Digital Alaska News

Trump Supporter From Oklahoma Pleads Guilty To Illegally Going Inside US Capitol https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-supporter-from-oklahoma-pleads-guilty-to-illegally-going-inside-us-capitol/ A Trump supporter from Oklahoma pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor, admitting that he illegally went inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, for 34 minutes. Levi Roy Gable, 37, of Chouteau, faces up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. His sentencing was set for Jan. 10 in federal court in Washington, D.C. “Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?” U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb asked him during a hearing held by video. “Yes, your honor,” he replied. The illegal entry came just before Mike Pence, then the vice president, was evacuated from the Senate chambers, according to a statement of the offense. Gable was turned in by a college fraternity brother who saw videos of the riot and a post about it on his Facebook page, the FBI reported. “I was among the first people to make our way into the US Capitol Building,” he purportedly posted on Facebook, according to the FBI. “Those in the building first were there in protest of Vice President Mike Pence’s statement that he would not stand with the American people and challenge the results of 2020’s stolen presidential election. “We were there to make our voices be heard.” Gable had been charged with four misdemeanor counts. Under a plea agreement, three counts will be dismissed at his sentencing. He must pay $500 in restitution. He was arrested in May in Tulsa. Thousands marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after then-President Donald Trump spoke at a rally and urged them to fight like hell. Rioters overwhelmed Capitol police to breach the building, delaying the formal counting of the Electoral College votes that had Joe Biden winning the presidential election. Trump had pressured Pence — as president of the Senate — to block the certification of the results. Pence refused, describing his role as largely ceremonial. In the statement of his offense, Gable acknowledged that he traveled by plane from Oklahoma to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021, to protest the certification. He acknowledged that he attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and then marched with other protesters to the Capitol. He entered the Capitol at approximately 2:19 p.m. through the Senate Wing Door after windows on both sides of the door had been smashed. according to the statement. About a minute later, Pence and members of the House and Senate “were instructed to − and did − evacuate the chambers.” “Gable, together with others, remained inside the Capitol at various locations … until approximately 2:53 p.m.,” according to the statement. He “falsely denied having entered the Capitol” during a law enforcement interview on Jan. 21, 2021. In deciding his punishment, the judge will take into consideration Gable’s criminal history. He pleaded guilty in 2005 to a federal bank robbery charge. Gable has worked for his family’s excavation company in Tulsa for years. He was vice president of Gable’s Excavating at the time of his arrest. He is no longer mentioned in the “About Us” section of the company’s website. So far, nine Oklahomans have been charged out of the investigation of the attack on the Capitol. The last one was in July Read More Here

Iran Will Make 'proportional' Response To Ukraine Reducing Ties https://digitalalaskanews.com/iran-will-make-proportional-response-to-ukraine-reducing-ties/ A national Iranian flag waves in the wind over a building of the Iranian embassy, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine September 24, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Sept 24 (Reuters) – Iran is planning “proportional action” in response to Ukraine’s decision to downgrade diplomatic ties over the reported supply of Iranian drones to Russia, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson said on Saturday. Nasser Kanaani said Ukraine should “refrain from being influenced by third parties who seek to destroy relations between the two countries”, a ministry statement said. Ukraine said on Friday that it would withdraw accreditation of the Iranian ambassador and significantly reduce the number of diplomatic staff at the Iranian embassy in Kyiv over Tehran’s decision to supply Russian forces with drones, a move President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called “a collaboration with evil”. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Kanaani said Ukraine’s decision was “based on unconfirmed reports and resulted from a media hype by foreign parties”. He did not directly refer to drones. Iran has previously denied supplying drones to Russia, but the hardline daily Kayhan said on Saturday “hundreds of armed drones” have been sold. “For a while now, Iranian drones have been carrying out operations in Ukraine’s skies against NATO,” said the newspaper, whose head is appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Military authorities in southern Ukraine said on Saturday they had shot down at least seven Iranian drones, including six Shahed-136 “kamikaze” craft over the sea near the ports of Odesa and Pivdennyi on Friday. These included – for the first time in Ukraine – a Mohajer-6, a larger Iranian drone, the southern military command said. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an English language tweet on Saturday that Iran was supporting Russia “by giving modern drones to (a) backward country for the murders of Ukrainians”. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Dubai newsroom and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Frances Kerry and Peter Graff Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More Here

Indian-Origin Home Minister Suella Braverman Wins First Queen Elizabeth II Award https://digitalalaskanews.com/indian-origin-home-minister-suella-braverman-wins-first-queen-elizabeth-ii-award/ Last Updated: 24th September, 2022 17:22 IST Britain’s Indian-origin Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been named winner of the first-ever Queen Elizabeth II Woman of the Year award at a ceremony in London. Image: AP Britain’s Indian-origin Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been named winner of the first-ever Queen Elizabeth II Woman of the Year award at a ceremony in London. The 42-year-old barrister, who was appointed to the Cabinet earlier this month by British Prime Minister Liz Truss, said it was the “honour of her life” to take on the new role at the Asian Achievers Awards (AAA) 2022 ceremony, dedicated to the memory of the late monarch who passed away recently. Braverman, the London-born daughter of Tamil mother Uma and Goan-origin father Christie Fernandes, sent a recorded message to the ceremony where her parents collected the award on her behalf. “My mum and dad came to this country from Kenya and Mauritius in the 1960s,” said Braverman in her message. “They’ve been proud members of our Asian community and I was born in Wembley, the heart of the Asian community, and to be elected to serve in the UK Parliament and now to serve our phenomenal and amazing and welcoming country as Home Secretary is the honour of my life. I hope to do you proud,” she said. The awards, now in their 20th year, recognise the achievements of individuals from across Britain’s South Asian community via public nominations. Other Indian-origin winners across the different categories included broadcaster Naga Munchetty in the media category, chairman and CEO of celebrated visual effects firm DNEG Namit Malhotra in the Arts and Culture category, and Captain Harpreet Chandi in the Uniformed and Civil Service category for her solo expedition across the Antarctic to the South Pole earlier this year. Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian was named Professional of Year for his pioneering DNA sequencing discovery and Karenjeet Kaur Bains won Sports Personality of the Year as the first female Sikh powerlifter to represent Britain on the global stage. Sherry Vaswani, CEO of IT services firm Xalient, won Entrepreneur of the Year and restaurateur brothers Shamil and Kavi Thakrar were named Business Persons of the Year as the founders of the successful Dishoom chain of restaurants. The Lifetime Achievement Award went to Kartar Lalvani, the founder of the UK’s well-known health supplements brand Vitabiotics. “The AAA will continue to be the platform to identify, recognise and support the innovators, visionaries and community giants that will build Britain and make the world a better place,” said Pratik Dattani, Managing Director of EPG – the global advisory firm behind the awards founded in 2000 by Asian Business Publications Limited (ABPL). The organisers said more than 500 nominations were received across the 10 categories, which were then shortlisted by judges to be evenly divided between male and female candidates. The judging panel was made up of a diverse range of professionals, including Former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bas Javid, former president of the Royal College of General Practitioners Mayur Lakhani, Monzo Bank COO Sujata Bhatia, music producer Bally Sagoo, Welsh Assembly Member Natasha Asghar, and Artistic Director of Darbar Festival, Sandeep Virdee. A charity auction conducted by celebrated author Lord Jeffery Archer raised around 100,000 pounds for the educational non-profit organisation Pardada Pardadi – which is focussed on girls’ education in India. PTI AK MRJ MRJ (Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com) First Published: 24th September, 2022 17:22 IST Read More Here

Elijah McClain's Death Caused By Complications From Ketamine Injection Following Restraint, Coroner Says In Amended Autopsy Report https://digitalalaskanews.com/elijah-mcclains-death-caused-by-complications-from-ketamine-injection-following-restraint-coroner-says-in-amended-autopsy-report/ (CNN)The autopsy report for Elijah McClain, an unarmed Black man who died while in police custody in Colorado three years ago, has been changed to update the cause of death from “undetermined” to “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint,” Adams County Chief Coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan said Friday. In August 2019, McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was walking home from a store when he was apprehended by Aurora police officers responding to a “suspicious person” call. Police said McClain had resisted and he was placed into a carotid hold. Paramedics diagnosed McClain with “excited delirium” and administered the powerful sedative ketamine. He suffered a heart attack on the way to the hospital. Three days later, he was declared brain dead. The original autopsy report listed the cause of McClain’s death as “undetermined.” The coroner’s office received body camera footage, witness statements and additional records that were part of a grand jury investigation and not available before the autopsy was performed, pathologist Dr. Stephen Cina wrote in the amended autopsy report. “Simply put, this dosage of ketamine was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose, even though the blood ketamine level was consistent with a ‘therapeutic’ concentration,” CIna wrote. “I believe that Mr. McClain would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine.” Cina, who was assisted at the autopsy by Broncucia-Jordan, wrote that based on his training and experience, he still believes the manner of death is “Undetermined.” “I acknowledge that other reasonable forensic pathologists who have trained in other places may have their philosophy regarding deaths in custody and that they may consider the manner of death in this type of case to be either HOMICIDE or ACCIDENT,” the pathologist added. CIna could not determine whether the carotid hold contributed to McClain’s death, he added. But “I have seen no evidence that injuries inflicted by the police contributed to death,” he wrote. The amended autopsy report was signed in July 2021. It was released Friday after a Denver District Court judge approved the coroner’s emergency motion. McClain’s death days after his interactions with police brought renewed scrutiny of the use of carotid holds and ketamine during law enforcement stops. His case gained renewed attention during Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Last year a grand jury indicted three police officers and two paramedics involved in the McClain case. They face charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and other charges. In 2021, the city settled a civil rights lawsuit with the McClain family for $15 million, and the Aurora police and fire departments agreed to a consent decree to address a pattern of racial bias found by a state investigation. CNN’s Rebekah Riess contributed to this report. Read More Here

The Fed Says Unemployment Will Rise. Here's Who Economists Say Would Lose Their Jobs First. https://digitalalaskanews.com/the-fed-says-unemployment-will-rise-heres-who-economists-say-would-lose-their-jobs-first/ The Federal Reserve escalated its fight against inflation this week, instituting a major rate increase and saying more will likely follow. The moves will cause a jump in the number of unemployed Americans by the end of next year, the central bank said. The Fed has put forward a series of aggressive interest rate hikes in recent months as it tries to slash price increases by slowing the economy and choking off demand. But the approach risks tipping the United States into a recession and causing widespread joblessness. Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday acknowledged that rate hikes would cause pain for the U.S. economy, as growth slows and unemployment rises. He added, however, that “a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain later on.” The job losses forecasted by the Fed this week would by the end of 2023 raise the unemployment rate from its current level of 3.7% to 4.4%. That outcome would add an estimated 1.2 million unemployed people, according to Omair Sharif, the founder of research firm Inflation Insights. Those job losses will disproportionately fall on some of the most vulnerable workers, including minorities and less-educated employees, according to economists and studies of past downturns. Here are the groups of workers who would most likely lose their jobs if unemployment rises: Black and Hispanic workers Black workers would be among the first to lose their jobs if unemployment spikes, since they’re disproportionately concentrated in industries sensitive to economic downturns. Racial discrimination often influences choices made by companies about which workers to fire, economists said. “The Fed’s actions really do mean some disparate impact for Black workers in the American economy,” Michelle Holder, a labor economist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told ABC News. The vulnerability of Black workers in a downturn manifested during the most recent recession, in spring 2020, when the pandemic caused higher unemployment for Black workers at every education level when compared with their white counterparts, a RAND Corporation study found. Overall, the unemployment rate for Black workers in the early period of the pandemic peaked at 16.8%, while the unemployment rate for white workers reached only 14.1%. Between the late 1980s and mid-2000s, government employment data shows “considerable evidence” that Black workers are among the first ones fired as the economy weakens, according to an economic study published in 2010 in Demography, an academic journal. “To be blunt, discrimination still occurs in the American labor market,” Holder said. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell hosts an event on “Fed Listens: Transitioning to the Post-pandemic Economy” at the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23, 2022. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters A similar dynamic of disproportionate job losses impacts Hispanic workers, the economists said. William Spriggs, the chief economist at the AFL-CIO labor union and a professor of economics at Howard University, said Hispanic workers would suffer acutely in a downturn brought about by interest rate hikes, since they’re disproportionately represented in the construction industry. When the Fed raises rates, it often leads to a spike in mortgage rates, causing prospective homebuyers to put off their purchases and builders to delay further construction. U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgages jumped to 6.29% on Thursday, the highest level in 14 years, according to Freddie Mac’s mortgage market survey. As of last year, Hispanic workers made up nearly a third of all construction workers, according to a National Association of Home Builders analysis of government data published in June. “We’ve already seen construction work is slowing,” Spriggs told ABC News. “Those construction workers get hit first.” Less-educated workers Another group that would stand among the first to end up jobless amid a downturn is less-educated workers. Two years ago, during the pandemic-induced recession, less-educated workers suffered far more acute job losses than their better-educated peers, according to a study published in 2021 by the Institute for New Economic Thinking. In general, when the economy weakens, poorly educated workers endure a more negative effect on employment than their better-educated counterparts, according to a study published by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve in 2010. In the Great Recession, the employment rate for workers with just a high school diploma fell 5.6%, while the employment rate for workers with a college degree fell less than 1%, the study found. “Workers who tend to fare better when the economy contracts are better-educated workers,” said Holder. Young workers Data from the two most recent recessions, in 2020 and 2007, indicates that young workers suffer disproportionately when the economy contracts. During the pandemic-induced recession, young workers became jobless at a much higher rate than older workers, according to a study released by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute in 2020. From spring 2019 to spring 2020, the overall unemployment rate among workers ages 16 to 24 rose from 8.4% to 24.4%, while unemployment for workers ages 25 and older rose from 2.8% to 11.3%, the study found. A similar outcome followed the Great Recession. Between 2007 and 2010, workers between the ages of 16 and 24 suffered a more dramatic drop in employment than any other age group, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of government data that focused on the ratio of employed workers in a given demographic compared to its representation in the population as a whole. Read More Here

