Letter To The Editor: Trump Is Honest About Trump https://digitalalaskanews.com/letter-to-the-editor-trump-is-honest-about-trump/
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By DAVID DePAOLA
Sep 16, 2022
7 min ago
Have you every wondered why every established politician, news agency and most successful American corporations originally failed to endorse Donald Trump for president of the United States? One reason: honesty. Trump has never lied about his only motivation in life, money and power. From the beginning, Trump has been no different than he was as a ruthless self-promoter.
The traits that created Trump are no different than any other currently being demonstrated by the NFL, NCAA, NBA, MLB or many religious organizations — the desire to create large amounts of cash.
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Trump Invited To US Service For Queen Elizabeth II After Being Snubbed From Funeral
Trump Invited To US Service For Queen Elizabeth II After Being Snubbed From Funeral https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-invited-to-us-service-for-queen-elizabeth-ii-after-being-snubbed-from-funeral/
Former president Donald Trump has been invited by the British government to a memorial service for Queen Elizabeth II in Washington DC after being left out of the guest list for the funeral in London.
An invitation to the event describes it as “a Service of Thanksgiving for the Life of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” reported The Telegraph.
Invitations to Mr Trump and other living ex-presidents, including Barrack Obama, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and their spouses, were sent out on Thursday.
The service will take place at Washington’s National Cathedral on Wednesday.
The venue has earlier hosted state funerals for four former US presidents – Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and George HW Bush – as well as a number of memorial services.
It can hold around 1,700 people and is expected to be filled to capacity for the event.
The report added that prime minister Liz Truss will be unlikely to be able to attend the Cathedral service in Washington.
Organised by the British embassy in Washington, the service is expected to include dignitaries including senior members of the US Congress as well as all foreign ambassadors.
Earlier this week, president Joe Biden accepted the invitation to the Queen’s funeral in London.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the invitation was transmitted on Saturday as a diplomatic note from the protocol directorate of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with Mr Biden accepting it a day later.
“The invitation was extended to the US government for the President and the First Lady only,” she said.
Following the announcement of the Queen’s death, Mr Trump, who was invited for a state visit to the UK in 2019, took to Truth Social to praise her.
“Melania and I are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Together with our family and fellow Americans, we send our sincere condolences to the Royal Family and the people of the United Kingdom during this time of great sorrow and grief,” he wrote.
“Melania and I will always cherish our time together with the Queen, and never forget Her Majesty’s generous friendship, great wisdom, and wonderful sense of humor. What a grand and beautiful lady she was—there was nobody like her!”
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China's Xi Skips Dinner With Putin Allies As COVID Precaution -Source
China's Xi Skips Dinner With Putin, Allies As COVID Precaution -Source https://digitalalaskanews.com/chinas-xi-skips-dinner-with-putin-allies-as-covid-precaution-source/
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a meeting of the council of heads of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states at a summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan September 16, 2022. Sultan Dosaliev/Kyrgyz Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
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SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Chinese leader Xi Jinping stayed away from a dinner attended by 11 heads of states at a regional security summit in line with his delegation’s COVID-19 policy, a source in the Uzbek government told Reuters on Friday.
Xi, who is making his first foreign trip since the beginning of the pandemic, is attending a meeting this week of the China- and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in the Uzbek city of Samarkand.
However, he was absent from group photographs published late on Thursday when the leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan, went for dinner.
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An Uzbek government source confirmed Xi’s absence and said the Chinese delegation cited its COVID-19 policy as the reason.
In Beijing, the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Xi, 69, is set to secure a historic third leadership term at a Communist Party congress that will begin next month.
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Reporting by Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov; Additional reporting by Yew Lun Tian in Beijing; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Watch: Royal Guard Collapses Faceplants In Front Of Queens Coffin
Watch: Royal Guard Collapses, Faceplants In Front Of Queen’s Coffin https://digitalalaskanews.com/watch-royal-guard-collapses-faceplants-in-front-of-queens-coffin/
As Queen Elizabeth II lay in state in Westminster Hall on Wednesday, one guard fainted off the coffin’s regal platform—known as a catafalque—shocking somber lines of mourners filing through the medieval hall to pay their respects. The BBC’s live stream captured the moment in which the unidentified man is seen collapsing, landing face-first on the stone floor. Aides at the ceremony then rush over to help him to his feet. The BBC then cut away to an exterior shot of the building, before the stream was briefly suspended. It was not immediately clear why the guard fell. The queue to view the Queen stretched more than two miles on Wednesday, with would-be well-wishers waiting for hours. Elizabeth II will lie in state until her state funeral on Monday, with guards standing around her coffin 24 hours a day, switching places every 20 minutes.
Read it at Daily Mail
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Migrant Buses Dropped Off By Texas Near VP Harris Residence
Migrant Buses Dropped Off By Texas Near VP Harris’ Residence https://digitalalaskanews.com/migrant-buses-dropped-off-by-texas-near-vp-harris-residence/
FILE – Vice President Kamala Harris listens during a meeting with civil rights and reproductive rights leaders in the Diplomatic Reception Room on the White House complex in Washington, Sept. 12, 2022. Two buses of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border were dropped off near Harris’ home in residential Washington on Thursday, Sept. 15. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two buses of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border were dropped off near Vice President Kamala Harris’ home in residential Washington on Thursday morning in the bitter political battle over the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been busing migrants out of Texas to cities with Democratic mayors as part of a political strategy this year because he says there are too many arrivals over the border to his state. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey also has adopted this policy, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also got in on the act recently. It was first dreamed up by former President Donald Trump.
Abbott tweeted that he’d sent the buses that arrived Thursday: “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border.”
About two dozen men and women stood outside the U.S. Naval Observatory at dawn, clutching clear plastic bags of their belongings carried with them over the border, before moving to a nearby church. Harris’ office had no immediate comment.
The steady flow of migrant buses has caused a scramble in Washington, with Mayor Muriel Bowser calling for federal intervention and a coalition of NGOs forming to handle the new arrivals, backed by a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
This coalition has become accustomed to wildly divergent levels of coordination between the Texas and Arizona buses.
Tatiana Laborde, managing director of the international relief agency SAMU First Response, said the buses from Arizona come with detailed manifests of passengers and their nationalities, coordination on arrival times and medical personnel aboard each bus.
“They don’t want to just dump people here,” Laborde told The Associated Press last month.
In contrast, she said, the Texas buses arrived chaotically. They only hear from charitable groups on the Texas end that a bus carrying a certain number of people has departed. At some point about 48 hours later, that bus drops off riders at Washington’s Union Station.
Thursday morning’s surprise drop-off outside Harris’ residence suggests governors like Abbott were looking for creative new ways to make their political point — with the District of Columbia as the playing field.
Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, called the move “inhumane” and accused Abbott of “using human beings, babies, families, as political pinatas”
Speaking to reporters outside Harris’ residence, Garcia said the two busloads of migrants from Texas were “dumped like human garbage” in Washington on Thursday. He also said many of the migrants were being “tricked into signing these releases,” – something both the Texas and Arizona governments have denied.
He also called for both Republican and Democratic politicians to come together around, “a bipartisan solution to fixing our broken immigration system. I agree that it’s broken.”
After migrants seeking asylum cross the U.S.-Mexico border, they spend time in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility along the border until they are generally released into the U.S. to wait out their cases. Republicans say Biden’s policies encourage migrants to vanish into the U.S.; Democrats argue the Trump-era policy of forcing migrants to wait out their asylum cases in Mexico was inhumane.
DeSantis flew two planes of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday. And last week, Abbott sent about 75 migrants to Chicago.
Bowser has requested a National Guard deployment but was rejected by the Pentagon; the deployment was opposed by the NGOs, who called it an unnecessary militarization of a humanitarian issue.
Last week, Bowser declared a limited state of public emergency over the migrant issue and proposed forming a new Office of Migrant Services with $10 million in funding. The proposal comes before the D.C. Council next week.
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Biden: Hate-Fueled Violence has No Place In America
Biden: Hate-Fueled Violence ‘has No Place In America’ https://digitalalaskanews.com/biden-hate-fueled-violence-has-no-place-in-america/
President Joe Biden speaks during the United We Stand Summit in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. The summit is aimed at combating a spate of hate-fueled violence in the U.S., as he works to deliver on his campaign pledge to “heal the soul of the nation.” (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A grocery store in Buffalo. A nightclub in Orlando. A Walmart in El Paso: All sites of hate-fueled violence against Black, Hispanic or LGBTQ Americans over the past five years. And all somber symbols of a “through line” of hate that must be rooted out, President Joe Biden said Thursday.
The administration gathered educators, faith leaders and others who have experienced violence firsthand for a discussion on how stop the violence, and promised action.
In 2020, hate crimes in the U.S. were the highest in more than a decade, and the Justice Department has pledged to increase efforts to counter it. Now, political violence fueled by lies about the 2020 election is overlapping with hate crimes: A growing number of ardent Donald Trump supporters seem ready to strike back against the FBI or others whom they believe are going too far in investigating the former president.
Biden spoke of a hate “through-line” that, along with racism, bigotry and violence, has long plagued the nation. Hate never goes away, he said, it only hides. And it is up to everyday Americans to stop giving it any air and to stamp it out.
“All forms of hate fueled by violence have no place in America,” he said.
The president’s somber, reflective tone on America’s long history of hate crime was in stark contrast to his sharp-tongued speech a few weeks ago, when he rebuked Trump-supporting Republicans for proliferating falsehoods about the 2020 election that have taken root and fueled violence.
On Thursday, Biden briefly mentioned the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as a moment that didn’t reflect “who we are” as a nation. And he said that hate had been given too much oxygen in politics, media and on the internet lately.
“The violence and the haters are in a minority. … Unless we speak out, it’s going to continue,” he said.
Biden pointed to new federal efforts to help schools, local law enforcement agencies and cultural institutions prevent and respond to such violence. He also called on Congress to impose stronger transparency requirements on social media companies, whose platforms allow anonymous hate to proliferate hate.
Among the attendees Thursday was Susan Bro, whose daughter Heather Heyer was killed at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. In remarks introducing Biden, Bro spoke about how losing her daughter was part of a bigger story.
“Her murder resonated around the world. But the hate did not begin nor end there,” Bro said. “While my daughter’s death received so much national and international attention, all too often these hateful attacks are committed against people of color with unacceptably little public attention.”
Other attendees included Sarah Collins Rudolph, who lost an eye and still has pieces of glass inside her body from a Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed her sister and three other Black girls at a Birmingham, Alabama, church 59 years ago. And the family of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man from Arizona who was killed in a hate crime four days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
Law enforcement officials across the country are warning and being warned about an increase in threats and the potential for violent attacks on federal agents or buildings in the wake of the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
“We must stand together and we must clearly say that a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in her opening remarks Thursday. “We are at an inflection point in our history, and indeed, our democracy. Years from now, our children and our grandchildren, they’re going to ask us, ‘What did you do in that moment?’”
