. Bruce Poliquin and independent candidate Tiffany Bond. The race is a rematch for Golden and Poliquin, who ran for the same seat in 2018, when Golden emerged victorious by a razor-thin margin.
The appeal of Trump-style politics has grown in the district since then despite the fact it is represented by Golden, a moderate Democrat. Poliquin, who represented the 2nd District as a moderate Republican from 2014 to 2018, has shifted his own messaging rightward to try to take advantage of those headwinds.
The result is a race that could be an indicator of Trump’s continued influence on swing districts and rural politics.
Voters in the district are taking notice. Mary Hunter, a Democrat and retired academic who lives in the city of Lewiston, thinks Golden is still the right candidate for the district. She said she’s voting for him in part because she’s concerned about Democrats losing control of Congress. And she’s aware Trump is still a big influence on a lot of voters in her district.
“Most people are kind of red team or blue team. I think Jared is doing his best to move to the middle. He’s very centrist,” Hunter said. “Whether that will serve him, I don’t know.”
But in Auburn, a nearby city of about 23,000 in the 2nd District, Coastal Defense Firearms owner Rick LaChapelle said he’s planning to vote for Poliquin. LaChapelle, a Republican city councilor in Lewiston, said he respects Golden but feels the Democratic Party has become too extreme.
“His party is too radical. He cannot overcome the strength of his party, so you have to change the party,” LaChapelle said.
The district, one of two in Maine, includes the state’s second- and third-largest cities — Lewiston and Bangor — but is mostly made up of vast rural areas in northern and western Maine. It also includes the state’s Down East coastline and is home to Maine’s traditional industries such as lobster fishing, logging and potato and blueberry farming.
The district is also geographically the largest in the U.S. east of the Mississippi River, and it is far more politically mixed than the heavily Democratic 1st Congressional District in southern Maine. Trump won the 2nd District in 2016 and performed even better in the district in 2020, though he lost the statewide vote both times because of overwhelming margins in the 1st District, centered in liberal Portland.
Poliquin has focused his campaign on issues such as curtailing immigration and protecting gun rights. It’s a shift from his earlier campaigns, which focused more closely on controlling taxes and protecting rural jobs, though he continues to tout those issues. His website has warned of liberals who want to defund law enforcement and push critical race theory in schools, and boasted of his work with Trump when he served in Congress.
“I came out again from semi-retirement because our country and our state are in deep trouble,” said Poliquin, who was once an investment manager and served two years as Maine’s state treasurer.
Golden, a Marine Corps veteran, has long positioned himself as a moderate who supports the 2nd Amendment and works to safeguard industries such as commercial fishing and papermaking. He’s continuing that approach this time around.
Golden has shown a willingness to buck his own party over the years, including coming out against President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan in August. His positions have sometimes won him crossover endorsements from groups that often back Republicans, such as when he received the backing of the state’s largest police union in July.
The union also endorsed Republican former Gov. Paul LePage, who is running for his old job. Golden said he expects voters to reward him for standing up to the Democratic Party leadership on issues such as the nearly $2 trillion climate and health care bill the House passed in 2021. He voted against the bill. He subsequently voted for the slimmed-down $740 billion measure that passed Congress last month.
“In the last two years, I don’t know of anyone who has been more independent, and more willing to stand up to their own party, than I have been,” Golden said. “I’m not trying to strategize ‘How do I hold on to the Democratic voters or to the Trump voters?’”
The race will include the use of ranked-choice voting, which Golden needed to win the seat in 2018. Bond, who came in third in 2018, said independent voters in the race will be the ones who decide it. She said she’s focusing her campaign on issues such as improving health care access and addressing climate change.
Bond said she expects ranked voting will play a role again this time around.
“I was the candidate who got all the votes that neither party could,” she said.
The race is likely to be much closer than Golden’s 2020 reelection victory, said Mark Brewer, a political scientist at University of Maine. Golden won that election handily over Republican Dale Crafts.
It’ll be closer this time in part because of national backlash against Democrats over issues such as inflation, Brewer said. But it’ll also be closer simply because the 2nd District is unpredictable, he said.
“It’s the kind of district that has a lot of the people Trump made his appeal to in 2016. Relatively rural, largely white working class voters who have a sense of grievance, economic grievance,” Brewer said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that this race is going to be closer than Golden’s last race.”
____
The story has been corrected to show that Golden voted for the $740 billion climate and health care bill passed last month. He voted against a previous, more expansive bill in 2021 labeled the Build Back Better Act.
Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Read More Here
Fiona Reaches Hurricane Strength Dumping life-Threatening Levels Of Rain On Puerto Rico
Fiona Reaches Hurricane Strength, Dumping ‘life-Threatening’ Levels Of Rain On Puerto Rico https://digitalalaskanews.com/fiona-reaches-hurricane-strength-dumping-life-threatening-levels-of-rain-on-puerto-rico/
Hurricane Fiona intensified overnight and became a hurricane today. It moves just south of Puerto Rico bringing torrential rain up to 25 inches to some parts of the island.
As of 11 a.m., the National Hurricane Center advisory said its center was located about 50 miles south of Ponce, Puerto Rico with maximum sustained winds of 8- mph moving west-northwest at 8 mph.
Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 140 miles with Sunday morning gusts tracked at Puerto Rican weather stations close to 55 mph.
This visible radar image shows Tropical Storm Fiona moving near Puerto Rico on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022. (NOAA – GOES-East)
“On the forecast track, the center of Fiona will approach Puerto Rico this morning, and move near or over Puerto Rico this afternoon or evening.” said NHC hurricane specialist Brad Reinhart. “Fiona will then move near the northern coast of the Dominican Republic tonight and Monday, and near or to the east of the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday.”
Hurricane warnings are in effect for Puerto Rico and parts of the Dominican Republic with hurricane watches in place for the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tropical storm warnings remain in place for the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, more of the Dominican Republic and a tropical storm watch is in effect for the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas.
The system’s intense rain continues to fall over both the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, but now moving over Puerto Rico and expected to begin affecting the Dominican Republic by the end of the day, the NHC stated.
“These rainfall amounts will produce life-threatening flash floods and urban flooding across Puerto Rico and portions of the eastern Dominican Republic, along with mudslides and landslides in areas of higher terrain,” Reinhart said.
It’s expected to drop 12 to 16 inches over the entire island with some areas up to 25 inches.
“It’s time to take action and be concerned,” said Nino Correa, Puerto Rico’s emergency management commissioner.
The storm was forecast to pummel cities and towns along Puerto Rico’s southern coast that are still recovering from a string of strong earthquakes that hit the region starting in late 2019, with several schools still shuttered and debris to be removed. More than 100 people had sought shelter across the island by Saturday night, the majority of them in the southern coastal city of Guayanilla.
With Fiona due just two days before the anniversary of Hurricane Maria, a deadly Category 4 storm that hit on Sept. 20, 2017, anxiety levels ran high across the island. People boarded up windows and stocked up on food and water.
“I think all of us Puerto Ricans who lived through Maria have that post-traumatic stress of, ‘What is going to happen, how long is it going to last and what needs might we face?’” said Danny Hernández, who works in the capital of San Juan but planned to weather the storm with his parents and family in the western town of Mayaguez.
Many Puerto Ricans also were concerned about blackouts, with Luma, the company that operates power transmission and distribution, warning of “widespread service interruptions.”
