Former Trump Attorney: Trump Doesn't Want To Be President. He Wants To Be Dictator
Former Trump Attorney: Trump Doesn't Want To Be President. He Wants To Be Dictator https://digitalarizonanews.com/former-trump-attorney-trump-doesnt-want-to-be-president-he-wants-to-be-dictator/
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Local Official Takes Offense To Staten Islanders Donation Of Trump Gear To Asylum Seekers
Local Official Takes Offense To Staten Islander’s Donation Of Trump Gear To Asylum Seekers https://digitalarizonanews.com/local-official-takes-offense-to-staten-islanders-donation-of-trump-gear-to-asylum-seekers/
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — After Staten Island immigrant service organizations put out a call for assistance last week requesting donations of warm clothing for the hundreds of asylum seekers who are being temporarily housed in a Travis hotel, many borough residents responded, offering up gently used coats, sweatshirts and more. But others used the show of goodwill to make a political statement.
“On my way back from the Comfort Inn in Staten Island where I dropped off two bags of clothing to the migrants because people said they were knocking on doors asking for clothes and food,” local comedian Jen Remauro said in an Instagram reel, recording herself on her way home from the drop-off site. “I think it’s a good thing, some people might think it’s a bad thing because I filled those two bags with all of my Trump hoodies, pants and t-shirt and whatnot. So, basically there will be like 100 migrants roaming around Travis all wearing Trump paraphernalia.”
Remauro, a self-employed social media marketing consultant and daughter of Leticia Remauro, who ran a failed bid for borough president in 2021, goes by the handle @funnychicnyc and has more than 12,000 followers on the social site. A former Sirius XM radio host and stand-up comedian who often takes to social media to offer her political views, Remauro says her donation was not intended as malicious, but instead was offered to draw attention to the city’s lack of planning.
“I did want to donate clothing because the migrants were reportedly knocking on doors looking for clothes,” Remauro said when contacted about the Instagram reel, which has since been taken down. “Some of the clothing were my old Trump hoodies and sweatshirts. A subtle message to our sitting President that this is not okay. I’m not against immigration at all. My family came here as immigrants too, but we need to have a plan. We need to do it correctly. Opening the borders and letting everyone in and then bussing them all over and leaving them in hotels with no guidance, resources or warm clothing is not a structured plan.”
But Staten Island elected officials who saw the reel immediately took offense to Remauro’s actions.
“These are human beings. People should take a moment to think how they would feel if they were in the same place in life,” noted State Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn). “Think about how desperate you would be if you walked thousands of miles to get to the U.S. Regardless of what your politics are, you should have a little compassion.”
Savino even equated the current migrant situation to what her own family experienced decades ago.
“We are two generations away from people who struggled and came here to build a better life,” the Senator said. “My grandfather was 18 when he left the old country and he left on his own. Can we at least offer a little kindness for these human beings while we figure out the political mess?”
Remauro’s move comes as the arrival of roughly 600 asylum-seekers from Latin America has divided the Staten Island community.
According to an article published in the Gothamist, the owners of Verde’s Pizza & Pasta House, who have been delivering free pies to the recently arrived migrants in the hotels, as well as offering leftovers to those who wander into the store, have been threatened with boycotts, with residents accusing them of supporting a migrant “invasion.”
“We want everyone to understand that we are Republicans and we don’t like the border policy,” Verde’s owner Sam Bongiovanni said during a recent Community Board meeting, as reported by the Gothamist. “But these are family people. When we fed them, they acted like they hadn’t eaten in two days.”
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Suspected Stockton Serial Killer Caught With Gun While out Hunting Police Chief Says
Suspected Stockton Serial Killer Caught With Gun While ‘out Hunting’, Police Chief Says https://digitalarizonanews.com/suspected-stockton-serial-killer-caught-with-gun-while-out-hunting-police-chief-says/
A Stockton man has been arrested in connection to a series of killings in Stockton and one in Oakland, authorities announced on Saturday. He could face charges for the murders of six men. Wesley Brownlee, 43, of Stockton was arrested this morning “while out hunting,” police chief Stanley McFadden said at a news conference with City Manager Harry Black, Mayor Kevin Lincoln and San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar.McFadden believes they “stopped another killing.” The police chief said the arrest was made possible thanks to community tips and the work of the police department.”Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving. We watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill. He was out hunting,” McFadden said. He was caught around 2 a.m. on Saturday at Winslow Way and Village Green Drive and was wearing dark clothing with a mask around his neck and armed with a firearm.Stockton’s mayor said the city will be able to get past this and that public safety is their number one priority.”I want to make this very very clear, to the people of Stockton, to the United States and around the world. When the people of Stockton come together and we unite we can get things done. Stockton will be a place where people can live, raise a family and grow a business,” Mayor Kevin Lincoln said.Salazar on the arrest of Brownlee said, “The crime was solved because we’re Stockton. You don’t come to our house and bring this reign of terror.” Brownlee will appear in court on Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Salazar said the district attorney’s office is working to determine the charges against him.Officials are still unsure what the motive behind the killings are, but said his patterns were consistent. | MORE | What we’re learning about victims of the Stockton serial killingsSix men were killed — five in Stockton this year and one in Oakland last year. The victims were identified by police as:35-year-old Paul Alexander Yaw43-year-old Salvador William Debudey Jr.21-year-old Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez52-year-old Juan Cruz52-year-old Lorenzo LopezThe victim in Oakland was a 40-year-old Hispanic man. Affiliate KTVU reported that the coroner identified the man as Juan Miguel Vasquez Serrano.Where did the shootings happen?Most of the deadly shootings happened in Stockton within a four-mile radius of one another. The shooting where the woman survived happened to the south of the five deadly shootings.Here’s a map with more information:Authorities ask for people to continue to send in tipsMcFadden said it is still a “very active investigation.” “Just because an arrest was made, does not mean the investigation stops,” McFadden said. He said they still need more tips to come in. A tip line will remain open for people to submit information at 209-937-8167. People can email tips to at policetips@stocktonca.gov. Video surveillance can be submitted to Stocktonpdca.evidence.com. This is a developing story, stay with KCRA 3 for the latest.
STOCKTON, Calif. —
A Stockton man has been arrested in connection to a series of killings in Stockton and one in Oakland, authorities announced on Saturday. He could face charges for the murders of six men.
Wesley Brownlee, 43, of Stockton was arrested this morning “while out hunting,” police chief Stanley McFadden said at a news conference with City Manager Harry Black, Mayor Kevin Lincoln and San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar.
McFadden believes they “stopped another killing.”
The police chief said the arrest was made possible thanks to community tips and the work of the police department.
“Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving. We watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill. He was out hunting,” McFadden said.
He was caught around 2 a.m. on Saturday at Winslow Way and Village Green Drive and was wearing dark clothing with a mask around his neck and armed with a firearm.
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Stockton’s mayor said the city will be able to get past this and that public safety is their number one priority.
“I want to make this very very clear, to the people of Stockton, to the United States and around the world. When the people of Stockton come together and we unite we can get things done. Stockton will be a place where people can live, raise a family and grow a business,” Mayor Kevin Lincoln said.
Salazar on the arrest of Brownlee said, “The crime was solved because we’re Stockton. You don’t come to our house and bring this reign of terror.”
Brownlee will appear in court on Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Salazar said the district attorney’s office is working to determine the charges against him.
Officials are still unsure what the motive behind the killings are, but said his patterns were consistent.
| MORE | What we’re learning about victims of the Stockton serial killings
Six men were killed — five in Stockton this year and one in Oakland last year. The victims were identified by police as:
35-year-old Paul Alexander Yaw
43-year-old Salvador William Debudey Jr.
21-year-old Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez
52-year-old Juan Cruz
52-year-old Lorenzo Lopez
The victim in Oakland was a 40-year-old Hispanic man. Affiliate KTVU reported that the coroner identified the man as Juan Miguel Vasquez Serrano.
Where did the shootings happen?
Most of the deadly shootings happened in Stockton within a four-mile radius of one another. The shooting where the woman survived happened to the south of the five deadly shootings.
Here’s a map with more information:
Authorities ask for people to continue to send in tips
McFadden said it is still a “very active investigation.”
“Just because an arrest was made, does not mean the investigation stops,” McFadden said.
He said they still need more tips to come in.
A tip line will remain open for people to submit information at 209-937-8167. People can email tips to at policetips@stocktonca.gov. Video surveillance can be submitted to Stocktonpdca.evidence.com.
This is a developing story, stay with KCRA 3 for the latest.
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Flash Flood Warning Issued October 15 At 2:38PM MST Until October 15 At 6:00PM MST By NWS Phoenix AZ KESQ
Flash Flood Warning Issued October 15 At 2:38PM MST Until October 15 At 6:00PM MST By NWS Phoenix AZ – KESQ https://digitalarizonanews.com/flash-flood-warning-issued-october-15-at-238pm-mst-until-october-15-at-600pm-mst-by-nws-phoenix-az-kesq/
The National Weather Service in Phoenix has issued a
* Flash Flood Warning for…
Southwestern La Paz County in west central Arizona…
Northeastern Imperial County in southeastern California…
Riverside County in southern California…
* Until 600 PM MST /600 PM PDT/.
* At 238 PM MST /238 PM PDT/, Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms
producing heavy rain across the warned area. Between 1 and 2
inches of rain have fallen. Flash flooding is ongoing or expected
to begin shortly.
HAZARD…Life threatening flash flooding. Thunderstorms
producing flash flooding.
SOURCE…Radar.
IMPACT…Life threatening flash flooding of creeks and streams,
urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses.
* Some locations that will experience flash flooding include…
Cibola and Palo Verde.
This includes the following streams and drainages…
Crazy Woman Wash, Mule Wash and Gould Wash.
Turn around, don’t drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood
deaths occur in vehicles.
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Maxwell Speaks For First Time On Her Close Friendships With Clinton & Trump
Maxwell Speaks For First Time On Her Close Friendships With Clinton & Trump https://digitalarizonanews.com/maxwell-speaks-for-first-time-on-her-close-friendships-with-clinton-trump/
GHISLAINE Maxwell has spoken for the first time from jail about her “dear friend” Prince Andrew.
In a world exclusive interview from the prison where she is serving 20 years for trafficking teenage girls, she confessed: “I feel so bad for him. I follow what is happening to him.’’
7
Ghislaine Maxwell – pictured with Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton – said of the former US President ‘It was a special friendship, which continued over the years’Credit: William J. Clinton Presidential Library
7
Donald Trump and Ghislaine attending a New York Fashion Show in 2000 – she said of Trump ‘I was very grateful when he wished me well’Credit: Getty
7
Jailed sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has given a world exclusive interview from prison
Maxwell, 60, appeared shaken when told the Prince’s lawyers had claimed they were never close, before adding sadly: “I accept that this friendship could not survive my conviction.
“He is paying such a price for the association. I consider him a dear friend. I care about him.”
It comes as the Duke of York struggles to rescue his image in the face of hostile public opinion and the heartbreak of his mother the Queen’s death.
In two explosive interviews, one of which was conducted face-to-face in prison, Maxwell even told how she is now convinced Andrew is a victim of faked evidence.
She also spoke for the first time of her close friendships with former US Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, and her association with “the greatest regret of my life’’, paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Our first meeting, conducted as part of an upcoming CBS-Paramount Plus special, took place in June this year inside New York’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Centre, followed by another lengthy interview conducted remotely from her current jail in Florida.
Speaking for the first time since her arrest in July 2020, Maxwell talked of her regrets over her association with billionaire financier and sex abuser Epstein, claiming it had turned her into a “wicked witch” hate figure and damaged those she loved. And she revealed she longs to turn back the clock.
“I said in my court statement that meeting Epstein was the greatest mistake of my life,” Maxwell admits.
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Virginia Giuffre photographed with Prince Andrew and Maxwell in early 2001 as the sex trafficker insisted ‘This photo is not real’Credit: Collect
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Maxwell – pictured at a wedding in 2000 with AndrewCredit: Camera Press
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Sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell said Prince Andrew is a ‘dear friend’Credit: Jon Bond
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Andrew with Maxwell, who is serving 20 years for trafficking teenage girls, at Royal Ascot in 2000Credit: Rex Features
“And obviously, if I could go back today, I would avoid meeting him, and I would make different choices.”