Brandon Wolf, an LGBTQ activist, recounted from the lectern at the “United We Stand Summit” his experience being inside Pulse nightclub in 2016 in Florida when a shooter opened fire. He was in the bathroom at the time the shooting started.
“I remember panic, a sprint for the emergency exit,” he said. “I remember willing myself to put one foot in front of other, eyes locked on a sliver of light from a door left ajar.”
Wolf survived, but the shooter killed 49 people who were mostly LGBTQ and people of color. He told the crowd he knows firsthand how important it is to counter hate.
Civil rights groups in attendance said the summit was not just lip service, and they were planning for action.
“There was simply not talk and reflection today, but a commitment to action, by the government,” said Marc Morial of the National Urban League.
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John Kelly Reportedly Bought A Book On Trumps Mental Health
John Kelly Reportedly Bought A Book On Trump’s Mental Health https://digitalalaskanews.com/john-kelly-reportedly-bought-a-book-on-trumps-mental-health/
During his time in the Trump administration as chief of staff, John Kelly purchased a book written by a former Yale psychiatrist in an effort to understand his boss’ “psychoses.” That’s according to a new book out next week called The Divider, written by The New York Times’ Peter Baker and The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser, a copy of which The Daily Beast has obtained. “Among those who secretly bought a copy of the psychiatrists’ book was none other than John Kelly, who sought help to understand the president’s particular psychoses and consulted it while he was running the White House, which he was known to refer to as ‘Crazytown,’” the duo writes. The book Kelly reportedly bought was written by now-fired Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee and called The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, which explored Trump’s alleged mental stability. Kelly told others that Trump’s “inflated ego was in fact the sign of a deeply insecure person,” Baker and Glasser write. The Daily Beast couldn’t reach Kelly for comment on Thursday evening.
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Uber Suffers Computer System Breach Alerts Authorities
Uber Suffers Computer System Breach, Alerts Authorities https://digitalalaskanews.com/uber-suffers-computer-system-breach-alerts-authorities/
SAN FRANCISCO — Uber’s computer systems were breached and the company has alerted authorities, the ride-hailing giant said Thursday.
The ride-hailing company said in a tweet that it was “responding to a cybersecurity incident.”
The hacker surfaced in a message posted in Slack, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the incident.
“I announce i am a hacker and uber has suffered a data breach,” the message said.
It was followed by a flurry of reaction emoji, including several dozen showing what appeared to be a siren symbols. Because of the hack, the people said, some systems including Slack and internal tools were temporarily disabled.
Internal screenshots obtained by The Washington Post showed the hacker claiming to have wide-ranging access insider Uber’s corporate networks and appeared to indicate the hacker was motivated by the company’s treatment of its drivers. The person claimed to have taken data from common software used by Uber employees to write new programs.
Uber pointed to its tweeted statement when asked for comment on the matter. The company did not immediately respond to questions about the extent to which internal information may have been compromised.
The New York Times first reported the incident.
Uber previously suffered a breach in 2016 that exposed personal information of 57 million people around the world, including names, email addresses and phone numbers. It also included drivers license info from roughly 600,000 U.S. drivers. Two individuals accessed the information via “a third-party cloud-based service” used by Uber at the time.
Uber, which is based in San Francisco, employs thousands of people globally who may have been affected by the hacker’s obstruction of systems. The company has also come under fire for its treatment of drivers, who it has fought to keep as contractors.
The hacker posted as Uber on a chat function at HackerOne, which runs interference between researchers who are reporting security vulnerabilities and the companies who are affected by them. Uber and other companies use that service to manage reports of security flaws in its programs and to reward researchers who find them.
In that chat, which was viewed by The Post, the alleged hacker claimed access to Uber’s Amazon Web Services account.
AWS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
In a subsequent interview on a messaging app, the alleged hacker told The Post that they had breached the company for fun and might leak source code “in a few months.”
The person described Uber security as “awful.”
Uber employees were caught off guard by the sudden disruption to their workday, and some initially reacted to the alarming messages as if they were a joke, according to the screenshots.
The hacker’s ominous posts were met with reactions apparently depicting the SpongeBob character Mr. Krabs, the popular “It’s Happening” GIF and queries as to whether the situation was a prank.
“Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but I think IT would appreciate less memes while they handle the breach,” one message viewed by The Post said.
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A Somali Boys Escape From Somalias Harrowing Genocide Leads Him To His Dream Paradiseand The Brutality Of American Racism.
A Somali Boy’s Escape From Somalia’s Harrowing Genocide Leads Him To His Dream Paradise—and The Brutality Of American Racism. https://digitalalaskanews.com/a-somali-boys-escape-from-somalias-harrowing-genocide-leads-him-to-his-dream-paradise-and-the-brutality-of-american-racism/
On this week’s Scheer Intelligence, Boyah Farah, a young refugee from Somalia’s hellish civil war describes his family’s narrow escape from death and their arrival in the placid suburbs of Boston. But life was more a nightmare than the dream he had imagined.
Boyah J. Farah seemed most struck by the beautiful green lawns that greeted him, his mother, and six young siblings who arrived in Boston’s suburbs after escaping Somalia’s brutal civil war. He tells Scheer Intelligence host Robert Scheer and this week’s guest co-host Narda Zacchino how his family had run from killers with AK-47s, faced starvation, and lived for too long in squalid refugee camps of 10,000 tents and where people were dying in huge numbers from malaria, which Boyah contracted, and Dengue fever. One of his “jobs” there was burying those who died, including friends. An international humanitarian group found them a home in the Boston area, where Farah attended high school and college. Such a life should provide an upbeat memoir of enlightened human liberation. But instead, as described in his just-published book, “America Made me a Black Man: A Memoir,” Farah discovered in the country of his dreams an alternative version of oppression: being Black in America.
With war, Farah says, “you can actually point a finger and say, ‘Hey, that is where the war was at.’ But in racism…you do not know where the enemy is. I am a nomad, which means I value freedom and I value equality…the idea of America where everyone is equal, that is what I held dear. But the reality is, America really shows me that I am less of a human being and that itself is a very debilitating, excruciating pain. And I say that racism is not just the cousin of death, but it’s the cousin of excruciating and slow death, which is much…worse than an actual war: the death of an actual war is immediate, you die right away.”
Farah talks about his experiences being confronted by police officers who said he robbed a bank, was selling drugs, did not stop for a pedestrian or broke other traffic laws, the kind of shocking accusations that have sent innocent Black men to prison. Yet, despite the ugliness of racism and those who propagate it in America, Farah said he has love for America and its people and its beauty. That is what he expected to find when he arrived here. Farah notes, however: “What really works me up is this new little experience of racism. What racism really does for the body: it enters your heart, it enters your liver, it occupies your whole emotion and therefore you cannot run away from it.”
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U.S. Expects Months Of Intense Fighting In Ukraine-Russia War
U.S. Expects Months Of Intense Fighting In Ukraine-Russia War https://digitalalaskanews.com/u-s-expects-months-of-intense-fighting-in-ukraine-russia-war/
Despite Ukrainian forces’ startling gains in the war against Russia, the Biden administration anticipates months of intense fighting with wins and losses for each side, spurring U.S. plans for an open-ended campaign with no prospect for a negotiated end in sight.
The surprise success by Ukrainian forces in areas of the country occupied by Russian troops during the weekend generated euphoria among Ukrainians sapped by months of fighting. It also fueled hopes among many of Kyiv’s foreign backers that its scrappy military might be able to expel Russia’s larger, better-armed force.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, raising his country’s blue-and-yellow flag Wednesday over the liberated city of Izyum, promised it would be “definitely impossible to occupy our people, the Ukrainian people.”
Officials in Kyiv said forces recaptured some 3,000 square kilometers in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions. Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry described its forces’ disorderly withdrawal as a tactical “regroup.”
U.S. officials, providing a quiet check to Ukrainian exuberance, said that while Ukraine troops have performed better in offensive operations than even their American backers had anticipated, those forces will encounter a period of intense fighting in the lead-up to winter as part of what they expect to be a “nonlinear” trajectory for the war.
A senior State Department official, who like other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, said Thursday that while Ukrainian forces had proven they can reverse advances made by Russia following President Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion, Russia retained a potent force.
“They have significant equipment and arms and munitions positioned in the occupied territories, not to mention what they have in Russia,” the official said. “And so it is far from over, despite the momentum.”
Those expectations undergird a U.S. strategy of attempting to hold together international support and gradually expanding American military aid without the immediate injection of heavier weaponry that might trigger a wider war.
The advances in Izyum and other areas — which allowed shellshocked local residents to venture out of their homes, sharing stories of occupation and abuse — were all the more rousing following Ukrainian setbacks, including the withdrawal from the city of Lysychansk in July. After the weekend advances around Kherson, Russia hit electricity plants and other infrastructure, illustrating its willingness to strike civilian targets in an attempt to weaken Ukrainian resolve.
U.S. officials expect intense fighting for the remainder of the fall, as both sides attempt to put themselves in the best possible position before the onset of winter makes transport and combat more difficult.
Russian forces still control vast sections of Ukraine — including the cities of Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014 — and U.S. officials anticipate Putin may use the coldest months to refit his spent, demoralized military before launching a renewed campaign in the spring.
Putin has remained defiant, threatening to cut off gas supplies to Europe even as hints of public dissent raise questions about how long he can keep Russia behind what the Kremlin has dubbed its “special military operation.”
Pentagon officials have said they are looking at ways to assist Ukraine’s evolving defense needs, focusing on areas including air defenses, surveillance and fighter capability. So far, the total of U.S. security aid to Ukraine amounts to some $15 billion since Russia’s invasion.
Despite Ukraine’s ongoing calls for new, more sophisticated military hardware, U.S. officials don’t plan to immediately expand the array of weaponry they are providing, which has included High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems armed with midrange Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. So far, the officials have stopped short of authorizing systems with much longer ranges, including the Army Tactical Missile Systems.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry illustrated the stakes of such decisions on Thursday when it warned that supplying longer-range missiles to Ukraine would cross a red line for Russia and make nations providing them a “party to the conflict,” reinforcing earlier suggestions that Russia could strike NATO nations if they authorized shipments of more potent arms.
Russia’s setback in Kharkiv has prompted speculation about whether Putin would be forced to resort to a general mobilization to fuel his war — a possibility the Kremlin has dismissed for now — or even use a nuclear device as Russia seeks to compensate for its defeat.
Samuel Charap, a Russia expert at at Rand Corp., said the counteroffensive success was shaping the dynamics around the conflict, in part by illustrating Ukraine’s ability to successfully conduct complete offensive operations.
“We had no evidence of that before,” Charap said. “That very fact is likely to disincentivize them to seeking compromise because they think they can do more of that.”
To date, the U.S. strategy has been informed partly by what U.S. officials see as the remoteness of any possible negotiations to halt the fighting. A flurry of attempts to kindle substantive talks early in the fighting fizzled out as each side embraced a harder line.