Puerto Rico’s power grid was razed by Hurricane Maria and remains frail, with reconstruction starting only recently. Outages are a daily occurrence, and fires at power plants have occurred in recent months.
Puerto Rico’s governor, Pedro Pierluisi, said he was ready to declare a state of emergency if needed and activated the National Guard as the Atlantic hurricane season’s sixth named storm approached.
The system’s updated path forecasts it to travel further away from Florida, with the center passing over western Puerto Rico as the system heads more northwest and growing in intensity as it passes to the east of the Turks and Caicos up into the Atlantic and threatening Bermuda by the end of the week as a strong Category 2 system with 110 mph winds and 130 mph gusts.
Already, storm surge and a deluge from Fiona plagued the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe with at least two people reportedly washed away and more than 20 people who had to be rescued by rising waters on Saturday. One was confirmed dead by Sunday.
The storm left behind heavy road damage on Guadeloupe with video on Twitter showing fast-moving floods flowing down streets up to washed out roads and streets flooded up to 2 feet washing away cars.
Projected rainfall had been more than 8 inches in some parts of the island.
Government officials with the French overseas department said two people were missing swept away by rising waters overnight.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic, a tropical wave was detected Thursday midway between the west coast of Africa and the Lesser Antilles islands. The weather system is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms, and is predicted to slowly develop late this weekend and early next week when it turns northward over the central subtropical Atlantic. The NHC gives it a 20% of forming in the five days.
Tropical outlook as of 8 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022. (National Hurricane Center)
Despite the low chances, their emergence coincides with Colorado State University’s release of its tropical prediction for the next two weeks, saying the tropics could get much busier with a 50% chance of above-average activity taking place. CSU also gave a 40% chance of normal activity taking place and a 10% chance of below-average activity.
Fiona could become the season’s third hurricane following hurricanes Daniella and Earl earlier this month.
What had been forecast to be an above average tropical season was mostly quiet in July and August before picking up steam on Sept. 1.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1-Nov. 30.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Read More Here
Republicans In Key Battleground Races Refuse To Say They Will Accept Results
Republicans In Key Battleground Races Refuse To Say They Will Accept Results https://digitalalaskanews.com/republicans-in-key-battleground-races-refuse-to-say-they-will-accept-results-2/
Of the 19 GOP candidates questioned by The Washington Post, a dozen declined to answer or refused to commit. Democrats overwhelmingly said they would respect the results.
September 18, 2022 at 11:59 a.m. EDT
Supporters wait for Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels at a primary night event on Aug. 9 in Waukesha. Michels did not respond when asked by The Washington Post if he would accept the results of the race. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
A dozen Republican candidates in competitive races for governor and Senate have declined to say whether they would accept the results of their contests, raising the prospect of fresh post-election chaos two years after Donald Trump refused to concede the presidency.
In a survey by The Washington Post of 19 of the most closely watched statewide races in the country, the contrast between Republican and Democratic candidates was stark. While seven GOP nominees committed to accepting the outcomes in their contests, 12 either refused to commit or declined to respond. On the Democratic side, 17 said they would accept the outcome and two did not respond to The Post’s survey.
The reluctance of many GOP candidates to embrace a long-standing tenet of American democracy shows how Trump’s assault on the integrity of U.S. elections has spread far beyond the 2020 presidential race. This year, multiple losing candidates could refuse to accept their defeats.
Trump, who continues to claim without evidence that his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 was rigged, has attacked fellow Republicans who do not agree — making election denialism the price of admission in many GOP primaries. More than half of all Republican nominees for federal and statewide office with powers over election administration have embraced unproven claims that fraud tainted Biden’s win, according to a Washington Post tally.
Acceptance of an electoral outcome — win or lose — was once a virtual certainty in American politics, although there have been exceptions. In 2018, Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams cited voter suppression as a reason for refusing to concede defeat to Republican opponent Brian Kemp. But unlike Trump, Abrams never sought to overturn the certified result or foment an insurrection.
In competitive races for governor or Senate in Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas, GOP candidates declined to say that they would accept this year’s result. All but two — incumbent senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Marco Rubio of Florida — have publicly embraced Trump’s false claims about 2020, according to a Post analysis.
The Post asked candidates if they would “accept the result” of their contest this year as well as what circumstances might cause them not to.
Several used the opportunity of The Post’s survey to raise further doubts about the integrity of U.S. elections. Michigan GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon answered the question of whether she would be willing to accept the result in November’s race by renewing her unfounded attacks on the Democratic secretary of state for her handling of the last election.
“In 2020, Jocelyn Benson knowingly and willfully broke laws designed to secure our elections, which directly correlates to people’s lack of faith in the integrity of our process,” said Sara Broadwater, a spokeswoman for Dixon, who is challenging Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and has said repeatedly that the 2020 election was stolen.
No evidence has emerged that Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, broke any laws in 2020. Dixon’s campaign added that if authorities “follow the letter of the law” this year, then “we can all have a reasonable amount of faith in the process.” She pointedly did not say whether she will accept the results.
Whitmer, for her part, responded to The Post’s survey by pledging to accept the outcome and accusing her opponents of “trying to weaken our democracy, undermine trust in American institutions and silence the voice of Michiganders.”
The question of whether elections can be trusted has been central to campaigns from both parties this season, though the substance of their messages has been marked by vivid contrast.
Many Republicans have sought voters’ support — and Trump’s — by repeating his false statements about a stolen election. Democrats have warned that such claims put democracy in peril. Candidates willing to deny the results of a legitimate election, they argue, can’t be trusted to oversee future votes.
Biden, in a speech earlier this month railing against “MAGA Republicans” for their refusal to accept the 2020 result, said: “Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated.”
In nonpartisan circles, too, democracy advocates and election-law scholars agree that growing mistrust in U.S. elections presents a grave threat to the nation.
“Faith in election integrity is a huge piece of what makes democracy work,” said Paige Alexander, who leads the Atlanta-based Carter Center, a nonpartisan group founded by former president Jimmy Carter that promotes freedom and human rights around the globe.
The organization has monitored elections in foreign nations for many years, often asking candidates to sign pledges that they will accept the certified result of a free and fair contest. With the proliferation of false claims about the 2020 election, Alexander said, the center’s leadership agreed that it was time to circulate a similar pledge among candidates in the United States as well.
The center is focusing on five battleground states this year — Arizona, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Michigan — but its pledge welcomes any candidate, former elected official or organization to sign.
“When the integrity of U.S. elections began to be questioned via lawsuits, via media, via misinformation, we realized that one way to gather all the candidates and people who really do respect the election process was around these principles,” she said. She said the center has just begun sending the pledge out to candidates, obtaining commitments so far from Republican and Democratic nominees for Georgia governor and secretary of state.
Dixon was the only candidate who responded to the survey with an explanation of why she would not necessarily commit to accepting the result. The campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) responded that he would have nothing to say. Ten other Republicans did not respond to the survey despite repeated inquiries. And seven pledged to accept the results, including Colorado Senate contender Joe O’Dea.
O’Dea, who is behind in the polls as he attempts to unseat incumbent Colorado Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D), did not reference Trump by name, but used his response to offer notably sharp criticism of candidates who refuse to concede when they lose.