Andrew was not the only friend she lost over her links to the tycoon, who was found dead in his cell, aged 66, in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Former US President Bill Clinton, who travelled on the tycoon’s “Lolita Express” private jet, was another relationship she valued.
“It was a special friendship, which continued over the years,” she said.
“We had lots in common. I feel bad that he is another victim, only because of his association with Jeffrey. I understand he, like others, can no longer consider me as a friend.”
Heavy price
One of the few people to have shown her any loyalty, she says, is former President Donald Trump.
“We knew each other and mingled in the same circles, in New York, Palm Beach. I was very grateful when he wished me well after (the arrest). He got bad media for it, but he dared, while others didn’t.
“I was honoured he remembered me. Well, he is known to say what he thinks. It gave me a big boost.”
Maxwell complained friends were “cancelled” just for knowing her.
“There are many people who have been impacted by this story,” she said. “Friends of mine who never even met Epstein lost their jobs. People who literally had nothing to do with him whatsoever have been cancelled.
“For all those people . . . I think it’s been a very heavy price that has been paid by the cancel culture. It’s been very difficult for a lot of people.”
Despite that, she admitted she was hurt by the lack of loyalty from so-called friends once desperate for a place in her social circle.
“There are people who have disappointed me and there are people I’m surprised have not, you know, been a little more proactive,” she said. “I completely understand people have livelihoods to protect . . . children to protect.
“But having said that, there are people who have stood by me privately. Quite a few, actually, and I’m extremely appreciative of their private support.
“I have friends who I have literally known my entire life since I was at kindergarten. It’s good to know there are people out there who know who I am, really.”
As for the others, Maxwell believes they have accepted a false version of her as the “Wicked Witch” in Epstein’s story. “All this is a fictional version of me,” she said. “It has been created to fit the storyline. It has absolutely nothing to do with who I am.
There are many people who have been impacted by this story.
“I find it curious that so many people choose to contribute to the fake, created version, sort of like a Disney character, the Wicked Witch, if you will. The real people who know me and still love me have never spoken.”
An intelligent woman who graduated from Oxford University with a modern languages degree — and says she has worked all her life — Maxwell hates to show weakness.
She said: “I think there are many women who can identify with my story. Many have either fallen in love with or had relationships with men that in hindsight they look back on and say, ‘What was I thinking?’ I imagine there’s not a woman on the planet who would not think that about one or other of their boyfriends.”
But she said she would not discuss individuals — Epstein, Prince Andrew or Scott Borgerson, the husband who reportedly dumped her in a prison phone call — until her appeal has been heard.
Maxwell even refused to deny reports she and Andrew were once a couple, claiming: “I have read and seen and heard and had reported to me so many monstrous inaccuracies that I can’t even start to pick apart all of them.
“If I pick apart one and don’t address all the others, it’s going to be, ‘Well, she said no to this. What about all those others?’
“So I’m not going to discuss anything of that nature. After the appeal, I’m going to be super-happy to address with you any of those things.”
But could they become friends in the future? She said: “I don’t have an expectation. People who I have been friends with — and very close friends with . . . I can’t think about what they will want to do or not do.”
In an astonishing U-turn, Maxwell branded one of the most damaging exhibits in the case against Andrew a forgery . . . the infamous photo of him with his hand clutching teenage sex slave Virginia Giuffre’s bare midriff.
‘This photo is not real’
Said to have been taken at Maxwell’s London home in March 2001, it shows her standing in the background, grinning broadly.
“This photo is not real,” she insisted, backing Andrew’s earlier claim.
“There was never an original one produced.” She refused to say more on Giuffre — who sued the Prince for sex abuse and accepted a reported $12million in damages earlier this year — adding, with a dismissive wave: “I don’t even want to start talking about Virginia.”
The Prince dropped his defence against Giuffre’s lawsuit and agreed to pay up — turning him into the Palace pariah, banned from royal duties — after a damaging 2015 email from Ghislaine emerged.
Epstein’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz had asked her if the picture was real. She replied: “It looks real. I think it is.”
Challenged on that now, Maxwell insisted: “I don’t recognise that picture and I don’t believe it is a real picture.” Then she claimed that all she meant to say in that email was that she recognised her own house.
“I said, it is that image that, whatever it is, I recognise it as my house,” she explained in a rambling response. “But I have come to discover that image I don’t believe is true. And the original has never been produced because it doesn’t exist. I don’t believe that image is a true image.”
So did she reply to Dershowitz without thinking? “If you see a photograph and it’s a photograph of you in your home, and someone says to you, is that a picture of you? So you don’t question.
It would never occur to me that at that time that somebody would have created a photograph or, you know, done something with a picture . . . I recognised the surroundings of that photograph, nothing more than that.”
Maxwell claims there are “over 50 problems with the picture” that led her to come to the conclusion that it was a fake.
The first worldwide glimpse of Daphne’s TV special will air on CBS news and ITV news at 6.30pm on Monday. Daphne’s best-selling book Saving Amy, based on her months filming with Amy Winehouse and her family, is being adapted into a scripted eight-part TV series by Halcyon Studio, with the help of British writer Mal Young.
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'Baseless Stories': Hobbs Campaign Tries To Tamp Down Democrats' Concerns As Debate Fiasco Cools Off
'Baseless Stories': Hobbs Campaign Tries To Tamp Down Democrats' Concerns As Debate Fiasco Cools Off https://digitalarizonanews.com/baseless-stories-hobbs-campaign-tries-to-tamp-down-democrats-concerns-as-debate-fiasco-cools-off/
Campaign manager’s email to allies with ‘suggested messaging’ rips ‘chattering class.’ Fiasco ends with Hobbs interview, nothing for Lake, questions for AZPBS
PHOENIX — The curtains could be coming down on this past week’s debate drama engulfing Arizona’s race for governor.
The drama has ended not with a debate, but with:
Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs getting an interview this coming Tuesday that she wasn’t supposed to get.
Republican candidate and former TV news anchor getting Kari Lake got nothing on TV after her ultimatum was ignored.
Arizona State University and its public TV station facing questions about their conduct as the official debate broadcaster.
Meantime, Hobbs’ campaign is trying to tamp down concerns among Democrats in Arizona and nationally about how she’s run the race.
Polling averages indicate the election is a toss-up, as Arizona voters receive their early ballots in the mail this weekend.
The national focus on Hobbs’ campaign against a Trump-endorsed election denier has produced recent media reports on supporters’ concerns about Hobbs’s refusal to debate Lake and the Democratic secretary of state’s below-the-radar campaigning.
An Axios report Saturday quoted prominent Democrats raising the stakes for the Arizona governor’s race.
Former Obama campaign guru David Plouffe suggested Lake could be a “plausible presidential candidate.”
‘Push Back on Baseless Stories’
In an email obtained Friday by 12News, Hobbs campaign manager Nicole DeMont provides allies with “suggested messaging to help push back on these baseless stories that want to imply we’re not doing everything possible to win this race.”
Among the several messages DeMont provided:
“Katie Hobbs Is The Only Candidate Who Has Won Statewide, And She Has Never Lost A Race; Neither Kari Lake Nor Armchair Quarterbacks Dictate Our Campaign Strategy. The Hobbs campaign couldn’t care less what the chattering class in New York and Washington DC thinks about their message and strategy. They don’t know Arizona and they don’t know how to run a campaign against someone as dangerous as Kari Lake.
“Katie is one of just a handful of Democrats who has won statewide. In fact, she’s never lost a race. People have underestimated her in every single campaign she’s run, but she has never lost. Katie and Arizonans know how much is on the line and how dangerous Kari would be for our state. Katie Hobbs is going to win.”
How debate fiasco unfolded
If you missed the debate fiasco as it unfolded this week, here’s a recap:
There still won’t be a debate, affirming the decision made six weeks ago by the longtime organizer of candidate debates, the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission.
The commission rejected Hobbs’ attempt to change the debate format into separate, 30-minute interviews with the candidates. The commission follows a process mandated by state law in reviewing candidate requests.
Hobbs’ failure to change the debate format meant that Lake would get a 30-minute interview, and Hobbs would get no TV time.
Something similar happened during the Democratic primary when Hobbs refused to debate opponent Marco Lopez. Lopez got a 30-minute, one-on-one interview on Arizona PBS.
The three other Democrats on the statewide ticket – Sen. Mark Kelly, Adrian Fontes for secretary of state, and Kris Mayes, for attorney general – who face Trump-backed, election-denying candidates have all taken part in Clean Elections-sponsored debates against their opponent.
Unannounced PBS interview for Hobbs
Lake was scheduled to have her 30-minute interview on Arizona PBS this past Wednesday.
But a few hours before the start time, media reports confirmed that Hobbs would get a 30-minute interview after all on Arizona PBS.
The station never announced the interview. No one at PBS or Arizona State University told their debate partner, the Clean Elections Commission, about the offer to Hobbs, according to Clean Elections officials.
The dean of ASU’s Cronkite School of Journalism, Battinto Batts Jr., released a statement on behalf of PBS after media reports on the Hobbs interview:
“It is our responsibility as a news agency to provide the public with access to the candidates who are running for office so they can learn more and make informed decisions.”
ASU President Michael Crow acknowledged he was informed about the interview decision.
“We’d hope for better communication from our partners,” Gina Roberts, the commission staffer who works closely with PBS to prepare dozens of debates, told 12News.
While PBS and the Clean Elections Commission are debate partners, their agreement doesn’t specifically preclude PBS from offering air time to candidates on its current events program, “Arizona Horizon.”
It’s unclear whether PBS has ever gone around Clean Elections like this in the 20-year history of their partnership.
Lake interview ‘suspended’
After learning of the Hobbs interview, the commission suspended the scheduled Lake interview:
“Given today’s events, and the need to obtain additional information regarding the last-minute developments, the Commission will postpone tonight’s Q & A on Arizona PBS and will identify a new venue, partner, and date when the interview will be broadcast.”
‘Picking a side in this race’
Lake went ballistic.
She called a news conference Wednesday outside PBS’ headquarters at the Cronkite School’s downtown Phoenix campus. She later issued an ultimatum to ASU and PBS: Schedule a debate with Hobbs on Tuesday or she wouldn’t appear again on PBS during this election cycle.
Lake also made veiled threats to review state funding for PBS if she wins the governor’s race. PBS is operated by the Cronkite School.
Lake tweeted Friday that ASU never responded to her ultimatum, so she wouldn’t appear in any future election-related broadcasts.
“ASU, Mike Crow and PBS have made it clear they’re picking a side in this race,” Lake tweeted.
Arizona PBS said it had no comment.
Given her hostility toward Arizona news outlets, it appears unlikely that Lake will accept her 30-minute Clean Elections interview at another broadcast station.
Month’s worth of material for Lake
Hobbs’ rejection of a debate has provided a month’s worth of fodder for Lake and her supporters.
In the Trump style, Lake has taunted Hobbs throughout the campaign and attempted to intimidate her at forums.
She has relentlessly promoted the lie that Trump won the 2020 election, and blistered the media that she claims to have been a part of for refusing to report on the lie or fairly cover her campaign.
When asked at a news conference where she gets her news from, Lake didn’t name a single Arizona source.
But she did express her admiration for the coverage of a Phoenix free-lancer for the Gateway Pundit, a far-right online outlet that has repeatedly posted falsehoods about Arizona’s elections.
Lake worked as a news anchor at the Fox station in Phoenix for more than 20 years, before she resigned in 2021.
Both Lake and Hobbs are scheduled for separate interviews Sunday morning on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Decision 2022
Track all of our current updates with the upcoming elections in Arizona on our 12News YouTube channel. Subscribe for updates on all of our new uploads.
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Kanye West Canceled? Heres Why It Probably Wont Happen WTOP News
Kanye West Canceled? Here’s Why It Probably Won’t Happen – WTOP News https://digitalarizonanews.com/kanye-west-canceled-heres-why-it-probably-wont-happen-wtop-news/
Kanye West has had so many controversies you may have forgotten a few.
From his infamous interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards to his early embrace of former President Trump and his “Make America Great Again” agenda, the artist, designer and entrepreneur is, perhaps, best known for being a provocateur.
The latest calls to cancel West, who legally changed his name to Ye, may be the most intense yet.
After he wore and featured “White Lives Matter” (The Anti-Defamation League categorizes the phrase as a “hate slogan” used by White supremacist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan) apparel in his recent Paris fashion show, there was new outcry against West.