“Right now the Ukrainians do not have a viable map from which to negotiate. Twenty percent of their territory has gone; something like 30 percent of their industrial and agricultural potential is gone,” a senior State Department official said last week. “That’s why we’re supporting this counteroffensive.”
U.S. officials expect it would be difficult for Zelensky to negotiate a settlement even if he wanted to do so, after Russian abuses have hardened public opinion against possible concessions to Moscow’s war aims. Moreover, officials say, Russia remains an untrustworthy negotiating partner and Putin’s war aims have shifted repeatedly as the tactical situation has evolved.
The U.S. goal remains helping Ukraine make battlefield advances that will strengthen its negotiating position should eventual negotiations with Russia occur.
The current moment draws attention to a tension that underlies America’s strategy for the war, as officials channel massive military support to Ukraine, fueling a war with global consequences, while attempting to remain agnostic about when and how Kyiv might strike a deal to end it.
President Biden has vowed to support Ukraine in asserting its independence and sovereignty, promising in an opinion piece this spring to do so without pressuring Kyiv to make territorial concessions. He did not however explicitly back the goal of recovering all territory occupied by Russia, including areas taken or contested since 2014.
The first senior State Department official said another key part of the Biden administration’s plan for propelling the conflict toward a settlement was its efforts to weaken Russia’s economic and technological edge through sanctions and other means.
“But telling a sovereign country what success looks like for them, or what a negotiated solution looks like, that just isn’t where we want to be,” the official said.
So far, U.S. officials appear to have kept to that pledge, taking a hands-off approach that marks a sharp contrast to U.S. actions in places where officials have at times adopted a much more expansive approach in dealing with foreign leaders supported by U.S. aid.
“For both political and strategic reasons, they’ve been uninterested in drawing lines on the map and I think they’re absolutely justified in that reluctance,” Daniel Fried, a veteran diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Poland, said this week.
Biden will attempt to stiffen international support for Ukraine’s self-defense at the United Nations next week, seizing the annual General Assembly meetings as a chance to smooth over friction caused by global inflation and food insecurity linked to the war. The resolve of European nations in particular, which have been among Ukraine’s biggest backers, will be tested this winter by high energy prices.
But experts including Alexander Vershbow, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia and deputy secretary general of NATO, say that tension may eventually come to a head, for example if Ukraine faces a choice between settling for territory it controlled before Feb. 24 and embracing a longer conflict with the goal of recapturing all areas under Russian control since 2014.
“The Ukrainians are right now adamant that they would say we won’t concede one inch, but at some point difficult choices will be needed,” Vershbow said Thursday. Right now, however, “the administration doesn’t want to take a position.”
Fried said the Biden administration was right to approach the months ahead with caution, but said Ukraine was different than other recent U.S. conflicts.
“We’ve been so traumatized by our failures in Afghanistan and, partially, in Iraq. This is a situation where an actual success is possible — not inevitable — and it’s not a long shot,” Fried said. “Leaning into that prospect is in our national interest.”
Dan Lamothe and Alex Horton contributed to this report.
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The latest: Grain shipments from Ukraine are gathering pace under the agreement hammered out by Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations in July. Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports had sent food prices soaring and raised fears of more hunger in the Middle East and Africa. At least 18 ships, including loads of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, have departed.
The fight: The conflict on the ground grinds on as Russia uses its advantage in heavy artillery to pummel Ukrainian forces, which have sometimes been able to put up stiff resistance. In the south, Ukrainian hopes rest on ...
Special Master Appointed To Review Documents From Mar-A-Lago Search
Special Master Appointed To Review Documents From Mar-A-Lago Search https://digitalalaskanews.com/special-master-appointed-to-review-documents-from-mar-a-lago-search/
(CNN)A Brooklyn-based federal judge was selected on Thursday to serve as an independent arbiter to review the materials seized in the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.
The special master will be Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, who was put forward as a possible candidate for the special master role by Trump, who had sued in court to obtain the review. The Justice Department also endorsed Dearie’s appointment.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon also rejected the Justice Department’s bid to resume its criminal investigation into classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago last month. The denial sets the stage for the department’s dispute with Trump over the search to move quickly to an appeals court and potentially the US Supreme Court.
An intelligence community review of the documents has been paused since last week when Cannon ordered the criminal investigation to stop for the moment. DOJ says the two reviews cannot be separated and plans to appeal.
The denial of the government’s request was the latest example of Cannon, nominated by Trump in 2020, showing extreme skepticism to the Justice Department’s handling of records it says should be in the government’s hands because they own them.
Cannon gave the special master a deadline of November 30 to finish his review of potentially privileged documents.
The schedule delays the review’s ending until after the midterm congressional elections — essentially guaranteeing the Mar-a-Lago investigation will move slowly for the next two months, unless a higher court steps in. The appeals process could mean the fight over the documents goes on into the 2024 presidential election cycle.
Appointed by Reagan, Dearie takes center stage
Dearie sits on the district court for the Eastern District of Brooklyn, where he has taken senior status — meaning his workload has been lightened significantly as he nears the end of his time on the federal bench.
He was appointed as a judge by Ronald Reagan in 1986 and was for a time the chief judge of the Brooklyn-based district court. He also served a seven-year term, concluding in 2019, on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
In his role as a FISA judge, Dearie was one of the judges who approved one of the Justice Department’s request to surveil former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page as part of the federal inquiry into Russia 2016 election interference.
The department’s process for securing FISA warrants for Page was riddled with errors and sloppiness, a DOJ inspector general review later found. The IG’s review pointed to omissions and mistakes in the FBI’s court filings supporting the FISA applications, including in filings submitted to Dearie.
Trump has railed over how the FISA warrants against Page were obtained, making his recommendation of Dearie to review the Mar-a-Lago search notable. Legal observers across the ideological spectrum, including vocal Trump critics, also backed the choice.
Cannon not convinced pausing criminal probe put national security at risk
Cannon on Thursday also rejected several other requests the Justice Department made about how the special master review should proceed. She shoved off the Justice Department’s argument about the national security risks that would come with pausing the criminal investigation into the classified documents — in a break with how judges usually view such claims by the government.
However, she also seemed to create a vague and undefined loophole for the Justice Department to take some steps in the criminal investigation if those steps were necessary and inextricable from the assessment that the intelligence community on the national security risks around disclosure of the documents.
That possible wiggle room aside, her order — if left intact by higher courts — stands to slow down the criminal investigation by at least several weeks.
In her ruling, Cannon said she was unconvinced that pausing the criminal investigation’s review of the documents would cause irreparable harm.
The department argued that the intelligence community’s assessment of national security risks — which Cannon previously said could go forward — was being impeded by the hold she had put on the criminal probe’s use of the documents.
“First, there has been no actual suggestion by the Government of any identifiable emergency or imminent disclosure of classified information arising from Plaintiff’s allegedly unlawful retention of the seized property. Instead, and unfortunately, the unwarranted disclosures that float in the background have been leaks to the media after the underlying seizure,” she wrote.
She also rejected the argument the department had made that the intelligence community assessment could not be decoupled from the criminal probe.
While it may be “easier” Cannon said, “for the Government’s criminal investigative work to proceed in tandem with the Security Assessments,” the Justice Department had not convinced her that the intelligence community’s assessment was being impeded by it.
Pointing to examples that prosecutors had offered of how the national security assessment would rely on the criminal probe’s work, Cannon said that the prosecutors “do not firmly maintain that the described processes are inextricably intertwined, and instead rely heavily on hypothetical scenarios and generalized explanations that do not establish irreparable injury.”
Still, while she rebuffed the department’s claims that the two reviews were inseparable, she seemed to acknowledge that there were situations in which the intelligence community assessment might rely on investigative activity happening in the criminal probe, and she vaguely seemed to give the Justice Department wiggle room to take those steps.
Cannon wrote that “to the extent that the Security Assessments truly are, in fact, inextricable from criminal investigative use of the seized materials, the Court makes clear Order does not enjoin the Government from taking actions necessary for the Security Assessment.”
She did not spell out what sort of criminal investigative activity would be acceptable for that purpose, saying only in a footnote she would trust the government to decide when the tasks of the intelligence review and criminal probe were truly “inextricable.”
Steps laid out for special master review
Denying a DOJ request that the special master view conclude by mid-October, Cannon set a November 30 deadline for the process — putting it on timeline closer to the 90 days the Trump team proposed be given to the review.
Cannon is also allowing Trump’s lawyers to review — in a highly controlled setting — the documents marked as classified. The Justice Department had wanted those documents excluded from the special master process entirely. In another rebuff to DOJ, the judge is also instructing the special master to review all of the documents that were seized,.
The judge however sided with the DOJ in how the special master is compensated, ordering that Trump pay the costs, rather than split it 50-50 with Justice Department, as Trump had proposed.
More than 100 documents marked as classified seized
Trump filed the lawsuit seeking the special master two weeks after the Justice Department executed the search on his Florida residence and resort. Prosecutors are investigating at least three potential crimes: violations of the Espionage Act, illegal handling of government records and obstruction of justice.
During the search, according to court filings, investigators seized more than 100 documents marked as classified, which were obtained after Trump’s representatives were served a subpoena in May demanding they return to the government all such documents. When the FBI traveled to Mar-a-Lago in June to collect the documents, one of his lawyers signed a certification asserting the subpoena had been complied with.
Trump, in his filings in the special master case, argued that his constitutional rights had teen trampled upon with the August 8 search, though Cannon herself had previously said she did not agree that the judicially authorized search amounted to a “callous disregard” of the former President’s rights.
According to her order on September 5 initially granting Trump’s request for a special master review, Cannon decided it was necessary to bolster public trust in the search and because Trump, as a former president, faced increased risks of reputational harm if an indictment was wrongfully brought against him.
Trump claimed on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Thursday that he declassified the government records that were taken to Mar-a-Lago, but that’s not an argument that he’s made in any legal setting.
Cannon’s order on Thursday also raised doubts all the documents with classification markings were actually classified.
“The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion,” she said, referring to the Justice Department’s assertions that the documents are presumably classified and that Trump could not possibly have a possessory interest in any of them.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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Representative Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, speaks at a Back the Blue rally on Aug. 5, 2020, in front of the Jefferson County Court building in Watertown. (Kara Dry/Watertown Daily Times)
WASHINGTON — Rep. Elise Stefanik wants to be chair of the House Republican Conference again.
In an announcement Tuesday, Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, declared her intention to seek a second term in the position, which places her as the third most senior Republican representative in the House.
“I am proud to have unified the entire Republican conference around our ‘country in crisis message’ and shattered fundraising records as House GOP Conference Chair, raising over $10 million for candidates and committees this cycle,” she said in a statement. “With the broad support of NY-21 and my House GOP colleagues, I intend to run for Conference Chair in the next Congress.”