Donald Trump Will Fight Hard Against Letitia James' Lawsuit. Ex-AG Insiders Say These Are His Top 5 Defenses. https://digitalalaskanews.com/donald-trump-will-fight-hard-against-letitia-james-lawsuit-ex-ag-insiders-say-these-are-his-top-5-defenses/ Donald Trump has 5 ways to fight Letitia James’ lawsuit, ex-NY AG prosecutors told Insider. Trump will play dumb, cry bias, and delay, delay, delay, they said. James filed a 220-page lawsuit against Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization on Wednesday. Loading Something is loading. Donald Trump will try every legal tactic possible to save his Manhattan-based business empire from New York attorney general Letitia James’ lawsuit, former office prosecutors said. It won’t be pretty, and barring a settlement, it won’t be fast, they said of the slow-motion legal brawl to come. But it will be heated, these New York AG veterans said of the battle over Wednesday’s lawsuit and its potentially corporation-crippling penalties. James accused Trump of routinely lying about the value of his properties to secure hundreds of millions in bank loans and tax breaks; she wants a judge to order $250 million in penalties and to bar the Trump family from selling, buying, collecting rent, or borrowing money in New York.  The outcome is by no means assured. Insider spoke to three defense lawyers who, before going into private practice, spent years prosecuting complex financial cases for the New York AG’s office. Here are their picks for Trump’s top 5 defenses. Trump Defense No. 1: She’s out to get me “I never heard of her,” Trump complained to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday, hours after the lawsuit dropped. “But I saw this woman,” he said of James’ 2018 run for AG. “And she said, ‘We’re going to get him.'”  “Her whole campaign was based on that,” he added. It was not the first time Trump has raised the “She’s out to get me” defense. He’s cried “bias” repeatedly and unsuccessfully in fighting James’ three-year investigation into the Trump Organization. In February he even compiled her history of anti-Trump statements into an 11-page spreadsheet.  “They’re definitely going to waste a lot of paper trying to make that argument again,” in motions to dismiss filed in the coming weeks, predicted Tristan Snell, the lead prosecutor on the AG office’s separate, successful investigation into Trump University. “It will get them nowhere,” except for “whipping up their own supporters,” said Snell, who went on to found MainStreet.law. “It’s certainly not going to fly with the judge,” agreed another former NY AG prosecutor, attorney and author Kenneth McCallion. But another former AG’s office prosecutor, Armen Morian, thought the bias defense could still have legs as an argument for dismissing the lawsuit.  “It’s not trivial that she was out there saying, ‘I’m going to go after Trump,'” said Morian, who prosecuted complex financial frauds from 2006 to 2019 before founding Morian Law. “It’s a violation of her oath of office and a violation of his due process rights,” Morian said. Defense No. 2: real estate valuations are subjective A property’s worth is subjective, and Trump’s side will certainly argue this in trying to beat James’ lawsuit. But you can’t simultaneously low-ball (for a tax break) and high-ball (to impress lenders) values for the same property, as James is alleging Trump did for years, the former prosecutors said.  “They can’t both be true” at the same time, said McCallion. “And you don’t have to prove which one was true and which one was false” to show fraud. You also can’t pull a valuation out of thin air.  “There’s subjective, and there’s complete fantasyland,” noted Snell. Fantasyland, as in Trump’s objectively false 2015 claim that his Trump Tower triplex on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue spanned 33,000 square feet. It was actually 11,000 square feet, a whopper of an exaggeration first reported by Forbes. Tripling his square footage let Trump claim his triplex was worth $327 million in collateral for a bank loan. It’s an “absurd” appraisal, James told reporters in unveiling the lawsuit, given that at the time, “only one apartment in New York City had ever sold for even $100 million.” Morian countered, though, that it’s common real estate practice for businesses to seek out and to use very different valuations, depending on whether you’re trying to lower your taxes or impress a bank. “So long as the valuation is based on some rationale, you are not required to use the same methodology” for every appraisal, Morian argued. “The methodology could have been wrong. The methodology could have been optimistic. But that doesn’t make a fraudulent statement,” he said. “You can’t say your 3-year-old daughter’s version of the Mona Lisa is worth the same as the Mona Lisa,” Morian explained. “That would be ridiculous. And you can’t say the Mona Lisa is worth $3. But basically, there’s a broad range of discretion for how you value assets.” Defense No. 3: I just signed whatever they gave me Trump has claimed he signed all the questionable paperwork without really looking at it.  “If he wasn’t a sophisticated, or purported sophisticated, investor and developer that might be true,” said McCallion, who heads McCallion & Associates and is the author of “Profiles in Cowardice in the Trump Era.” “But Trump was a very hands-on guy, for better or worse, in the Trump Organization world.” It’s also safe to assume, Snell said, that Trump was repeatedly asked in his August deposition whether, in fact, he blindly relied on his appraisers and accountants.  But instead of answering, Trump repeatedly pleaded the Fifth. Should the suit go to trial, case law allows the judge to infer that Trump was hiding the truth. “Answering ‘I plead the Fifth’ translates out to, ‘No, it was me,'” standing behind all the funny math, Snell said. Still, the judge must at least weigh any “I just signed what they gave me” defense, Morian said.  “Does that absolve him? Probably not,” Morain said. “But it can be a very sound factual defense that the courts would have to consider.” Defense No. 4: I never said you should trust me “We have a disclaimer, right on the front,” Trump told Hannity of the financial statements James is suing over, the ones she says wildly exaggerated his worth. “And it basically says, you know, get your own people. You’re at your own risk … so don’t rely on the statement that you’re getting,” Trump said his disclaimers warn, “because it may not be accurate. It may be way off.”  Besides, Trump argued, the banks that loaned him money “have the best lawyers in the world.” They should know better than to take him at his word. “She’s trying to defend banks that had unbelievable legal talent,” Trump complained. Trump actually has a point, Morian argued. “All you have to do is put in a tiny footnote” in a financial statement, putting the bank on notice to double-check the numbers, “and that can be enough” to avoid liability for fuzzy math, he said.  “Because it’s assumed that the reader of the financial statement is a sophisticated party,” Morian added. Besides, “I bet you all these [banks] were applying a ‘Trump haircut’ — they were assuming he was exaggerating shit by, say, 30 percent, who knows.”  Defense No. 5: No victim, no harm, no foul “By the way,” Trump also told Hannity, “I paid ’em back … They didn’t lose money … the banks made a lot of money. She’s trying to defend banks that got paid off.”  It’s the no victim, no harm, no foul defense. Or, as Trump White House budget director Mitch Mulvaney tweeted Friday, “Seriously, who is the victim here? If the banks thought they had been defrauded, they could sue on their own.” Morian sees their point, too. “There’s a yawning silence” from the banks Trump allegedly tricked into lending to him, he noted. And it’s almost like James has filed what’s known as a private claim, Morian added — “like the attorney general is suing on behalf of Deutsche Bank. She has no standing to do that.” “That will be front and center in the motions to dismiss,” agreed McCallion. “It will be her burden to show she has authority to bring this case.” But James isn’t calling the banks victims. The victims, she tweeted on Wednesday, are those she is sworn to protect, the people of New York state. “Trump’s crimes are not victimless,” she told reporters. “When the well-connected and powerful break the law to get more money than they’re entitled to, it reduces resources available to working people, small businesses, and taxpayers.” Read More Here

Josh Shapiro Wages Drama-Free Campaign In Pa. Amid Big Personalities https://digitalalaskanews.com/josh-shapiro-wages-drama-free-campaign-in-pa-amid-big-personalities/ By MARC LEVY, Associated Press CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, is perhaps best known as an election denier who was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. John Fetterman, the Democrat hoping to flip the state’s Senate seat, has revolutionized how campaigns use social media. And Dr. Mehmet Oz was a TV celebrity long before he launched a GOP Senate campaign. And then there’s Josh Shapiro. In one of the most politically competitive states in the U.S., the Democratic contender for governor is waging a notably drama-free campaign, betting that a relatively under the radar approach will resonate with voters exhausted by a deeply charged political environment. But Shapiro faces a test of whether his comparatively low-key style will energize Democrats to rally against Mastriano, who many in the party view as an existential threat. The GOP candidate, who worked to keep Donald Trump in power and overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, supports ending abortion rights and would be in position to appoint the secretary of state, who oversees elections in this state that is often decisive in choosing presidents. The tension of Shapiro’s strategy was on display during a recent swing through this small city, a dot in deeply Republican south central Pennsylvania. He spent 10 minutes ticking through his record as a two-term attorney general and his policy goals if he becomes governor, such as expanding high-speed internet and boosting school funding. But he also acknowledged that he knew what was on the minds of audience members, noting how his wife gives him a simple reminder every morning: “You better win.” The 49-year-old Shapiro then became more explicit about the implications of a Mastriano win. “This guy is the most dangerous, extreme person to ever run for governor in Pennsylvania and by far the most dangerous, extreme candidate running for office in the United States of America,” Shapiro told the crowd in Chambersburg, Mastriano’s home base in his conservative state Senate district. Shapiro is managing something of a two-pronged campaign, one built for a conventional election year and another aimed at the tense political environment in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and the overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights. Last month, Shapiro released a TV ad statewide that discussed a case he brought as attorney general against a contractor who agreed to repay wages after Shapiro’s office accused it of stealing from workers. Then, he’s also aired TV ads describing Mastriano as a threat to democracy, pointing out that Mastriano watched at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as pro-Trump demonstrators attacked police. “It was there that day that my opponent sided with the angry mob, marched to the Capitol, breached the police lines, and he did so with one purpose, all of them: they didn’t want your votes to count,” Shapiro told an audience in Gettysburg, prompting one woman to call out, “He’s a traitor.” That message isn’t lost on the Democrats who go see Shapiro. “I think this is just a critical election,” said Marissa Sandoe, 29. “I think this election will determine whether we still have a democracy in this nation.” Shapiro later shrugs off suggestions that, for his supporters, the grist of normal-year gubernatorial politics is being drowned out by existential issues, like saving democracy. “I’m focused like a laser beam on making Pennsylvanians’ lives better,” Shapiro said. The first midterm of a new administration is often challenging for the president’s party. But for now, polls suggest Shaprio is leading Mastriano and he also has a significant fundraising advantage. Shapiro has run more than $20 million worth of TV ads, while Mastriano has run hardly anything, and nothing since the primary. Campaigning in the state where Biden was born, Shaprio may benefit from a recovery in Biden’s approval. The president’s popularity nationally has improved to 45% from 36% in July, although concerns about his handling of the economy persist, according to a September poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Republican Party leaders who initially criticized Mastriano as being too extreme to win the fall general election say he could still win, despite his flaws, if the electorate is angry enough over inflation to check every box against Democrats as a vote against Biden. But Republicans acknowledge Mastriano is running a race focused largely on his right-wing base, instead of reaching out to the moderates who often put winners over the top in one of America’s most politically divided states. Mastriano has gotten institutional fundraising help, including events headlined by state party leaders, Donald Trump Jr. and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but Republican strategists have whispered that the fundraisers aren’t well-attended and Mastriano went on Facebook this week to complain about a lack of support from “national-level Republican organizations.” “We haven’t seen much assistance coming from them and we’re 49 days out,” Mastriano said. At campaign events, Mastriano promises to be a pro-energy governor and bus migrants to Biden’s home in Delaware, and he warns that Shapiro is pursuing an extreme agenda. “If we’re extreme about anything, it’s about loving our constitution,” Mastriano told a rally crowd in nearby Chambersburg earlier this month. For his part, Shapiro is gamely going about the campaign, taking advantage of Mastriano’s weaknesses. The Democrat will be a guest in early October at the annual dinner of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, a group accustomed to endorsing Republicans for governor. Mastriano hasn’t accepted even its invitation to speak to its board, something Shapiro already did. Building-trades unions that work on power plants, pipelines and refineries in a coal and natural gas powerhouse haven’t heeded Mastriano’s promises that “we’re going to drill and dig like there’s no tomorrow.” Instead, they have accepted Shapiro’s middle-of-the-road stance on energy and attacked Mastriano’s support for right-to-work policies as anathema even to rank-and-file members who vote Republican. “Here’s one thing my members get: They’ll never, ever be with someone who is for right-to-work, ever,” said James Snell, the business manager of Steamfitters Local 420 in Philadelphia. Shapiro is also taking centrist positions that might help inoculate himself against Mastriano’s attacks. The race got personal, with Mastriano repeatedly criticizing Shapiro’s choice of a private school for his children — a Jewish day school — as “one of the most privileged, entitled schools in the nation.” Shapiro, a devout conservative Jew, responded that Mastriano — who espouses what scholars call Christian nationalist ideology — wants to impose his religion on others and “dictate to folks where and how they should worship and on what terms.” Shapiro dug deeper on Mastriano, saying he speaks in “anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic tropes every day.” Mastriano calls those distractions from Shapiro’s record as attorney general and failure to stem rising homicides in Philadelphia. Still, Shapiro is drawing crowds on Mastriano’s turf, far from his power base in Philadelphia’s upscale suburbs. It is fertile ground, said Marty Qually, a Democratic county commissioner in Adams County, which includes Gettysburg, because Democrats are riled up like he’s never seen before and even Republicans there tell him they cannot accept Mastriano’s Christian nationalism or hard-line abortion stance. It speaks volumes that Shapiro is campaigning in small towns, and not in Democratic strongholds: It means that he’s comfortable with where the race is, Qually said. “Some folks here said: ‘Why do you want to go to Franklin County? That’s where the other guy’s from,’” Shapiro told the crowd in Chambersburg. “Let me tell you something. I’m glad I came. Ya’ll are making me feel at home.” Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission. Read More Here

Georgia Plans To Replace Voting Gear After Breach https://digitalalaskanews.com/georgia-plans-to-replace-voting-gear-after-breach/ This image from the Coffee County, Ga., Elections Office shows unidentified people around voting equipment in a storage room at the elections office after the 2020 election. (The New York Times/Coffee County Elections Office) ATLANTA — Georgia’s secretary of state announced plans Friday to replace election equipment in one county following “unauthorized access” to the equipment that happened two months after the 2020 election. A computer forensics team hired by allies of then-President Donald Trump traveled Jan. 7, 2021, to Coffee County, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta. A company representative has said they made complete copies of the election management system server and other election system components. Later that month, two men who have been involved in efforts to discredit the 2020 election results spent hours inside the elections office with access to the equipment. Trump and his supporters pushed false claims about certain voting machines after he lost his bid for reelection. Authorities have said there was no evidence of widespread problems with voting equipment. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said an investigation into the unauthorized access to the equipment by former Coffee County election officials continues. “Anyone who broke the law should be punished to its full extent,” Raffensperger said in a news release. “But the current election officials in Coffee County have to move forward with the 2022 election, and they should be able to do so without this distraction.” Footage from security cameras shows “former election officials in Coffee County permitting access by unauthorized individuals to equipment that under Georgia law should have been secured,” the release stated. The footage was produced in response to subpoenas issued by plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit against state election officials that claims the state’s touchscreen voting machines aren’t secure. The county’s election management server and central scanner workstation were previously replaced in June 2021, officials have said. The county will receive 100 new touchscreen voting machines, 100 printers, 10 precinct scanners, 21 tablets used to check in voters and new flash cards and thumb drives to be installed and tested before early voting begins next month. Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, a plaintiff in the voting machine lawsuit, said the election management server and central scanner workstation should also be replaced. She said that’s because they were used with the other potentially contaminated equipment in elections since their replacement last year. Separately, election officials in the state’s most populous county, in and around Atlanta, said Friday that they had fired a worker after learning that “personally identifiable information was shared with an individual outside the organization,” news outlets reported. “The individual responsible for the incident no longer works with Fulton County,” the county said in a news release. “Fulton County is committed to the safety and security of all citizens and employees. Each individual affected by this incident will be notified and will receive credit monitoring services.” Read More Here