“Kanye’s actions are just so dangerous and irresponsible. I don’t care how great his music is, we have to stop supporting someone who uses their platform so irresponsibly,” TV host, professor and former CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill posted on social media.
Another lightening rod came earlier this week, when West’s Twitter and Instagram accounts were restricted for violating policies following posts that were criticized as antisemitic. Days later, it was announced that his episode of the YouTube series “The Shop: Uninterrupted” would not release because he used his appearance “to reiterate more hate speech and very ugly stereotypes.”
This has led some to suggest that West’s career has crashed and burned and there’s no coming back from it all. But here’s why that’s not necessarily the case:
Sign of the times
For all the talk of “cancel culture,” we now live in an era where bad behavior, especially by public figures, garners all of the outrage – until it doesn’t.
Not only do we live in a society that moves fairly quickly from scandal to scandal, racism and cruelty to others no longer live in the shadows.
So while plenty of people have condemned West for his actions and comments, there are many who support both because they agree with him.
Then there is the fame factor.
Star power has only increased in recent years, especially because social media fosters a sense of intimacy between artists and their followers.
“West’s celebrity status has kept us watching and listening mostly because we’re keenly aware that so many others are also paying attention,” Washington Post senior critic-at-large Robin Givhan recently wrote.
“And each time he says something indecipherable or cruel, we recoil as if we are shocked anew, as if he has not been terrible before,” she continued. “We respond as if we believe that fame is a preventive to terrible behavior, that those who know they’re being watched will aim to be on their best behavior rather than using all that attention as an enticement to acting out.”
The Trump effect
West has been very clear about his admiration for Trump, and the two men do seem to share an approach to communication.
West recently said in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson that he “started to really feel this need to express myself on another level when Trump was running for office and I liked him.”
West said he was warned against supporting Trump, telling Carlson people told him “my career would be over, my life would be over.”
Instead, West earned new fans from some of the same people who also support the former president.
After conservative author and ACT! for America founder Brigitte Gabriel tweeted her support for West, one of her followers responded, “I used to judge him quite harshly. I’m finding new respect for him now.”
The art versus the artist
It’s long been debated whether one can embrace the art without supporting the artist. West has a history of coming out on the winning side of that question.
There were calls to boycott West in 2018 after comments he made about the history of slavery in the United States.
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years,” West said during an interview with TMZ. “For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.”
Yet, a month later, all seven tracks on his “Ye” album debuted on Billboard’s Top 40 chart.
There have been several other controversies since that have not stopped West from achieving mass success with his fashion and sneaker lines.
And while West terminated his relationship with the Gap in September, and Adidas has put their partnership with him under review, he entered the public consciousness nearly two decades ago through music that people will likely continue to return to.
The first words West speaks on his first hit, “Through the Wire,” in retrospect, may have been prescient: “They can’t stop me from rapping can they?”
This content was republished with permission from CNN.
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October 15, 2022 Russia-Ukraine News | CNN https://digitalarizonanews.com/october-15-2022-russia-ukraine-news-cnn/
See new ‘kamikaze’ drones used by Russia in attacks on Ukraine
02:41 – Source: CNN
Two gunmen opened fire on recruits at a Russian military training ground, killing at least 11 people Saturday, according to Russia’s state media. The shooters were said to be from former Soviet states.
A UN envoy accused Russia of using rape as a “military strategy” in Ukraine, saying there are dozens of documented sexual violence cases involving troops.
Russian forces launched hundreds of missile strikes at civilian targets in Ukraine this week, a US military official said. More came Saturday, damaging an energy facility near Kyiv and pounding Zaporizhzhia.
Moscow announced evacuations from the occupied Kherson region, where a Russia-backed official said the Ukrainian counteroffensive has intensified.
Our live coverage has ended for the day. You can scroll through the updates below or click here for more on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Two gunmen opened fire on Russian military recruits at a training ground in Russia’s Belgorod region, killing at least 11 people and wounding another 15, Russia’s state news agency TASS reports.
The attack happened Saturday during a training session at the Western Military District, according to TASS, which cited the Russian Defense Ministry. The gunmen were said to be from former Soviet states. Russian officials have branded the attack an act of terrorism.
“As a result of a terrorist attack at a military training ground in the Belgorod region, 11 people were killed, 15 were injured and are receiving medical assistance,” TASS reported.
“The incident occurred during a shooting training session with volunteers preparing for a special operation. The terrorists attacked the personnel of the unit with small-arms fire.”
According to TASS, two individuals who committed the “terrorist act” were killed in retaliatory fire at the training ground.
The Belgorod region is in western Russia on the border with Ukraine.
Very fierce battles are taking place around the eastern Donetsk region, and the Ukrainian military is holding its position there, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Saturday.
“Active operations continue in various areas of the front. A very difficult situation persists in Donetsk region and Luhansk,” Zelensky said, referring to another eastern region that has been occupied by Russian troops for months. “The most difficult is the Bakhmut direction, as in the previous days. We hold our positions.”
Bakhmut is located in the northern portion of Donetsk region.
Work still to do on recaptured land: Zelensky also gave an update on the efforts to reconnect services to regions of Ukraine recently liberated from Russian forces.
He said homes in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Izium, which was under Russian occupation for six months before being liberated in September, are having their supply of natural gas restored.
“The first 500 families of the city already have gas in their homes again,” he said. “Just yesterday, more than 3,000 houses in the Izium, Kupiansk, Chuhuiv and Kharkiv districts of Kharkiv region were connected to the gas supply. Work is ongoing in other directions as well.”
Weeks after SpaceX said the company could not keep funding the Ukrainian military’s use of its satellite services, US billionaire Elon Musk seemed to reverse course on Twitter today — though it wasn’t clear if the issue was actually settled.
“The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free,” a tweet from Musk’s verified account read Saturday.
If you haven’t been following this: Starlink is the name of a satellite system, made by Musk’s SpaceX, which has been a vital source of communication for Ukraine’s military. The company’s internet terminals have allowed troops to stay connected even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in the war with Russia.
SpaceX has warned the Pentagon it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month. The company also requested the Pentagon take over funding for Ukraine’s government and military use of Starlink, which SpaceX claims would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months.
A Pentagon spokesperson said Friday it had been in communication with SpaceX over the funding of the Starlink satellite communication product.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” Musk said in response to a follower who replied to his tweet Saturday. “Even so, we should still do good deeds.”
Ukrainian officials voice support: The situation involving Musk’s Starlink was complicated further when he publicly shared a Russia-Ukraine peace proposal this month. He faced withering criticism in Ukraine for the plan because it would see Kyiv surrender Crimea and agree to neutrality status.
However, some Ukrainian officials have since extended an olive branch.
Yegor “George” Dubynskyi, Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation, told CNN Saturday that Starlink is crucial in newly liberated territories so that Ukrainian officials can communicate.
Ukraine continues to talk with donors such as the Polish and US governments on how to continue funding Starlink, Dubynskyi said. He had no immediate response to Musk’s tweet.
CNN’s Sean Lyngaas contributed to this report.
The war in Ukraine, which for months appeared to be descending into a slow and painful grind, has erupted once again as winter nears. The conflict is teetering toward an unpredictable new phase.
“This is now the third, fourth, possibly fifth different war that we’ve been observing,” said Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme.
An onslaught of Russian missile attacks this week was followed by steady Ukrainian ground gains and a huge explosion on the Kerch bridge, the only crossing between the annexed Crimean peninsula and Russia. That blast bruised the Russian psyche and handed Ukraine a significant strategic boost.
With the cold months nearing and likely bringing a slowdown in ground combat, experts say the next weeks of the war will be vital.
“What seemed a distant prospect for anything that could be convincingly described as a Ukraine victory is now very much more plausible,” Giles said. “The response from Russia is likely to escalate further.”
“Playing for the whistle”: Russia said Thursday its forces would help evacuate residents of occupied Kherson as Ukraine makes more gains in the region.
The successful offensive has shifted the momentum of the war and disproved a suggestion, built up in the West and in Russia last summer, that while Ukraine could stoutly defend territory, it lacked the ability to seize ground.
“The Russians are playing for the whistle – (hoping to) avoid a collapse in their frontline before the winter sets in,” Samir Puri, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the author of “Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine,” told CNN.
“If they can get to Christmas with the frontline looking roughly as it is, that’s a huge success for the Russians given how botched this has been since February.”
You can read Rob Picheta’s complete analysis here.
Ukrainian officials say Russia has been deploying an increasingly familiar weapon in its attacks: “kamikaze drones.”
Most recently, the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia was hit with four strikes by kamikaze drones overnight Saturday. Authorities said Moscow has also used them in assaults against Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Odesa and other cities across Ukraine in recent weeks.
Ukrainian officials have pleaded with Western countries to step up their assistance in the face of the new challenge, in addition to developing its own technology to counter the strikes.
Kamikaze drones, or suicide drones, are a type of aerial weapon system. They are known as a “loitering munition” because they are capable of waiting in an area identified as a potential target and only strike once an enemy asset is identified.
The drones are capable of carrying precision-guided missiles and have a payload of approximately 50 kilograms (110 pounds). They are small, portable and can be easily launched — but their main advantage is that they are hard to detect and can be fired from a distance.
The name “kamikaze” refers to the fact the drones are disposable. They are designed to hit behind the enemy lines and are destroyed in the attack – unlike the more traditional, larger and faster military drones that return home after dropping missiles.
Ties to Iran: The Ukrainian military and US intelligence say Russia is using Iranian-made attack drones. US officials told CNN in July that Iran had begun showcasing Shahed series drones to Russia the previous month.
US officials later said Russia bought the drones and was training its forces how to use them. According to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia has ordered 2,400 Shahed-136 drones from Iran.
CNN’s Josh Pennington contributed to this report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Russian Armed Forces service personnel who took part in operations in Syria, including Sergey Surovikin, at the Kremlin on December 28, 2017.
Russian Presidency
There’s a new general in charge of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s devastating war on Ukraine — and he has a reputation for brutality.
After Ukraine made gains in its counteroffensive in recent weeks, Russia’s Ministry of Defense named Sergey Surovikin its new overall commander for operations in the war.
Notably, he previously played an instrumental role in Russia’s operations in Syria as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces. During these operations Russian combat aircraft caused widespread devastation...
Interview: Betsy Kruse Craig Channels Molly Ivins In One-Woman Show At Invisible Theatre
Interview: Betsy Kruse Craig Channels Molly Ivins In One-Woman Show At Invisible Theatre https://digitalarizonanews.com/interview-betsy-kruse-craig-channels-molly-ivins-in-one-woman-show-at-invisible-theatre/
Inasmuch as everyday heroes carry on without capes, some couldn’t care less about optics, unruffled by the trouble they cause while doing a good deed.
Molly Ivins was that breed of champion: a trailblazing journalist who pulled no punches in condemning the unscrupulous politics of the right. A wily provocateur, she managed to poke the proverbial bear with acerbic humor and her signature wordplay.
To wit, Ivins skewered those who abused power and advocated for the common citizen: “When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel; it’s vulgar.” She was an unabashed liberal in deep-red Texas and a constant thorn in George W. Bush’s side (whom she nicknamed “Shrub”). She was a New York Times best-selling author and a syndicated columnist whose work appeared in nearly 400 newspapers across the country. Despite her fatal struggle with breast cancer, she remained a risible spitfire who laughed in the face of adversity.
RED HOT PATRIOT is a one-woman play based on the life and times of Molly Ivins. Written by twins Margaret and Allison Engel, both journalists, it premiered off-Broadway in 2012, starring Kathleen Turner (why, of course!). Nancy Davis Booth directs.
True to its progressive distinction, Invisible Theatre is mounting the show as the second production of IT’s 51st season. And who better to play the role of salty tigress than the company’s very own artistic associate, Betsy Kruse Craig?
I’m probably not the first to acknowledge our good fortune for having Betsy back in Tucson after nine years in the Bay Area, some of which were spent running a theater company. But flattery aside, her return didn’t come with the trumpet call she probably deserved. To say she’s a local treasure is an understatement; that she’s the ideal vehicle for channeling Molly Ivins on the stage is accurate.
I sat down with Betsy on a midday break from work. Not a minute passed before I recognized the palpable glee from an actor who can’t wait to showcase a material that’s right up her alley.