Stefanik took the mantle in 2021, after the conference removed Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., from the position over her vocal criticism of former President Donald Trump after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6.
The conference chair is typically tasked with developing messaging and public platforms House Republican members are expected to use as they argue for or against legislation and government actions. Rep. Stefanik has led many campaigns against President Joe Biden, congressional Democrats and their policies on issues including border security, election security, baby formula supplies, inflation, job growth, foreign affairs, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and much more.
Conference chairs typically serve for two-year terms. They campaign for the office and are elected by their party membership before the new Congress starts. Stefanik will have at least one competitor for the role, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fl., according to reports from The Hill.
Matt Castelli, Stefanik’s Democratic competitor for the 21st Congressional District seat criticized her for planning such a move before the election, arguing that it shows she is assuming the results will go in her favor and disrespecting the will of NY-21 voters.
“Without a single vote being cast yet, NY-20 resident Elise Stefanik is already measuring the drapes for her office next year, and choosing which position she believes will boost her climb of the D.C. career ladder,” he said. “Stefanik doesn’t believe NY-21 voters should have a say in who represents them — that’s why she fails to show up in our community, refuses to meet directly with voters, consistently votes against our interests, and even refuses to debate me.”
Stefanik’s announcement that she will seek the conference chair position puts to bed months of speculation that she may seek an even higher office, such as House majority whip, should Republicans win control of the chamber.
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To the editor:
Bloomingdale resident David Staszak suggests in a recent Enterprise guest commentary (“Contemporary Populism,” Enterprise, Aug. 18) that I provided “misleading” information about populism. He then condescendingly asks if a definition found in a British-based general information source (the Britannica) meets my “standards.”
My answer is “No.”
We can be pleased and without any problem if persons recently learning that populism derives from the historical ideology of the American Populist Party desire to learn more. The topic’s obscure, but those having what Dave smugly calls “good education and critical thinking” will consult some specialized information source like the “Encyclopedia of American History” for more information.
But what will persons without that “good education” do? They’ll do as Dave did, and consult some less informative (yet more common) general information source. In simple ignorance they might even pick one of overseas origin (again, as Dave did) out of which they’d get no better description of America’s Populist Party than of Germany’s Bavarian People’s Party.
So Dave I’m sorry, but serious scholars would cringe at how you conduct research. Among other things they’d tell you to learn the difference between a specialized information source and a general one, before crying that anyone “misled” you.
Dave’s confusion owes not just to an inadequate scholastic background, but to an unwillingness to recognize that America’s established historical definition of populism supersedes something plucked from a jumble of “contemporary populism” and “authoritarian populism” definitions found in an overseas information source.
(And that jumble of definitions is so disunited that some prominent political scientists say populism should stop being used in perplexing associations with “contemporary” or “authoritarian,” because the differing definitions provide no cohesive meaning. Indeed, there’s even some “conservative populism” definition in a recent Enterprise guest commentary (“Populism debate misses context,” Enterprise, Sept. 8). That commentary’s interesting, and author Rick Gombas deserves credit for generously describing what’s accepted as historical populism before veering off to discuss what some might fancy to be conservative populism.)
As he diverts from populism, Dave chooses to slight Thomas Jefferson and Kate Smith, in the self-conceit that we care what he thinks about these eminent historical figures. We don’t. For though Dave preens as a scholar strolling through Widener Library, what he actually knows of Thomas Jefferson and Kate Smith is the nothing he knew of the Populist Party but one month ago.
In concluding his commentary, Dave conjures up an odd phantasm featuring Pope Francis, Hitler, Trump, hate, animus, “birtherism” and nutty media personalities. It’s weird. Yet in all honesty it’s not too unlike other “over the top” imageries now seen frequently in Enterprise letters. Persons writing such letters plainly and vividly detest Donald Trump. They seem to think that with hyperbole and florid descriptions and airs of infallible superiority they’ll show us the depravity in Trump. But all they show is the depravity in themselves.
John Edelberg
Saranac Lake
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After Years Of Effort Virginia Is Giving Lower-Income Workers A Major Tax Break Virginia Mercury
After Years Of Effort, Virginia Is Giving Lower-Income Workers A Major Tax Break – Virginia Mercury https://digitalalaskanews.com/after-years-of-effort-virginia-is-giving-lower-income-workers-a-major-tax-break-virginia-mercury/
Mercedes Benson, a single mom who makes a little under $50,000 a year running a coffee shop in Richmond, doesn’t usually expect things to go her way during tax season.
On her state income taxes, Benson said she usually owes money or gets a tiny refund that doesn’t go very far. But as she tries to keep up with credit card bills and higher costs for gas and groceries, Benson, 40, says a recent change to state tax policy has given her hope she’ll be getting a little more help next April.
“The state doesn’t let up on us. We’re always paying something,” Benson said. “I’m just happy to get some kind of break.”
Heading into this year’s General Assembly session, the state was flush with revenue, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin was eager to deliver on his promises for big tax cuts, and Democrats still held enough power to insist on at least some of their priorities. Those factors combined to bring about a policy change years in the making: An earned-income tax credit (EITC) that’s now partially refundable.
Making Virginia’s version of the credit refundable, a change done through the new state budget, means that instead of only reducing how much a low-income tax filer owes without giving money back, it can now lead to a bigger refund — or create a refund that otherwise wouldn’t exist.
Proponents say the change will mean hundreds of dollars going back into the pockets of roughly 600,000 working-class earners eligible for the credit next tax season, many of whom don’t make enough to owe state income taxes but pay sales taxes and contribute to state revenues in other ways. The exact size of the credit depends on a tax filer’s income and how many children they have. For the 2022 tax year, maximum credit amounts range from $560 for filers with no children to $6,935 for filers with three or more children, according to the IRS.
Virginia made 15% of that credit refundable on state tax returns, joining at least 26 other states and the District of Columbia with similar policies, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Ashley Kenneth, president and CEO of the progressive Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, which has advocated for the change for 15 years, said the strengthened credit will be particularly helpful to Black and Latino workers, who are more likely to have lower incomes that cause them to miss out on other forms of tax relief the General Assembly approved.
“It has an outsized impact on the families that need the most help,” Kenneth said. She added that help for those on the lower end will bring some balance to a “regressive” state system that taxes all income above $17,000 at the same rate.
In the next few weeks, the state will send out 3.2 million tax rebate payments of up to $250 per person, but that money is only going to Virginians who made enough to owe state income taxes.
For a married couple with two children making $24,000 a year, the refundable EITC could be worth $827 next tax season, according to an online calculator the Commonwealth Institute created to estimate its impacts.
Making the EITC refundable was one of the main economic proposals recommended in a report released in January by a commission former Gov. Ralph Northam created to study racial inequality in Virginia and how it could be addressed. Black workers will disproportionately benefit from the change, that study found, because they account for 32% of the EITC-eligible population despite Black Virginians making up roughly a fifth of the state’s population.
“It’s a huge win for us as advocates,” Kenneth said. “But an even bigger win for low-income working families who are now going to see some relief at tax time.”
Why now?
Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, pointed to several factors to explain the breakthrough on EITC refundability: the work of those who have championed it for years, Senate Democrats “digging their heels in” during budget negotiations and a broad recognition that the COVID-19 crisis hit the poor harder than the wealthy.
“The pandemic just had a way of exposing things in a new light,” said Price, one of several lawmakers who sponsored EITC legislation last session.
Sen. George Barker, D-Fairfax, who helped negotiate the bipartisan tax deal, said a big factor was the state having enough money to let the two parties get part, but not all, of what they wanted.
“We were able to do things where both sides were getting a win out of it,” Barker said.
Bills to enact a refundable EITC in Virginia have been proposed for decades, but the idea got new traction recently due to changes in federal tax policy. That included former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax-cutting plan, which Democrats criticized as skewed toward the wealthy.
When Northam proposed making the EITC refundable in the first two years of his term, Republican leaders dismissed it as an expensive giveaway that would stick the middle class with the bill.
The GOP characterized the policy as helping people who don’t pay state income taxes at the expense of those who do.
“We keep talking about tax cuts,” Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, said at a 2019 committee hearing on a refundable EITC bill that failed. “But if we’re giving the money back to someone that hasn’t paid the taxes, or they’re getting more than what they paid in taxes, is that a tax cut? Or is that spending?”
After Democrats took control of the General Assembly in the 2019 elections, the Northam administration pursued a plan to send out direct tax rebates instead of making structural tax changes. The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to a period of fiscal caution as policymakers braced for economic disruption. But by 2021, the state was looking at record revenue surpluses, and Youngkin’s victory in November meant tax relief would be a top item on the legislative agenda. In his final budget proposal, Northam included a partially refundable EITC along with several other tax cuts Youngkin campaigned on.
A signature from Youngkin, but no endorsement
In the past, the EITC concept has drawn support from across the ideological spectrum because it’s a pro-work incentive targeted largely toward people with children. It’s often compared to free-market economist Milton Friedman’s proposal for a “negative income tax,” an anti-poverty idea he said would be more efficient than government aid programs by giving cash directly to lower-income people and letting them use it however they see fit.
Youngkin signed the budget making Virginia’s EITC partially refundable, but he doesn’t spotlight the policy in speeches about the $4 billion in tax cuts the state approved on his watch.
Asked if Youngkin came around to supporting a refundable EITC or if it was mostly a concession to Democrats to get other wins like cutting grocery taxes and increasing the standard deduction on state income taxes, the governor’s office didn’t lay out a clear stance.
“The governor appreciated the work of the House and the Senate working with him to provide a budget that provided the largest tax relief in Virginia’s history while focusing on reforms that can benefit taxpayers,” said Youngkin spokesperson Macaulay Porter. “Regardless of whether the issue is cost of groceries, college affordability, housing, or the tax burden, the governor’s commitment is to lower the rising cost of living as a result of failed leadership and economic policies from Washington.”
During this year’s legislative session, Youngkin administration officials opposed standalone bills to make the EITC refundable.
Republicans pushed back against accusations their policies were leaving low-income Virginians behind, arguing their plan to get rid of the state tax on groceries would help low-income people, who spend a bigger percentage of their income on food. Republicans also pitched Youngkin’s unsuccessful plan for a gas tax holiday in populist terms, insisting even a slight dip in gas prices might not mean much to the laptop class but would help working people who have to drive on a regular basis.
With state revenues still looking strong, Youngkin said last month that he’s planning to pursue nearly $400 million in tax relief next year. Another round of tax negotiations could create another opportunity for Democrats to try to boost the EITC again by upping the percentage of the credit treated as refundable.
“Fifteen percent is just a step in the right direction. There are other states that have up to 30% and more,” Price said. “Eventually, Virginia is going to have to come to terms with the fact that the way we tax people is upside down and unfair, and continues to proliferate wealth gaps among communities of color.”
Benson, the Richmond coffee-shop worker, said she’s not sure how much extra money she’ll get next tax season. Whatever the amount, she said, she’ll probably use it to pay off a bill or stick it in savings.