“There’s no polite way to put it. We have become a nation of poor sports and cry babies,” said O’Dea. “We’ll keep a close eye on things, but after the process is done and the votes are counted, I’ll absolutely accept the outcome. If the Senator is up for it, we can certify it over a beer. It’s time for America’s leaders to start acting like adults again. Loser buys.”
Bennet also responded to The Post’s survey by pledging to accept the results of a certified election.
Others who have questioned the 2020 result told The Post that they would nonetheless accept the result in their own races this year.
“Ohio is blessed to have a fantastic Secretary of State who has made election security a top priority — we have no doubt Ohio’s election in 2022 will be run with integrity,” a spokesperson for Ohio Senate contender J.D. Vance wrote in an email. “J.D. encourages other states across the country to follow Ohio’s lead by implementing common-sense measures like voter ID and signature verification.”
A spokeswoman for Abrams, who is challenging Kemp again this year, said she “will acknowledge the victor of the 2022 election” and noted that she “has never failed to do that” — a reference to Abrams’s refusal to concede when Kemp defeated her in 2018. Republicans have accused Abrams of being an election denier much like Trump and his supporters, but the candidate has rejected that comparison, given Trump’s fantastical claims of fraud and the violence that ensued.
“I have never denied that I lost,” Abrams said on a recent appearance on the ABC television show “The View.” “I don’t live in the governor’s mansion. I would have noticed.”
When Abrams ended her campaign in 2018, she acknowledged that Kemp had secured enough votes to claim victory, but she never conceded and she maintained that voter suppression had played a role in denying her victory. She said on a 2018 appearance on “The View” that she “absolutely” stood by that decision because “the election was not fair.”
Exactly what would happen if multiple candidates refused to accept their defeats after Nov. 8 is not clear — and depends on the state. Certainly a flurry of litigation, much like 2020, would be likely.
But absent hard evidence of irregularities, such legal efforts are likely to meet the same fate as the dozens of lawsuits filed two years ago, all of which went nowhere.
In many of the battleground states, election officials who have not embraced Trump’s false claims about widespread election fraud continue to have the power to certify election results — or the power to ask a judge to order a state or local election board to do so. In other places, the potential for chaos is hard to predict because election deniers now hold positions such as county clerk or electoral board member.
If Dixon questioned the result in Michigan, for instance, it is possible that the Board of State Canvassers, a four-...
How To Watch Seattle Seahawks At San Francisco 49ers
How To Watch Seattle Seahawks At San Francisco 49ers https://digitalalaskanews.com/how-to-watch-seattle-seahawks-at-san-francisco-49ers/
Geno Smith and the Seattle Seahawks will take on Trey Lance and the San Francisco 49ers today int his fun NFL rivalry matchup.
The NFC West is up for another battle this week as the Seattle Seahawks take to the road to face the San Francisco 49ers. The Seahawks won their week one game against former quarterback Russell Wilson and the Broncos 17-16 with Denver failing to get a field goal on the last drive. Wilson’s replacement, Geno Smith, threw for 195 yards and two touchdowns in the game without giving the ball away. Smith’s favorite target was D.K. Metcalf as he caught seven passes, but tight end Colby Parkinson caught two passes for 43 yards and a touchdown to lead the team in receiving yards. Rashaad Penny, the running back who took over for retired Chris Carson, ran 12 times for 60 yards in this season’s debut.
How to Watch Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers Today:
Game Date: Sept. 18, 2022
Game Time: 4:05 p.m. ET
TV: FOX (KJUD – Juneau, AK)
Live stream the Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers on fuboTV: Start your free trial today!
The 49ers lost their week one game in Chicago 19-10. It is hard to gauge anything from that game, though, the torrential downpours and puddling made the game similar to playing football in a pond.
Trey Lance threw for 164 yards and an interception while running 13 times for 54 yards on the ground. Jauan Jennings caught four passes for 62 yards as well leading the team in receiving yards.
Regional restrictions may apply.
On: FOX (KJUD – Juneau, AK)
Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers
Start your free trial today
Sports Illustrated may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Read More Here
Lawsuit That May Have Played Role In Bed Bath & Beyond Execs Suicide Hits Snags
Lawsuit That May Have Played Role In Bed Bath & Beyond Exec’s Suicide Hits Snags https://digitalalaskanews.com/lawsuit-that-may-have-played-role-in-bed-bath-beyond-execs-suicide-hits-snags/
An explosive shareholder lawsuit that may have played a role in the shocking suicide of Bed Bath & Beyond’s former financial chief Gustavo Arnal has recently run into trouble of its own.
The $1.2 billion suit — which accuses the home-furnishings retailer, its late CFO, JPMorgan and a big investor of orchestrating a “pump and dump” stock scheme — was recently handed over to a new law firm, even as legal experts question its prospects in court, The Post has learned.
Arnal, 52, jumped to his death on Sept. 2 from the 18th floor of the “Jenga Building,” a chic luxury tower in lower Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, while his wife was inside the apartment, which they reportedly were renting for $18,500-a-month. Arnal was a father to two daughters.
Meanwhile, the suit — which some media reports have cited as contributing to the stress Arnal was facing as the CFO of the financially embattled company — was filed Aug. 23 by an attorney based in Falls Church, Va. who is both the counsel and the plaintiff in the case — an unusual arrangement that typically presents a conflict of interest that wouldn’t pass muster with a judge, according to legal experts.
Gustavo Arnal joined the retailer in 2020.
The attorney, Pengcheng Si, who specializes in immigration law, declined to comment on “ongoing litigation” in an email to The Post. He also said he realizes “this is emotion[al] hell for Gustavo Arnal’s family … I would like to extend my sympathy and condolence[s] for Mr. Arnal[‘s] family’s loss.”
Filed in federal court in Washington, DC, the complaint is seeking class-action status and claims that Si and his wife lost $106,480 because of a scheme cooked up by Arnal and Bed Bath & Beyond’s former largest investor, Chewy.com’s billionaire founder Ryan Cohen. The latter sold his shares between Aug. 16 and 17 before the stock crashed, bagging $68 million.
On those same two days, Arnal sold more than 55,000 shares worth $1.4 million, according to securities filings — transactions that the filings claimed had been part of a pre-arranged plan set up in April.
The Jenga building at 56 Leonard St. where Arnal lived.
Robert Miller
On Sept. 6, however, the plaintiff Si hired law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, which specializes in class-action litigation, to take over the case, according to a public notice.
“Once [Si] learned how the class-action mechanisms work, he decided to withdraw as counsel,” partner Steven Toll told The Post in an interview. “He wasn’t aware of the challenges of being both a plaintiff and counsel.”
The complaint alleges that Arnal had “heavy communications” with JP Morgan and Cohen about “creating a buying frenzy of [the company’s’] stock,” and that JPMorgan helped Arnal and Cohen “launder the proceeds of their criminal conduct.”
The suit does not, however, lay out how Si, an individual investor, got the information, notes Richard Schoenstein, a securities attorney for Tarter Krinsky & Drogin who isn’t affiliated with the case.
“The complaint doesn’t reveal the source of the information regarding the allegations which makes it vulnerable to being dismissed,” Schoenstein told The Post.
Ryan Cohen sold his shares in Bed Bath & Beyond between Aug. 16 and 17, bagging $68 million.
Twitter/Ryan Cohen
Indeed, Toll said, “I don’t have any information on how he would have knowledge of conversations between Cohen and Arnal,” adding that Si might have “read it somewhere or heard about it from another person or he believes it happened.”