BWW: Talk a little bit about your connection with Invisible Theatre and how you came to be an integral part of the company’s artistic decisions.
BETSY: I did my first show at IT in 1992. I was in grad school at the U of A. I did THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND, with Jim (Blair). I had seen Suz [Susan Claassen, founding artistic director] do THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE and was blown away. She did it here and I. WAS. BLOWN. AWAY. I’d been obsessed with the script; in fact I used pieces of it for my graduate performance. She was wonderful in that piece. I ended up doing a show here, and that was before I lived in New York. And when I moved back from New York, I just kind of came back in and did some shows while I was doing other things…teaching at Pima and at the university.
BWW: I get that intelligent plays are a staple at IT. So how did RED HOT PATRIOT come up as one of your choices for the season?
BETSY: It was a piece that Suz had had around for a while. She hadn’t told me about it when I was in California but when I came back she threw it my way and she said, “You’ve got to read this. It’s perfect for you.” And I read it and went, “Oh, pffft…YEAH! A six-foot-tall redhead who’s politically interested, snarky and intelligent.” And then when I started diving into Molly Ivins, what you don’t get when you read the surface of her work, is how incredibly intelligent she really, really was. And how she absolutely paved the way for the form, for the political journalism that includes a level of humor… she’s the one who kind of started that form.
BWW: Tell me about the structure of the play itself.
Betsy: It’s a very interesting piece of work, in that it encompasses the whole scope of her life. You get her history, you get her politics, you get a taste of her relationships (the most important of which was her antagonistic one with her father). You follow her all the way to the end of her life in this play. My hope — the way I feel about it as an actor — is that you’re really sad when it comes to an end. You think about the political scene today and it would have been great fun to watch she would have done.
BWW: What do you want the audience to know about the show — particularly those who’ve never heard of Molly Ivins?
Betsy: You HAVE to hear about her. You HAVE to. It’s unbelievble that this woman, in the 70s through the 90s (she died in 2007), was incredibly prescient. She was so incrdibly intelligent — reading her book(s) was incredibly difficult. You have to go back and read it again and mine it because there is so much there. She has a way of writing, which is very funny, but in between the jokes…like she talks about: Jokes are a means to an end. When you make people laugh, they open up their ears and they hear you. They tried to put her on TV; she had a gig on 60 minutes for a while. She hated it. She worked at the New York Times, and she got fired. She walks in with her dude and her bare feet in the news room. It didn’t quite fly.
BWW: She was quite the iconoclast.
Betsy: Absolutely. She talked about how if she didn’t have a Texas accent she would have been lynched by now for saying the things she said. She was ruthless to some of the Texas politicians. There’s a great cartoon with two famous female politicians where [it says] “Can you imagine what Molly would do on Twitter to Trump?” Because she was the queen of the one-liners. And a master of that short form.
But it’s also interesting — just like most good stories, there’s the impression that you get from her writing, or from seeing her interviews (and what I think is wonderful about this piece) is that you really get to know her. You get to know some of her vulnerabilities and some of her motivations.
BWW: She was probably a tough one to live up to as a partner.
Betsy: Very. She was an alcoholic. She talks about how that stood in the way of being close to anyone, permanently. And she was married to her work. She worked non-stop. She had breast cancer, went through 3 rounds of it. It was about 7-8 years dealing with that, and trying to get sober during that time.
BWW: Is it fair to say she’d be a progressive by today’s standards?
Betsy: Definitely. I was just reading yesterday — because I wanted to know if she had written anything about abortion. And she wrote a really wonderful essay the day that Roe V. Wade was passed, and it just made incredibly emotional because it would just be heartbreaking…
BWW: …if she had to write a new piece about it.
Betsy: Exactly. She wrote — and was a huge fan of the Texas Observer, which I’d never heard of before I started this piece. Very left-wing paper, and it’s still there. And it’s still there. She left the Observer and the ACLU in her will.
I think that there are some beautiful things in this piece about encouraging people to realize that no matter what you do in life, you have another job, which is being a citizen! You have to be responsible and make sure that your voice is heard to use the political power that you have as a citizen. That’s incredibly inspiring! Her non-stop commitment to making sure that people were informed and motivated, by any means possible.
RED HOT PATRIOT will play November 1-13, 2022
Photo Credit: Kathleen Dreier – Creatista
For tickets, visit: https://cloud.broadwayworld.com/rec/ticketclick.cfm?fromlink=2203474®id=64&articlelink=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.invisibletheatre.com%2F?utm_source=BWW2022&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=article&utm_content=bottombuybutton1
The Invisible Theatre
1400 N. First Avenue (at Drachman), Tucson, AZ 85719
RUNNING TIME:
75 minutes with no intermission
AGE RECOMMENDATION:
Mature ages 18 and up. Mature language.
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How The Rise Of Sustainability And 'naturehood' Impacts Real Estate AZ Big Media
How The Rise Of Sustainability And 'naturehood' Impacts Real Estate – AZ Big Media https://digitalarizonanews.com/how-the-rise-of-sustainability-and-naturehood-impacts-real-estate-az-big-media/
In today’s luxury real estate market, the industry is embracing sustainability, welcomed by designers, architects, landscapers and homebuyers alike. In luxury homes, one’s best self is captured and exemplified. The new core ideas of luxury real estate are eco-friendliness and sustainability. In today’s society, aspirational living is combined with environmental consciousness, giving rise to the concept of the “naturehood” and “agrihood.” Our growing awareness of our responsibility towards the planet is largely responsible for this change. As a result, consumer behavior has changed towards simplified and organic lifestyles and living.
READ ALSO: Arizona No. 2 for largest house price appreciation
READ ALSO: Here’s how build-to-rent housing is impacting Arizona real estate
What is a naturehood and agrihood?
Defined by any green space or nature nearby a neighborhood, a naturehood acknowledges the growing disconnect between society and nature, and the barriers that prevent people from connecting with it. There are a number of factors contributing to this, such as distance, inequitable distribution of green space, lack of knowledge, cost, lack of equipment, cultural perceptions of nature spaces, and racialization. It should be a right to spend time in nature, but instead it is a privilege. “For one not to disturb the land, its natural grade and vegetation; perhaps use footings to preserve mother earth for generations to come.” says Frank Aazami, Brand Ambassador, principal of the Private Client Group at Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty, Scottsdale.
Frank Aazami, principal of The Private Client group, offers Global Real Estate Representation.
We’ve seen naturehood’s scattered throughout Arizona in recent years, Silverleaf in North Scottsdale is seen as a luxury naturehood with 4,600 acres dedicated to open space and an expansive trail system that meanders through the McDowell Mountains in the heart of the Sonoran Desert.
An agrihood, similar to a naturehood is a planned community that integrates agriculture into a residential neighborhood. We see this in Agritopia in Gilbert, where the neighborhood is surrounded by 11 acres of urban farm land designed to encourage agrarianism.
What is the goal of an agrihood? “Build neighborhoods where every neighbor participates in planting, harvesting and preserving; focus on sustainability.” says Aazami.
Can you give me an example or two of a naturehood or agrihood in your area?
“I can share renderings of what it should look like: Perhaps built to last 40-50 years rather than a typical 10 year mindset concert. Foldable, slidable and disappearing walls and doors, transforming the use of a single space into many more, depending on the time of the day, season and function(s).” says Aazami. How and when did nature become a luxury amenity? “When organic food became more expensive to obtain; I recall when out-of season crops would cost more to purchase. We have lost the sense of seasonability.” says Aazami.
Who is moving into these communities and why?
A naturehood is designed for anyone that wants to get outside and enjoy nature close by.
“It should be for all age groups, although retirees may like to become more involved in order to enhance productivity; spirituality and sense of leadership.” says Aazami. However, in recent years, we have seen a focus on luxury naturehoods targeting wealthy homebuyers fleeing major cities to move to more remote regions with the desire to be closer to nature. Why are wealthy buyers fleeing major cities for these developments? “The expression; ‘you can’t take it with you’ must have redefined wealth. Rich in taste became volatile.” says Aazami. For many luxury buyers, these homes may not be their primary residence. “For second home property owners, there should be a whole other achievable green energy mindset for it to work.” says Aazami.
What residential markets in your area are experiencing the most growth because of this trend?
We are seeing nature become more of a focus for nearly all new build communities in Arizona along with a heavy focus on sustainability. Karma in uptown Phoenix (scheduled for completion end of 2022) for example will be the first community in the country to use SPAN electric panels which can be controlled via smartphone.
Not only are we seeing these sustainable changes within the Phoenix MSA but in Northern Arizona as well. “Northern Arizona, where basic utility infrastructure; roads, rails, airports access, affordable land, and the need for workforce housing are in need.” says Aazami. What are the towns and cities like surrounding these types of developments? “Small Towns are in need of education, sustainable agriculture, jobs and channels of distribution of ideas, products and accessibility.” says Aazami.
What sustainable options and amenities are we seeing?
“The mindsets behind them, ‘if we design and build it, they will come’ sophisticated and mindful civil, agricultural engineers, architects and designers who value nature, style and longevity.” says Aazami. With so many master-planned communities catering to a variety of lifestyle preferences, environmental awareness is on the rise. Certified green homes, renewable energy sources, land conservation and community gardens are just a few of the things that make a community green and sustainable. Along with green roofs, high-efficiency insulation, windows and doors, “Carbon Free and reduced waste initiatives will fuel these communities.” says Aazami.
What are some of their most desired, out-of-ordinary sustainable features (beyond solar panels and temperature controls)?
Rainwater collectors, greywater systems, bamboo flooring and green insulation of cork, rather than stucco walls are just a few options to feature in a sustainable home which can reduce water and electric use.
“Cork, looks and feels like stucco; yet it’s mold and fire resistant, it does not crack and will retain its color for at least 10-12 years. I’m also realizing the transformation of using non paintable products to avoid contact aesthetic upgrades.” says Aazami.
Interior and exterior design is influenced by these sustainable additions, “The in/out door space is influenced by its access, natural grade, orientation (too much or little sun).” says Aazami. Creating shade around your home by the use of trees and shrubs is the perfect way to prevent excess heat from entering your home through windows and roofs, especially in exceptionally hot climates like Arizona.
What new amenities are luxury buyers asking agents for?
The luxury homebuyer is prioritizing wellness at home, requesting features and amenities such as tranquility gardens, jetted pools, saunas, and steam showers, as well as massage rooms, yoga and pilates studios, and various cycling activities all by an abundance of natural light.
“Washer and dryer inside, or close to the primary suite; a combination of privacy and views from the primary suite; seamless, zero grade indoor outdoor extensions; passthrough wet bar to service both the indoors and outdoors; a secure room for UPS/FedEx or Amazon drop off and pickups with shelves and hangers in case your dry cleaner needs to drop off as well. The popularity of water exercise has us searching for lap pools for clients. Here in Arizona, the demand for Golf Membership has spiked to where most clubs have announced at least a 5-10 year wait time.” says Aazami.
Takeaway
While we have seen naturehoods and agrihoods become more common in Arizona, developers, architects, engineers and landscapers are continuing to further embrace sustainability and the idea of nature focused communities. Interested in living in a luxury sustainable home? Private Client Group offers enhanced global real estate marketing services, tailored for best exposure and results. For decades, we’ve paved the way in excellence; maneuvered through an ever-changing real estate climate successfully by design and through creating meaningful partnerships. We welcome your interest.
Author: Frank Aazami, principal of The Private Client group, offers Global Real Estate Representation.
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Trump Pressured Truth Social Executives To Hand Over Their Shares To Melania
Trump Pressured Truth Social Executives To Hand Over Their Shares To Melania https://digitalarizonanews.com/trump-pressured-truth-social-executives-to-hand-over-their-shares-to-melania/
Donald Trump pressured Truth Social executives to hand over their shares in his right-wing social media platform to former first lady Melania Trump, according to a whistleblower.
Will Wilkerson, one of the first employees of Trump Media & Technology Group, claims the former president called co-founder Andy Litinsky in a Florida coffee shop and made the demand of him.
The Washington Post says that Mr Trump made the request, which was worth millions of dollars, despite having already been given 90 per cent of the company’s shares.
Mr Wilkerson says that Mr Litinsky refused, telling the former president that “the gift would have meant a huge tax bill he couldn’t pay.