Fiona Makes Landfall, Slams Canada's Atlantic Coast With Severe Winds And Rain | CNN https://digitalalaskanews.com/fiona-makes-landfall-slams-canadas-atlantic-coast-with-severe-winds-and-rain-cnn/ CNN  —  Hurricane Fiona, now referred to as a post-tropical cyclone, has made landfall in Nova Scotia, racing through Canada’s Atlantic seaboard early Saturday in what could be a “landmark” weather event for the country. An unofficial barometric pressure of 931.6 mb was recorded at Hart Island, which would make Fiona the lowest pressure land-falling storm on record in Canada, according to the Canadian Hurricane Centre. Wind observations on Beaver Island in eastern Nova Scotia were recorded at 94 mph (152 km/h). Parts of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island started to feel the storm’s arrival Saturday morning as winds and rains extending far from the storm’s center knocked out utilities. More than 376,000 customers across Nova Scotia have lost power so far, according to the region’s power outage center. Residents in New Brunswick, southern Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador additionally face severe weather as Fiona tracks north at more than 40 mph (65 km/h) following its landfall between Canso and Guysborough in eastern Nova Scotia. Fiona is expected to pass through Cape Breton Island on Saturday morning and reach the southeastern Labrador Sea by evening. “The storm is producing severe winds and very heavy rainfall,” the Canadian Hurricane Centre said before landfall. “Wide spread gusts of 80-110 km/h (50-68 mph) have been so far reported over Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Iles-de-la-Madeleine, with a peak gust to 144km/h (90 mph) over Beaver Island, Nova Scotia.” Fiona weakened slightly on Friday to a Category 2 storm yet is still expected to bring damaging storm surges, heavy rain and severe wind. Fiona had been a Category 4 storm early Wednesday over the Atlantic after passing the Turks and Caicos and remained so until Friday afternoon. Officials along the Atlantic seaboard have urged those in Fiona’s path to be on high alert and prepare for the impact of the storm, which has already claimed the lives of at least five people and shut off power for millions as it battered multiple Caribbean islands this week. Homes and water infrastructure across Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Turks and Caicos were heavily damaged and many residents are still trying to recover. Fiona is on track to be an “extreme weather event” in eastern Canada, threatening with about two months’ worth of rainfall, forecasters in Canada said Friday. “This could be a landmark event for Canada in terms of intensity of a tropical cyclone,” and it could even become Canada’s version of Superstorm Sandy, said Chris Fogarty, Canadian Hurricane Centre manager. Sandy in 2012 affected 24 states and all of the eastern seaboard, causing an estimated $78.7 billion in damage. Fiona became post-tropical before making landfall, arriving at the same time as a trough of low pressure and cold air to the north – much like Sandy did, according to Bob Robichaud of the Canadian Hurricane Centre. “What these things tend to do, they tend to grow in size tremendously, which is again what Fiona is doing as well,” he said Friday. “Sandy was larger than Fiona is expected to be even. But the process is essentially the same – where you have two features kind of feeding off each other to create one strong storm like we’re going to see overnight and into tomorrow.” Hurricane-force winds can extend up to 185 miles out from Fiona’s center and tropical-storm-force winds up to 345 miles out, according to CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam. In the days leading up to Fiona’s expected arrival, officials ramped up services to assist those in need and implored residents to take caution. “It has the potential to be very dangerous,” said John Lohr, the minister responsible for the Emergency Management Office for Nova Scotia, on Thursday. “Impacts are projected to be felt across the province.” Residents should brace for damaging winds, high waves, coastal storm surge and heavy rainfall, which may lead to prolonged power outages, Lohr said. Emergency officials have encouraged people to secure outdoor items, trim trees, charge cell phones and create a 72-hour emergency kit. Shelters for residents have been established throughout Nova Scotia, including multiple in Halifax County, according to officials. The area has not seen a storm this intense for about 50 years, according to Fogarty. “Please take it seriously because we are seeing meteorological numbers in our weather maps that are rarely seen here,” Fogarty said. Prince Edward Island officials also implored residents to prepare for the worst as the storm looms. Tanya Mullally, who serves as the province’s head of emergency management, said one of the most pressing concerns with Fiona is the historic storm surge it is expected to unleash. “Storm surge is certainly going to be significant. … Flooding that we have not seen nor can we measure against,” Mullally said Thursday during an update. Canadian Hurricane Center modeling suggests the surge “depending on the area, could be anywhere from 1.8 to 2.4 meters (6-8 feet),” said Robichaud. The northern portion of the island stands to bear the brunt of the storm due to the direction of the winds, which will likely cause property damage and coastal flooding, Mullally said. All provincial campgrounds, beaches and day-use parks as well as the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park were closed Friday, the Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office said. Read More Here

Opinion | Congress, Take The Final Sprint On Electoral Count Act Reform https://digitalalaskanews.com/opinion-congress-take-the-final-sprint-on-electoral-count-act-reform/ The bad news about Electoral Count Act reform is that the tiny number of Republicans who voted for the effort in the House of Representatives are all on their way out next year, either because they’re retiring or because right-wing challengers defeated them in their primaries. The good news is that the Senate version of the legislation to bolster the rickety 1887 law that lays out procedures for counting and certifying votes in a presidential election has secured 10 GOP co-sponsors, the magic number to overcome a filibuster. The finish line is in sight. Now, to protect our democracy’s foundations, Congress must prioritize passing something over passing something perfect. The stakes of fixing the ECA become more obvious every day as election deniers secure slots on ballots nationwide — some for high office such as governor, and some for lower-profile local roles such as county clerk that nonetheless have the power to manipulate elections. The New Yorker recently documented a right-wing campaign to install believers in Donald Trump’s “big lie” as secretaries of state across the country; an analysis by The Post found that a dozen Republican candidates in key battleground races refused to commit to accepting the results of their elections, including some who declined to respond. Thankfully, there’s plenty of room to improve the Electoral Count Reform Act drafted by the group led by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) without dooming it, and a Rules Committee markup will be underway soon to do just that. Some of those improvements could surely come from the Presidential Election Reform Act that Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), both involved in the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, introduced this month — and that just passed. That bill would require a greater proportion of legislators, one-third rather than one-fifth, to support objections to a slate of electors. The proposal also would eliminate archaic and confusing language allowing for challenges based on a vote’s not having been “regularly given.” Finally, it would set a more generous timeline for litigation over electoral vote certification. Other differences between the two bills are just that: different. Both would point Congress toward a single “conclusive” slate of electors submitted by a state’s governor, and both account for the possibility of a so-called rogue governor submitting an unlawful slate — but in conflicting ways. Some experts in the area prefer the Cheney-Lofgren approach of having a judge designate a new official to certify the count; others prefer the Manchin-Collins tactic of asking the courts to decide directly. The same goes for the question of whether states ought to be allowed to determine what events qualify as “catastrophic” for the purposes of delaying an election, or whether federal legislators should take it upon themselves to enumerate categories that meet the standard. Neither answer is obviously superior to the other. What is obvious, however, is political reality. Congress must pass a bill that can beat the filibuster in the Senate, and the lining up of co-sponsors proves the compromise the chamber struck this summer is the best bet. Senators must devote their efforts to bringing on board what they’ve learned, including from their colleagues across Capitol Hill, to enhance that proposal even further — doing all they can do, and accepting what they can’t. The Post’s View | About the Editorial Board Editorials represent the views of The Washington Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the Editorial Board, based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom. Members of the Editorial Board and areas of focus: Deputy Editorial Page Editor Karen Tumulty; Deputy Editorial Page Editor Ruth Marcus; Associate Editorial Page Editor Jo-Ann Armao (education, D.C. affairs); Jonathan Capehart (national politics); Lee Hockstader (immigration; issues affecting Virginia and Maryland); David E. Hoffman (global public health); Charles Lane (foreign affairs, national security, international economics); Heather Long (economics); Molly Roberts (technology and society); and Stephen Stromberg (elections, the White House, Congress, legal affairs, energy, the environment, health care). Read More Here

Inflation, Spending Cuts Undermine Biden https://digitalalaskanews.com/inflation-spending-cuts-undermine-biden/ But this summer, the food stamps couldn’t keep up with the grocery store’s rising prices, sending her in search of a food donation for the first time. “It’s definitely not enough. It never lasts ’til the end of the month,” she said of the food stamp benefits. “And now they’ve increased prices… So now you have to resort to coming here to a food pantry, to fill in.” Rising hunger is a problem for U.S. President Joe Biden as he gears up to host the first White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in more than 50 years and pledges to eliminate hunger in the United States by 2030. Voters may punish his Democratic Party for inflation in November’s mid-term elections in a year the economy has been top of mind for voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The Biden administration increased funding for food stamps nearly a year ago, but at the same time has purchased about half as much food as the Trump administration did in 2020, for food banks, schools and indigenous reservations, according to data obtained from a U.S. Agriculture Department(USDA) source. Escalating food prices are eroding the reach of food stamps, which average around $231 per person per month in 2022, according to USDA data, sending more people to food banks, that are in turn receiving less food from the government. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food at home climbed to 13.5% year-over-year in August, the largest 12-month increase since 1979, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food prices have been near record highs globally since Russia’s invasion of major grains producer Ukraine. Hunger rates this summer also rose to levels not seen since early in the pandemic when lockdowns threw supply chains into chaos. “This is a problem that started to get better in 2021 and then rapidly got worse,” said Vince Hall, Chief Government Relations Officer for Feeding America, the nation’s largest network of food banks. “Most of America’s food banks are seeing the lines grow with each passing week.” Some advocates argued for spending more on food stamps or cash distribution, which give people more choice than food handouts and also benefit local businesses. A Trump administration food box program was criticized as inefficient and ended by the Biden administration, which also put cash in families’ pockets through expanded child tax credit payments until they expired last December. Food insufficiency for families with children climbed to 16.21% by July 11, when nearly 1 in 6 families reported sometimes or often not having enough to eat, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the highest since December 2020. Hunger among children had fallen to a pandemic-low of 9.49% in August 2021, due in part to the child tax credit payments, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. ‘WE JUST MAKE DO’ Hunger eased in 2021 after both the Trump and Biden administrations distributed pandemic-benefit payments for families to purchase groceries, delivered billions of pounds of emergency food boxes and sent out monthly child tax credit payments. [L1N2QG1LZ] But as pandemic restrictions eased, so did the appetite for congress and some states to fund hunger prevention efforts. In fiscal year 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture spent $8.38 billion on nearly 4.29 billion pounds of food bound for food pantries, schools and indigenous reservations. But food spending dropped steadily by nearly 42% from 2020 to 2022, poised to reach $3.49 billion, the lowest since 2018. The agency bought just 2.43 billion pounds of food in the last year, according to the data acquired by Reuters. The USDA endeavored to offset the fall in outright food purchases with additional Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, adding nearly $31 billion from 2020 to 2022. But that additional aid has been limited by higher food costs, states letting emergency pandemic declarations expire and strict criteria on who qualifies. James Carvelli, who works in construction, said the Nourishing Hope food pantry keeps him fed when work is slow. He doesn’t qualify for food stamps, and has noticed when the pantry runs low on some items. “We just make do – They’ve got what they got, and I appreciate it,” he said. The USDA recently announced it will purchase an additional $943 million in food through 2024, using Commodity Credit Corporation funds, normally set aside for loans and payments to U.S. farmers to offset disasters or low commodity prices. The added funds still leave the USDA poised to spend less on food in the coming years than in 2020 and 2021, despite ongoing need. Asked to comment, the Agriculture Department pointed to a drastic cut in pandemic funding authorized by Congress that limited the agency’s spending power for food banks and schools, many of which have canceled summer meal programs. Hall, of Feeding America, lamented the cutting of some additional food assistance measures from the $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act signed into law in August, including investment in child nutrition and a permanent summer EBT program, a benefit designed to fill the gap when school meals are not available. “There were things in earlier versions of this bill… that were extraordinarily important priorities for fighting hunger, that unfortunately were not in the final version,” he said. SLIM PICKINGS This year, the USDA is on track to buy just over half the food it purchased during the height of the pandemic, while donations from grocery stores and food distributors have waned as businesses tighten supply chains and minimize waste. The Greater Chicago Food Depository, one of the nation’s largest distributors of food to local food pantries, expects this year to get just over a third of the food it received from the USDA during the 2021 fiscal year (July 2020 to June 2021). While food supplies shrink, inflation is pushing more Americans toward food pantries for the first time. Chicago-area food pantries saw an 18% increase in visitors in July, versus a year earlier, according to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. In October of 2021, the USDA increased food stamp allotments by updating the Thrifty Food Plan, the agency’s measure of a basket of household grocery items. Food stamp benefits for fiscal year 2022 are on track to reach $114.9 billion, down slightly from 2021 but 36.87% more than in 2020. Food stamps made up less than 2% of U.S. government spending in 2022, according to U.S. Treasury data. But 18 states that have ended emergency declarations have seen a reduction in SNAP monthly allocation per person, effectively forgoing the additional food stamp funding, according to a Reuters analysis of USDA data. In August 2022, the agency announced a cost-of-living adjustment beginning Oct. 1, increasing maximum monthly SNAP allotments for a family of four from $835 to $939 a month. But many who visit food pantries still work or are on social security, disqualifying them from food stamps, like Michael Sukowski, a retired college administration employee whose SNAP benefits were cut due to a monthly pension he receives from the state. “Social security and a small pension of $153 a month. It doesn’t go very far,” he said. “Half of that goes to paying my rent. Then there’s utilities.” Nourishing Hope food pantry, which has seen a 40% increase in visitors this year, and other food pantries are now purchasing more food at higher costs. That’s led to inconsistent supplies of staples such as bread, meat and cheese. “The pickings were slim, so to speak. But I’m grateful I got some stuff,” said Melt as she packed her food items into a pushcart, preparing for a bus ride home. “Sometimes you have to come to a place like this. Sometimes you have nothing,” she said. (Reporting by Christopher Walljasper; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Claudia Parsons) By Christopher Walljasper Read More Here

Donors Providing Money For Trump's Legal Battles – BOL News https://digitalalaskanews.com/donors-providing-money-for-trumps-legal-battles-bol-news/ Donors providing money for Trump’s legal battles Donors and the Republican Party donate millions of dollars. They cover Donald Trump’s legal costs as they continue to grow. His most recent legal issue involved a fraud case. Donors and the Republican Party have donated millions of dollars to cover Donald Trump’s legal costs as they continue to grow. His most recent legal issue involved a fraud case that named him and three of his children and said they had deceived about the value of property “by billions.” Financial information reveals that in 2022, he will have already spent more than $1 million (£890,000) fighting the matter. Any impropriety has been refuted by Mr. Trump. The most recent lawsuit was the result of a protracted civil probe that started in 2019, according to Letitia James, the state’s attorney general in New York. Supported by donations from supporters Federal Election Commission (FEC) papers reveal that Mr. Trump’s Save America political action organization (PAC), which accepts contributions from Trump supporters around the nation, has spent millions of dollars fighting these allegations. Save America has paid law firms retained to represent Mr. Trump in the New York case more than $1.12 million just this year. As a so-called “Leadership PAC,” it can use funds to cover costs like travel or leadership expenses that cannot be covered by campaign committees. It merely states that “the future of our Country [sic] is at stake and President Trump is calling on all Patriots to join his fight to Save America” on the website of Save America’s Joint Fundraising Committee, which donates to both Save America and a second Trump PAC, Make America Great Again. Over $942,000 of the $1.12 million spent has gone to the business of New Jersey-based attorney and Trump spokesperson Alina Habba. Alan Futerfas, a different attorney from New York, collected over $185,000 in July. In the New York fraud lawsuit, Mr. Futerfas is defending Mr. Trump’s children, Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. How much of his own money Mr. Trump has invested in his legal battles are unknown. One donor told the BBC that he had no problem with the idea of paying for the legal actions. In my view, he may do whatever he wants with the money, said Republican from Arizona Rom Solene. “The Democrats’ constant foolishness and theatrics against a man who is no longer in political service demonstrate how far they are willing to go to pursue a political rival. It demonstrates how much the Democrats and other Washington insiders fear Mr. Trump.” Also Read On his social media, Trump promotes QAnon-related posts Former President Donald Trump promoted posts on his Truth Social account about… Read More Here