Elsewhere, the suit erroneously named “Arnal Gustavo” as a defendant throughout rather than “Gustavo Arnal.” In another instance, the suit refers to the plaintiff, Si, as a female — a mistake that will be corrected, according to his lawyer.
Bed Bath & Beyond said in an email to The Post that it “is in the early stages of evaluating the complaint, but based on current knowledge the company believes the claims are without merit.” Reps for Cohen’s investment firm RC Ventures declined to comment as did reps for JPMorgan.
Gustavo Arnal jumped to his death from the 18th floor of his luxury apartment building in Tribeca.
Robert Miller
According to Si’s bio on his law firm’s web site – DWS Law Group – he is also referred to as Simon P. Si. A native of China, Si’s bio says in addition to immigration law he “provides strategic advice on business formation, real estate, investment and international trade.”
Toll’s firm has meanwhile begun soliciting other plaintiffs to join the case. Si’s is the “first and ONLY” class action lawsuit “thus far” the law firm said in a public notice required by the SEC.
But there are at least several other big law firms fishing for investors to be part of future class action lawsuits against Bed Bath & Beyond over similar allegations.
It’s not clear whether the complaints, including Si’s, will replace Arnal as a defendant in the complaint with his estate, Toll said.
“The question is whether it’s a good strategic move,” Toll said, adding “you wouldn’t do that unless you thought there was a lot of money in the estate. If [the estate] is worth $10 or $50 million a lawyer would need to weigh that.”
Read More Here
Republicans In Key Battleground Races Refuse To Say They Will Accept Results
Republicans In Key Battleground Races Refuse To Say They Will Accept Results https://digitalalaskanews.com/republicans-in-key-battleground-races-refuse-to-say-they-will-accept-results/
Of the 19 GOP candidates questioned by The Washington Post, a dozen declined to answer or refused to commit. Democrats overwhelmingly said they would respect the results.
September 18, 2022 at 11:59 a.m. EDT
Attendees await for Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor Tim Michels at a primary election night event on Aug. 9, 2022 in Waukesha. Michels did not respond to when asked by The Washington Post if he would accept the results of his contest. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
A dozen Republican candidates in competitive races for governor and Senate have declined to say whether they would accept the results of their contests, raising the prospect of fresh post-election chaos two years after Donald Trump refused to concede the presidency.
In a survey by The Washington Post of 19 of the most closely watched statewide races in the country, the contrast between Republican and Democratic candidates was stark. While seven GOP nominees committed to accepting the outcomes in their contests, 12 either refused to commit or declined to respond. On the Democratic side, 17 said they would accept the outcome and two did not respond to The Post’s survey.
The reluctance of many GOP candidates to embrace a long-standing tenet of American democracy shows how Trump’s assault on the integrity of U.S. elections has spread far beyond the 2020 presidential race. This year, multiple losing candidates could refuse to accept their defeats.
Trump, who continues to claim without evidence that his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 was rigged, has attacked fellow Republicans who do not agree — making election denialism the price of admission in many GOP primaries. More than half of all Republican nominees for federal and statewide office with powers over election administration have embraced unproven claims that fraud tainted Biden’s win, according to a Washington Post tally.
Acceptance of an electoral outcome — win or lose — was once a virtual certainty in American politics, although there have been exceptions. In 2018, Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams cited voter suppression as a reason for refusing to concede defeat to Republican opponent Brian Kemp. But unlike Trump, Abrams never sought to overturn the certified result or foment an insurrection.
In competitive races for governor or Senate in Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas, GOP candidates declined to say that they would accept this year’s result. All but two — incumbent senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Marco Rubio of Florida — have publicly embraced Trump’s false claims about 2020, according to a Post analysis.
The Post asked candidates if they would “accept the result” of their contest this year as well as what circumstances might cause them not to.
Several used the opportunity of The Post’s survey to raise further doubts about the integrity of U.S. elections. Michigan GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon answered the question of whether she would be willing to accept the result in November’s race by renewing her unfounded attacks on the Democratic secretary of state for her handling of the last election.
“In 2020, Jocelyn Benson knowingly and willfully broke laws designed to secure our elections, which directly correlates to people’s lack of faith in the integrity of our process,” said Sara Broadwater, a spokeswoman for Dixon, who is challenging Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and has said repeatedly that the 2020 election was stolen.
No evidence has emerged that Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, broke any laws in 2020. Dixon’s campaign added that if authorities “follow the letter of the law” this year then “we can all have a reasonable amount of faith in the process.” She pointedly did not say whether she will accept the results.
Whitmer, for her part, responded to The Post’s survey by pledging to accept the outcome and accusing her opponents of “trying to weaken our democracy, undermine trust in American institutions and silence the voice of Michiganders.”
The question of whether elections can be trusted has been central to campaigns from both parties this season, though the substance of their messages has been marked by vivid contrast.
Many Republicans have sought voters’ support — and Trump’s — by repeating his false statements about a stolen election. Democrats have warned that such claims put democracy in peril. Candidates willing to deny the results of a legitimate election, they argue, can’t be trusted to oversee future votes.
Biden, in a speech railing against “MAGA Republicans” earlier this month for their refusal to accept the 2020 result, said: “Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated.”
In nonpartisan circles, too, democracy advocates and election-law scholars agree that growing mistrust in U.S. elections presents a grave threat to the nation.
“Faith in election integrity is a huge piece of what makes democracy work,” said Paige Alexander, who leads the Atlanta-based Carter Center, a nonpartisan group founded by former president Jimmy Carter that promotes freedom and human rights around the globe.
The organization has monitored elections in foreign nations for many years, often asking candidates to sign pledges that they will accept the certified result of a free and fair contest. With the proliferation of false claims about the 2020 election, Alexander said, the center’s leadership agreed that it was time to circulate a similar pledge among candidates in the U.S. as well.
The center is focusing on five battleground states this year — Arizona, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Michigan — but its pledge welcomes any candidate, former elected official or organization to sign.
“When the integrity of U.S. elections began to be questioned via lawsuits, via media, via misinformation, we realized that one way to gather all the candidates and people who really do respect the election process was around these principles,” she said. She said the center has just begun sending the pledge out to candidates, obtaining commitments so far from Republican and Democratic nominees for Georgia governor and secretary of state.
Dixon was the only candidate who responded to the survey with an explanation of why she would not necessarily commit to accepting the result. The campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) responded that he would have nothing to say. Ten other Republicans did not respond to the survey despite repeated inquiries. And seven pledged to accept the results, including Colorado Senate contender Joe O’Dea.
O’Dea, who is behind in the polls as he attempts to unseat incumbent Colorado Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D), did not reference Trump by name, but used his response to offer notably sharp criticism of candidates who refuse to concede when they lose.
“There’s no polite way to put it. We have become a nation of poor sports and cry babies,” said O’Dea. “We’ll keep a close eye on things, but after the process is done and the votes are counted, I’ll absolutely accept the outcome. If the Senator is up for it, we can certify it over a beer. It’s time for America’s leaders to start acting like adults again. Loser buys.”
Bennet also responded to The Post’s survey by pledging to accept the results of a certified election.
Others who have questioned the 2020 result told The Post that they would nonetheless accept the result in their own races this year.