“Trump didn’t care. He said, ‘Do whatever you need to do.”
Mr Wilkerson filed a whistleblower complaint in August with the Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging securities violations involving the Trump Media and Digital World merger.
Mr Litinsky, who first met Mr Trump as a contestant on The Apprentice TV show in 2004, was removed five months after the alleged incident took place, with Mr Willkerson telling the newspaper that it was payback.
Mr Wilkerson and his lawyer shared emails with The Washington Post and the SEC in which Mr Litinsky told him that Mr Trump was “retaliating against me” and threatening to “’blow up the company’ if his demands are not met.”
The Post says that Mr Wilkerson was fired from his job as a senior vice president of operations at the company after he spoke to the newspaper.
Mr Trump was forced to set up his own social media network after he was banned from Facebook and Twitter in the wake of the January 6 insurrection by his supporters.
The planned merger between Truth Social’s parent Trump Media & Technology Group and blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp is currently under investigation by the SEC.
Mr Trump’s following on the platform has grown to more than 4m, but that is still well below the 86m followers he enjoyed on Twitter before his January 2021 ban.
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Co-Founder Of Trumps Media Company Details Truth Socials Bitter Infighting
Co-Founder Of Trump’s Media Company Details Truth Social’s Bitter Infighting https://digitalarizonanews.com/co-founder-of-trumps-media-company-details-truth-socials-bitter-infighting-2/
Will Wilkerson, then an executive at former president Donald Trump’s start-up Trump Media & Technology Group, was at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., coffee shop with company co-founder Andy Litinsky last October when Trump called Litinsky with a question: Would he give up some of his shares to Trump’s wife, Melania?
Trump Media, the owner of the fledgling social network Truth Social, had just been boosted by a huge merger agreement and a flood of investment that had made the stake worth millions of dollars. Trump had already been given 90 percent of the company’s shares in exchange for the use of his name and some minor involvement, leaving everyone else to split the rest.
Litinsky tried to brush it off, telling Trump “the gift would have meant a huge tax bill he couldn’t pay,” Wilkerson said in an interview. “Trump didn’t care. He said, ‘Do whatever you need to do.’ ”
Five months later, Litinsky, who first met Trump in 2004 as a contestant on the TV show “The Apprentice,” was abruptly removed from the company’s board. Wilkerson said he believes it was payback for his refusal to turn over a small fortune to the former president’s wife. Litinsky thought so, too, according to an email Wilkerson and his attorneys shared with The Washington Post and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In that email, Litinsky complained that Trump was “retaliating against me” by threatening to “ ‘blow up the company’ if his demands are not met.”
Litinsky did not respond to emails and phone messages. It is unknown whether he still retains his shares.
The email — one of hundreds of previously unreported company messages, documents, photos and audio recordings that Wilkerson has provided to the SEC in connection with a whistleblower submission — reveals a stunning portrait of the animosity that has built up inside Trump Media since its high-profile debut last year.
Promoted as the centerpiece of Trump’s post-presidential business ambitions, the company had marketed itself as a budding media empire, with enterprises planned in social media, video streaming, live events and online payments — a powerful rival not just to Twitter but Disney, Google and Amazon.
But inside the company, Wilkerson said, those plans gave way to bitter infighting, technical failures and a chaotic jockeying for power among Trump allies that undermined its potential and left some employees crying at their desks.
Wilkerson, who was fired from his job Thursday as a senior vice president of operations at the company after he spoke to The Post, filed the whistleblower complaint with the SEC in August. The complaint, drafted by Wilkerson’s attorneys, alleges that the company’s bid to raise money via an investment vehicle known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, relied on “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws.”
The SEC, a federal watchdog agency, allows members of the public to submit tips, complaints and referrals about suspected financial wrongdoing via a document the agency calls a Form TCR. Whistleblowers can be granted confidentiality protections and, in some cases, financial awards. Litinsky did not join in the complaint.
Wilkerson is cooperating with investigations into Trump Media by the SEC and federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, said his attorneys, Phil Brewster, Patrick Mincey and Stephen Bell. Among the materials he filed with the SEC’s whistleblower office is a detailed, day-to-day computer log compiled by company co-founder Wes Moss, Litinsky and Wilkerson about their daily company-related activities.
He also provided to The Post a copy of that log as well as numerous other memos, photographs and videos that chronicled the creation of Trump Media. All of the materials Wilkerson shared with The Post were previously provided to government investigators, his attorneys said.
The SEC and the SDNY declined to comment.
In an SEC filing in December, Digital World acknowledged that the SEC was investigating and had sought documents related to the merger with Trump Media. In another filing in June, Digital World said it had become aware that a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York had issued subpoenas to its board members seeking documents related to its initial public offering filings and “communications with or about multiple individuals.” The investigations, the company said, could “impede or prevent” the merger.
Wilkerson said he was still working for the company on Oct. 6 when his SEC complaint was first reported by the Miami Herald. A Trump Media attorney sent Wilkerson a letter that night suspending him for what the lawyer said was a “blatant violation” of his nondisclosure agreement.
After interviewing Wilkerson alongside his attorneys, The Post on Wednesday sent a detailed list of claims and questions raised by Wilkerson’s allegations to representatives for Trump, Trump Media and the Trump Organization, Trump’s long-running family business.
Only Trump Media responded, saying in a statement that Trump, as company chairman, had hired former congressman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) as CEO to “create a culture of compliance and build a world-class team to lead Truth Social.” The company said it was already a success, having launched on the Apple and Google app stores, “executed multiple feature updates” and attracted millions of users. “Ignoring these achievements, The Washington Post sent us an inquiry rife with knowingly false and defamatory statements and other concocted psychodramas.” The statement did not directly address any of Wilkerson’s claims.
Trump Media fired Wilkerson on Thursday, citing his “unauthorized disclosures” to The Post. Brewster, his attorney, called the termination “patent retaliation against an SEC whistleblower of the worst kind.”
Digital World Acquisition, the SPAC that is pushing to take Trump Media public, has asked shareholders to give the company more time to finalize the merger, which would unlock hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump Media but is effectively frozen pending the outcomes of the federal investigations. Digital World and its chief executive, Patrick Orlando, did not respond to requests for comment.
The revelations to the SEC from Wilkerson, the most prominent company official to speak publicly about its operations, come at a turbulent time for Trump Media’s business. Investors, discouraged by the halted merger, have sent the SPAC’s share price plunging from a high of $175 to less than $18 on Friday. Roughly 4 million users follow Trump on the company’s sole product, Truth Social — far below his Twitter peak of 88 million. The company has pledged to investors it would surpass 50 million total users by 2024.
In past public statements, Nunes, Orlando and Trump have argued that Trump Media will ultimately prove to be a successful business. But Wilkerson said he expects its internal problems could lead the company to fall apart.
“We weren’t trying to be Trump Org 2.0,” he said. “We always saw Trump as the rocket fuel to send this thing to space. I wanted this to succeed more than anything. … But these are glaring issues, and they’re threatening me now for calling them out. I couldn’t stay quiet anymore.”
Wilkerson, 38, isn’t a traditional Trump critic.
When Litinsky and Moss, another former “Apprentice” contestant, first started discussing the idea of a multipronged Trump media business after Trump’s November 2020 election loss, the men had asked for his help developing the business, Wilkerson said. A former executive producer for Litinsky’s conservative radio show, Wilkerson was excited about monetizing the following of a person he considered a master marketer with 40 years as a political and household name.
Wilkerson shared a photo from that time of the men sketching the original concept on a whiteboard, titled “Trump’s New Media Empire,” that would ultimately compose the company’s public pitch, including new business lines (“Trump Digital Subscription,” “Trump Documentaries”) and a chain of “Trump technologies,” including in servers and online payments.
After Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump was banned from major social networks, the men drew up plans for a tech platform that would be “resilient to cancel culture and the impact of bias against the right,” according to the daily log Wilkerson shared with The Post and the SEC.
To meet with Trump, the men sought help from another “Apprentice” contestant, Bradford Cohen, a Florida criminal-defense attorney who represented two rappers, Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, to whom Trump had granted clemency on his final day in the White House.
In late January, three weeks after the riot, Cohen, Litinsky and Moss met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his opulent home and club in Palm Beach, Fla., to discuss the idea. Over cheeseburgers, Diet Cokes and ice cream, the men offered to build Trump a media company that he would own 90 percent of without putting in any of his own money, Wilkerson said. He was interested, and Trump Media was born. Cohen and Moss did not respond to requests for comment.
Raising money, however, proved to be a major challenge. The investment bankers they called rejected them because of fears over Trump’s post-election behavior, Wilkerson said. So they started cold-calling SPACs. Known as “blank-check companies,” SPACs sell shares to investors before merging with a private company, allowing the combined business to make money on the stock market without abiding by the traditional transparency requirements of a public listing.
They ultimately found a willing partner in Orlando, a financier in Miami who had recently launched a SPAC, Benessere Capital Acquisition, with $100 million in its coffers. In late February, Orlando, Wilkerson ...
Biden Makes Late Push Across West Aiming To Deliver Votes For Democrats
Biden Makes Late Push Across West Aiming To Deliver Votes For Democrats https://digitalarizonanews.com/biden-makes-late-push-across-west-aiming-to-deliver-votes-for-democrats/
President Joe Biden strode into the telephone bank at a crowded union hall and eagerly began making calls and eating doughnuts — one frosted, one glazed — to try and deliver votes for Democrats.
“What a governor does matters,” the president said, giving a pep talk to volunteers who were making Friday night calls for gubernatorial hopeful Tina Kotek and other candidates. “It matters! It matters, it matters, it matters!”
Before he left Portland on Saturday, the president planned to attend a reception for Kotek and speak about his administration’s efforts to bring down costs for Americans.
It was the final stop on a four-day swing through Oregon, California and Colorado that has encapsulated Biden’s strategy for turning out voters on Election Day, Nov. 8: flex the levers of government to help boost candidates, promote an agenda aimed at strengthening an uncertain economy and haul in campaign cash.
And this: show up for candidates when Mr. Biden can be helpful, but steer clear of places where a visit from a president with approval ratings under 50% may not be as welcome.
Throughout the trip, Mr. Biden had to compete for the spotlight and contend with a troubling new inflation report and rising gas prices.
In Oregon, Democratic officials hope that the president can help consolidate the party’s support behind Kotek. The party is in danger of losing the governor’s race in the traditional Democratic stronghold as Betsy Johnson — who has quit both the Democratic and Republican parties — has run a well-financed race against Kotek and the GOP nominee Christine Drazan.
The settings throughout the president’s trip were tailor-made for him.
In Los Angeles on Thursday, at a construction site for an extension on the city’s subway line, he spoke about his massive infrastructure law. Giant cranes rose up behind him as he stood before bulldozers and excavators. Many on hand were hard-hat workers in construction orange.
The stop neatly combined many of the president’s agenda’s successes: investments in infrastructure, job creation, fighting climate change by promoting mass transit.
“When you see these projects in your neighborhood — cranes going up, shovels in the ground, lives being changed — I want you to feel the way I do: pride,” Mr. Biden said. “Pride in what we can do when we do it together. This is what I mean when I say we’re building a better America.”
But his remarks came as the government reported that consumer prices, excluding volatile food and energy costs, jumped 6.6% in September from a year ago — the fastest such pace in four decades. Mr. Biden acknowledged that people were being “squeezed by the cost of living. It’s been true for years, and folks don’t need a report to tell them they’re being squeezed.”
IRVINE, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 14: U.S. President Joe Biden (L) poses for photos after he delivered remarks on lowering costs for American families at Irvine Valley College in Orange County on October 14, 2022 in Irvine, California. Mario Tama / Getty Images
Democratic candidates have been far more likely to appear with the president at official White House events underscoring their achievements than at overt campaign events. In California, Mr. Biden was joined by state lawmakers and the city’s mayor, and he called them out individually. Rep. Karen Bass, who is running for mayor of Los Angeles, made a takeout run with Mr. Biden to a taco shop.
The president raised $5 million at a fundraiser in the Brentwood backyard of TV producer Marcy Carsey. Guests included fashion designer Tom Ford and actor-filmmaker Rob Reiner.