“I’ll be happy if it was $50,” she said. “Anything would be nice.”
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.
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AP News Summary At 10:19 P.m. EDT https://digitalalaskanews.com/ap-news-summary-at-1019-p-m-edt/
Ukrainian president: Mass grave found near recaptured city
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities have found a mass burial site near a recaptured northeastern city previously occupied by Russian forces. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the discovery late Thursday in his nightly address to the nation. The grave was found close to Izium in the Kharkiv region. Associated Press journalists saw the site in a forest. Amid the trees were hundreds of graves with simple wooden crosses, most of them marked only with numbers. A larger grave bore a marker saying it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. Investigators with metal detectors were scanning the site for hidden explosives. Zelenskyy said more information would be made public Friday.
Florida, Texas escalate flights, buses to move migrants
EDGARTOWN, Mass. (AP) — Republican governors are escalating their practice of sending migrants without advance warning to Democratic strongholds, including a wealthy summer enclave in Massachusetts and the Washington, D.C., home of Vice President Kamala Harris. They are taunting leaders of immigrant-friendly “sanctuary” cities and highlighting their opposition to Biden administration border policies. The governors of Texas and Arizona have sent thousands of migrants on buses to New York, Chicago and Washington in recent months. But the latest surprise moves — which included two flights to Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday paid for by Florida’s governor — were derided by critics as inhumane political theater.
Veteran NY judge named as arbiter in Trump Mar-a-Lago probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has appointed a veteran New York jurist to serve as an independent arbiter in the criminal investigation into the presence of classified documents at Donald Trump’s Florida home. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has also refused to permit the Justice Department to resume its use of the highly sensitive records seized in an FBI search last month. Cannon on Thursday empowered the newly named special master, Raymond Dearie, to review all the documents taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and set a November deadline for his work. The sharply worded order from Cannon sets the stage for a challenge to a federal appeals court.
Biden, Dems see both political, economic wins in rail deal
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A Teen Who Killed Her Alleged Rapist Must Pay His Family. Donors Raised It All.
A Teen Who Killed Her Alleged Rapist Must Pay His Family. Donors Raised It All. https://digitalalaskanews.com/a-teen-who-killed-her-alleged-rapist-must-pay-his-family-donors-raised-it-all/
A Des Moines teenager convicted of killing a man she said raped her got what the judge described as a second chance: a sentence of probation and the possibility of having her record cleared.
But there was one major hitch. Due to an Iowa law, Polk County District Judge David M. Porter said he could not avoid requiring Pieper Lewis to pay $150,000 to the man’s family.
This week, supporters raised it for her — and then some.
A GoFundMe started by one of Lewis’s former teachers, Leland Schipper, topped $400,000 as of Thursday.
More than 10,000 donors contributed, mostly in small amounts, raising the sum within a matter of days of the teen’s Tuesday sentencing hearing.
“I am overjoyed with the prospect of removing this burden from Pieper,” Schipper wrote in an update on the site.
Lewis, now 17, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury in the 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks. In her plea, she laid out a harrowing series of events that led her to that night. She said she ran away from an unstable home life and was then taken in by a 28-year-old man.
He portrayed himself as her boyfriend, but forced the then-15-year-old to have sex with men. Brooks, she said, was one of them. She said that after he sexually assaulted her repeatedly between May 30 and June 1, 2020, and then fell asleep, she became overcome with rage.
“I suddenly realized that Mr. Brooks had raped me yet again,” Lewis wrote in her plea. She grabbed a knife from his bedside table and stabbed him dozens of times.
Prosecutors did not dispute her allegations that she was trafficked, and a Polk County judge wrote that evidence existed that seemed to support her claims. Yet no charges have been filed against the man she accused of trafficking her. The Des Moines Police Department did not respond to an inquiry from The Washington Post into whether investigators looked into her account.
In court this week, Lewis faced up to 20 years in prison. But Porter chose probation to be completed at a women’s facility. He also deferred her judgment, meaning that if she completes probation, her record will be expunged.
“Ms. Lewis, this is the second chance that you’ve asked for,” he said. He added, “I wish you the best of luck.”
Watching from inside the courthouse, Schipper was heartened by the ruling. He told the Des Moines Register that he felt the judge made a fair decision, “giving compassionate justice, and using the system for what it should be designed for.”
But he was stunned at the payment required of her.
“I think that people are in shock that Iowa has this law the way we do regarding the $150,000,” Schipper told the newspaper. “This is a clear example of where it’s completely unjust.”
The law mandates that a person convicted of a felony that results in the death of another person must pay at least $150,000 to the victim’s estate.
Matthew Sheeley, one of Lewis’s lawyers, had argued in court that Brooks was more than 51 percent responsible for his death. Because of that, he said, she should not have to pay. He called the requirement cruel and unusual.
“I don’t believe that the Iowa Legislature intended to require a 15-year-old girl … to pay her rapist’s estate $150,000,” he said.
While acknowledging that Lewis and her supporters would be frustrated, Porter said he had no discretion to waive restitution. The Des Moines Register noted that he cited a 2017 case in which the Iowa Supreme Court ruled it was not unconstitutional to require juveniles found guilty of homicide to make the payment.
“This court is presented with no other option, other than which is dictated by the law of this state,” he said.
After the hearing, Sheeley told told the local NBC affiliate that the judge’s ruling was overall a victory and that restitution was not Lewis’s most important concern. He said she wanted to move on with her life, adding that “she has got her entire life ahead of her. She has all these opportunities ahead of her.”
Schipper, her former teacher, was eager to ease the burden and thrilled that the fundraiser may be able to do so. Lewis’s lawyers told the Register they want to look into the legality of using donated money to pay the restitution.
Robert Rigg, a criminal law professor at Drake University Law School, said it was unclear what steps the court would want Lewis or the fundraiser’s organizers to take to allow the money to cover her restitution payment. He said the organizers were free to gift the money to Lewis, but they may encounter hurdles if they try to make the payment directly from the fund itself.
“I would definitely recommend that her defense counsel get guidance from the court. Then the court could say, ‘This is how we’re going to do this,’ ” Rigg told The Post.
“That way you’ve got a buffer. You’re acting at the direction in a judge, and that way you’re covered,” Rigg said.
After the first $150,000 paid toward the restitution, the fund’s organizer can decide what to do with the rest of the money. Rigg said they could set up a nonprofit corporation to gift the money to Lewis, or create a trust in her name “to be distributed for her health, welfare and education.”
In an earlier interview with The Post, Sheeley and another member of Lewis’s defense team, Paul White, described her as full of limitless potential. She has dreams of becoming a designer, telling her story and advocating for other girls like her.
“I have no doubt in my mind that whatever obstacles are thrown in her path, she’ll step right over them,” Sheeley said. “She is not going to let anything get in the way. In my core, that’s how I feel.”
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Port Of Alaska Sees First Cruise Ship In 2 Years https://digitalalaskanews.com/port-of-alaska-sees-first-cruise-ship-in-2-years/
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – It was a sight for sore eyes this morning for Anchorage residents as a cruise ship approached the Port of Alaska for the first time in two years.
On Thursday morning around 10 a.m. the Holland America Cruise cruise line ship Nieuw Amsterdam docked a the port. This is the first cruise ship that has stopped in Anchorage since the COVID-19 pandemic and will be the only ship seen this season according to Visit Anchorage Community Engagement Director Jack Bonney.
“Today is a little bit unusual compared to the rest of the summer season,” Bonney said. “This is the one time that cruise ship calls directory to the port of Anchorage. Most of the cruise visitation that Anchorage sees comes through the ports of Seward or Whittier.”
Passengers anxiously waited on board for their opportunity to depart the ship, ready to hit vacation mode.
“Oh, very, very excited. Are you kidding,” said passenger Angela Bellwood. “They make our food. They make our beds.”
“They make everything for us,” Regisann Myton said.
Bellwood and Myton were excited to explore the downtown Anchorage sights.
“It’s a little chillier than I thought,” Myton said.
“It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” Bellwood said. “It’s a quite bustling city.”
After a two-year dry spell caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the ship’s stop in Anchorage provided the city with a last-minute economic tourism boost for the city at the end of the typical tourist season.
“For a port of call this is a really long one by Alaska standards and by most of the world. So there is an opportunity to do a little bit more here in Anchorage. Even during a port of call that only lasts a single day,” Bonney said. “So things like restaurants, gift shops, day tours, this is a really big deal for them because its something that you can do in a day.”
However, Bonney said that the tourist activity Anchorage saw this summer shows a bounce back from pandemic lows.
“2021 I think turned out a little bit better than we expected and 2022 is on track to be a really big year and maybe even equal a couple of benchmarks,” Bonney said.
Copyright 2022 KTUU. All rights reserved.
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Putin Concedes China Has 'questions And Concerns' Over Russia's Faltering Invasion Of Ukraine
Putin Concedes China Has 'questions And Concerns' Over Russia's Faltering Invasion Of Ukraine https://digitalalaskanews.com/putin-concedes-china-has-questions-and-concerns-over-russias-faltering-invasion-of-ukraine/
Hong Kong (CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised China’s “balanced position” on the Ukraine war, though he conceded Beijing had “questions and concerns” over the invasion, in what appeared to be a veiled admission of their diverging views over the protracted military assault.
Putin made the comments when meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in person for the first time since the invasion at a regional summit in Uzbekistan, days after Russia suffered a series of major military setbacks in Ukraine. Russian troops are retreating en mass, having lost more territory in a week than they captured in five months.
China has so far refused to outright condemn Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine while stepping up economic assistance to its neighbor, boosting bilateral trade to record levels in a boon to Russian business amid Western sanctions.
“We highly appreciate the balanced position of our Chinese friends in connection with the Ukrainian crisis. We understand your questions and concerns in this regard,” Putin said in an opening speech of the meeting. “During today’s meeting, of course, we will explain in detail our position on this issue, although we have spoken about this before.”
Xi said China would “work with Russia to extend strong mutual support on issues concerning each other’s core interests” and “play a leading role in injecting stability and positive energy into a world of change and disorder,” according to a readout from the meeting provided by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Xi also said he appreciated “Russia’s adherence to the one-China principle and stressed that Taiwan is a part of China.”
The two authoritarian leaders have emerged as close partners in recent years, propelled by growing conflict with the West and a strong personal bond.
China has offered tacit support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, while Moscow has backed Beijing and criticized Washington over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August. Beijing responded to her trip with unprecedented military drills around the self-governing democratic island, which it claims as its own territory.
The White House sought to downplay the meeting between Putin and Xi on Thursday, saying Beijing had not yet violated Western sanctions on Moscow nor provided direct material assistance to Russia.
“Our message to China, I think, been consistent: that this is not the time for any kind of business as usual with Mr. Putin, given what he’s done inside Ukraine. This is not the time to be isolated from the rest of the international community, which has largely condemned what he’s doing in Ukraine and not only condemned it, but stepped up to help the Ukrainians defend themselves and their territorial integrity,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told CNN.