Arizona Judge Reinstates Near-Total Abortion Ban From 19th Century https://digitalalaskanews.com/arizona-judge-reinstates-near-total-abortion-ban-from-19th-century/ An Arizona judge revived a ban on abortion that dates back to the mid-19th century, lifting a decades-old injunction that means the procedure is effectively illegal in the state at all times except when a pregnant person’s life is at risk. Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson’s ruling was released Friday, a day before a law that restricts abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy was due to take effect. The conflicting restrictions on abortion had created confusion, with state Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) pushing to enforce the tougher prohibitions and Gov. Doug Ducey (R) previously insisting that the 15-week ban was the law of the land. Johnson cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which established a fundamental right to abortion, as rationale for lifting the injunction. Roe had been the basis of the 1973 injunction that prevented bans on abortion from being enforced, Johnson ruled. And because the nation’s top court had returned decisions on the procedure to Congress and the states, that injunction can also be annulled, she wrote. The Arizona law threatens abortion providers with between two and five years in prison. It originated from a 1864 law, and has no exception for victims of rape or incest. Some states did not update the laws on their books after Roe was decided in 1973, and the overturning of that decision has caused confusion from Michigan to West Virginia as to whether those laws still apply. Johnson indicated that the older law, which was updated and codified in 1901, supersedes the recently passed law that was to take effect Saturday. “Most recently in 2022, the Legislature enacted a 15-week gestational age limitation on abortion. The legislature expressly included in the session law that the 15-week gestational age limitation does not ‘repeal’” the older ban, she wrote. Ducey’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday. Brnovich thanked Johnson on Twitter, saying that the court had provided “clarity and uniformity on this important issue. I have and will continue to protect the most vulnerable Arizonans.” Planned Parenthood Arizona, which was a plaintiff in the case, criticized the court for reviving an “archaic” law that it said would send “Arizonans back nearly 150 years.” The reproductive health organization, which can appeal the ruling, also said it “will never back down.” Democratic gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs said in a statement that she was “mourning” the decision and pledged to veto antiabortion legislation if elected. Johnson’s ruling means the older abortion ban “is no longer unenforceable” and Brnovich’s position as the state’s chief law enforcement officer “opens the door to prosecutions under that law,” said Kaiponanea Matsumura, a family law professor at Loyola Marymount University who previously taught in Arizona. Barbara Atwood, a law professor emerita at the University of Arizona, predicted further legal and legislative wrangling over abortion in Arizona. The 1901 law “directly conflicts with many laws regulating abortion in Arizona enacted since 1973,” she said, including those that permit the procedure in emergencies such as pregnancies that can result in the loss of major organ function for pregnant women and other pregnant individuals. “It is an unworkable situation,” she said. Read More Here

On Non-Payment Of Salaries, Teachers From 12 DU Colleges Claim 'Broken Promises' From Kejriwal https://digitalalaskanews.com/on-non-payment-of-salaries-teachers-from-12-du-colleges-claim-broken-promises-from-kejriwal/ New Delhi: The magnificent auditorium of Maharaja Agrasen College, Delhi University, reverberated with applause and cheers on the evening of September 16. It was the venue for NDTV’s exclusive ‘Townhall’ program, titled ‘Make India No 1: The AK Blueprint’ where Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal received a splendid welcome. The approbation, however, began dimming towards the end of the show when two students from the audience questioned the chief minister on the issue of classes not being held because the teachers of 12 Delhi University (DU) colleges, which fall under the Delhi government, had not received their salaries. In response, Kejriwal claimed ignorance, saying, “It was not in my knowledge. If it is so, I will get it done.” Was the Delhi chief minister really unaware of the issue? Was he unaware of the many protests by DU teachers that took place outside his residence? And above all, was he unaware of the promises he made to the principals of these 12 colleges? Taking a few steps back in time might refresh everyone’s memory.  There are 12 colleges in DU which fall under the Delhi government’s purview and are supposed to be fully funded by it. The Wire talked to various teachers from these colleges and the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA)  to understand the genesis of the problem. Bhupinder Chaudhary, an associate professor at Maharaja Agrasen College where the NDTV programme was held, said, “This issue of irregular salaries has existed for nearly two-and-a-half to three years now. Before that, we had never faced such a problem.” “If by chance there was some delay in the grant from the Delhi government,” Chaudhary continued, “the colleges used to manage the issue locally. It would take loans from the Student Society Fund (SSF) to pay the salaries of teachers and staff and would repay them once the grant was released by the Delhi government.” Since 1994, when all 12 of these colleges were opened, they have been collecting money from students for various reasons – the girls’ common room, a bicycle stand, sports, library and so on, under the SSF. The amount actually spent on these facilities was, however, minimal. The colleges began saving this money in fixed deposits and currently, every college has around Rs 12-15 crore. Tussle between Delhi government and Centre “Each of these colleges has a governing body which is responsible for its policy decisions, appointment of teachers and non-teaching staff, and so on,” Chaudhary continued. “It comprises 15 members, five of whom are from the university and college side – two university representatives, nominated by the vice-chancellor; two teacher representatives nominated on a rotational basis; and the principal of the college, who is a permanent member.” “The remaining ten members are nominated by the Delhi government and their names are then sent for approval from the executive council of Delhi University. Once the body is finalised, all 15 members elect the chairman and treasurer of the governing body,” he said. Also read: Why Is the Delhi Government Not Paying its Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff in DU? Chaudhary further explained how the fact that Delhi government representatives are required to be present in the governing body is responsible for the present situation. “The premise of the whole situation is very political. Since the majority of members of the governing body happen to be from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), around the year 2019, a confrontation began with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the centre.” “Because of political pressure from the centre, Delhi University would not approve the names nominated by the Delhi government and hence, the colleges stopped constituting the governing bodies,” Chaudhary said. “For more than a year, there were no governing bodies. And in the absence of the ten nominees from the Delhi government, the remaining five have the mandate to govern the colleges. In this way, the BJP maintained its control over all of these colleges, keeping the AAP nominees away. And this invited a retaliation from (Delhi deputy chief minister) Manish Sisodia and others.” ‘Ghost teachers’ The Delhi government responded to this by asking questions of the colleges, as Chaudhary details. “The Delhi government began finding loopholes in the system. It pointed out that many appointments made by the colleges, especially in my college, Maharaja Agrasen, had not been sanctioned by the Delhi government. For example, Agrasen college has a total of 118 permanent and ad hoc teachers and according to the Delhi government, only 67 of these posts are sanctioned.” “They began alleging corruption and mismanagement of funds,” he continued, “and later demanded various kinds of audits from the college.” Abha Dev Habib, a professor at Miranda House, told The Wire, “It is pertinent to note that these institutions have already submitted to three different audits, namely, an Internal Audit (conducted by auditors from the approved panel of DU), the ELFA Audit (conducted by the Delhi government) and the AGCR (conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General).” “Why can’t the colleges get the various irregularities regularised?” Habib asked vociferously. “If colleges did not take prior sanction for the posts before hiring teachers and other karamcharis, they should now put a post-facto proposal for regularising those positions. That’s the only way to solve this issue. The teachers who were appointed then are not at fault. Why are their salaries being delayed?” Rajib Ray, a professor at Kirori Mal College, pointed out how the Delhi government calls the teachers appointed to these unsanctioned posts ‘ghost teachers’. “I challenge them to find one ghost teacher. And what about those on the sanctioned posts? Why aren’t their salaries given?” Ray asked. Habib also highlighted another ongoing tussle. “The Delhi government maintained that it would release an amount equal to the grant minus the money accumulated in the SSF. They want the colleges to utilise the SSF to pay the salaries of the teachers and other employees. But the colleges and the teachers believe that the SSF is the students’ money which should be used on them. It should not be used on a recurring payments like salaries.” “This created a stalemate and the Delhi government started sending the grant minus the SSF amount,” Habib continued. “The amount was never sufficient to meet all the requirements. As a result, employees were not paid salaries on time.”  The teachers took the issue of the utilisation of the SSF to the Delhi high court where the University and Delhi government were made party to the case. The court, in its interim order, has asked the colleges not to use the SSF money for paying salaries on a permanent basis. However, the colleges could still take loans from the SSF and then repay them when the Delhi government releases grants. Backdoor privatisation When asked why DUTA and other teachers oppose the utilisation of the SSF for salaries, Narender Thakur, an associate professor at Bhim Rao Ambedkar College said, “Giving salaries is the responsibility of the government. Otherwise it would amount to introducing privatisation through the back door.” Explaining this, Thakur said, “If a college begins collecting money from students to pay its teachers, it becomes a self-financing institution and ultimately, the fees will be increased. The government will continue to reduce the grants and will always ask the colleges to raise the fees. The matter is in court and until it is resolved, we demand the Delhi government release the grants in full.” The DUTA Secretary’s Report for the year 2021-22 has released data on the approximate financial deficits of these 12 colleges. Source: DUTA Secretary’s Report (2021-22). Delayed salaries, debt trap and humiliation  “In Agrasen College, we haven’t received salaries for the past one-and-a-half months now,” Chaudhary said. “We got 50% for the month of July and nothing for August. Now, we are told that we won’t get anything until Diwali. By the time the next grant comes, 3.5 months’ salary will be due.” “It becomes humiliating for us to borrow money from people, again and again, just to pay our children’s fees, EMIs and the like,” he continued. “It is completely demotivating. It ultimately affects the teaching-learning process and academic standards decline.” On perks other than salaries, Thakur said, “Seventh pay commission arrears are pending for ad hoc teachers. Those who were promoted have not received their arrears. There has been no payment of medical bills for the last three years. There is a provision for children’s education allowance, which also has not been paid for the last three years. No leave travel concessions (LTC) have been reimbursed.” “When the salaries are not paid on time, the perks are out of the question,” Thakur said. Also read: ‘Imagine Not Getting Paid for 5 Years’: Awaiting Dues From Centre, Madrasa Teachers in Dire Straits Speaking to ad hoc teachers, The Wire found their ordeal to be even worse. Ritu, an assistant professor at B.R. Ambedkar College said, disheartened, “People who joined after me on the same post with the same qualification and same salary as mine have been able to build their homes and own cars. I can’t even imagine that because of my irregular salary. All my savings dried up during COVID. I don’t know if I can ever dream of owning a house.” She noted that her nephew stays with her and that it is difficult even to manage his tuition fees. Further, she said, “Since we are ad hoc employees, we cannot even think of medical reimbursements. We do the same amount of work as the permanent employees, at times even more, still we don’t get even half...

Britain's Sudden Lurch To 'Reaganomics' Gets A Thumbs Down From The Markets https://digitalalaskanews.com/britains-sudden-lurch-to-reaganomics-gets-a-thumbs-down-from-the-markets/ Truss has now put the country on an economic road completely at odds with most, if not all, major global economies. Hannah Mckay | Reuters LONDON — New U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss may have talked big on “trickle-down economics” during her campaign trail this summer, but no-one could have predicted the swathe of tax cuts unleashed just weeks into her Downing Street tenure. Billed as a “mini-budget” by her Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng, Friday’s fiscal announcement was anything but with a volume of tax cuts not seen in Britain since 1972. Truss — whose “Trussonomics” policy stance has been likened to that of her political idols Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher — has now put the country on an economic road completely at odds with most, if not all, major global economies as inflation boils over and a cost-of-living crisis barrels into Europe. It’s been seen, even by some of her advocates, as a political and economic gamble with Truss yet to face the wider British electorate in a nationwide vote — unlike her predecessor Boris Johnson. Market players immediately predicted that Britain would have to scale up its bond issuance and significantly increase its debt load to pay for the cuts — not typical of the low-tax Conservative governments of the past. U.K. bond markets went into a tailspin Friday as investors shunned the country’s assets. Yields (which move inversely to prices) on the 5-year gilt rose by half a percentage point — which Reuters reported was the largest one-day rise since at least 1991. And with bonds tanking, sterling was also sent into freefall after hitting 37-year lows against the dollar in recent weeks. It ended Friday down nearly 3.6% against the greenback. On the week it lost 5% and is now down 27% since just before the 2016 Brexit vote. Wall Street banks are now seriously considering a break lower to parity with the U.S. dollar — for the first time in history — and many commentators have likened the pound to an emergency market currency. Left-leaning The Guardian newspaper called it “a budget for the rich” on its front page Saturday, while The Times called it a “great tax gamble.” The right-wing Daily Mail newspaper called it a “true Tory budget” while Kwarteng himself said it was a “very good day for the U.K.,” declining to comment on the currency moves. ING analysts said in a research note that investors are worried that the U.K. Treasury has now effectively committed to open-ended borrowing for these tax cuts, and that the Bank of England will have to respond with more aggressive rate hikes. “To us, the magnitude of the jump in gilt yields has more to do with a market that has become dysfunctional,” ING’s Senior Rates Strategist Antoine Bouvet and Global Head of Markets Chris Turner said in the note. “A number of indicators … suggest that liquidity is drying up and market functioning is impaired. A signal from the BOE that it is willing to suspend gilt sales would go a long way to restoring market confidence, especially if it wants to maximise its chances of fighting inflation with conventional tools like interest rate hikes. The QT [quantitative tightening] battle, in short, is not one worth fighting for the BOE,” they added, referencing the Bank’s move to normalize its balance sheet after years of stimulus. ING also noted that the U.K.’s long-term sovereign outlook is currently stable with the big three ratings agencies, but the “risk of a possible shift to a negative outlook” could come when they are reviewed (Oct. 21 and Dec. 9). Deutsche Bank analysts said, meanwhile, that the “price of easy fiscal policy was laid bare by the market” on Friday. “[Friday’s] market moves suggest that there may be a credibility gap,” Sanjay Raja, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank, said in a research note. “A plan to get the public finances on a sustainable footing will be necessary but not sufficient for markets to regain confidence in an economy sporting large twin deficits [the U.K.’s fiscal and current account balances],” he added. “Crucially, with fiscal policy shifting into easier territory, the onus may now fall on the Bank of England to stabilise the economy, with the MPC [Monetary Policy Committee] having more work to do to plug the gap between expansionary fiscal policy and tightening monetary policy.” —CNBC’s Karen Gilchrist contributed to this article. Read More Here