In Colorado, the president designated the first national monument of his administration at Camp Hale, a World War II-era training site, with a group of Democrats by his side. His audience in a canyon of stunning views, tall pines and bright yellow aspens included Sen. Michael Bennet, who is facing a tough reelection campaign and had worked for the new monument. Democrats hope the designation, popular in the state, will boost Bennet’s numbers.
Early voting is underway in California and begins next week in Oregon and Colorado. The president notably stayed away from states where his presence could hurt Democrats, so far skipping Nevada and Arizona, where Democratic senators are tough races.
Democrats are trying to retain power in the face of widespread economic uncertainty and the traditional midterm headwinds against the party in power. Republicans, aiming to regain the House and Senate, think they can capitalize on gas prices, inflation and the economy.
During his taco stop, Mr. Biden’s chicken quesadilla order ran to $16.45, but he handed the clerk $60 and asked him to use the change to pay the next patron’s bill.
It was the kind of personal connection the president loves. But while the moment was unfolding, the headlines in Los Angeles focused on a bitter City Council clash over racist remarks, while in Washington, it was all about how the House voted to subpoena former President Donald Trump on his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
In:
Los Angeles
Colorado
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Marin Green Home Tour Set For October 19-20 https://digitalarizonanews.com/marin-green-home-tour-set-for-october-19-20/
By Emil Guillermo
In communities of color, athletes in the U.S. are practically royalty. They don’t call Lebron “King James” for nothing. Star athletes can do no wrong. Until they do.
Just ask O.J.
But when athletes steer clear of any of that, generally they are treated like gods who live above the rim. After all, they are our heroes because they’re winners. They may have started out regular, like the rest of us, but their god-given talents have made them rise above it all.
And that makes it difficult when they start to behave like mere mortals who do some pretty regrettable things.
Just look at Herschel Walker or Draymond Green.
Let’s take Walker first. If you’re a Bay Area guy like me, Georgia’s Walker is not the greatest running back ever. Give me Marcus Allen. Or even Texas’ Earl Campbell. Both of them would rather run over linebackers, not Democrats.
Walker is different. We know that Walker denies giving money to pay for a former partner’s abortion. But now the same female partner claims Walker wanted her to have a second abortion, though she declined and had the child.
Mind you, I’m choosing to skip all the accusations about Walker’s general hypocrisy from his son, Christian. It’s important, but I’ll give Walker the benefit of the doubt considering his grandstanding son.
But the woman who claims Walker has consulted her on abortion isn’t grandstanding. She’s provided proof to the news site, the Daily Beast, and appears credible.
All this shouldn’t even be political talk, but Walker is running as an anti-abortion, pro-life fundamentalist.
The truth is relevant if it makes Walker out to be a liar.
But maybe that’s good for a politician?
Coming to Walker’s defense is no less than Donald Trump, who told the NY Times’ Maggie Haberman about Walker’s abundant qualities.
“He was the best football player in the nation by far,” Trump said of Walker.
When asked about his “complicated personal history,” Trump was quick to dismiss any criticism.
“Ten years ago would be a problem, twenty years ago a bigger problem. I don’t think it’s a problem today,” Trump said.
Haberman asked “why?” Because the world is changing.
In other words, outright liars are rewarded in today’s corrupt Republican politics led by Godfather Trump. Anything goes, as long as you win.
Trump’s blessing has opened the way for millions in political contributions and support from conservatives who shamelessly back the unqualified and truth-compromised Walker.
But this is the kind of Black man Republicans want. Controllable. Who will do what they want. Run over Democrats with political athleticism!
Doesn’t seem to stack up against the incumbent Senator, Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat and the current preacher of MLK’s Ebenezer Baptist church.
If Walker wins, we will feel the impact in California. Democrats can rely on Kamala Harris to break a tie on upcoming legislation on key issues like gun control, immigration, voting rights, LGBTQ rights. Oh, and there’s abortion.
But there will be no heroics from Harris if Republicans gain the majority and have Herschel Walker in their pocket.
He will do anything they say. He’s their star athlete. He can do no wrong.
At Least Draymond Green Doesn’t Want to Be Senator
Draymond Green says he’s going to take some time away from the Golden State Warriors. He’s already taken some of their credibility.
Of course, you’ve seen the video of Green punching his teammate Jordan Poole at a recent Warriors practice. The Warriors are mostly upset that video of the punch found its way to the public.
But at least we got the truth. The punch was a clear battery, and chargeable. The Warriors preferred to keep it in house.
Keep it in house? That sounds like Jeffrey Dahmer.
The video shows undeniable workplace violence. Green, who is 6-ft-6-inches, 230 pounds, is punching the smaller Poole, who is two inches shorter and almost 40 pounds lighter.
Sports commentators downplay the punch, saying these are men playing an aggressive game, and it’s to be expected.
Not when the gym is your workplace. Punch your boss and you’ll get fired. Or sued. Is this the NBA’s message, that physical bullying is OK?
Two weeks ago, the NBA fined Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver $10 million and banned him from the game for one year for “workplace misconduct,” involving anti-Black racism, as well as misogynistic and sexual comments.
Is that worse than punching a teammate in practice?
Green has apologized and said he’s going to take time to “work on himself.”
But it’s going to take a lot more than using that meditation app LeBron James pushes.
For the NBA and the Golden State Warriors, the action that must be taken is clear. They must condemn workplace violence by athletes unequivocally.
Athletes shouldn’t be treated as winners when they act like losers.
Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a talk show on www.amok.com
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Live Blog: Rainy Weekend Weather Cools Off The State
Live Blog: Rainy Weekend Weather Cools Off The State https://digitalarizonanews.com/live-blog-rainy-weekend-weather-cools-off-the-state/
Most of the state will have an 80% chance of rain by Saturday evening. Scattered storms are already rolling through the Valley.
PHOENIX — Scattered thunderstorms are already rolling through the Valley to kick off a cool, rainy weekend. The first peak was around 10am-noon and a second is expected during the evening.
By the time Saturday evening rolls around, most of the state is expected to have an 80% chance of rain. Special weather alerts are already in place for parts of the Valley.
Download the 12News app for the latest local breaking news straight to your phone.
Be sure to keep up to date with the latest weather conditions on 12news.com and the 12News app. We’ll be monitoring storm activity throughout the day.
Follow live updates below:
12:40 p.m.: There’s a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Apache Junction, Queen Creek, and Florence.
Severe Thunderstorm Warning continues for Apache Junction AZ, Queen Creek AZ and Florence AZ until 12:45 PM MST pic.twitter.com/LDG2eHSZy9
— NWS Phoenix (@NWSPhoenix) October 15, 2022
Arizona Weather
Drought, wildfires, heat and monsoon storms: Arizona has seen its fair share of severe weather. Learn everything you need to know about the Grand Canyon State’s ever-changing forecasts here:
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LIVE UPDATES: Storms Hitting The Valley Saturday October 15
LIVE UPDATES: Storms Hitting The Valley Saturday, October 15 https://digitalarizonanews.com/live-updates-storms-hitting-the-valley-saturday-october-15/
Scattered storms are expected through Saturday into Sunday morning
Watch the latest ABC15 Arizona in Phoenix headlines any time.
PHOENIX — Heavy rain, winds, and even some hail are hitting much of the Valley Saturday! The storm is expected to stick around for most of the day, and overnight into Sunday morning.
Live look at radar:
ABC15 Arizona Live Video
Here are the latest updates as we track these storms:
12:25 p.m.
Another severe storm quickly moving NW from Casa Grande area to Queen Creek/Chandler area this hour. Be careful of heavy gusts, lightning, and downpours @abc15 https://t.co/uyhHB1HlVc
— Amelia Fabiano ABC15 (@AmeliaFabianoTV) October 15, 2022
12:10 p.m.
Rain coming down hard in North Phoenix.
This is video from Greenway & the 51.
Roads are soaked.
Cars are susceptible to hydroplaning because of poor runoff/drainage @abc15 pic.twitter.com/7EX27m9dGO
— Zach Crenshaw (@ZachCrenshaw) October 15, 2022
11:30 p.m.
11:13 p.m.
ALERT: Severe Thunderstorm Warning in effect for this storm moving thru the east Valley.
Storm is moving at about 35mph towards the NW and is capable of producing damaging winds near 60mph and small hail
“When Thunder Roars, Get Indoors”#abc15wx #azwx pic.twitter.com/AYR9u4Ejlf
— Iris Hermosillo (@IrisABC15) October 15, 2022
11 a.m.
Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Co-Founder Of Trumps Media Company Details Truth Socials Bitter Infighting
Co-Founder Of Trump’s Media Company Details Truth Social’s Bitter Infighting https://digitalarizonanews.com/co-founder-of-trumps-media-company-details-truth-socials-bitter-infighting/
Will Wilkerson, then an executive at former president Donald Trump’s start-up Trump Media & Technology Group, was at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., coffee shop with company co-founder Andy Litinsky last October when Trump called Litinsky with a question: Would he give up some of his shares to Trump’s wife, Melania?
Trump Media, the owner of the fledgling social network Truth Social, had just been boosted by a huge merger agreement and a flood of investment that had made the stake worth millions of dollars. Trump had already been given 90 percent of the company’s shares in exchange for the use of his name and some minor involvement, leaving everyone else to split the rest.
Litinsky tried to brush it off, telling Trump “the gift would have meant a huge tax bill he couldn’t pay,” Wilkerson said in an interview. “Trump didn’t care. He said, ‘Do whatever you need to do.’ ”
Five months later, Litinsky, who first met Trump in 2004 as a contestant on the TV show “The Apprentice,” was abruptly removed from the company’s board. Wilkerson said he believes it was payback for his refusal to turn over a small fortune to the former president’s wife. Litinsky thought so, too, according to an email Wilkerson and his attorneys shared with The Washington Post and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In that email, Litinsky complained that Trump was “retaliating against me” by threatening to “ ‘blow up the company’ if his demands are not met.”
Litinsky did not respond to emails and phone messages. It is unknown whether he still retains his shares.
The email — one of hundreds of previously unreported company messages, documents, photos and audio recordings that Wilkerson has provided to the SEC in connection with a whistleblower submission — reveals a stunning portrait of the animosity that has built up inside Trump Media since its high-profile debut last year.
Promoted as the centerpiece of Trump’s post-presidential business ambitions, the company had marketed itself as a budding media empire, with enterprises planned in social media, video streaming, live events and online payments — a powerful rival not just to Twitter but Disney, Google and Amazon.
But inside the company, Wilkerson said, those plans gave way to bitter infighting, technical failures and a chaotic jockeying for power among Trump allies that undermined its potential and left some employees crying at their desks.
Wilkerson, who was fired from his job Thursday as a senior vice president of operations at the company after he spoke to The Post, filed the whistleblower complaint with the SEC in August. The complaint, drafted by Wilkerson’s attorneys, alleges that the company’s bid to raise money via an investment vehicle known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, relied on “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws.”
The SEC, a federal watchdog agency, allows members of the public to submit tips, complaints and referrals about suspected financial wrongdoing via a document the agency calls a Form TCR. Whistleblowers can be granted confidentiality protections and, in some cases, financial awards. Litinsky did not join in the complaint.
Wilkerson is cooperating with investigations into Trump Media by the SEC and federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, said his attorneys, Phil Brewster, Patrick Mincey and Stephen Bell. Among the materials he filed with the SEC’s whistleblower office is a detailed, day-to-day computer log compiled by company co-founder Wes Moss, Litinsky and Wilkerson about their daily company-related activities.
He also provided to The Post a copy of that log as well as numerous other memos, photographs and videos that chronicled the creation of Trump Media. All of the materials Wilkerson shared with The Post were previously provided to government investigators, his attorneys said.
The SEC and the SDNY declined to comment.
In an SEC filing in December, Digital World acknowledged that the SEC was investigating and had sought documents related to the merger with Trump Media. In another filing in June, Digital World said it had become aware that a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York had issued subpoenas to its board members seeking documents related to its initial public filings and “communications with or about multiple individuals.” The investigations, the company said, could “impede or prevent” the merger.
Wilkerson said he was still working for the company on Oct. 6 when his SEC complaint was first reported by the Miami Herald. A Trump Media attorney sent Wilkerson a letter that night suspending him for what the lawyer said was a “blatant violation” of his nondisclosure agreement.
After interviewing Wilkerson alongside his attorneys, The Post on Wednesday sent a detailed list of claims and questions raised by Wilkerson’s allegations to representatives for Trump, Trump Media, and the Trump Organization, Trump’s long-running family business.