Kirby said Putin was “very much under strain and stress. In Ukraine, his army is not doing well, and I think it certainly behooves the Kremlin to want to cozy up to Beijing with respect to what’s going on there.”
In their meeting Thursday, Putin condemned the United States for what he said were “provocations” in the Taiwan Strait, and criticized what he claimed were attempts to “create a unipolar world.” Those attempts, he said, have “recently taken an ugly shape and are absolutely unacceptable to most states on the planet.”
The two are holding talks on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security-focused grouping that also includes India, Pakistan and four Central Asian nations.
In a symbolic show of force and unity, Russian and Chinese navies conducted joint patrols and exercises in the Pacific Ocean just hours before their leaders’ meeting, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
At the start of the meeting Thursday, Putin stressed the deepening economic ties between China and Russia, noting bilateral trade exceeded $140 billion last year. “I am convinced that by the end of the year we will reach new record levels, and in the near future, as agreed, we will increase our annual trade turnover to $200 billion or more,” he said.
Putin last met with Xi during a visit to the Chinese capital for its Winter Olympics in February this year. It was at that meeting that the two leaders framed their “no-limits’ partnership, and released a 5,000-word document voicing their shared opposition to the “further enlargement of NATO.”
For Xi, meanwhile, Thursday’s meeting comes as part of his first trip outside of China’s borders in more than two years, and just weeks before he seeks to secure a norm-breaking third term at a major political meeting in Beijing — a move that will cement his status as China’s most powerful leader in decades.
China has turned increasingly inward since the beginning of the pandemic, and continues to maintain a strict zero-Covid policy that limits outbound travel.
Xi’s trip to Central Asia is a return to the world stage and offers him an opportunity to show that despite growing tensions with the West, China still has friends and partners and is ready to reassert its global influence.
Before arriving at the summit, Xi visited Kazakhstan, where he unveiled in 2013 his flagship Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project that stretches from East Asia to Europe.
In a meeting with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Wednesday, Xi said China would like to partner with Kazakhstan to “remain pioneers in Belt and Road cooperation.”
Xi also told Tokayev that “China will always support Kazakhstan in maintaining national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese state media reported.
The Chinese leader traveled to Uzbekistan on Wednesday evening and met with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. He also met the presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan Thursday.
CNN’s Anna Chernova, Betsy Klein and Ivana Kottasová contributed to this report.
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Board Of Fisheries To Host Public Meeting On October 13
Board Of Fisheries To Host Public Meeting On October 13 https://digitalalaskanews.com/board-of-fisheries-to-host-public-meeting-on-october-13/
Board Of Fisheries To Host Public Meeting On October 13
The following is courtesy of the Alaska Department of Game’s Board of Fisheries:
NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETINGS OF THE ALASKA BOARD OF FISHERIES AND NORTH PACIFIC FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL’S JOINT PROTOCOL COMMITTEE
The Alaska Board of Fisheries (board) and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (council) will convene its Joint Protocol Committee (JPC) on October 13, 2022, beginning at 8:30 am at the Egan Civic & Convention Center in Anchorage, Alaska. The JPC meets as needed to review and discuss areas of mutual interest. The council and board alternate serving as host for the meeting. The board is hosting this meeting, facilitating the meeting platform, and collecting public comments.
The JPC plans to: receive updates on Bering Sea crab stocks and rebuilding plans, discuss state and Federal management of Pacific cod, discuss recent council action on small boat access in the P. cod fishery, and discuss upcoming board proposals affecting Pacific cod management. The agenda is subject to change and the latest version of the agenda, along with other meeting materials, will be posted at https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=fisheriesboard.meetinginfo&date=10-13-2022&meeting=anchorage.
This committee meeting is open to the public and includes an opportunity for in-person oral public testimony. Written public comment is also accepted, due by October 5, and should be submitted online at: https://arcg.is/1ze8ii. Written comments can also be submitted by mail to: Boards Support Section, P.O. Box 115526, Juneau, AK 99811-5526 or by fax to (907) 465-6094. A video stream of the meeting can be watched online at www.boardoffisheries.adfg.alaska.gov.
If you are a person with a disability who needs a special accommodation to participate in these public meetings, please contact the Art Nelson at (907) 267-2292 by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 11, 2022, to make any necessary arrangements. For more information about the meeting, contact Art Nelson, Board of Fisheries Executive Director at art.nelson@alaska.gov or 907-267-2292.
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Father Harry Steadman Tipton https://digitalalaskanews.com/father-harry-steadman-tipton/
Father Harry Steadman Tipton, at the age of 85, entered eternal rest peacefully early Saturday Morning, September 10, 2022 at the Windsor Senior Living Center in Mandeville, Louisiana. He was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on August 10, 1937 to Harry Britt Tipton and Henrietta Marcelle Steadman Tipton.
He is survived by his former wife of 32 years, Maureen May Maxwell Tipton, his five children: Harry Maxwell Tipton (Julie), Edith Marcelle Tipton Hermes (Peter), Heather Maureen Tipton Lindquist (Benjamin), Andrew Bartholomew Steadman Tipton (Melia), Marilyn Elizabeth Tipton Osborne (Jeffrey); 15 grandchildren: Anya Maureen Tipton, Alyssa Ping Tipton, Hannah Ruth Lindquist Knox (Julian), Philip Benjamin Lindquist (Claire), Nathanael Lloyd Lindquist (Abigail), Grace Elisabeth Lindquist, Joseph Robert Lindquist, Eric Nicholas Tipton, Henry Domingo Tipton, Andrew William Osborne, Maria Guadeloupe Osborne, Joshua Alexander Ball, James Olivier Osborne, Vivian Lourdes Osborne, and Lana Marcelle Osborne; one great-grandchild: Marta Elise Knox; his two brothers, Ronald Britt Tipton (Berit) and Richard Mercer Tipton (Sally); and his niece, Jennifer Leigh Tipton Kropog (Ryan).
Father Harry is preceded in death by his parents, Harry Britt and Henrietta Marcelle Tipton.
Father Harry spent his early years living in Knoxville, TN. He would fondly recall going to the radio station with his mother to watch live music being played for the radio broadcast, which contributed to his lifelong appreciation of bluegrass music and love for the Dobro guitar. His Father’s role as manager of J.C. Penny took his family to Montgomery, AL; West Palm Beach, FL, and Hammond, LA. During Father Harry’s second grade school year he lived in Batesburg, SC with his Aunt Myra while his mother, fondly known as “Retta”, was ill. In 1951, at the tender age of thirteen, Father Harry laid his mother to rest; his younger brothers were only eight and six years old. During this difficult time, the kindness and stewardship of others inspired him to join the church. Father Harry graduated from St. Paul’s High School in Covington, LA, Class of 1956. He enrolled in Louisiana State University, was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity, and earned a Bachelor’s degree. After graduation he met Maureen May Maxwell while attending Grace Episcopal Church in New Orleans. They married on September 1, 1962 and started their family soon thereafter. He attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, earned his Master of Divinity degree and was ordained into the priesthood on May 25, 1966–an achievement he was very proud of. After seminary, Father Harry was the priest in charge at Holy Comforter in Lecompte, LA and Trinity Episcopal Church in Cheneyville, LA. He joined the United States Air Force as an officer and chaplain. He served 21 years and retired as a Major–receiving the Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal with three Oak leaf clusters, Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Air Force Overseas Short Tour Ribbon, and the Air Force Overseas Long Tour Ribbon with one Oak. His Air Force career brought him and his family many places: San Antonio, TX; Osan, Korea; Hampton, VA; Adana, Turkey; Biloxi, MS; Anchorage, AK; and Niceville, FL. After retiring from the Air Force, Father Harry served as Rector for the Church of the Epiphany in Crestview, FL. He was passionate about prison ministry and later served as a chaplain in the Florida state prison system for 10 years, in Calhoun and Walton Counties.
Father Harry had an unwavering love for his family and was compassionate and caring to all. He had the gift of making everyone feel special and seen. He had a great sense of humor and appreciated making others smile. He enjoyed camping, fishing, bluegrass music, genealogy, traveling the world with his family, and cherished large family celebrations. A lifelong learner, Father Harry was a conversationalist, deep thinker, and theologian who held C.S. Lewis in high regard. He hosted theology classes up to his final days, with his favorite saying being “Ain’t Jesus Good!” Harry was unique and irreplaceable, well respected and liked, and will be deeply and dearly missed by all who knew and loved him.
In lieu of flowers kindly consider, memorial contributions in memory of: The Reverend Harry Steadman Tipton to: Church of the Epiphany 424 Garden Street, Crestview, FL 32536 or Kairos Prison Ministry International www.kairosprisonministry.org
Relatives and friends are invited to attend the funeral at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, 4499 Sharp Road, Mandeville, Louisiana 70448 on Friday, September 23, 2022 at 10:30 AM with visitation beginning at 9:30 AM until service time. Interment will follow the service in Southeast Louisiana Veterans Cemetery at 34888 Grantham College Drive, Slidell, Louisiana 70460.
E.J. Fielding Funeral Home locally owned and operated, (985) 892-9222 has been entrusted with funeral arrangements.
The Tipton family invites you to share thoughts, fondest memories, and condolences online at E. J. Fielding Funeral Home Guest Book at www.ejfieldingfh.com.
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The Justice Dept.s Jan. 6 Investigation Is Looking At Everything
The Justice Dept.’s Jan. 6 Investigation Is Looking At … Everything https://digitalalaskanews.com/the-justice-dept-s-jan-6-investigation-is-looking-at-everything/
Dozens of subpoenas issued last week show that the Justice Department is seeking vast amounts of information, and communications with more than 100 people, as part of its sprawling inquiry into the origins, fundraising and motives of the effort to block Joe Biden from being certified as president in early 2021.
The subpoenas, three of which were reviewed by The Washington Post, are far-reaching, covering 18 separate categories of information, including any communications the recipients had with scores of people in six states where supporters of then-President Donald Trump sought to promote “alternate” electors to replace electors in those states won by Biden.
One request is for any communications “to, from, or including” specific people tied to such efforts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Most of the names listed were proposed fake electors in those states, while a small number were Trump campaign officials who organized the slates.
Taken together, the subpoenas show an investigation that began immediately after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and has cast an ever-widening net, even as it gathers information about those in the former president’s inner circle.
“It looks like a multipronged fraud and obstruction investigation,” said Jim Walden, a former federal prosecutor. “It strikes me that they’re going after a very, very large group of people, and my guess is they are going to make all of the charging decisions toward the end.”
After being told the various categories of information sought in the indictment, Walden noted the focus on wide categories of communications among the individuals. He said he suspected it was part of a prosecutorial strategy to try to blunt any claims that Trump activists were just following the advice of lawyers in seeking to block the certification of Biden’s victory.