Was The Ethereum Merge A Mistake? – Decrypt https://digitalalaskanews.com/was-the-ethereum-merge-a-mistake-decrypt/ “What do you think of the merge?” I recently innocently asked William “Wills” de Vogelaere, co-founder of Spankchain and probably half a dozen other protocols in the grisly underworld of Ethereum. I was, of course, referring to the long-awaited software upgrade which booted Ethereum’s miners and replaced them with a cohort of environmentally friendly stakeholders on September 15.  “You mean Ethereum’s delusion?” de Vogelaere rejoined bitterly.  “Oho!” I thought. This could get juicy. It turned out de Vogelaere was voicing an opinion rarely broadcast in public: that the merge was a mistake. Or, if not an italicized mistake, some kind of irrelevant distraction.  “It didn’t add anything of value really other than the environmental factor,” he fulminated.  In de Vogelaere’s view, the whole enterprise has been a naive capitulation. The influential people fretting about Ethereum’s enormous carbon footprint, he said, were only ever exploiting environmentalist fears for their own cynical ends. “No one actually gives a shit if something’s green, so long as it works,” he said. “Corporations don’t fucking care as long as they can be perceived to care.”  Maronn’! Admittedly, it’s not hard to see why people like de Vogelaere are in a bad mood—since the merge unfolded, the price of ETH has tanked. Bitcoin supporters are ridiculing the change. Dark mutterings about Ethereum now being a “security” have raised the hackles of even the most old-school of Ethereum connoisseurs—and even driven some to the embrace of a long-ago spurned band of fanatical Ethereum militants. (We’ll get to that.)  As de Vogalaere told me, the notion that public opinion of Ethereum would improve in the wake of the merge may have proven to be a canard. The regulators, he said, will hardly change their tune now this one environmental grievance has been eliminated, especially given that newfound willingness to brand it a security.  And yes, yes, the merge was a fabulous display of technical competence. Merging Ethereum in real-time was the equivalent of switching up a car’s engine as it booms full-throttle down a freeway, so we’re told. It’s groundbreaking from an R&D perspective—but so was the atom bomb. Even so, de Vogelaere believes, the supposed technical improvements of the merge are overhyped. It was supposed to facilitate various upgrades that would introduce more efficiencies into the network. But de Vogelaere believes these solutions have long existed anyway, in the form of sidechains—appendages to the flagship network that use different validation methods—such as Polygon. Only Ethereum’s computing environment, the “Virtual Machine,” has any real value, he argued—and that isn’t affected in any meaningful way by the shift to the staking model.  He also (good heavens!) pointed out that those who don’t have the minimum amount to stake independently—32 ETH, around $42,500 dollars and dropping at time of writing—have to stake via centralized exchanges like Coinbase. That means putting the majority of Ethereum on a corporate exchange with a single point of failure.  So, we’ve established that Ethereum’s price is now in the shitter and the regulators are on the move. But is de Vogelaere’s view perhaps just a minority one?  Not so! Kristy Leigh-Minehan, a longtime Ethereum miner (who may admittedly be a little bit biased), is not quite anti-merge in the same rancorous vein as our de Vogelaere. Rather, she wonders whether it came about a bit too soon. “The move to proof of stake is a key part of Ethereum’s DNA and was always intended,” she said. “It was necessary and required for future optimizations and scalability features—the question everyone needs to ask themselves is: was now the right time?” Minehan isn’t so sure. “I, personally, do not think it was in the current regulatory climate,” she said. She wonders whether the prospect of ETH being newly classed as a security could risk “scaring validators, operators, and entrepreneurs.” The primacy of American regulators in particular, she added, can be unnerving. Echoing de Vogelaere, she said: “There is no denying Ethereum has taken root in the USA–that will be its biggest strength and weakness.” At least some pedigreed Ethereum advocates remain sanguine. “It could be the case that this has some impact on regulatory decision making,” ventured Mat Dryhurst, a left-leaning podcaster and one of the earliest adopters of NFTs. “But to be honest, I don’t get much of an impression that is too much of a concern on the dev side. People are excited to build more utility for the network, and the merge felt like a celebration of another milestone on a long roadmap.” But isn’t it admittedly a bit overhyped? “It is not a grand technological innovation, and I don’t think it was intended to be,” Dryhurst demurred. “Rollups, zkEVMs [zero-knowledge virtual machines] etc are still needed to scale. I think if anything it just establishes credibility for this corner of crypto, and increases confidence that other ideas being discussed will be executed upon.” He added that he was recently at ETH Berlin and that the energy was “as optimistic as ever.” The gleeful old guard There is, maybe, one cohort that fully agrees with all de Vogelaere and his ilk’s dire diagnoses of the merge—and is unabashedly jubilant about them. They are the custodians of another now-defunct network that, they would argue, was, like the miners, also betrayed by the craven handlers of Ethereum proper: an older, abandoned iteration of Ethereum network called Ethereum Classic whose supporters are arguably the most OG that you can get in the brief but melodramatic lifespan of Ethereum politics. Ethereum Classic was born in 2016 in the wake of a deleterious hack of the Ethereum network’s first decentralized autonomous organization, or The DAO. Mainstream Ethereum developers voted overwhelmingly to “roll back” the hack and make victims’ whole, which a few sticklers viewed as a deadly betrayal of Ethereum’s core principle of immutability. They clung to the old, hacked network, and Ethereum was cleft in two. They have been waiting ever since for the merge, believing that newly unemployed miners (whom they actively tried to seduce) would flock to Ethereum Classic in search of new revenue.  Incredibly, after six years of patient anticipation, they were right.  “We’ve seen significantly increased interest in Ethereum Classic in the last couple of months,” said Bob Summerwill, the executive director of the ETC Cooperative, the foundation behind the development of Ethereum Classic, whose ticker is ETC. “The merge was obviously a catalyst.” He added that the amount of mining power on the network has since increased around tenfold, and that Ethereum Classic is now the third largest proof-of-work chain by market cap and second by volume.  Summerwill, as with others, pointed out that fears around U.S.-capture of the network and newly vigorous regulators may have galvanized many of these miners and driven them to ETC. “Ethereum Classic seems to be benefitting from providing a known and likely safer alternative on these concerns,” he said. It has nevertheless been a bumpy start: Ethereum Classic, as with many others, took a recent dip, and its miners are operating at a loss. “We’re still trying to find a new equilibrium,” Summerwill said.  Still, it’s a somewhat stunning reversal. After years of agonizing waiting, you have to wonder whether the curmudgeonly old pedants of the Ethereum Classic network—and, even, Ethereum’s would-be regulators—have got the last laugh.  As de Vogelaere said: “ETH may have played its motherfucking self.” Stay on top of crypto news, get daily updates in your inbox. Read More Here

Trump Allies Create A New Super PAC Called MAGA Inc. https://digitalalaskanews.com/trump-allies-create-a-new-super-pac-called-maga-inc/ Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022, in Youngstown, Ohio. (AP Photo/Tom E. Puskar) NEW YORK — Top allies of former President Donald Trump are creating a new super PAC that’s expected to serve as the main vehicle for his midterm spending and could become a key part of his campaign infrastructure should he move forward with a 2024 White House run. The political action committee, called MAGA Inc., will supersede Trump’s existing super PAC, Politico first reported. Paperwork for the new committee was filed Friday morning with the Federal Election Commission. The buildout comes as Trump, a Republican, is under mounting legal pressure on multiple fronts. The Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into how hundreds of documents with classified markings ended up at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, and state and federal officials are probing his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. And in New York, Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit this week claiming Trump’s namesake company engaged in decades of fraudulent bookkeeping, padding his net worth by billions of dollars and habitually misleading banks. News of the new super PAC also comes less than two months before the Nov. 8 midterm elections and as many Republican candidates have been struggling to raise money against well-funded Democrats. “President Trump is committed to saving America, and Make America Great Again, Inc. will ensure that is achieved at the ballot box in November and beyond,” said Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, who will serve as the group’s executive director. Others joining the committee include Republican strategist Chris LaCivita, longtime Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio and communications aides Steven Cheung and Alex Pfeiffer. Until now, Trump’s Save America leadership PAC, which must abide by far stricter fundraising and spending limits and has come under its own scrutiny, has served as his chief political vehicle. Super PACs can raise unlimited money and spend it freely but are barred from coordinating directly with campaigns. Trump officials declined to say how much the notoriously thrifty former president intends to spend on his midterm efforts or how much he might try to transfer from his Save America PAC, which ended August with more than $90 million. The Associated Press previously reported that aides had been discussing the possibility of moving at least some of that money to a new or repurposed super PAC, though campaign finance experts are mixed on the legality of such a move. While Trump has been a prolific fundraiser since leaving office, vacuuming up small-dollar donations, his existing super PAC — Make America Great Again, Again! — has not been a major midterm player. Trump has been under growing pressure to open his war chest and start spending on midterm races as Republicans have been outraised by Democrats heading into the final campaign stretch. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in particular, has urged candidates with Trump’s support to ask him to open his wallet. In the meantime, candidates, including some who presented themselves as McConnell antagonists during their primaries, have had to grovel to him and the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC he controls, which had $100 million in reserve at the end of June. Trump played a highly visible role during the GOP primaries, endorsing hundreds of candidates up and down the ballot, from Senate to governor to county commissioner. But some of those contenders are now struggling in their general election races, putting control of the evenly divided Senate up in the air. Trump is widely expected to launch another presidential run, but the timing of an announcement remains unclear. While he had once been keen to announce before the midterm elections, in part to try to stave off a long list of potential rivals who have been circling, some aides have urged him to wait, warning that announcing early could leave him open to blame if Republicans perform poorly in November. Print Headline: Trump allies create a new super PAC called MAGA Inc. Read More Here

Electoral College Act Fixes Advance https://digitalalaskanews.com/electoral-college-act-fixes-advance/ WASHINGTON — The U.S. Congress took its first major steps last week to pass legislation to revise the antiquated Electoral Count Act of 1887 as members of both parties said they wanted to avoid repetition of the 2020 presidential election. Lawmakers expressed a sense of urgency in fixing the 135-year-old act after former President Donald Trump tried to exploit its ambiguous language to stay in power and his supporters’ attacked the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021 to disrupt certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. Last Wednesday, the U.S. House, in a largely partisan 229-203 vote, passed a bill favored by Democrats that tightens the act. Nearly all Republicans voted against it because Democrats excluded them from the process and pushed it through to boost their chances in the midterm elections Nov. 8. Many Republicans prefer the Senate’s version. Last Thursday, the bipartisan Senate legislation picked up two more sponsors ahead of a Senate Rules Committee working session and vote scheduled for Tuesday. That sets it up for consideration on the Senate floor, which could happen before or after the Nov. 8 elections. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is working with supporters of the Senate version, including sponsors Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Schumer spokesman Angelo Roefero told Newsday. For the past two years, members of Congress, constitutional scholars and advocacy groups have identified at least four weaknesses in the Electoral Count Act, and both the House and Senate bills attempt to address them. Here are questions and answers about the act and proposals to fix it. What is the Electoral Count Act? The law controls the process for appointing electors for president, certifying and transmitting electoral votes to Congress, opening and counting the votes and resolutions of disputes, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School a nonpartisan policy and law institute. Congress passed the act to create a process to settle disputes a decade after Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden deadlocked in the 1876 presidential vote amid controversies about some states’ slates of electors. Hayes won by offering to remove troops from the South, which began the Jim Crow era of racial segregation and oppression. What is wrong with the Electoral Count Act? Its language is archaic, convoluted and unclear. One sentence is 275 words long with 21 commas and two semicolons. The ambiguities had not mattered as long as losing presidential candidates conceded defeat, even if they complained about voting irregularities. Trump, in his refusal to accept defeat and insisting that Democrats stole the election, exposed the act’s flaws. What key fixes do the House and Senate bills propose? While the bills have differences, both focus on four main aspects of the Electoral Count Act: the role of the vice president, objections by members of Congress to electoral slates, eliminating “fake electors” and limiting the circumstances for declaring “failed elections” in states. Defining the Vice President’s Role The 12th Amendment says the vice president, who serves as president of the Senate, shall “open all certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” The Electoral Count Act says that after tellers count the votes, the vice president shall “announce the state of the vote.” But based on an interpretation by former law professor John Eastman that the vice president could toss electors, Trump and top aides pressured Pence to use his role as president of the Senate to throw out contested state slates of electors. Pence refused. Both bills state clearly that the vice president performs only a “ministerial role” in overseeing the certification of the electoral vote, and nothing more. Limiting Lawmakers’ Objections Under the Electoral Count Act, both a House member and a senator can jointly raise an objection to a state’s slate of electors based on whether it was certified lawfully. Some lawmakers have tried to raise objections in many of the past certifications of the presidential vote, often as protests. Yet Republican Trump supporters planned to object to six state slates, enough to tie up the certification, After the riot, they objected to two slates. Both bills would make it harder to raise objections, narrowing the grounds and increasing the number of lawmakers needed. The Senate bill sets the threshold at one-fifth of each chamber; the House puts it at one-third of each. Blocking “Fake Electors” Trump supporters created an alternative slate of electors — dubbed “fake electors” because they had no legal standing — to the slates legally elected in a bid to tie up the electoral vote count in at least four states. The Electoral Count Act has a process for determining the officially approved slate of electors. But the House and Senate bills would ensure only Congress counts the electoral votes — and, as the Senate measure puts it, ensures the existence of one “single, conclusive slate of electors.” Both bills require each state’s governor to submit the electors, and creates a legal process if a governor refuses to submit a slate or if a presidential candidate challenges it. Defining “Failed Elections” Although Trump did not try to use it, lawmakers and experts said they feared a candidate could exploit an 1845 federal law allowing state legislatures to override the popular vote by declaring a “failed election.” To fix that flaw, the Senate bill requires a state to appoint electors on Election Day, and provides flexibility for state laws to extend voting because of “extraordinary and catastrophic” events. The House bill also requires Election Day appointment of electors. But it allows a state to extend voting for five days in case of a “catastrophic event,” defined as “a major natural disaster, an act of terrorism, or a widespread power outage.” A panel of judges must OK the extension. The Core Concept “The core concept is the peaceful transfer of power,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said at a Senate hearing on the legislation earlier this year. “And underlying that is a clear set of rules and principles that people can all understand and accept in advance,” he said. “And then it’s a mechanical process of counting the votes, determining who gets the electoral votes in a particular state, and then having Congress meet and count those votes, as has been done in the past, more or less routinely.” Tom Brune covers the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and the federal government from Washington, D.C. Read More Here