Only Trump Media responded, saying in a statement that Trump, as company chairman, had hired former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) as CEO to “create a culture of compliance and build a world-class team to lead Truth Social.” The company said it was already a success, having launched on the Apple and Google app stores, “executed multiple feature updates” and attracted millions of users. “Ignoring these achievements, The Washington Post sent us an inquiry rife with knowingly false and defamatory statements and other concocted psychodramas.” The statement did not directly address any of Wilkerson’s claims.
Trump Media fired Wilkerson on Thursday, citing his “unauthorized disclosures” to The Post. Brewster, his attorney, called the termination “patent retaliation against a SEC whistleblower of the worst kind.”
Digital World Acquisition, the SPAC that is pushing to take Trump Media public, has asked shareholders to give the company more time to finalize the merger, which would unlock hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump Media but is effectively frozen pending the outcomes of the federal investigations. Digital World and its chief executive, Patrick Orlando, did not respond to requests for comment.
The revelations to the SEC from Wilkerson, the most prominent company official to speak publicly about its operations, come at a turbulent time for Trump Media’s business. Investors, discouraged by the halted merger, have sent the SPAC’s share price plunging from a high of $175 to less than $18 on Friday. Roughly 4 million users follow Trump on the company’s sole product, Truth Social — far below his Twitter peak of 88 million. The company has pledged to investors it would surpass 50 million total users by 2024.
In past public statements, Nunes, Orlando and Trump have argued that Trump Media will ultimately prove to be a successful business. But Wilkerson said he expects its internal problems could lead the company to fall apart.
“We weren’t trying to be Trump Org 2.0,” he said. “We always saw Trump as the rocket fuel to send this thing to space. I wanted this to succeed more than anything. … But these are glaring issues, and they’re threatening me now for calling them out. I couldn’t stay quiet anymore.”
***
Wilkerson, 38, isn’t a traditional Trump critic.
When Litinsky and Moss, another former “Apprentice” contestant, first started discussing the idea of a multipronged Trump media business after Trump’s November 2020 election loss, the men had asked for his help developing the business, Wilkerson said. A former executive producer for Litinsky’s conservative radio show, Wilkerson was excited about monetizing the following of a person he considered a master marketer with 40 years as a political and household name.
Wilkerson shared a photo from that time of the men sketching the original concept on a whiteboard, titled “Trump’s New Media Empire,” that would ultimately compose the company’s public pitch, including new business lines ( “Trump Digital Subscription,” “Trump Documentaries”) and a chain of “Trump technologies,” including in servers and online payments.
After Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump was banned from major social networks, the men drew up plans for a tech platform that would be “resilient to cancel culture and the impact of bias against the right,” according to the daily log Wilkerson shared with The Post and the SEC.
To meet with Trump, the men sought help from another “Apprentice” contestant, Bradford Cohen, a Florida criminal-defense attorney who represented two rappers, Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, to whom Trump had granted clemency on his final day in the White House.
In late January, three weeks after the riot, Cohen, Litinsky and Moss met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his opulent home and club in Palm Beach, to discuss the idea. Over cheeseburgers, Diet Cokes and ice cream, the men offered to build Trump a media company that he’d own 90 percent of without putting in any of his own money, Wilkerson said. He was interested, and Trump Media was born. Cohen and Moss did not respond to requests for comment.
Raising money, however, proved to be a major challenge. The investment bankers they called rejected them due to fears over Trump’s post-election behavior, Wilkerson said. So they started cold-calling SPACs. Known as “blank-check companies,” SPACs sell shares to investors before merging with a private company, allowing the combined business to make money on the stock market without abiding by the traditional transparency requirements of a public listing.
They ultimately found a willing partner in Orlando, a financier in Miami who’d recently launched a SPAC, Benessere Capital Acquisition, with $100 million in its coffers. In late February, Orlando, Wilkerson and other Trump allies outli...
Smoke Gunfire At Tehran Jail Holding Political Prisoners Dual Nationals
Smoke, Gunfire At Tehran Jail Holding Political Prisoners, Dual Nationals https://digitalarizonanews.com/smoke-gunfire-at-tehran-jail-holding-political-prisoners-dual-nationals/
A police motorcycle burns during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic’s “morality police”, in Tehran, Iran September 19, 2022. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
DUBAI, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Gunfire broke out at a prison in Tehran holding political prisoners and dual-national detainees on Saturday, witnesses said, and smoke could be seen rising above the jail.
State media quoted a security official blaming “criminal elements” for the unrest, which broke out after nearly a month of protests across Iran over the death in detention of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian.
The official said calm had returned, but one witness said gunfire could still be heard.
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“Roads leading to Evin prison have been closed to traffic. there are lots of ambulances here,” said a witness contacted by Reuters. “Still we can hear gunshots.”
Another witness said families of prisoners had gathered in front of the main prison entrance. “I can see fire and smoke. Lots of special forces. Ambulances are here too,” they said.
The activist website 1500tasvir shared video footage it said showed special forces on motorbikes heading for the prison.
The prison mostly holds detainees facing security charges, including Iranians with dual nationality. It has long been criticised by Western rights groups and it was blacklisted by the U.S. government in 2018 for “serious human rights abuses”.
Siamak Namazi, an Iranian American imprisoned for nearly seven years on espionage-related charges rejected by Washington as baseless, returned to Evin on Wednesday after being granted a brief furlough, his lawyer said.
Human Rights Watch has accused authorities at the prison of using threats of torture and of indefinite imprisonment, as well as lengthy interrogations and denial of medical care for detainees.
The unrest at Evin prison came after nearly a month of protests across Iran since Amini – a 22-year-old woman from the country’s Kurdish region – died on Sept. 16 while being held for “inappropriate attire”.
The protests have posed one of the most serious challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.
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Reporting by Dubai bureau Writing by Dominic Evans Editing by Helen Popper, William Maclean
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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The Era Of The Paywalled Restaurants Is Upon Us https://digitalarizonanews.com/the-era-of-the-paywalled-restaurants-is-upon-us/
As long as there have been high-status, celebrity-studded restaurants, there have been people clamoring to get into them, working contacts, making phone calls, greasing palms. Lately, though, it can seem like every restaurant in New York is that kind of restaurant.
In the pandemic era — with hours cut back in many cases, and a public eager to eat out once again — the competition for tables has reached a frenzied pitch on electronic reservation platforms.
“Without over-embellishing, within five seconds basically all reservations are taken,” said Steve Saed, who started #FreeRezy, a free electronic forum where people could swap reservations among themselves. “It’s like winning the lottery to eat at these places,” he added.
But a new generation of tactics have emerged to help would-be diners jump the line, including latter-day concierge services, NFTs granting holders special privileges, members-only credit card perks and private “clubstaurants.” What they all have in common is that they will cost you.
“However many years ago, it was slip the host or hostess $20 and bypass the line,” said Alex Lee, the chief executive of Resy and vice president of American Express Dining. He runs the companies’ Global Dining Network, a program that offers a select group of Amex members (Amex owns Resy) access to certain restaurant perks through the reservation platform.
The program, he suggested, is just the natural evolution of that furtive $20. For an annual credit card fee in the hundreds or sometimes thousands, Global Dining Access members can obtain priority reservations at hot restaurants across the United States. “The first thing customers want is access, right?” Mr. Lee said.
But at certain members-only restaurants, a reservation alone is not enough.
Haiku, a private sushi restaurant in Miami, makes a slightly different calculation. The restaurant accepts members by invitation only, for an annual fee, and asks them to commit to at least four reservations for a 10-to-12-course kaiseki-inspired omakase menu annually. The restaurant declined to discuss either the application process or the price.
Jeff Zalaznick, a partner at Major Food Group, was only slightly more forthcoming about plans for the New York debut of ZZ’s Club, which will feature a members-only Carbone. Like the first ZZ’s in Miami, which offers members access to a Japanese restaurant, a sushi bar, a bar and lounge and a cigar terrace, ZZ’s Club New York will bring the Major Food Group experience to the financial and social elite. (Like Haiku, Major Food Group would not disclose the fee or the application process.)
Image
Carbone, run by Major Food Group, is one of New York City’s most difficult reservations.Credit…Daniel Krieger for The New York Times
But given that the original Carbone — which recently lost its Michelin star — is already impossible to get into, is it really necessary to have an even more exclusive version just two miles away?
“One of the great things about being a private member’s club, is the fact that you really can tailor everything on the food and beverage side to your customers at an even higher level than you can, obviously, when you’re just a public restaurant,” Mr. Zalaznick said.
This means knowing what members want, and how exactly they want it: How do they take their steak? Do they prefer still or sparkling water? What is their standing order, and with which modifications?
Diners can have all those things at the London import Casa Cruz, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, but for a stratospheric price tag. The top-floor dining room there is reserved for the 99 members of the restaurant’s “investor group of partners” who have paid between $250,000 and $500,000 to join.
“I think there’s a demand for curation,” said Noah Tepperberg, the co-CEO of Tao Group Hospitality, which next year is opening a private club in the River North neighborhood of Chicago, in collaboration with the restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You.
In the grand tradition of private clubs — from New York City’s Union Club to San Francisco’s Bohemian Club to the recently rebranded ’Quin House in Boston — these exclusive clubstaurants require not only cash but status.
Image
At Lilia, the Brooklyn Italian restaurant from the chef Missy Robbins, reservations are routinely booked solid a month in advance.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York Times
“Restaurants began as places to show off status,” said Andrew P. Haley, an associate professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi. Generally, this took place in public, where discerning diners could be seen demonstrating their discernment.
The members-only clubstaurant, on the other hand, confers another kind of status, suggested Megan J. Elias, the director of the gastronomy program at Boston University: “You can be a connoisseur among a very small number of connoisseurs.”
Mr. Saed said he’s not surprised that access is being monetized.
“Part of it tracks to the types of people that are renting in New York now,” he said. “With rents pushing over $4,000 to $5,000, I think that the proportion of people that are living here that have the discretionary income to spend are kind of more here.”
Still other restaurants — the public kind — are leaning into patronage-style programs, aiming to give certain customers premier access, while remaining open to the rest of us.
Under normal circumstances, it can take weeks or months to get into Dame, the West Village fish-and-chips sensation. But there is a workaround: Front of House, a platform designed to help restaurants sell “digital collectibles,” also known as NFTs, that grant holders special access.
Instead of lining up at 4:30 p.m. on a Monday, the one day Dame takes walk-in diners, a devoted diner could pay $1,000 dollars, which buys them the ability, with at least 24 hours notice, to book a table once a week through the end of 2022. (20 such tokens have been created; 11 have been sold so far.)
Stephanie Dumanian, a cosmetic dentist in Manhattan and a fan of the restaurant, was trying without success to make a reservation for her husband’s birthday when she found Front of House. She bought a token in July, and has been three times since. “It’s been great,” she said. “I feel like I’m supporting a local business.”
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Dame, in Greenwich Village, only takes walk-ins one day a week.Credit…Evan Sung for The New York Times
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It can take weeks or months to get an opportunity to try Dame’s fish and chips.Credit…Evan Sung for The New York Times
Colin Camac, a co-founder of Front of House, said the platform is simply expediting intimacy.
“I think one of the best things in the world is going into a place just like Cheers, where everybody knows your name, where they know what you like, where your martini is sitting there as soon as you walk in,” said Mr. Camac, who is also a regional director at Resy. “It’s an easier way to be part of that community if you don’t have the time to really invest in it.” In other words, anyone can be a regular, for a price.
“It’s kind of a trade secret in the concierge space that you have to build relationships, and spend a lot of time doing it, in order to deliver these very hard to get reservations,” said Peter Adams, the founder of Table Concierge.
His start-up is for people with money but not time, and a would-be diner doesn’t actually have to be a regular to get treated like one. “You could do this on your own,” he said, but he streamlines the process “so you don’t have to wake up at 8 a.m. or book at midnight.”
For a price — usually $50 per reservation per person, but it depends on the difficulty — Mr. Adams works his connections to open doors that appear closed to the rest of us. (White glove service means he will go as far as going to a restaurant in person to negotiate on a client’s behalf.)
With a week or so warning, he puts his success rate at 90 percent. You want Lilia? He’ll get you Lilia, nevermind what Resy says. “We can get you in anywhere other than Rao’s,” he said of the exclusive Italian restaurant in East Harlem.