“It’s hard to say you were just relying on all these lawyers if there are text chains showing conspirator conversations, or consciousness of guilt,” Walden said.
A subpoena is not proof or even evidence of wrongdoing, but rather a demand for information that could produce evidence of criminal conduct. The new batch of subpoenas point to three main areas of Justice Department interest, distinct but related:
the effort to replace valid Biden electors with unearned, pro-Trump electors before the formal congressional tally of the 2020 election outcome on Jan. 6, 2021
the rally that preceded the riot that day
the fundraising and spending of the Save America political action committee, an entity that raised more than $100 million in the wake of the 2020 election, largely based on appeals to mount pro-Trump legal challenges to election results.
Even those three prongs don’t capture other, important parts of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation, in which more than 870 people have been arrested for alleged crimes of violence, trespass and — in the case of two extremist groups who prosecutors say played key roles in the chaos — seditious conspiracy. Hundreds more are still being sought for crimes related to the riot.
The Justice Department inspector general is investigating a former senior Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, for possible conspiracy, false statements and obstruction, according to a new letter filed in his bar disciplinary case. According to emails and public testimony, Clark tried to get the Justice Department to publicly express doubts about the election results, even going so far as to be willing to take over the department from his then-boss, Jeffrey Rosen, to do so. He has denied wrongdoing.
In another sign that the Justice Department’s own role in 2020 is also part of the ever-growing investigation, the recent subpoenas seek any communications with “any member, employee, or agent of the United States Department of Justice, or any component, branch, litigating unit, or office” of the agency.
The subpoenas reviewed by The Post also seek broad categories of additional information from the recipients, who include former Trump aides and Republican activists. The subpoenas demand that recipients produce, within two weeks, all documents and communications “relating to Certification” of the election, as well as anything “relating to or constituting any evidence (a) tending to show that there was fraud of any kind relating to the 2020 Presidential Election, or (b) used or relied upon to support any claim of fraud in relation to the 2020 Presidential Election.”
Also requested is any documentation “relating to any information conveyed to you or any other person challenging, rebutting, undercutting, tending to show, or claiming that there was not fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election, or claiming or tending to show that any allegation of fraud was unfounded, baseless, or incorrect in whole or in part,” as well as anything sent to any local, state, or federal official about claims of election fraud, or efforts to persuade government officials to “change or affect” the election results, “or delay certification of the results.”
Some of the people who have received subpoenas said there was no way to comply within the two-week time frame, because there were so many categories of information and so many things to review, and some of the recipients don’t even have lawyers yet. It is not uncommon for recipients of subpoenas to seek and receive more time to produce all the requested information. Two Trump advisers said more than 30 people received subpoenas in the probe, including some who were low-level administrative staff. Trump’s team is arranging lawyers for at least some of the aides under subpoena, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.
Trump himself has not received a subpoena, according to a person close to him, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.
The burst of subpoenas comes about two months after a similar flurry in mid-June, which sought communications with dozens of individuals, including Trump lawyers and advocates such as Rudy Giuliani, Bernard Kerik and others.
Kerik is among those who were hit with a subpoena this month, showing that the Justice Department, which was criticized by some lawyers earlier this year for not aggressively investigating those close to Trump, is now examining the conduct of many different categories of people — including some very close to the former president.
Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows received a subpoena earlier in the summer seeking documents he had already turned over the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, and has turned over responsive records, said a person familiar with the subpoena, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. The subpoena did not seek Meadows’s testimony or documents he had withheld from the committee citing executive privilege, the person said.
CNN reported late Wednesday that Meadows provided documents to a Justice Department subpoena. Another former senior Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, also received a subpoena. His subpoena was first reported by the New York Times.
After turning over thousands of emails and text messages to the House committee in response to a congressional subpoena, Meadows ended his cooperation with that panel, citing executive privilege. He also sued the House, seeking to quash the congressional subpoena; that case remains pending in federal court.
“Without confirming or denying any interaction with the Justice Department investigation, Mr. Meadows’ posture has been to meet his legal obligations as to both the production and privilege of documents or testimony,” George Terwilliger III, Meadows’s lawyer, said.
Meadows is far from the only subpoena recipient who has been asked to provide the Justice Department with records they have already provided to the House committee.
But the new batch of subpoenas ask others not only for whatever they have turned over to the committee but whatever documentation they have that would be responsive to the committee’s request — indicating that federal prosecutors are trying to make sure that if witnesses have come across new material, that they should provide that, too.
The request for copies of what was already given to the Jan. 6 committee also points to a long-festering problem for the Justice Department — the House committee has been slow to provide the department access to the committee’s evidence, a potentially critical issue as prosecutors prepare to go to trial against members of the Oath Keepers group and others. The new subpoenas appear to be an attempt by the department, at least in part, to gather that evidence by other means.
The subpoenas also seek all “documents and communications relating to the Save America PAC, including, but not limited to, documents related to the formation of the Save America PAC, the funding of the Save America PAC, and/or the use of money received by the Save America PAC.”
By seeking information about the political action committee, the Justice Department appears to be looking for evidence of fraud. Prosecutors must meet a high legal threshold to bring criminal charges in such cases.
“You have to prove they knew it was a lie, and fraudulently raised money off it anyways,” said a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. “I’m not sure any of the people [who donated to the PAC] would want action.”
The Justice Department has added fraud and public corruption experts to its investigative team, this person said, and is “fully staffed for business,” though, as the subpoenas reflect, that work is still in the early stages.
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Rep. Maloney Introduces Bills To Curb Future Trump-Like Presidents
Rep. Maloney Introduces Bills To Curb Future Trump-Like Presidents https://digitalalaskanews.com/rep-maloney-introduces-bills-to-curb-future-trump-like-presidents/
WASHINGTON — A package of bills that Democrats hope will curb any future Trump-like presidents passed the House Thursday, advancing measures that could stand as a legacy to departing Rep. Carolyn Maloney.
The bills aim to shield the U.S. Census from White House manipulation, protect federal workers who blow the whistle on renegade administrations, and prevent presidents from easily removing career civil service in favor of political appointees.
The Census bill in particular has been a focus for Maloney, whose office raised concerns early in Donald Trump’s presidency about how his administration was preparing for the decennial count of Americans. Among other things, Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, attempted to add a citizenship question to the survey outside of the normal process.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Career Census officials warned that step could cause problems, including causing an over-count of white Americans. The Supreme Court ultimately barred the question over improper process after lower courts ruled it had been sparked by “racial animus.”
“The previous administration took steps that undermined the bipartisan nature of the Census,” Maloney said in a debate ahead of the votes, pointing to unprecedented numbers of political appointees Trump named to the Census, as well as the procedural irregularities. “Partisan manipulation of the census is simply wrong.”
The whistleblower bill would plug a loophole in federal law after a judge ruled in 2020 that agencies are allowed to investigate employees who allege wrongdoing in certain circumstances, rather than the wrongdoing itself.
A third bill, called the “Preventing a Patronage System Act,” would bar the White House from reclassifying whole classes federal civil servants as eligible to be removed at the whim of a president to be replaced by political appointees.
“Blind loyalty and ideological purity tests must never determine who we trust with securing our nation’s borders, fortifying federal IT systems, caring for seniors and veterans, fighting public health threats, or responding to natural disasters,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). “As one former federal human resource expert said, do we really think a government of political hacks and psychophants is in the best interest of the American people?”
Although some Republicans supported the bills, most GOP lawmakers ripped the measures as an attempt to entrench federal bureaucrats and a reflection of Democrats’ obsession with Trump.
“Our founding fathers never envisioned a massive unelected, unaccountable federal government with the power to create policies that impact Americans’ everyday lives, but that’s currently the state of today’s federal bureaucracy,” said Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). “President Trump sought to take on this bureaucracy and restore power to the people by draining the swamp.”
Connolly fired back that a lot had changed since the founders drafted the Constitution.
“I remind my friend from Kentucky, neither did they ever envision the state of Kentucky. As a matter of fact, what is now Kentucky was claimed and owned by my home state, Virginia,” Connolly said. “There are a lot of things that weren’t envisioned back in the 1780s that we have to deal with in the 21st century, and that’s what we’re doing here today.”
The bills’ fates are uncertain in the Senate. With time running out on this session of Congress, the Senate’s calendar is already crowded with bills. In order to pass, Maloney’s bills would likely have to be attached to a larger one, such as a government funding bill.
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Trump Warns Of https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-warns-of/
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Dearie Named Special Master To Review Trumps Mar-A-Lago Documents
Dearie Named Special Master To Review Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Documents https://digitalalaskanews.com/dearie-named-special-master-to-review-trumps-mar-a-lago-documents/
A federal judge has appointed Raymond J. Dearie, a former chief federal judge in New York, to sort through the more than 11,000 documents — including classified materials — that FBI agents seized from former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence last month, to see if any should be shielded from criminal investigators because of attorney-client or executive privileges.
The decision could significantly slow a high-profile investigation of the former president, one which prosecutors say has already been paused at a key juncture by the judge’s skepticism that the Justice Department has acted fairly in investigating Trump.
Trump’s legal team proposed Dearie as a candidate to be the special master in the high-profile case, and the Justice Department agreed with the selection last week. But the two sides still disagree on whether searching through the highly sensitive classified documents should be part of the special master’s responsibilities.
Ultimately, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon ruled in Trump’s favor and said the special master should examine the classified documents, though she said Dearie should prioritize those materials. She denied a bid by prosecutors to allow them to use the seized material in their ongoing criminal investigation before Dearie conducts his review.
In her Thursday night ruling, Cannon rejected Justice Department arguments that her decision to prohibit investigators from using the seized information while the special master conducts his review will cause serious harm to the national security investigation.
Even-handed application of legal rules “does not demand unquestioning trust in the determinations of the Department of Justice,” Cannon wrote in a decision that is almost certainly to be appealed by the government.
Cannon, a Trump appointee confirmed by the U.S. Senate just days after Trump lost his bid for reelection, added that she still “firmly” believes that the appointment of a special master, and a temporary injunction against the Justice Department using the documents, is in keeping “with the need to ensure at least the appearance of fairness and integrity under unprecedented circumstances.”
Prosecutors had previously signaled that if Cannon did not amend her restrictions on the criminal investigation of Trump and his aides for possibly mishandling national defense information, or hiding or destroying government records, they would file an appeal. Prosecutors had also asked that any special master review not include the roughly 100 classified documents the FBI found among the confiscated materials when it executed a court-approved search warrant on Aug. 8. The government said that delaying investigators’ access to those documents could pose national security risks.
In asking the judge to walk back at least part of her special master ruling, prosecutors had argued that Trump could not possibly have an attorney-client or executive privilege claim over classified documents, which by definition are the property of the federal government.
Cannon roundly rejected those arguments in her filing, saying that whether the documents marked classified were actually classified is a matter of dispute. Trump’s lawyers have suggested the documents may not be classified, but have not asserted in their court appearances or court filings that Trump declassified them.