“Ohio is blessed to have a fantastic Secretary of State who has made election security a top priority – we have no doubt Ohio’s election in 2022 will be run with integrity,” a spokesperson for Ohio Senate contender J.D. Vance wrote in an email. “J.D. encourages other states across the country to follow Ohio’s lead by implementing common-sense measures like voter ID and signature verification.”
A spokeswoman for Abrams, who is challenging Kemp again this year, said she “will acknowledge the victor of the 2022 election” and noted that she “has never failed to do that” — a reference to Abrams’s refusal to concede when Kemp defeated her in 2018. Republicans have accused Abrams of being an election denier much like Trump and his supporters, but the candidate has rejected that comparison, given Trump’s fantastical claims of fraud and the violence that ensued.
“I have never denied that I lost,” Abrams said on a recent appearance on the ABC television show “The View.” “I don’t live in the governor’s mansion. I would have noticed.”
When Abrams ended her campaign in 2018, she acknowledged that Kemp had secured enough votes to claim victory, but she never conceded and she maintained that voter suppression had played a role in denying her victory. She said on a 2018 appearance on “The View” that she “absolutely” stood by that decision because “the election was not fair.”
Exactly what would happen if multiple candidates refused to accept their defeats after Nov. 8 is not clear — and depends on the state. Certainly a flurry of litigation, much like 2020, would be likely.
But absent hard evidence of irregularities, such legal efforts are likely to meet the same fate as the dozens of lawsuits filed two years ago, all of which went nowhere.
In many of the battleground states, election officials who have not embraced Trump’s false claims about widespread election fraud continue to the power to certify election results — or the power to ask a judge to order a state or local election board to do so. In other places, the potential for chaos is hard to predict because election deniers now hold positions such as county clerk or electoral board member.
If Dixon questioned the result in Michigan, for instance, it is possible that the State Board of Canvassers, a ...
I Voted For Trump Twice. I Was A Right-Wing Pundit. I Was Dead Wrong About All Of It
I Voted For Trump — Twice. I Was A Right-Wing Pundit. I Was Dead Wrong About All Of It https://digitalalaskanews.com/i-voted-for-trump-twice-i-was-a-right-wing-pundit-i-was-dead-wrong-about-all-of-it/
I voted for Donald Trump four times and Ron DeSantis twice, counting Republican primaries and general elections. I used to be an in-demand political pundit for Republican/conservative media; my work and writing appeared on sites and radio shows listened to or read by millions of Americans: Fox News, the Federalist, Real Clear Politics and elsewhere. I had frequent public speaking engagements. I was writing the obligatory hyper-partisan, fire-breathing book that was expected of somebody in my position. It was going to get me my own prime-time TV opinion show and professional podcast. I had a publisher interested in my manuscript.
That has all changed. Now I will solely vote Democrat, in the national interest of mercy-killing the Republican Party. How, and why, did I get here?
To be clear, I am not a registered Democrat. In Florida, where I live, I’m a registered NPA — No Party Affiliation, or independent. Millions of us have an opportunity to make history in November, and beyond, by forming unlikely but necessary alliances to defeat Republicans in every election at every possible level — from Congress to governors’ mansions to state legislatures, county and city offices and school boards.
Does this mean I agree with all the Democratic Party’s policy positions? Absolutely not, and that’s exactly the point — this moment of necessary unity will require those of us to come together who have legitimate disagreements on policy, but who concur that the GOP is leading our beloved country, and numerous of its states, to the slaughter.
Our nation has a long history of unprecedented partnerships, all of which were considered requisite in the continued pursuit of perfecting our Union and maintaining our position as the greatest bastion of liberty in the world:
Alexander Hamilton convinced his fellow Federalists to vote for Thomas Jefferson over Federalist Aaron Burr in the disputed 1800 presidential election — a decision that cost Hamilton his life;
Abraham Lincoln decided to crush the Confederacy with four years of gruesome bloodshed, although he desperately wanted to preserve the Union at any cost. That agonizing decision to wage total war against fellow Americans brought the slavery era to an end, saved America from irreparable damage — and also resulted in Lincoln’s assassination;
The U.S. joined forces with the Soviet Union in World War II — an almost impossible alliance between opposed ideological forces that was necessary to conquer the Nazis;
Many Republicans in the House and Senate supported President Lyndon Johnson’s signature achievements, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, over the objections of many racist Southern Democrats;
Bipartisan support for the resignation of President Nixon: Ultimately it was his fellow Republicans, led by Sen. Barry Goldwater, a conservative hero, who made clear that if Nixon did not resign, he would be impeached and removed in a Senate trial;
Many Democrats rallied around President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — even if some of them would like to deny or forget that now.
I believe our current epoch presents us with a moment similar to the aforementioned historic events — a moment in which America faces yet another existential challenge.
* * *
I supported Trump — really and truly. I believed a Hillary Clinton presidency (and, four years later, a Joe Biden presidency) would mean the end of America.
I supported Donald Trump. I really did, and without much reservation. I believed the fallacy that a Hillary Clinton victory (and, then, four years later, a Joe Biden victory) would mean the end of America and the start of permanent Democrat rule over our nation. I was attracted to Trump because he incurred almost equal levels of ire, at least at first, from both of our major parties. My first-ever vote in a presidential election was in 2000, for Ralph Nader, and I saw in Trump some of those same maverick qualities.
During Trump’s presidency, I adopted — and vigorously preached — the right-wing gospel: Democrats were importing foreigners to win elections forever; leftists were coming for our guns; nationalism was patriotism; there was a shadowy network of censors whose teleological purpose in life was to suppress Republican or conservative points of view; predatory men were using women’s bathrooms everywhere; and, of course, Barack Obama was the worst president in history and made Jimmy Carter look like George Washington.
Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
I’m here to tell you that I was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. Acknowledging my errors in judgment was the start of my own personal healing process, after I came to realize that my extreme partisanship and dehumanizing of Democrats were the results of my own self-inflicted political traumatization.
For the first year after the Jan. 6 insurrection, I was in the camp of, “Yeah, it was bad but it’s being overblown.” Then I began to look at the event more objectively, started to learn more about how many of the participants were radicalized, and continued to witness Trump traumatize the nation with his stolen election lies. I say — with no qualms and no fear of being hyperbolic — that Trump is the most politically traumatizing figure in American history. His “rigged and stolen election” is the new version of the Confederacy’s “Lost Cause.”
There was another event in my journey, however, which acted as a kind of healing accelerant for me, once the shock wore off. When COVID hospitalizations for children began to skyrocket here in Florida last summer, during the delta surge, I told other Trump and DeSantis voters that our governor would divorce himself from the COVID-deniers and the spreaders of vaccine disinformation. As you probably know, he didn’t do that. Instead, DeSantis quadrupled down on undermining the vaccine and undoing health precautions.
When COVID hospitalizations for children began to skyrocket here in Florida, I told other Trump and DeSantis voters that our governor would surely divorce himself from the virus-deniers and vaccine truthers.
Up until that point, I’d had a favorable impression of DeSantis; he seemed like a mostly drama-free purple-state governor who was genuinely interested in the hard work of governing and policymaking. The “new” DeSantis shocked me. I came to realize that he had sold his soul to keep those in the thrall of the GOP’s pandemic nonchalance, hysteria and paranoia stuck in self-perpetuating and self-exacerbating cycles of unhealed political trauma. As a father of two young daughters, I found DeSantis’ Molochian offering — to propitiate those with little to no regard for life or the suffering of others — behavior unworthy of anyone’s vote. Such a spectacular failure in leadership is rare, from any political figure of any party.