Backing Candidates Down To The State Level, Trump https://digitalalaskanews.com/backing-candidates-down-to-the-state-level-trump/ Angela Rigas stayed outside the Capitol when she attended the Jan. 6, 2021 rally that turned into an insurrection, and she could not have been prouder to be there. “It was the most amazing sight that I have ever, ever taken in, and I hope to God I will remember that image for the rest of my life,” Rigas said. “The pride of being an American, the pride of showing up and letting the government know that ‘you need to put yourself in check.’” When she announced her candidacy for the Michigan state House at a gathering for her state’s chapter of the ultra-conservative Constitution Party, she told them why she was at the Capitol in the first place: “They can try to take our country away in an election, but we’ll take it back however we can.”  Rigas’ previous political activism involved defying pandemic lockdown restrictions, a move that put her hair-cutting license in jeopardy. Now, with backing from former President Donald Trump, she’s the Republican nominee in a district so deeply red that she’s all but assured to take office.  Save America: Trump committee raised millions to fight election fraud before Jan. 6 It may be unusual for a national figure such as Trump to take such interest in a primary, let alone in such a low-level race, but that’s exactly what he is doing. Without being a candidate for any federal office, he is trying to reshape the Republican Party into a movement focused on devotion to him rather than to ideological principles. At the top of the agenda for the former president is enlisting loyalists to help him settle his grievances over his loss in the 2020 presidential race. Several experts likened the political playbook to those used by authoritarian leaders.  Trump’s vehicle for this is a fundraising machine called Save America. Started just after he lost the 2020 election and at the height of his efforts to overturn the results, the PAC’s surrogates routinely send out misinformation including conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the FBI’s search of Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, to rake in donations from the public. It operates like a veritable slush fund, paying for personal expenses like luxurious hotels and even a fashion designer.   Lawyers, Arizona candidates, more: How Trump’s PAC spent almost $4M in July The money given directly to the candidates by Save America — usually $5,000 each — pales in comparison to Save America’s spending on lawyers who represent Trump in ongoing investigations and barely tops what the PAC spent to commission the former president and first lady’s portraits to hang in the Smithsonian. Instead, the donation is a lever that the former president can pull on to encourage loyalty and exert influence.  The scope of the effort is wide and deep: Save America has backed 28 candidates for state office in nine states. In three of those states, Save America has backed candidates for state legislature, a level virtually unheard of for a PAC of a former high-ranking federal official. At the federal level, Save America has backed candidates for 131 seats in the House and 18 seats in the Senate. The vast majority are election deniers.  And they’ve been largely successful. Two-thirds of Save America candidates running at the state level won their primaries, including all of them in Arizona and Texas. All but a handful of the PAC’s federal candidates have advanced from their primaries and will be on the ballot Nov. 8.   Smithsonian donation: Portraits of Trump, Melania among latest spending for Save America PAC Reaching deep into the Wolverine State Save America reached the deepest into Michigan. The PAC backed nine different candidates in their primaries for state legislative seats, the most of any state, plus candidates for attorney general and secretary of state. The group even funded a ballot initiative.   In addition to being a hotbed for challenging the results of the 2020 election — ranging from a legal challenge in Antrim County to unsubstantiated claims about Dominion Voting Systems machines — Michigan also has what state officials have called “the most decentralized election system in the nation.”   Enter Rachelle Smit, the township clerk in a village of 400 in southwestern Michigan who says her first-hand knowledge of running elections informs her view that 2020 was a “failed election.” She is one of four Save America-backed legislative candidates in Michigan who won her primary.   Who is Tudor Dixon?: Four things to know about Michigan’s GOP nominee for governor “Michigan is being wrecked by a tyrannical dictator,” Smit said in a campaign ad. “As the township clerk of Martin, I knew something wasn’t adding up when precincts across the nation stopped counting late at night, and that just doesn’t happen. I too feel the frustration with our so-called leaders in Lansing ignoring their duty to uphold the constitution and kowtow to special interests.”  Jonathan Lindsey, a U.S. Army special forces veteran running for state Senate, puts the claims on his webpage. “Instead of a fair election, we saw one that was not conducted legally, was open to manipulation and fraud, and that resulted in many reports of irregularities,” his site reads.   The endorsement statement from Save America called Lindsey a “warrior” who is “tough on election integrity.”   Save America went 2-0 in primary endorsements for statewide campaigns in Michigan. Both winners have centered their campaign around the 2020 election and won endorsements from the former president and Save America that endorse their experience with alleged election fraud.   Kristina Karamo: Anti-vaxxer, election denier, against evolution education. And, in Michigan, perhaps secretary of state Kristina Karamo, Save America’s candidate for secretary of state, alleged on Fox News in 2020 that she had witnessed improper handling of ballots in Detroit. Her campaign account also posted a video alleging that a woman in it was fraudulently signing absentee ballots on behalf of others.   Matthew DePerno, Save America’s attorney general candidate, represented a Michigander in the infamous case against Dominion Voting systems, the elections software and hardware maker, in Antrim County. He has also been accused by state investigators working for the sitting attorney general of tampering with voting machines after the election.   A state agency has appointed a special prosecutor to review whether DePerno and others should face charges related to voting machine tampering. DePerno dismisses the issue as the work of a “the most corrupt AG in the country” seeking to influence his election.  Presidents don’t usually do this   Candidates in Michigan continually frame Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as a dictator, but experts say the one edging toward authoritarianism is Trump himself, even though he does not have a formal position to carry out his plans and has not declared his candidacy for any federal office.   “It’s common for those who want to be authoritarians or strongmen to do anything they can to create issues with elections and question the legitimacy of elections, especially when an election is not going their way,” said Jodi Vittori, co-chair of the global politics and security concentration at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.   Rusty Hills, lecturer in public policy at the University of Michigan and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, said there’s nothing unusual about presidents getting involved in elections, but they usually do so on behalf of the party in the general election, after voters have decided who the party nominee will be.   ‘Can I count on you?’: Trump revs up fundraising pitches after FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search “In the case of Donald Trump, he’s engaged just as much if not more often within primaries and conventions and nominating contests,” Hills said. “So he’s trying to pick out who are the right kinds of Republicans.”   Going all the way down to the state level is even more unusual, he said.   “Most presidents don’t get to that granular level of detail,” he said. “That’s getting pretty far in the weeds.”  Lawrence Rosenthal, the chair of the Center for Right Wing Studies at UC Berkeley, agreed that it’s “very unusual for a national PAC of this level of renown to be supporting at the level of state offices.” He said the overall goal is to formalize the blueprint from the 2020 election. Vittori, who specializes in monitoring corruption and democracies, described the significance of reaching so deep into state elections.  “They’ve begun the process of putting loyalists in key offices, including low-level offices Republicans never really paid attention to,” Vittori said, noting that Trump has also talked about replacing civil service workers. “Whether he’s doing it, or advisors are doing it, they are really running an authoritarian playbook. They really understand where the rules of the game are and the large loopholes in our laws. You can undermine democracy by doing things that are technically legal, but have never been done before.”  Melania’s designer: Trump PAC paid $60K to Herve Pierre Braillard Batting 1.000 in Arizona   Save America batted 1.000 in Arizona, where candidates for governor and secretary of state both won their primaries, as did one incumbent and one newcomer in the state Senate. Money funneled through a state-level PAC also helped defeat another Trump opponent.  Former Arizona representative Anthony Kern, who won his primary for state Senate, has tweeted  baselessly that there is “ample evidence” to prove that Trump won the 2020 election. He has also called for Arizona not to use Dominion Voting Systems machines, often blamed without evidence for allowing fraud during the 2020 election, for the 2022 midterms.   In Save America’s endorsement of Kern, Trump wrote that he already pu...

A Stopgap And The Missing Feds: Asylum Seeker Tents Can Have A Role While Biden Is MIA https://digitalalaskanews.com/a-stopgap-and-the-missing-feds-asylum-seeker-tents-can-have-a-role-while-biden-is-mia/ It’s said that governing often comes down to picking the least bad of a suite of bad options. The Adams administration’s decision to begin funneling some asylum seekers — arriving by the thousands as part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s barbarous political stunt to bus them here under false pretenses — into weatherized tents in an Orchard Beach parking lot is definitely not a good option, but it is understandable if combined with a more creative and coordinated approach to attacking the problem. That means not using these as a long-term housing solution, consistent with the city’s stated plans to not have anyone stay in them longer than 96 hours. The tents are obviously not a proper place for someone to find some stability after months trekking to the border. A past example of what the outside of a Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center will look like. New York City’s setups will likely have some differences, according to the mayor’s office. (NYC Mayor’s Office) But to say they’re not ideal amidst an unprecedented influx is not to say that, properly managed, they can’t play a role. Critics reflexively decrying the setup as an open humanitarian violation should clam up. (Would they so deride emergency housing after hurricanes?) Used as a sort of clearinghouse for migrants to receive additional services and logistical support — including support for placement with volunteer families and organizations that the administration should really be working on recruiting — they have utility, with proper oversight structures to ensure that the migrants are having their basic needs met. This all still leaves the question of why it’s up to New York City exclusively to find solutions to this dilemma that Abbott has created with a cruel policy even Donald Trump’s son-in-law, apparently without any self-awareness given the vile policies the last president implemented, calls “very troubling.” President Biden has expressed displeasure at the political theater, yet last we checked he still runs the federal government, which includes the Customs and Border Protection officers who are making the problem worse by giving migrants false information, and who could in theory be doing a much more humane job of coordinating migrant transfers. It also includes FEMA, an agency with some experience setting up triage and finding solutions to crises. Where are they? Read More Here

Zelensky Calls On Ukrainians In Occupied Territory To Resist Russian Draft https://digitalalaskanews.com/zelensky-calls-on-ukrainians-in-occupied-territory-to-resist-russian-draft/ Image Cheering at passing military vehicles on Friday in Chuhuiv, in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine.Credit…Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images With Russia laying the groundwork to formally annex areas it is occupying, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine directly asked Ukrainians to help the nation’s war effort even from within the occupied territory. Russian-backed officials in eastern and southern Ukraine continued carrying out referendums that began on Friday and that were widely viewed as staged to establish a pretext for Moscow to incorporate those areas into the Russian Federation. That would allow the Kremlin to conscript people from the region for its war effort and frame attacks on the territory as attacks on Russia. Mr. Zelensky, in his nightly address on Friday, asked those living in regions under partial Russian control — Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizka and Kherson — to avoid Russian mobilization efforts “by any means” and to try to make it to Ukraine-held lands. If they cannot, and end up in the Russian military, Mr. Zelensky asked that they assist Ukraine’s fight from the inside. “Sabotage any activity of the enemy, hinder any Russian operations, provide us with any important information about the occupiers — their bases, headquarters, warehouses with ammunition,” he said. “And at the first opportunity, switch to our positions. Do everything to save your life and help liberate Ukraine.” Ukrainian partisans have played a major role in the war from behind enemy lines. They were credited with taking part in a strike on a Russian air base in Crimea, an area that has been under Moscow’s control since 2014, and attacks on Russian-appointed officials in occupied cities. As the referendums on joining Russia began this week, partisans targeted election infrastructure, blowing up warehouses containing ballots or buildings where officials were meeting in preparation for the vote. An explosion rocked the Russian-controlled southern city of Melitopol on Friday morning before voting started. Mr. Zelensky said in his speech that Ukraine’s stunning advance in recent weeks, which has forced a Russian retreat in the country’s northeast, was enabled by the collaboration of Ukrainians living under Russian rule there. Praising their efforts, he said, “Please do everything to increase such help.” After President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia announced a mobilization this week that could draft about 300,000 people into the military, Ukrainians in occupied lands expressed fears of the same fate. Olha, a Ukrainian who spoke on Thursday night to friends in Enerhodar, a Russian-controlled city in southeastern Ukraine near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, said men ages 18 to 35 were being prevented from leaving the city. She said she was nervous that annexation would force young men to join the Russian military and fight against fellow Ukrainians. Mr. Zelensky called such mobilization efforts “criminal” and called on outside governments to condemn the draft and “sham” referendums in occupied Ukraine. — Victoria Kim and Maria Varenikova Image Residents of Luhansk, Ukraine, voted in a referendum organized by Russian authorities on Friday. Polling stations were installed across Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory for referendums on annexation by Russia.Credit…EPA, via Shutterstock Russian soldiers, wearing balaclavas and wielding guns, flanked election workers. Ukrainians were forced to vote while Russian officials or their proxies stood guard. Some residents even hid in their homes, terrified that voting against Russia’s annexation would lead to their being abducted, or worse. As Russia began orchestrating staged voting in referendums across Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine on Friday, Ukrainians in those areas expressed a mix of anger, defiance and fear that their homeland was being usurped by force in what they called a sham vote. The aim of the hastily called referendums — supported by pro-Russian residents and their proxies — was apparent: to give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a legally bogus pretext to gobble up their country. And they brought back memories of staged votes in 2014 in Crimea that were swiftly followed by Russia’s annexation of the peninsula. BELARUS POLAND RUSSIA Kyiv UKRAINE Luhansk Donetsk MOLDOVA Zaporizka ROMANIA Kherson CRIMEA 200 miles RUSSIA Kyiv UKRAINE Luhansk Donetsk MOLDOVA Zaporizka Kherson ROMANIA CRIMEA 200 miles Tina, 27, a freelance journalist who was visiting her fiancé’s parents in Beryslav, in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, said that she drove through the streets on Friday morning and saw Russian officials standing in a neighbor’s yard, waiting for him to fill the ballot before passing it on to someone in a nearby vehicle. Russian officials were going door to door, she said, to deliver ballots, peering into the windows of homes that did not answer their call. “We are against these occupiers,” Tina said, “but we do not have a right to say no — we cannot refuse.” Tina, who said she has participated in protests against the Russian occupation, said that her fiancé’s relatives had locked their gates and doors and turned off their lights, as Ukrainian authorities had advised. But she was worried that their address would be noted and there would be negative repercussions if they refused to answer the door. “After living side by side with them for more than six months now, we have learned that any refusal could result in a direct ticket to the basement,” she said, using a phrase Ukrainians under occupation in Kherson, a port city in the country’s south, have started using to describe abductions by occupying forces. Olha, a Ukrainian who spoke on Thursday night to friends in Enerhodar, a Russian-controlled city in southeastern Ukraine near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, said men aged 18 to 35 were being prevented from leaving the city. Echoing the concerns of many Ukrainians, she said she was nervous that Russian annexation would force young men to join the Russian military and fight against fellow Ukrainians. That has already happened in parts of Luhansk and Donetsk occupied by Russia since 2014. “They want to conscript them to the Russian armed forces,” Olha said. “And Ukrainians will have to fight against Ukrainians,” she said, stopping as she broke into tears. Like others interviewed for this article, she did not want to use her full name out of concern for her safety. Andriy, 44, who has friends and relatives in Kherson, said he had spoken to them in recent days and they had told him that it wasn’t possible to leave the city because of the referendum. “You know, those who are smart, they sit at home and don’t go anywhere,” he said by phone from Kyiv. Image Residents of Luhansk, Ukraine, waited to vote at a polling station set up for this week’s referendum on whether to be annexed by Russia. Credit…Associated Press In Russian-occupied Melitopol, in southeastern Ukraine, Natalia, 73, a pensioner, said that the referendums had shocked her. “The scariest thing is that after the referendum, if Ukraine tries to liberate my city, it will be considered as an attack on Russia,” she said. She said the Russians had set up information booths about the referendum across Melitopol, and had hung banners with pro-Russian slogans. The city, she said, was covered with Russian flags, and patriotic Russian music played. On Friday, she said, she looked out the window of her apartment and saw two pro-Russian referendum workers entering the building. She remained inside, far from the window, to avoid being seen. But she managed to spot two soldiers, each wearing a balaclava and clutching a gun, escorting three referendum workers. She said that a polling station had been set up in the gym of a school. “I will not go to vote,” Natalia said. “Only if they point a gun at me, and even then I will vote for Ukraine.” Diana Poladova contributed reporting. Image Construction workers lineup to cast ballots at a mobile polling station in Russian-controlled Mariupol in eastern Ukraine on Friday. The referendum has been called a sham by the G7.Credit…Associated Press President Biden and leaders of the Group of 7 nations on Friday condemned Russia’s hastily called referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine, a possible prelude to annexation of those territories, calling the votes a flagrant violation of international law. “These sham referenda initiated today by Russia and its proxies have no legal effect or legitimacy, as demonstrated by Russia’s hasty methods of organization, which in no way respect democratic norms, and its blatant intimidation of local populations,” the leaders of the group, which includes the United States, Britain and other Western powers, said in a statement released on Friday afternoon. “These referenda in areas that have been forcibly put under Russia’s temporary control in no way represent a legitimate expression of the will of the Ukrainian people, who have consistently resisted Russian efforts to change borders by force,” the leaders continued. “We will never recognize these referenda which appear to be a step toward Russian annexation and we will never recognize a purported annexation if it occurs.” The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters on Friday that the Biden administration was “prepared to impose additional swift and severe economic costs on Russia along with our allies and partners in response to these actions if they move forward with annexation.” Nodding to the Group of 7 statement, Ms. Jean-Pierre said the United States would “never recognize this territory or as anything other than part of Ukraine, because we stand with our partners around the world in rejecting whatever fa...