The judge said she did not necessarily believe the prosecutors, writing, “The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion.”
Dearie, 78, was nominated to the federal bench in Brooklyn by President Ronald Reagan after serving as U.S. Attorney in the same district. Fellow lawyers and colleagues describe him as an exemplary jurist who is well suited to the job of special master, having previously served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees sensitive national security cases.
Patrick Cotter, who served as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, said he was surprised Trump’s team suggested such a smart, low-key judge.
“There wasn’t much personality, and I mean that as a compliment. Ray wasn’t chummy, and he wasn’t a good ol’ Brooklyn boy or high-falutin’ guy trying to impress you,” Cotter said. “He was a very matter-of-fact, down to earth judge with a minimum of pomposity. He will do a credible job, and will do it quickly.”
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
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M https://digitalalaskanews.com/m-3/
Australian mineral exploration companies have been busy this summer with drill programs targeting gold prospects on the Treasure Creek and 64North projects that Millrock Resources Inc. has generated in Alaska’s Fairbanks and Goodpaster mining districts.
Treasure Creek is one property that makes up an enormous land package that Millrock and Felix Gold Ltd. have accumulated in the Fairbanks Mining District.
As a private company, Felix entered into a strategic alliance with Millrock Resources Inc. in 2021 on several Interior Alaska gold exploration projects – Treasure Creek and Ester Dome near the city of Fairbanks, plus the Liberty Bell project about 70 miles to the southwest.
In exchange for becoming a roughly 6% shareholder of Felix after its early 2022 listing on the Australia Stock Exchange, Millrock assigned the company all rights to the Fairbanks District and Liberty Bell properties.
In the Goodpaster District, Resolution Minerals Ltd. is exploring Tourmaline Ridge on the West Pogo Block of the roughly 106,250-acre 64North gold project in the Goodpaster Mining District.
Under a deal signed at the end of 2019, Resolution has the option to earn up to a 60% joint venture interest in 64North, which consists of nine claim blocks Millrock assembled around Northern Star Resources Ltd.’s Pogo gold mine property.
While drill programs have been carried out this summer at Treasure Creek and Tourmaline Ridge, only a handful of results have been returned for both projects due to slow turnaround times at the assay labs.
Treasure Creek
Since its deal with Millrock, Felix has expanded its land position to roughly 151 square miles (392 square kilometers) in the Fairbanks District, a region that has produced more than 8 million ounces of placer gold. The Australian exploration company’s name is a nod to Felix Pedro, who discovered gold about 20 miles north of the now city of Fairbanks in 1902.
A soil sampling program carried out last year identified two key targets for 2022 drilling – Northwest Array and Eastgate.
So far this year, Felix has completed 12,424 meters of reverse circulation drilling in 131 holes to test these two prospect areas, Scrafford Shear, and reconnaissance lines to gain a better understanding of the geology and mineralization around the three prospect areas.
So far, the company has reported results from the first nine holes drilled at Northwest Array; highlights include:
• 29 meters averaging 1.4 grams per metric ton gold from a depth of 24.4 meters in hole 22TCRC002.
• 33.5 meters averaging 1.63 g/t gold from a depth of 1.5 meters in hole 22TCRC005.
• 89.9 meters averaging 1.2 g/t gold from a depth of 32 meters in hole 22TCRC008.
“The thick, shallow intercepts of strong gold tenor that we reported in early August were a strong validation of the reasons that we focused our attention on the Fairbanks Gold Mining District and, in particular, secured the Treasure Creek Project,” said Felix Gold Managing Director Joe Webb.
The primary objective of the RC drill program was to identify one or more key areas for infill and potential resource definition drilling in 2023.
Felix is now having four diamond holes drilled at NW Array and Eastgate. The key objective for these holes is to test the depth extent of mineralization encountered with RC drilling, test new induced polarization geophysical targets at Eastgate, and gain further geological information.
“We now have a big pipeline of RC drill assays to flow over coming months and are excited to have commenced diamond drilling at Treasure Creek to test potential depth extent and target zones at depth, including the key Eastgate IP target,” said Webb.
Felix Gold also flew a virtual time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) airborne geophysical survey over Treasure Creek to complement a previously flow magnetic survey.
“Felix Gold executed an excellent drilling program this year and we look forward to seeing the results,” said Millrock Resources President and CEO Gregory Beischer. “We think the potential of the Fairbanks District has not been fully recognized, but that it soon will be.”
Millrock currently owns 9.96 million Felix Gold shares and holds 1% to 2% net smelter return royalties on all claims currently held by Felix Gold in the Fairbanks District.
Tourmaline Ridge
Resolution has completed its 2022 drilling at Tourmaline Ridge, a 64North gold prospect about three miles west of Northern Star’s Pogo Mine.
Tourmaline Ridge covers a 1,850- by 750-meter prospective area detected by soil sampling.
Earlier this month, Resolution reported results from two of the five holes drilled this year.
Although no significant gold results were encountered in these holes, Resolution says anomalous gold is common and shows distinctive trends associated with Pogo-style quartz veins.
Hole 22TR001 intersected altered rocks with indications of multiple hydrothermal fluid flow events, and hole 22TR003 intersected quartz veins containing bismuthinite and pyrite.
Resolution Minerals Ltd.
A crewmember loads up core from Resolution Minerals’ 2022 drilling at the Tourmaline Ridge prospect on the 64North gold project in Alaska’s Goodpaster Mining District.
“Elevated gold results from this batch were associated with narrow Pogo-style quartz veins with sulphide minerals and, if thicker occurrences of this type of material occur at Tourmaline Ridge, then there is good potential for economic accumulations of gold at the prospect,” said Resolution Managing Director Steve Groves.
The Australia-based exploration company anticipates receipt of the remaining assay results, representing 86% of the total samples submitted to assay labs, in November.
“This sample batch represents only about 16% of the material sampled and given the distance from other holes and the complexities of 22TR001, are not considered by the RML (Resolution Minerals) team as representative of the gold potential from the remaining 84% of submitted sample material,” Groves added.
So far, Resolution has earned a 42% interest in the 64North gold project, and Millrock owns 23.1 million Resolution shares.
Author Bio
Shane Lasley, Publisher
Over his more than 14 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (907) 726-1095
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Zelenskyy Says Mass Grave Found Near Kharkiv City; As Ukraine Firepower Thunders Russian Troops Flee To The Border: Live Updates
Zelenskyy Says Mass Grave Found Near Kharkiv City; As Ukraine Firepower Thunders, Russian Troops Flee To The Border: Live Updates https://digitalalaskanews.com/zelenskyy-says-mass-grave-found-near-kharkiv-city-as-ukraine-firepower-thunders-russian-troops-flee-to-the-border-live-updates/
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the northeastern city of Izium has become the latest location where the Russians have left behind mass graves.
Zelenskyy said Thursday that Ukrainian authorities have found a mass burial site near Izium in the recently recaptured Kharkiv region previously occupied by Russian forces.
“Bucha, Mariupol, now, unfortunately, Izium,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly televised address, adding that confirmation would likely come Friday. “Russia leaves death everywhere. And it must be held accountable for it. The world must bring Russia to real responsibility for this war.”
The Associated Press reported that its journalists saw the site in a forest outside Izium on Thursday. A mass grave had a marker saying it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. It was surrounded by hundreds of individual graves with only crosses to mark them.
TURNING POINT IN UKRAINE WAR: As Russia admits defeat in Kharkiv, Ukraine regains land, confidence
Latest developments:
►The U.N. atomic agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution Thursday calling on Russia to immediately end its occupation of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, where shelling of the facility and nearby areas in recent weeks heightened fears of a possible radiation disaster.
►Superstar guard Stephen Curry of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors said his “contacts in the Biden administration rebuffed an offer to help” the efforts to free WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russian captivity.
Russians flee to the border near Kharkiv
Tensions were rising in Russian villages bordering the Kharkiv region Thursday as the roar of the Ukraine military’s firepower edged closer to the border.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said residents were wounded when Ukraine shells slammed into one border village, and private houses, farm buildings and power lines in another were partially destroyed. Vyacheslav Gladkov also ordered the evacuation of several villages.
Ukraine has retaken thousands of miles and more than 300 villages and towns this month. The Ukraine Defense Ministry said Russian troops fleeing the Ukraine advance are massing at the Belgorod border, where other Russian troops are keeping them from crossing over.
“They have no communication with the command,” the ministry said in a statement. “There is no supply of food and ammunition.”
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, reporting from Belgorod in recent days, found locals who expressed fear and concern. One schoolteacher said she told students who heard missiles that the sound was only thunder.
Some residents have fled to Belgorod from villages in Ukraine after working for Russian administrations – only to have the Russians abandon the Ukraine towns. Now they fear payback from Ukrainian authorities who view them as traitors.
Biden to meet relatives of Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan at White House
President Joe Biden will hold separate meetings Friday at the White House with relatives of WNBA star Brittney Griner and Michigan security executive Paul Whelan, the Associated Press reported, citing senior administration officials.
This will be the first in-person contact between the president and family members of the two Americans being held captive in Russia, considered by the U.S. government to be “wrongfully detained.”
The Biden administration said in July that it had made a “substantial proposal” to get them home in a prisoner exchange, but those efforts so far have proved fruitless.
Griner has been held in Russia since February on drug-related charges. She was sentenced last month to nine years in prison after pleading guilty, and has appealed the punishment. Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage-related charges that he and his family say are false. Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, visited Moscow this week to discuss their release.
Putin acknowledges China’s ‘concerns’ about war in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged China has “questions and concerns” about Moscow’s war in Ukraine as he met with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Thursday in Uzbekistan.
“We highly appreciate the well-balanced position of our Chinese friends in connection with the Ukrainian crisis,” said Putin, who took the opportunity to blast the West. “We understand your questions and concerns in this regard.”
Putin’s rare mention of Chinese worries comes as Beijing has been anxious about the impact of volatile oil prices and economic uncertainty resulting from a war that has lasted nearly seven months and has seen Russia experience some embarrassing battlefield setbacks.
China’s economy has already taken a downturn this year in large part because of its strict anti-COVID measures. Russia has dramatically increased energy sales to China in recent months as Europe purchases declined because of sanctions.
Xi did not make any references to Ukraine in his public comments during the meeting on the sidelines of the eight-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security alliance created as a counterweight to U.S. influence. The alliance also includes India, Pakistan and four ex-Soviet nations in Central Asia.
Some Russian troops in Kharkiv ‘fled in apparent panic,’ British ministry says
The Russian retreat from the Kharkiv region, where Ukrainian forces have been consolidating their recently recaptured territory, was in some instances orderly but at other times the troops “fled in apparent panic,” the British Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update.
In the process, the Russians left behind valuable equipment “essential to enable Russia’s artillery-centric style of warfare,” the ministry said, concluding that such abandonment illustrates “localized breakdowns in command and control.”
Contributing: The Associated Press
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