My new organization, Listen. Lead. Unite., is dedicated to healing America’s political trauma by bringing together communities and elected leaders to collaborate on nonpartisan economic, educational and quality-of-life solutions. There is an immense amount of work ahead of us, and I say this with no pleasure: Our nation is about to endure the kind of tumult none of us has ever lived through, and the best time to commence trying to heal is right now.
We Homo sapiens are a binary species; I believe Americans deserve a healthy two-party system. But the bedrock foundational principles of a functioning two-party system must include the rule of law — in the famous formulation, we are a government of laws, not of humans — and the peaceful transfer of power, not just from one president to another, but at all levels of elected office.
In my view, the Democratic Party is relatively healthy, although it has two major blind spots: It takes for granted many historically Democratic voting blocs — such as religious minorities, LGBTQ citizens and Black and Latino voters — and it almost entirely ignores rural America. In contrast, the Republican Party is terminally ill, and its leadership knows that; that’s why they have staked a path forward that is, well, backward, with increased emphasis on everything male/Caucasian/Christian and heterosexual.
The question before us now is whether, after 246 years of incremental and sometimes painful progress, we begin to cede ground and go backward. Or will we continue to shape our destiny in the vision of our founders, whose blueprint for our republic made clear that the maintenance and expansion of a free nation was rigorously difficult, but was both our birthright and our mandate? That will require cooperation, flexibility and sacrifice.
We must heal our nation by re-establishing a resounding majority in favor of democracy — a majority that leaves no doubt that, when history calls, Americans of diverse views and backgrounds will answer the call by conjuring the better and braver angels of our nature.
As I said above, America needs and deserves a robust two-party system. But to get there, and to carry on our blessed experiment in self-governance, one of our current political parties — the one I supported for many years — must be put out of its misery.
Read More Here
Trump's 2024 Triumph https://digitalalaskanews.com/trumps-2024-triumph/
Amid his legal peril, former President Trump emerges from the midterm primary season with two trophies that show the extent to which he has reshaped the Republican Party in his image — and toward his obsessions.
Driving the news: In 24 states, across the map, Republicans are fielding 2020 presidential election deniers as November standard-bearers for statewide office — governor, secretary of state or attorney general. These candidates — nearly 1 in 3 GOP statewide candidates, according to AP — backed Trump’s push to overturn the election, or spread lies about results.
In the 26 notable GOP primaries where Trump made an endorsement, he went 21-5, according to a “Final Primary Report Card” by David Wasserman of The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
Why it matters: The implications for democracy in general, and the 2024 election in particular, are profound.
If Trump has foot soldiers administering elections in ‘24 battleground states, he’d have a distinct advantage in the general election, regardless of his Democratic opponent.
Between the lines: In the 26 Democratic primaries with an endorsement by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, those progressives went just 15-11, Wasserman found.
Reality check: Some Republicans are what Axios’ Josh Kraushaar calls “pretenders” — they raised questions about the election to win the primary, but aren’t hardcore denialists.
Some have scrapped that talk since winning the nomination. For instance, Don Bolduc, running for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, quickly abandoned stolen-election claims.
Most of the hardcore denialists are likely to lose in November, Kraushaar reports. A big exception is Kari Lake for Arizona governor.
These nominees’ underdog status underscores the fact that GOP voters have gone MAGA — but fringe views don’t sell outside the party’s primaries.
Zoom in: The election-denial midterm caucus extends to congressional races.
Of 552 total Republican nominees, 201 (36%) fully denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election, FiveThirtyEight found. 61 more raised questions, bringing the percentage to 47% — roughly half.
The bottom line: 60% of U.S. voters will have an election denier on the ballot in November, per FiveThirtyEight.
Read More Here
Letter To The Editor | Writer Missed Speaker https://digitalalaskanews.com/letter-to-the-editor-writer-missed-speaker/
Writer missed speaker’s point
Tom Napier’s Aug. 27 tirade over Steve Bannon’s frustrated, dysphemistic call for 4,000 shock troops to dismantle the federal government is typical leftist partisan baloney.
The impression Napier gives is that Bannon is proposing a military-styled takeover of our government when what Bannon is actually proposing is simply a greater effort to clean up Washington’s un-elected bureaucratic swamp.
What Bannon proposes, in fact, is exactly the opposite of what Napier claims.
For purposes of relief from having to deal with an overwhelming amount of governance minutia, Congress over the course of multiple decades has created a morass of “departments” to manage things; think IRS, Department of Education, Department of the Interior, EPA, DOJ, CIA, FBI, etc.
While necessary and established with good intentions, such bureaucracies tend to morph into extra-governmental agencies of authority that answer not to taxpaying voters, but to entrenched political/industrial/military interests.
Politicized, as is blatantly evident now with the FBI’s false Trump/Russia collusion attempt to defame and unseat a sitting president, and the perpetuation of similar efforts in order to keep Donald Trump from running again in 2024, these bureaucrats unabashedly trash our republic’s democratic principles with little fear of accountability. It’s called the swamp for a reason.
If Napier were truly concerned for the survival of our democratic republic, he would take Bannon’s admonitions to heart and support candidates committed to purging partisanship from these bureaucracies.
And those who refuse to bend to the will of the people? Well, perhaps Congress would find Bannon’s thoughts useful.
R. STAN MARSH
Champaign
Read More Here
Election 2022 Trump https://digitalalaskanews.com/election-2022-trump/
Tom E. Puskar – freelancer, FR60050
Sep 18, 2022
16 min ago
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio., Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022.
Tom E. Puskar – freelancer, FR60050
Are you concerned with election security during this midterm election?
The Associated Press reports that investigations into voting systems are leading to disturbing findings: sensitive voting system passwords were posted online; copies of confidential voting software were available for download; and ballot-counting machines were inspected by people who were not supposed to have access. Those were a few of the findings. Some investigators are concerned that rogue election workers might use their access to election equipment and the knowledge gained through the breaches to launch an attack from within.
You voted:
Stay up to date on COVID-19
Get Breaking News
Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox.
Read More Here
Watch Meet The Press Excerpt: NBC News Poll: Biden Gets A Pre-Midterm Bump Thanks To Trump NBC.com
Watch Meet The Press Excerpt: NBC News Poll: Biden Gets A Pre-Midterm Bump, Thanks To Trump – NBC.com https://digitalalaskanews.com/watch-meet-the-press-excerpt-nbc-news-poll-biden-gets-a-pre-midterm-bump-thanks-to-trump-nbc-com/
We and our partners use cookies on this site to improve our service, perform analytics, personalize advertising, measure advertising performance, and remember website preferences. By using the site, you consent to these cookies. For more information on cookies including how to manage your consent visit our
cookie policy.
Read More Here
New Model To Enlist Regular Americans To Resettle Refugees
New Model To Enlist Regular Americans To Resettle Refugees https://digitalalaskanews.com/new-model-to-enlist-regular-americans-to-resettle-refugees/
SAN DIEGO (AP) — When nearly 80,000 Afghans arrived in the United States, refugee resettlement agencies quickly became overwhelmed, still scrambling to rehire staff and reopen offices after being gutted as the Trump administration dropped refugee admissions to a record low.