MAGA Candidates Scrub References To “stolen Election” https://digitalalaskanews.com/maga-candidates-scrub-references-to-stolen-election/ This article originally appeared on Raw Story On Friday, The New York Times reported that several candidates who have pushed the conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump are now scrubbing and revising these claims, both walking them back in public and trying to delete them from their websites. “Blake Masters in Arizona, Tiffany Smiley in Washington State and Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania have all made pivots — some artfully, some not — as the ardent, Trump-loyal voters who decided the Republican primaries shrink in the rearview mirror, and a more cautious, broader November electorate comes into view,” reported Jonathan Weisman. “These three Senate candidates haven’t quite renounced their questioning of the 2020 election — to right-wing audiences of podcasts, radio shows and Fox News, they still signal their skepticism — but they have shifted their appeals to the swing voters they need to win on Nov. 8.” Masters, for example — who famously writes all the code for his own website — deleted a line from the site that read, “If we had had a free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today.” Smiley deleted a website section that said, “The 2020 elections raised serious questions about the integrity of our elections.” And Oz, who once said we “cannot move on” from 2020, told reporters this month he “would not have objected to” certifying the electors if he were in the Senate. Perhaps one of the most dramatic about-faces on the issue, said the report, has been Don Bolduc, a retired brigadier general now running for Senate in New Hampshire. Before the primary this month, Bolduc said, “I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying that Trump won the election, and, damn it, I stand by my letter.” But immediately after winning the nomination, he appeared on Fox News and said, “I’ve done a lot of research on this and I’ve spent the past couple weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party, and I have come to the conclusion — and I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen.” This comes as some Republican Senate candidates also retreat from absolutist anti-abortion positions, amid rising public anger over the Supreme Court’s decision clearing GOP legislatures to pass total bans of the procedure. Masters also deleted references to his support for “a federal personhood law” that would ban abortion nationwide, and now claims in ads that he only supports a limit on “very late term abortions,” while declining to define what that means. Trending Articles from Salon Read More Here

Letter To The Editor: LePage Using Maine To Get Attention Again https://digitalalaskanews.com/letter-to-the-editor-lepage-using-maine-to-get-attention-again/ Letters increase font size Randy Billings’ excellent Sept. 18 Telegram story suggests what some of us have thought for some time: that Paul LePage tried to use Maine as a path to a national stage. He asked then-President Donald Trump to name him “national point person for welfare reform,” citing his “significant record of achievement” in his two terms as governor. He asked Trump to name him CEO of a foreign aid organization, citing his business experience and his “lifelong passion for helping the poor.” He didn’t mention that he sat on federal funds intended for poor families, sending more Maine children into deep poverty; that he shunned such frivolous ideas as free school lunches although Maine is consistently the most food-insecure state in New England; that his Department of Health and Human Services failed to answer hundreds of phone calls about abused children as reports of abuse soared; that he refused to provide health care to thousands by failing to implement voter-approved Medicaid expansion. Now he’s seeking the national stage again. He is trying to be “a regular guy,” but there’s no new Paul LePage. He’s got his wrecking ball out, greased and ready, to once again try to destroy everything that’s good about Maine to get national attention. Donna Halvorsen South Portland Invalid username/password. Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration. Use the form below to reset your password. When you’ve submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code. Read More Here

Giorgia Meloni May Become Italy's 1st Far-Right Leader Since World War II https://digitalalaskanews.com/giorgia-meloni-may-become-italys-1st-far-right-leader-since-world-war-ii/ ROME — If polling is correct, Italians will elect their country’s most right-wing government since the end of World War II on Sunday. That’s no small matter in a country that has had 69 governments since 1946. Leading the coalition that looks likely to secure a majority of seats in Italy’s parliament is Giorgia Meloni, leader of Fratelli d’Italia, the Brothers of Italy party. If her coalition does win, she will also make history by becoming Italy’s first female prime minister. Meloni, 45, grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Rome that’s better known for cultivating leftist activists than producing fiery hard-right politicians. Her party has roots in the neo-fascist movement that emerged out of the ruins of World War II. Symbols point to the party’s connection to that past too. The party flag includes a tricolor flame that was a symbol of fascism in the early 20th century. Meloni has refused to remove the flame from the party’s logo. And many party members have shown an affinity for fascism and fascist leaders of the past. Just this week, the party suspended a member running for parliament after an Italian newspaper revealed he had posted comments supporting Adolf Hitler in the past. Meloni has spent considerable time and energy trying to convince Italians and Europeans that the party is not fascist. When not on the radio or TV, she is on the road, creating videos she streams live and posts to all her social media platforms. Meloni’s Twitter feed is full of dozens of scenes that look nearly identical. They all show her as she takes the stage in various Italian cities, to the adoring cheers of supporters holding Brothers of Italy flags. Meloni’s opposition to immigration has animated her and her base In August, Meloni posted a video on social media saying she would introduce a naval blockade to patrol the Mediterranean, to interdict people whom she called “illegal immigrants” from North Africa. “What is important in the campaign is not the policy itself. It’s the message — ‘we will stop them at any cost,'” says historian Lorenzo Castellani, a professor at Rome’s LUISS University. “She is proposing herself as a sort of defender of the borders, a very Trumpian approach from this point of view,” Castellani says, referring to former President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric and policies. Even as she spends energy trying to dispense with the fascism label, Meloni also serves up red meat to the party faithful. At a recent event, she was yelling about the years of shame many have felt for holding what she often calls “anti-woke” opinions. “I have a dream of a nation in which people who have had to put their heads down for so many years … can now say what they think and not lose their jobs because of it,” Meloni said. A conservative in a moderate’s clothing? Some Italians fear a Meloni-led government would move to outlaw abortion, legal in Italy since 1978. Meloni says she will not. Meloni has long been a Euroskeptic — and in the past has talked about taking Italy out of the common currency, the euro, and even of leaving the European Union. But she has repeatedly promised she’ll work with the EU and can be trusted to manage the 200 billion euros ($194 billion) Italy has received in European pandemic recovery funds. That assurance was called into question on Thursday, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned there could be consequences for Italy, the EU’s third-largest economy, if it moves in an anti-democratic direction after the election. Meloni has long insisted that she has no plans to go soft on Russia and has supported Ukraine since war broke out in February. But one of her coalition partners, Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has a long friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and appeared on an Italian talk show Thursday, saying Putin invaded Ukraine to put “decent people” in power in Kyiv. It’s not clear if this could damage Meloni’s coalition’s prospects at this late hour, but her opponent, former Prime Minister Enrico Letta, the head of Italy’s center-left Democratic Party, has repeatedly said on the campaign trail, “If the right wins, the first person to be happy will be Vladimir Putin.” An astute political operative With Italians facing spiraling energy costs, inflation and a lackluster economy, Meloni, whose party only won 4% of the vote in the last election, has positioned herself as an outsider who will shake things up. Political writer Federico Fubini, a Meloni critic, says she was astute to sit out of the national unity government that just collapsed. It created a big opening. “The main reason why she’s leading in the polls is because she’s perceived as the one that was not in power for the last 10 years,” he says. If Meloni’s coalition does win and she is named prime minister, she’ll take office almost exactly 100 years after Benito Mussolini took power in Rome. She insists his ideology is in the past. Many Italians and Europeans hope she’ll stick to her word. Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. Read More Here

Breyer: Supreme Court Leaker Still Appears To Be A Mystery – Associated Press | Prescott ENews https://digitalalaskanews.com/breyer-supreme-court-leaker-still-appears-to-be-a-mystery-associated-press-prescott-enews/ It’s a Washington mystery that no one seems able to unravel. The Supreme Court apparently still hasn’t found the person who leaked a draft of the court’s major abortion decision earlier this year. In a television interview airing this weekend, retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who left the court in June when the justices began their summer break, says he hasn’t heard that the person’s identity has been determined. Breyer, 84, was speaking with CNN anchor Chris Wallace. According to a transcript provided by the network, Wallace asked about the leak, which happened in May: “Within 24 hours the chief justice ordered an investigation of the leaker. Have they found him or her?” “Not to my knowledge, but … I’m not privy to it,” Breyer responds. Wallace presses: “So in those months since, the chief justice never said, ‘Hey, we got our man or woman?’” “To my knowledge, no,” again responded Breyer, who despite being retired maintains an office at the Supreme Court. The interview is to air Sunday on “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” Other justices have also suggested recently that the identity of the leaker remains unknown to the court. At a conference in Colorado this month Justice Neil Gorsuch said it is “terribly important” to identify the leaker and he is expecting a report on the progress of the investigation, “I hope soon.” Justice Elena Kagan also said recently she does not know if the investigation Roberts ordered has determined the source of the leak. Breyer, a liberal appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton, also spoke on a range of other topics with Wallace. He was asked about Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, and her involvement in helping former President Donald Trump try to overturn his election defeat. Thomas has faced criticism for texting with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and contacting lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the election. She recently agreed to participate in a voluntary interview with the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. “I strongly believe that women who are wise, including wives of Supreme Court justices, have to make the decisions about how to lead their lives, careers, what kind of career etc., for themselves. So on this sort of issue, I understand where you’re going, but I’m not going there. … I’m not going to criticize Ginni Thomas, whom I like. I’m not going to criticize Clarence whom I like. And there we are,” Breyer said. Breyer, who watched his liberal colleague Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opt not to retire when President Barack Obama could have named a like-minded replacement, said he would miss being on the court but that it was time to leave. Ginsburg died near the end of former President Donald Trump’s term, and he named the conservative Justice Amy Coney Barret to replace her. Barrett was confirmed just days before the presidential election that ousted Trump from office. “I’ve done this for a long time. Other people should have a chance. The world does change. And we don’t know, frankly, what would happen, if I just stayed there and stayed there. How long would I have to stay there? … I owe loyalty to the court, which means don’t muck things up. Do things in a regular order,” Breyer said. Read More Here

G.O.P. Senate Hopefuls Leave Campaign Trail For Beltway Money Circuit https://digitalalaskanews.com/g-o-p-senate-hopefuls-leave-campaign-trail-for-beltway-money-circuit/ Their fund-raising dwarfed by their Democratic rivals, Republican nominees including Blake Masters and Mehmet Oz have been in Washington gathering cash from lobbyists. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, meeting voters in Sun City West, Ariz., in June. This week, he has been in Washington trying to make up a large fund-raising gap with his opponent, Senator Mark Kelly.Credit…Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times Sept. 24, 2022, 3:00 a.m. ET WASHINGTON — Rushing to raise money and close yawning gaps with their Democratic rivals, every Senate Republican nominee in a competitive race is taking precious time from the campaign trail to come to Washington this week and next to gather money before Congress leaves for the fall. Fund-raising invitations obtained by The New York Times reveal days full of dinners, receptions and even some free meet-and-greets — schedule-fillers the candidates hope they can use to make a good impression and pick up a check on the spot. Two thousand miles from Phoenix, Blake Masters, the Republican challenging Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, made a campaign pitch on Wednesday evening alongside Senator Mitch McConnell in a conference room near the Capitol. Mr. Masters accused his Democratic rival of portraying himself as a moderate while voting like a liberal. “We don’t need as much money as Kelly, just enough to get the truth out,” Mr. Masters said, according to notes from a person who was in the room, which was filled with lobbyists who had paid $1,000 per political action committee to attend. As political fund-raising goes, Mr. Masters was making a modest ask, and he isn’t the only Republican to downgrade his financial goals. The Republican Senate hopefuls, many of them first-time candidates, have little choice but to race from lobby shop to steakhouse alongside the party leaders some of them castigated in their primaries but who now serve as lures for access-hungry lobbyists. The reasons are wide-ranging. Republican small-dollar fund-raising has dried up in the face of soaring inflation. Former President Donald J. Trump’s relentless appeals for his own committees have siphoned cash that would typically go to candidates or party committees. And the party’s novice Senate nominees lack the sort of wealthy donor networks that more experienced candidates have nurtured for years. “These are candidates that have never run for office before and never done the work necessary to develop relationships at the grass-roots or donor level in their own states or nationally,” said Jack Oliver, a longtime Republican fund-raiser. He then alluded to the way that many of them claimed their nominations: “If you can just go on Tucker or get Trump to endorse you, you don’t have to go meet with voters or donors.” For some major contributors, summer has just wrapped up, the temperature hasn’t much changed, and the election feels some time away. The advent of widespread early and mail voting, however, along with the need to reserve airtime on local television stations, means there’s little time left for the candidates to gather the cash they need. “To donors it’s early, to candidates it’s late,” as Lisa Spies, a Republican fund-raising consultant, put it. Of course, candidates of both parties have long jetted into the nation’s capital to raise money from the influence industry. And even as this year’s Republican class struggles for cash, the candidates have support from outside super PACs, most notably the one Mr. McConnell effectively controls, to ensure that they remain financially competitive. (Mr. McConnell’s group, the Senate Leadership Fund, accounted for 90 percent of the money spent on television this week in the Ohio Senate race, and an even greater percentage in North Carolina.) Mr. McConnell has asked his fellow Republican senators to contribute 20 percent of the money from their leadership PACs this election, an increase over past campaigns, according to a Republican official familiar with the request. “This is why God invented super PACs,” said Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist. Yet the frenetic cash dash around Washington, shortly before early voting gets underway in many states, underscores the urgency Republicans are feeling to cut into Democrats’ fund-raising advantage. A major part of the motivation: Candidates receive substantially better television advertising rates than super PACs, so an individual campaign dollar goes further on the air. A spreadsheet of television advertising reservations shared by a top Republican strategist this week makes clear why many in the party are alarmed about their fund-raising deficit. Head-to-head, Democratic candidates have been sharply outspending their Republican rivals for weeks. In some states, like Arizona, New Hampshire and North Carolina, the G.O.P. nominees hadn’t aired even a single commercial in their own right through August and into September. Even in Georgia and Nevada, perhaps the two states where Republicans have the best chance to flip Democratic-held seats, the Democratic incumbents are overwhelming their G.O.P. challengers. From the week of Aug. 14 to the week of Nov. 6, Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia had over $30 million in television reservations, while his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, had just over $7.8 million booked. In the same time period, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Democrat of Nevada, had over $16 million in television reservations while her Republican opponent, Adam Laxalt, had just over $6 million reserved. Image Adam Laxalt, the Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada, shaking hands with former President Donald J. Trump in Las Vegas in July. From the week of Aug. 14 to the week of Nov. 6, Mr. Laxalt had only $6 million in television reservations.Credit…Roger Kisby for The New York Times In key Senate races, top Democrats are raising millions of dollars online every month. In August alone, Mr. Warnock received nearly $6.8 million from more than 200,000 contributions, and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes of Wisconsin raised nearly $6.3 million from more than 120,000 donations. In Arizona, Mr. Kelly raised $5.7 million from more than 170,000 donations on ActBlue in August. That sum is more than Mr. Masters had raised in total from when he began his campaign in 2021 through mid-July 2022, the last date that data is available. How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause. The Democratic advantage has been mitigated by outside Republican spending, including some hybrid advertising between the G.O.P. candidates and the Senate Republican campaign arm. But the disparity in candidate fund-raising explains why so many Republican Senate hopefuls have swapped public appearances at home for private events on more financially fertile terrain. It is Washington this week and next. Last week it was Florida, where the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, Rick Scott, squired eight candidates around his state and Sea Island, Ga., a resort community where his committee hosted a weekend donor retreat for many of the same contenders. What’s striking about the candidates’ schedules is how much work they’re putting in for relatively little financial payoff at a moment when some of the top-raising Democrats have stockpiled tens of millions. Individuals are limited at giving $2,900 to candidates, and PACs can contribute only up to $5,000. This coming Tuesday, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, has Washington fund-raising receptions lined up at 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., each hosted by a different group of lobbyists. It will be Dr. Oz’s second trek to the Beltway in a week: This past Tuesday, he was at the Northern Virginia home of Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, Republican operatives and Trump enthusiasts, where $5,800 granted a couple admission to an event and a photo with the television doctor turned Senate candidate. Mr. Laxalt, too, put in long hours far from Nevada. After attending the events in Florida and Georgia last week, he spent Tuesday at a $2,900-per-person dinner in Virginia’s well-heeled hunt country. Mr. Laxalt then came back to Washington to attend a series of events on Wednesday with lobbyists and Republican senators, concluding with an “Evening Cigar With Adam Laxalt Hosted by Premium Cigar Association” that cost $250 per person or $500 per PAC to attend (no word on if the cigar was extra). “The math is really simple: You can’t get there at $2,900 a pop,” said Mr. Reed, the Republican strategist. That’s not stopping the hopefuls from trying, however. Mr. Masters, who’s facing a Grand Canyon-size fund-raising gap with Mr. Kelly, charged only $500 per person to attend the reception with Mr. McConnell on Wednesday. The next day, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors hosted Mr. Masters for an afternoon gathering that was even more modestly priced. “This is a meet-and-greet, not a fund-raiser, so an opportunity for anyone who would like to meet the candidate to do so without having to make a financial commitment — though they would obviously welcome contributions!” Jade West, the wholesalers lobbyist, wrote in an email to potential attendees. Image J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio, had just $628,000 in the bank at the start of this month.Credit…Jeff Swen...