So the U.S. State Department, working with humanitarian organizations, turned to ordinary Americans to fill the gap. Neighbors, co-workers, faith groups and friends banded together in “sponsor circles” to help Afghans get settled in their communities.
They raised money and found the newcomers homes to rent, enrolled their children in schools, taught them how to open bank accounts and located the nearest mosques and stores selling halal meat.
Since the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Kabul last year, the Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans has helped over 600 Afghans restart their lives. When Russia invaded Ukraine, a similar effort was undertaken for Ukrainians.
Now the Biden administration is preparing to turn the experiment into a private-sponsorship program for refugees admitted through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and is asking organizations to team up with it to launch a pilot program by the end of 2022.
The move comes amid increasing pressure on President Joe Biden, who vowed in a 2021 executive order to increase opportunities for Americans to resettle refugees and restore the U.S. as the world’s safe haven. The Trump administration decimated the refugee program, which traditionally tasks nine resettlement agencies with placing refugees in communities.
Experts say the private sponsorship model could transform the way America resettles refugees and ensure a door remains open no matter who is elected.
“I think there is a real revolution right now that is happening in terms of American communities and communities around the world that are raising their hands and saying, `We want to bring in refugees,’” said Sasha Chanoff, founder and CEO of RefugePoint, a Boston–based nonprofit that helped jumpstart the effort.
It comes as the number of people forced to flee their homes topped 100 million this year, the first time on record, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The pilot program will incorporate lessons learned from the Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans, which was developed as an emergency measure to accelerate the resettlement of Afghans, with many languishing on U.S. bases. But the pilot program will differ because it is intended to be “an enduring element of U.S. refugee resettlement,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in an email to The Associated Press.
The pilot program will match regular Americans with refugees overseas who have already been approved for admission to the U.S., the spokesperson said. Later, the plan will let Americans identify a refugee overseas and apply to resettle them.
Canada has used private sponsorship for decades to augment its government program.
Chanoff said the new model should also be in addition to the traditional U.S. government refugee program, which has admitted only about 15% of the 125,000 cap Biden set for the budget year that ends Sept. 30. The Biden administration has been slow to beef up staff and overcome the huge backlog, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to advocates.
Those numbers exclude the roughly 180,000 Afghans and Ukrainians who were mostly admitted through humanitarian parole, a temporary legal option that was intended to get them in quicker but left them with less government support.
Regular Americans helped fill that need, Afghan families say.
Under the Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans, participants underwent background checks, received training and developed a three-month plan. Each group had to raise at least $2,275 for each person who was resettled, the same allocation the U.S. government gives agencies for each refugee.
Mohammad Walizada, who fled Kabul with his family, said five days after he was connected to a sponsor circle with the Four Rivers Church in New Hampshire, his family moved into a furnished home in Epping, a town of about 7,000 residents.
Meanwhile, Afghan friends and relatives spent months on U.S. bases waiting to be placed by a resettlement agency, he said. Many ended up in California, staying in hotels because of the lack of affordable housing, and with just three months of government assistance.
He said his sponsor circle gave his family 10 months worth of rent and a car, and someone still checks on him, his wife and six children daily. Each circle gets a mentor who coaches them from WelcomeNST, an organization created in 2021 to help Americans resettle Afghans and now Ukrainians. The organization offers a Slack channel for circles and partners with the resettlement agency, HIAS, which connects them to caseworkers when needed.
The New Hampshire team has more than 60 members helping people like Walizada.
“I feel like I have a lot of family here now,” Walizada said.
To be sure, regular Americans have always helped resettle refugees, but not at this scale since the 1980 U.S. Refugee Act created the formal program, experts say.
A similar outpouring of goodwill happened when the Biden administration launched Uniting for Ukraine, which allows Ukrainians fleeing the war into the U.S. for two years with a private sponsor. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the program, received more than 117,000 applications through August.
Hundreds of Americans have formed teams to resettle Ukrainians, including in Wyoming — the only state that has never allowed an official refugee resettlement program.
“We just wanted to be able to do something and we have such a beautiful community here,″ said Darren Adwalpalker, pastor at Highland Park Community Church in Casper, who formed a group that sponsored three Ukrainians who arrived to the city of 60,000 in June.
Adwalpalker got support from humanitarian group Samaritan’s Purse.
“Without private sponsorship, this would not have been possible for a lot of these communities with tremendous resources and goodwill to do this,” said Krista Kartson, who directs its refugee programs.
With $3,000, the pastor said his group provided an apartment for six months for the one Ukrainian who stayed in Casper. Just about everything else — grocery store gift cards, furniture — was donated.
“One of the things I’ve learned is that the whole idea of a resettlement office isn’t that significant” if there are people on the ground willing to help, said Adwalpalker.
“We’ve got dentists working on their teeth. We have doctors seeing them. We have lawyers helping with their immigration paperwork.”
Rudi Berkelhamer, a retired biology professor, wanted to help because her grandparents fled attacks on Jews in the early 20th century in what is now Ukraine.
She was connected to a sponsor circle in Irvine, California, through HIAS, which requires a six-month commitment. Circle members had a week to get to know each other and draft a plan before they were matched to an Afghan family — a young couple and their 3-year-old son — in February.
Berkelhamer shuttled furniture to the family’s home and got them set up with computers and cellphones. Others got them bus passes.
The father — a mechanical engineer who worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan — found work at a parachute factory. The mother is taking English classes, and their son is attending preschool.
Berkelhamer sees the family every two weeks. This summer, she went to a museum with the mom and another circle member to paint parasols and have lunch. She plans to keep helping.
“It is not just the necessities; it is doing those kinds of things that make it so meaningful,” she said.
___
Taxin reported from Orange County, Calif.
Read More Here
Pity The Poor Wounded MAGA Republicans | S. E. Cupp
Pity The Poor, Wounded MAGA Republicans | S. E. Cupp https://digitalalaskanews.com/pity-the-poor-wounded-maga-republicans-s-e-cupp/
Over the past few days, it’s safe to say we’ve all shed a tear or two, maybe even said a prayer, and quietly reflected on the tremendous loss the world collectively experienced last week. For many that’s because of the historic and solemn events unfolding in the United Kingdom.
But I’m not talking about the death of Queen Elizabeth II at age 96. I’m talking about the grief and trauma many in MAGA world are apparently experiencing, inflicted by President Biden and his very mean speech earlier this month.
To listen to them bravely share their stories of pain and suffering is to truly break one’s heart. Before you keep reading, you might want to grab a tissue.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, the gentlelady from Colorado who once suggested a Muslim Democratic congresswoman was probably a terrorist, called Biden’s remarks about MAGA Republicans “disgusting and decisive [sic].” That was just before she accused him of having “cognitive failure.” As my therapist says, hurt people hurt people.
Minority House Leader Kevin McCarthy seemed utterly devastated when he lamented that Biden had “chosen to divide, demean, and disparage his fellow Americans. Why? Simply because they disagree with his policies.”
Yeah, what kind of monster would do such a thing? Like, what president would tell fellow Americans who disagreed with his policies — say, four elected women of color — to “go back” to their home countries?
What leader of the Free World would call the Americans who fought our wars “losers” and “suckers”? That would be unforgivable.
Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, was also personally afflicted by Biden’s comments, calling him “the most condescending president of my lifetime.”
Indeed. But could you imagine if Biden had said — of his own supporters — that, I don’t know, he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Ave. and shoot somebody” and they’d still vote for him? I mean, no politician would think that little of his or her base.
As for Mike Pence, the former vice president who insists he and Trump parted amicably despite a mob of Trump supporters calling for his death by hanging, he’s appalled by Biden’s reference to “semi-fascism.”
“Never before in the history of our nation has a president stood before the American people and accused millions of his own countrymen of being a ‘threat to this country.’ ”
Never — because what kind of president would call millions of his own countrymen fascists?
What kind of leader would call the free press, a sitting president and a secretary of state “the enemy”?
Who would call police officers who defended the Capitol against a violent mob of insurrectionists “p*ssies”?
Who would call members of the opposing political party “un-American” and “treasonous,” simply because they didn’t clap for you?
It’s unheard of.
Finally, the folks at Fox News are also bummed at Biden. Jesse Watters, a reliably sensitive host who once urged young conservatives to “ambush” Anthony Fauci and then “go in for the kill shot,” complained that Biden has waged a “war on terror” against him and other MAGA Republicans.
Harris Faulkner also wondered aloud, “Do we really, really love the citizens of this great nation? We have a president who hates at least half of them.”
These are the aching words of the downtrodden, mistreated and tortured souls of Trump’s MAGA army. How they survive in these unlivable conditions, under this kind of oppression, is anyone’s guess.
Perhaps, and I’m just spitballing, Biden’s words — that Trump and MAGA Republicans “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic” — are cutting so deep because they are irrefutably true.
Storming the Capitol to overturn a democratic election is extreme and threatens the very foundations of our republic.
Nominating self-avowed election deniers to positions of power all over the country is extreme and threatens the very foundations of our republic.
Denying basic facts in favor of baseless conspiracy theories is extreme and threatens the very foundations of our republic.
Biden didn’t invent the idea that MAGA world is a threat to democracy, and most American people — including a quarter of Republicans — agree, according to recent polling.
But you can understand why this would be so hard to hear, so painful, so gut-wrenching, even for the party that belittles liberal “snowflakes” for finding words and ideas offensive…
…and even for the party that shrugged when Trump mocked a disabled journalist, a prisoner of war, a teenage activist, Asian accents and asylum seekers…
…and even for the party that accepted Trump’s disparaging comments about women, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, LGBTQ, immigrants and the poor.
Indeed, let’s all have some empathy and compassion for the aggrieved MAGA Republicans, who no longer feel safe in Joe Biden’s America.
S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.
Read More Here
US Domestic News Roundup: U.S. Justice Dept Asks Appeals Court To Allow Review Of Classified Docs In Trump Probe; Teva Pharm Expects To Start Paying U.S. Opioid Settlement In 2023 And More | Politics
US Domestic News Roundup: U.S. Justice Dept Asks Appeals Court To Allow Review Of Classified Docs In Trump Probe; Teva Pharm Expects To Start Paying U.S. Opioid Settlement In 2023 And More | Politics https://digitalalaskanews.com/us-domestic-news-roundup-u-s-justice-dept-asks-appeals-court-to-allow-review-of-classified-docs-in-trump-probe-teva-pharm-expects-to-start-paying-u-s-opioid-settlement-in-2023-and-more-politics/
Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.
U.S. Justice Dept asks appeals court to allow review of classified docs in Trump probe
The U.S. Justice Department on Friday asked a federal appeals court to let it resume reviewing classified materials seized in an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate. In the filing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the Justice Department said the circuit court should halt part of the lower court decision that prevents prosecutors from relying on classified documents in their criminal investigation into the retention of government records at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach after his presidency ended.
Teva Pharm expects to start paying U.S. opioid settlement in 2023
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries expects to finalise an opioid settlement in the United States by year-end and start paying in 2023, its chief executive said on Sunday, while also questioning the company’s very low share price. After years of negotiations, Israel-based Teva in July proposed a $4.35 billion nationwide settlement – mostly cash and partly medicines that will amount to $300 million to $400 million over 13 years – to resolve its opioid lawsuits.
Special master examining Trump documents to hold first hearing on Tuesday
An independent arbiter, known as a special master, appointed to examine the contents of classified documents seized by the FBI from ex-President Donald Trump’s Florida estate last month will hold the first hearing on Tuesday, according to a court filing. Lawyers should submit agenda items by close of business on Monday, Special Master Raymond Dearie- who was appointed this week- said in the document.
New York’s Yeshiva University halts student clubs in a dispute over LGBT group
Yeshiva University, ordered by a judge to formally recognize an LGBT student group even as the Jewish school in New York City argues that doing so would violate its religious values, on Friday announced that it has halted the activities of all its undergraduate student clubs as it plans its next steps. Yeshiva’s announcement came two days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block New York state judge Lynn Kotler’s June ruling that the university is subject to a city anti-discrimination law and must recognize the club called Y.U. Pride Alliance.
U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld a Texas law that bars large social media companies from banning or censoring users based on “viewpoint,” a setback for technology industry groups that say the measure would turn platforms into bastions of dangerous content. The largely 2-1 ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, sets up the potential for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the law, which conservatives and right-wing commentators have said is necessary to prevent “Big Tech” from suppressing their views.
University of Michigan finalizes $490 million sexual abuse settlement
The University of Michigan said a $490 million settlement with more than 1,000 people who alleged sexual assault by a former sports doctor was finalized on Friday. The doctor, Robert Anderson, was a physician for the football team and other athletic programs at the university, where he worked from 1966 until his retirement in 2003. He died in 2008. Most of the victims were male.
Biden meets families of Russian-held detainees Griner, Whelan
President Joe Biden met on Friday with the families of two Americans being held by Russia, and personally reassured them he is working to gain freedom for the detainees. Biden sat down in the Oval Office with Cherelle Griner, wife of women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, and Elizabeth Whelan, sister of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
Puerto Rico faces hurricane, severe floods, as tropical storm Fiona nears
Tropical storm Fiona gained strength on Saturday as it headed toward Puerto Rico, prompting the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to issue a hurricane warning and alerts for “life-threatening floods and mudslides” for the U.S. territory and watches for the U.S. Virgin Islands. One man was found dead in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, after heavy rains from the massive storm swept away his house in the Basse-Terre district, according to local authorities.
Florida governor defends migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard, suggests more to come
Florida’s Republican governor on Friday defended his decision to fly dozens of migrants to the wealthy vacation island of Martha’s Vineyard from Texas, and said similar actions could follow as a political dispute over border security deepened in the run-up to U.S. elections in November. DeSantis claimed credit for a pair of chartered flights on Wednesday that carried around 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, as part of a broader Republican effort to shift responsibility for border crossers to Democratic leaders.
Remnants of typhoons bring floods to Alaska’s western coast
Remnants of the former typhoon Merbok flooded Alaska’s western coast on Saturday, bringing high waves, with wind gusts up to 60 mph pushing rising sea waters inland and knocking some houses off foundations in Nome, as the storm crawled north through the Bering Sea, the National Weather Service. The typhoon formed over the northwestern Pacific during the second week of September but has transitioned into a powerful rainstorm as it moves ashore.
(With inputs from agencies.)
Read More Here