Georgia Voting Equipment Breach At Center Of Tangled Tale https://digitalalaskanews.com/georgia-voting-equipment-breach-at-center-of-tangled-tale/ This Jan. 7, 2021, image taken from Coffee County, Ga., security video, appears to show Cathy Latham (center, long turquoise top), introducing members of a computer forensic team to local election officials. Latham was the county Republican Party chair at the time. The computer forensics team was at the county elections office in Douglas, Ga., to make copies of voting equipment in an effort that documents show was arranged by attorney Sidney Powell and others allied with then-President Donald Trump. (Coffee County, Georgia via AP) ATLANTA (AP) — The tale of breached voting equipment in one of the country’s most important political battleground states involves a bail bondsman, a prominent attorney tied to former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and a cast of characters from a rural county that rarely draws notice from outsiders. How they all came together and what it could mean for the security of voting in the upcoming midterm elections are questions tangled up in a lawsuit and state investigations that have prompted calls to ditch the machines altogether. Details of the unauthorized access of sensitive voting equipment in Coffee County, Georgia, became public last month when documents and emails revealed the involvement of high-profile Trump supporters. That’s also when it caught the attention of an Atlanta-based prosecutor who is leading a separate investigation of Trump’s efforts to undo his loss in the state. Since then, revelations about what happened in the county of 43,000 people have raised questions about whether the Dominion Voting Systems machines used in Georgia have been compromised. The public disclosure of the breach began with a rambling phone call from an Atlanta-area bail bondsman to the head of an election security advocacy group involved in a long-running lawsuit targeting the state’s voting machines. According to a recording filed in court earlier this year, the bail bondsman said he’d chartered a jet and was with a computer forensics team at the Coffee County elections office when they “imaged every hard drive of every piece of equipment.” That happened on Jan. 7, 2021, a day after the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and two days after a runoff election in which Democrats swept both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats. The trip to Coffee County, about 200 miles south of Atlanta, to copy data and software from elections equipment was directed by attorney Sidney Powell and other Trump allies, according to deposition testimony and documents produced in response to subpoenas. Later that month, security camera footage shows, two men who have participated in efforts to question the results of the 2020 election in several states spent days going in and out of the Coffee County elections office. The footage also shows local election and Republican Party officials welcoming the visitors and allowing them access to the election equipment. The video seems to contradict statements some of the officials made about their apparent involvement. The new information has made Coffee County, where Trump won nearly 70% of the vote two years ago, a focal point of concerns over the security of voting machines. While there is no evidence of widespread problems with voting equipment in 2020, some Trump supporters have spread false information about machines and the election outcome. Election security experts and activists fear state election officials haven’t acted fast enough in the face of what they see as a real threat. The copying of the software and its availability for download means potential bad actors could build exact copies of the Dominion system to test different types of attacks, said University of California, Berkeley computer scientist Philip Stark, an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the voting machines lawsuit. “This is like bank robbers having an exact replica of the vault that they’re trying to break into,” he said. Stark said the risks could be minimized by using hand-marked paper ballots and rigorous audits. Dominion says its equipment remains secure. Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, the group that sued over the state’s voting machines, said the state has been slow to investigate. She was on the receiving end of the phone call from the bail bondsman. The state, she said, has been “repeatedly looking the other way when faced with flashing red lights of serious voting system security problems.” State officials say they’re confident the election system is safe. All Coffee County election equipment that wasn’t already replaced will be swapped out before early voting begins next month, the secretary of state’s office said Friday. State officials also noted they were deluged by false claims after the 2020 election. “In retrospect, you can say, well what about this, this and this,” said Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office. “In real time, no, there was no reason to think that.” In late January 2021, a few weeks after the computer forensics team visited, security video shows a secretary of state’s office investigator arriving at the Coffee County elections office. He and the elections supervisor walk into the room that houses the election management system server. Seconds later, Jeff Lenberg, who has been identified by Michigan authorities as being part of an effort to gain access to voting machines there, is seen walking out of that room. Asked whether Lenberg’s presence in the room with sensitive election equipment raised concerns for the investigator, secretary of state’s office spokesperson Mike Hassinger said the investigator was looking into an unrelated matter and didn’t know who Lenberg was. Security video also showed another man, Doug Logan, at the office in mid-January. Logan founded a company called Cyber Ninjas, which led a discredited review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona. In May 2021, Coffee County’s new elections supervisor raised concerns with the secretary of state’s office after finding Logan’s business card by a computer. The election supervisor’s concerns were referred to an investigator, but he testified that no one ever contacted him. Hassinger said the secretary of state’s office responds to allegations when they are raised but that “information about unauthorized access to Coffee County’s election equipment has been kept hidden” by local officials and others. Much of what is known was uncovered through documents, security camera video and depositions produced in response to subpoenas in the lawsuit filed by individual voters and the election security advocacy group. The suit alleges Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines are not secure and seeks to force the state to use hand-marked paper ballots instead. The recently produced evidence of a breach wasn’t the first sign of problems in Coffee County, which caused headaches for state election officials in the hectic weeks following the 2020 election. It’s likely that turmoil helped opened the door for Trump’s allies. In early December 2020, the county elections board declined to certify the results of a machine recount requested by Trump, saying the election system had produced inaccurate results. A video posted online days later showed the former county elections supervisor saying the elections software could be manipulated; as she spoke, the password to the county election management system server was visible on a note stuck to her computer. At the end of December, Cathy Latham, the Coffee County Republican Party chair who also was a fake elector for Trump, appeared at a state legislative committee hearing and made further claims that the voting machines were unreliable. Within days of that hearing, Latham said, she was contacted by Scott Hall, the bail bondsman, who had been a Republican observer during an election recount. Latham testified in a deposition that Hall asked her to connect him with the Coffee County elections supervisor (who later was accused of falsifying timesheets and forced to resign). A few days later, on Jan. 7, Hall met with a computer forensics team from data solutions firm SullivanStrickler at the Coffee County elections office. The team copied the data and software on the election management system server and other voting system components, a company executive said in a deposition. The company said it believed its clients had the necessary permission. Invoices show the data firm billed Powell $26,000 for the day’s work. “Everything went smoothly yesterday with the Coffee County collection,” the firm’s chief operating officer wrote to Powell in an email. “Everyone involved was extremely helpful.” Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Read More Here

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Biden Is Wrong On Many Things – Odessa American https://digitalalaskanews.com/letter-to-the-editor-biden-is-wrong-on-many-things-odessa-american/ Biden recently called Trump supporters, and by inference, Republicans “semi-Fascists.” Well, here is the definition of Fascism: a governmental system ruled by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and . criticism, regimenting all industry and commerce, etc.” Fascism was established by Benito Mussolini during WWII. Now, consider that the Democratic Party is continually trying to suppress our 1st Amendment rights of free speech, free PEACFUL assembly, and freedom of religion. They also continually attack our 2nd Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.” They are trying to force trans-genderism on us, even though science (legitimate science, that is) knows beyond doubt that there are only two genders. All the surgery, and hormonal treatments in the world will not change a biologic gender. Their only result is a surgically-altered individual, who is still a male or female genetically! And, the Democrats are trying to force us to accept homosexuality, and pedophilia. Their view is that those are normal, just different. As a Christian, I am completely against those ideas! They also support child murder, otherwise known as abortion. The Democrats also have refused to condemn violence and riots such as happened in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, New York, and many other cities. In many cases, various members of our House and Senate actively called for more riots and violence. And, as far as “suppressing” things, just look at how they are trying to censor conservative viewpoints and speech in the media. Remember, even Zuckerburg of Facebook admitted that the FBI told him to downplay and ignore posts about Hunter Biden’s criminal activity. They are also trying to pack the Supreme Court with puppet justices who will do nothing but prate the Democratic line. Also, they want to eliminate the Electoral College, and go with strictly the popular vote. That may sound good on the face of it, but, without the Electoral College, every national election would be controlled by about five states: California, New York, Ohio, Florida, and Texas. People may not realize it, but Los Angeles county alone, has about 10 million people. That is more than the population of 43 of the states! Now, consider that the Republican Party has constantly supported both the 1st, and 2nd Amendments. They are against transgenderism. homosexuality, “woke-ism”, and in favor of Christianity. They support school choice, home schooling, and keeping talk about sex and gender out of elementary schools. Elementary schools should be about nothing but teaching kids to read, write, and do math. Save the social commentary for the upper grades, and even then, stick strictly to the science, not indoctrination. After comparing the two parties, tell me which one more closely fits the definition of Fascism! Thanks, Sandy Milner Odessa Read More Here

Abrams And Perils Of Hagiography https://digitalalaskanews.com/abrams-and-perils-of-hagiography/ Rich Lowry, syndicated columnist This shouldn’t be happening to Stacey Abrams, not after all that has been invested into her budding political super stardom. New York Magazine wondered in its 2019 profile of Abrams if she’d run for governor, senator, vice president or president — the world was her oyster. Vogue asked, “Can Stacey Abrams save American democracy?” A Washington Post Magazine piece about her included an arty picture of her staring off into the distance wearing what looked like a superhero’s cape. Abrams has been widely celebrated in the years since her first run for Georgia governor in 2018 which she, of course, lost. Like former President Donald Trump though, she managed to spin away her defeat to the satisfaction of her supporters as a result of nefarious forces beyond her control. The narrative about her has been that she’s fighting a righteous battle against the voter suppression that denied her rightful victory, and — as a charismatic figure of unbounded talent — she’s heading for bigger and better things than narrow defeats in statewide elections. As it happens, she may be headed for an even less narrow defeat in exactly the same statewide election. She’s trailing in almost all the polls in her rematch with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Although it’s not out of the question that she mounts a comeback, she’s a decided underdog. Come November, she may look more like Beto O’Rourke than Barack Obama. All the hagiography never grappled with the reality of her defeat in 2018, instead taking for granted her version that unfair voting restrictions sank her. Nor did it sufficiently take into account what is usually required to get elected statewide in Georgia as a Democrat, which is either some crossover appeal or, failing that, genuine once-in-a-generation political talent. Although you’d never know it reading her press, Abrams hasn’t demonstrated either. Lately, Abrams has been at pains to soften her claims about 2018. She’s probably worried about seeming like a sore loser and mindful of comparisons with Trump. “I refuse to concede [to] a system that permits citizens to be denied access,” she said recently. “That is very different than someone claiming a fraudulent outcome.” In reality, it’s not that different. It’s true that she hasn’t alleged that Venezuela tampered with the machines. When she says, though, in her book, that Kemp is “a racist demagogue who carefully disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Georgians,” and the state “slashed voters from the rolls, ensured thousands could not cast ballots, and blocked thousands more from being counted,” she’s obviously calling into question the legitimacy and fairness of the election. The cataract of attention Abrams got in the wake of her first gubernatorial run must have been gratifying — who doesn’t welcome gushingly positive press? — yet it has surely played into her struggles this time. In 2018, she was a fresh figure; now she’s well-defined as a national progressive celebrity, a status that would be an unalloyed benefit in California or New York, but not in Georgia. It would take considerable deftness to work around this, and instead Abrams has added to her problems. She deemed Georgia the “worst state in the country to live.” She subsequently called the remark “inelegant,” a euphemism for a cataclysmic unforced error likely to dog her every single day going forward. And so it has. A couple of weeks ago The New York Times ran a piece headlined, “Democrats Fret as Stacey Abrams Struggles in Georgia Governor’s Race,” perhaps the harshest thing that’s been written about her in a mainstream national publication. The Times examined various reasons she might be underperforming, including the effects of sexism. That idea feels like a test-run of what will be a new excuse — and not a very plausible one, given that neighboring Alabama has a female governor — if Abrams again doesn’t make it over the top. It may be that she proves a political superstar who has difficulty winning elections. EDITOR’S NOTE: Rich Lowry is on Twitter @RichLowry. Today’s breaking news and more in your inbox Read More Here

Denise M. Rivers Obituary (2022) https://digitalalaskanews.com/denise-m-rivers-obituary-2022/ Sutton- Denise M. (Stahl) Rivers, 64, passed away Wed. Sept. 21, 2022 at Milford Hospital suddenly after being stricken ill. She was predeceased by her husband of 19 years, Richard E. “Richie” Rivers in 2015. She is survived by her son Dennis Williams and his wife Jewell of Forest,VA; her daughter Christine Williams of Sutton; 3 grandchildren, Emily Avis Taylor of Uxbridge, Faith Marion Williams of Northbridge, and Lydia Rose Williams of Forest, VA; siblings, Ronald Ledoux and his wife Claudette of Sturbridge, Janet Towle and her husband Everett of Alamogordo, NM, Jean Stahl-Mateychuck and her husband David Loiselle of Southbridge, Samuel Stahl and his wife Dianne of Littleton, CO, Charles Stahl and his wife Nancy of Upton, Edna Dresser and her husband Jerry of Manchaug, David Stahl and his wife Michele of Katy, TX, Diane Brothers of Whitinsville, Bruce Stahl and his wife Anne of Faquay-Varina, NC, Jon Stahl and his wife Sandy of Fairbanks, AK; her in-laws, Scott Rivers and his wife Michelle of Upton, Pamela Gonzales and Tina Marcou both of Milford, several nieces and nephews, and many good friends, including her best friend Nancy Richards and her husband Lenny of Port St. Lucie, FL. She also leaves her 4-legged companion Holly. She was predeceased by 3 siblings, Christine Stahl, Anne Stahl, and Sonya Guerin; her brother-in-law, Donald Rivers, and her adored dog Penny. Born in Worcester on April 16, 1958 she was the daughter of Jacob and Bernadette (Salois) Stahl and was raised in the Manchaug section of Sutton. Educated in Sutton public schools, she was a graduate of Sutton high school class of 1976. Denise worked as a court clerk for the Uxbridge District Court House for the past 20 years, a job she really enjoyed. Denise was a diehard Red Sox fan, and also followed the New England Patriots. She enjoyed camping with her late husband Richie in the Cape and in New Hampshire, annual visits to the Big E. on opening day with her sister Edna, and visiting her best friend in Florida. Her favorite times were spent with her family and friends, and especially her adored grandchildren, who were “the light of her life”. She was a selfless woman, always giving and helping others, and will be sorely missed by all who knew and loved her. Her memorial funeral service will be held on Sat., Oct. 1st at 11 AM in the Cornerstone Church, 5 Hartford Ave. East, Uxbridge. Private burial services will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations in Denise’s memory may be made to: Susan G. Komen for the Cure, 13770 Noel Road, Suite 801889, Dallas, TX 75380. To leave a condolence message for her family please visit: http://www.jackmanfuneralhomes.com To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Denise M. (Stahl) Rivers, please visit our floral store. Published by Legacy on Sep. 24, 2022. Legacy.com reports daily on death announcements in local communities nationwide. Visit our funeral home directory for more local information, or see our FAQ page for help with finding obituaries and sending sympathy. Read More Here