Though he added: “But if you want to give me $10,000, I can find a way to get you into Rao’s.”
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Will Trump Comply With Jan. 6 Committee Subpoena? Whats Next After Thursdays Hearing
Will Trump Comply With Jan. 6 Committee Subpoena? What’s Next After Thursday’s Hearing https://digitalarizonanews.com/will-trump-comply-with-jan-6-committee-subpoena-whats-next-after-thursdays-hearing/
A video showing then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., talking with then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen is played as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington. Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — After closing out what could be the final installment in a series of high-profile hearings, the House’s Jan. 6 select committee is left with decisions to make in its remaining weeks that could have profound effects for years to come.
The committee will need to square whether it will play a role in the Justice Department’s investigation and determine how the raw information it has collected will be preserved and disseminated. But ultimately the panel’s largest decisions will be about what recommendations to make and what information its final report should contain.
Republican leaders had fought the creation of an independent commission to review the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and what led to it. The House panel is the only government entity tasked with the inquiry, and is compiling what is expected to be the definitive historical record of what led to the insurrection.
What the committee produces is likely to become the bedrock evidence in criminal and civil cases, and will be examined by historians and studied in schools much like the 9/11 commission report has been, said Grant Tudor, a policy advocate for Protect Democracy.
“These types of evidence-gathering and truth-telling exercises have ramifications for other accountability efforts long after they’re done,” Tudor said.
Prosecutors, journalists and government watchdog groups are clamoring for access to the more than 1,000 depositions, hundreds of hours of video and hundreds of thousands of pages of documents collected in the investigation. The committee has been guarded about how much material might be made public.
“While we’re obviously anticipating this final report, that’s not the same as anticipating access to the vast body of evidence that’s gathered and the analysis of that evidence,” Tudor said. “It seems really likely that it’s going to take a pretty intentional editing hand in deciding what to include and what not to include. The committee has collected this staggering volume of records and troves of witness testimonies.”
The report is all but certain to provide more detail than was possible in a hearing format.
Despite early signals of what the panel intended to scrutinize, such as who was behind fundraising for the rally where then-President Donald Trump spoke before the attack, the committee ultimately focused on Trump’s role in the events and his mindset around Jan. 6, pushing some issues to the back burner. Topics raised in hearings were often not completely followed.
Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, holds a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday. Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., is left. J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
The committee’s hearings barely touched on information it had gathered on several topics key to understanding the events on and around Jan. 6, including what failures in law enforcement intelligence gathering allowed the insurrection to happen, who funded efforts to find evidence of fraud in the election, and who paid for some Trump supporters to travel to Washington to march on the Capitol.
“There is potentially a huge wealth of evidence that could be coming,” Debra Perlin, policy director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told reporters Friday.
Along with an account of the plans to keep Trump in power that led to the violence on Jan. 6, the report is expected to include recommendations for legislation or action by federal agencies, and possibly by state and local governments.
But the potential outcome most are watching for is whether the committee will recommend criminal charges against Trump or others.
Its members have been divided on whether it is appropriate to recommend criminal charges to the Justice Department, or whether the panel should refrain from doing so to prevent the potential appearance of politicizing a decision that the department is supposed to make based on facts alone. The panel has so far held itself apart from the efforts of prosecutors, including refusing requests to share depositions and other evidence with them.
“We think we very, very much proved the case in a compelling way by the end of that hearing series,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., told Politico. “And now, frankly, on the criminal side, because we’re not the criminal committee, it’s up to the [Justice Department]. … They have the torch, and we’ll see where they go with it.”
Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said at Thursday’s hearing that criminal referrals for multiple individuals were likely, but did not elaborate.
In the spring and summer, members of the House committee publicly criticized U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, saying he was moving tentatively compared with their proceedings. But the Justice Department made increasingly aggressive moves over the summer, and appears to be conducting multiple investigations at once.
Agents have seized cellphones, brought dozens of high-ranking Trump confidants before a grand jury and conducted court-approved searches of private homes, including executing a warrant at the home of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, whom they left handcuffed outside without pants.
Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., speaks as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing Thursday, on Capitol Hill in Washington, as Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., look on. J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
The department has been careful not to indicate whether indictments are coming, and traditionally it doesn’t make moves in the weeks before an election so as not to potentially influence the outcome. Many legal experts have expressed confidence that charges will come after the midterm elections next month.
Duke University professor Asher Hildebrand, a former high-ranking Capitol Hill staffer, said regardless of whether a criminal referral comes from the committee, the hearings show the panel has done its job.
“It does feel like the Jan. 6 committee’s contribution to the broader consideration of what happened on Jan. 6, and leading up to it, what crimes were committed by the president … that contribution is sort of secure. And that, at this point, is really a question of whether, when and how the Justice Department and other law enforcement authorities act on all of this information,” he said.
As the report is poised to assume center stage, the committee’s investigation is ongoing. On Thursday, its members voted unanimously to subpoena Trump for documents and testimony, saying he has an obligation to answer for his actions.
In a rambling 14-page response Friday, Trump didn’t commit to an interview or to sharing documents. Instead he reiterated baseless claims of election fraud and shared photos of the crowd at his rally that day.
“You have not gone after the people that created the fraud, but rather great American patriots who questioned it, as is their constitutional right,” he wrote. “These people have had their lives ruined as your committee sits back and basks in the glow.”
Trump is likely to fight the subpoena, or ignore it completely. With just more than two months left before the committee is set to disband, it will need to decide how much time to spend pushing for Trump to comply, or whether to consider the subpoena to be largely symbolic.
The panel will also need to determine which ongoing fights for records and testimony are still worth pursuing. More than a dozen witnesses have sued to block the committee from gaining access to cellphone or email records, and others are fighting subpoenas to testify in court. Some of the cases have been ongoing for more than a year, in part because the committee has sought more time to craft a strategy.
How the committee will present its final report is unclear. All that is required to issue it is a vote of its members, but after nine carefully orchestrated hearings this year, a visual presentation of some kind is expected.
“It seems unlikely that it will just drop a large bound book and not say anything about it or not use it as a public platform to also make a series of closing arguments,” Tudor said. “Even if it’s out of the context of a formal hearing.”
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Voters Care About Spiking Living Costs More Than Abortion Access Poll Shows
Voters Care About Spiking Living Costs More Than Abortion Access, Poll Shows https://digitalarizonanews.com/voters-care-about-spiking-living-costs-more-than-abortion-access-poll-shows/
October 15, 2022 01:37 PM
Inflation and gas prices are more pressing concerns for midterm election voters than abortion, a fact Republicans hope will boost them into the majority in Congress, as the parties are neck and neck weeks before the midterm elections, a recent poll showed.
Though Democrats made gains in fundraising and voter enthusiasm following the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protections for abortion, persistently rising inflation and gas prices are higher priorities for a majority of voters when picking candidates than the issue of abortion.
The NBC News poll found that 59% of voters are most concerned with what candidates will do to address the cost of living, while 37% say a candidate’s abortion position is their tipping point. To be sure, one poll in isolation doesn’t indicate how an election will turn out. Trend lines over weeks and months are important, and voter priorities can change until the moment they cast ballots.
PENCE URGES REPUBLICANS NOT TO BACK DOWN FROM ABORTION ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL
Stephen Parlato of Boulder, Colo., holds a sign that reads “Hands Off Roe!!!” as abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion protesters demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021, in Washington, as the court hears arguments in a case from Mississippi, where a 2018 law would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, well before viability. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Andrew Harnik/AP
Still, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told the Washington Examiner that the survey’s finding bodes well for his party in the midterm elections. House Republicans need to net five seats in the 435-member chamber to gain a majority for the first time since the 2018 elections.
“It’s a security election. It’s your economic security, and it’s your physical security,” Emmer said, alluding to crime, another major issue for voters. “Democrats failed at both.”
Inflation is hitting voters hard, making them more likely to vote for House Republicans, Emmer said.
“On the economic security front, every American family that is not part of the political elite, that is not part of the uber-wealthy, that is just trying to raise a family and chase their American dream, has to make a choice every day right now between buying groceries versus putting gas in the tank,” Emmer continued. “And these guys actually think here in this bubble called Washington, D.C., that they can make this argument that ‘Oh, gas prices have actually dropped.'”
The NBC poll, which was conducted between Sept. 9 and 13 among 1,000 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.1%, also found that the parties are tied on a generic ballot. Each party has 46% of voters favoring Republican or Democratic control of Congress after the midterm elections.
When Democratic candidates talk about the economy, which is rare, they emphasize the small improvements in recent months. Gas prices have dropped, that’s true, and the August inflation rate decreased to 8.3% from a whopping 9.1% in June. They’ve also emphasized a commitment to abortion access. Candidates such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman are banking on their bases and independents turning out to vote en masse, with abortion as their primary motivator.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
But those concerns may fall short against GOP messaging on the economy. Republicans often point out that people have lost an entire month of income to increased costs of living. Gas prices, though not as frighteningly high as $5, $6, or even $7 a gallon, as they were this summer, are still hovering around $3.70 a gallon — well over the $2.20 average in September 2020 under former President Donald Trump. Families have lost an average of $6,800 in real annual income this year.
“You could buy gas across this country at a buck eighty-five to $2.20 a gallon when Joe Biden took office,” Emmer said. “This idea that somehow, now we can buy it at $3 to $4.50 a gallon, by the way, not all states — you’re paying a lot more than that still in California and the northwest. Plus, think about what’s about to hit: Home heating costs are up, I think, close to 70%, and that’s hitting right now. On economic security, they have completely failed the American family right now.”
GOP lawmakers no longer talk of a red wave sweeping Republicans to majorities in the House and Senate. But Democratic political momentum over the summer may also be fading. Just because inflation and gas prices aren’t getting worse month to month doesn’t mean they won’t make a meaningful difference in voters’ wallets — at least by Election Day.
Juliegrace Brufke contributed to this report.
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Why Is Britain Comparing Its Prime Minister To A Lettuce?
Why Is Britain Comparing Its Prime Minister To A Lettuce? https://digitalarizonanews.com/why-is-britain-comparing-its-prime-minister-to-a-lettuce/
LONDON — What do British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s political tenure and a wilting head of lettuce have in common, you might ask? They both have an expiration date.
Installed by her party just last month after her predecessor Boris Johnson was dramatically ousted, Truss has been in office less than six weeks. But already some pundits say her days in the job are numbered, as she clings to her political life on a dizzying economic roller coaster she has been largely blamed for.
She has also become the butt of quintessentially British jokes — most notably by being compared to a head of lettuce by both The Economist newspaper (considered one of the world’s preeminent news journals) and The Daily Star, an entertainment-focused tabloid that brands itself the “home of fun stuff” and regularly features photos of scantily-clad celebrities.
The gag began in an article by The Economist which earlier this week dubbed Truss “The Iceberg Lady,” bluntly predicting her career has “the shelf-life of a lettuce.”
By Friday, the Daily Star was offering its readers a live stream of a store-bought head of lettuce (worth 60 pence — just under a dollar — and with a shelf-life of around 10 days), positioned next to a framed photograph of Truss, accompanied by the question: “Day one: Which wet lettuce will last longer?”
The live-streamed decay has since attracted more than 350,000 viewers, as people tune in to see whether Truss’s political career or the salad staple (which briefly donned a wig and googly eyes) will expire faster.
The Daily Star accused Truss of being a “lame duck PM” following a “shambolic day,” on Friday as she fired her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, after just 38 days in office and u-turned on tax policies, in a bid to steady the wobbling economy.
Kwarteng, who will go down in history books as Britain’s second shortest-serving chancellor of the exchequer, was also subject to jokes from the British press — who pointed out that the shortest-serving chancellor had died (Iain Macleod in 1970 after 30 days in the job) rather than being ousted.
On social media Saturday the hashtag “#lettuceliz” was gaining steam, with users unsure whether to laugh or cry at the state of national affairs.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” wrote one person on Twitter. “Brilliant,” wrote another.
Some online complained they had cheese in the fridge that had lasted longer than Kwarteng’s spell in office, while one trans-Atlantic observer quipped: “In the US we measure such things in Scaramuccis,” referring to Anthony Scaramucci — the short-serving White House communications director, who lasted less than a week in the Trump administration.
The British prime minister also faced criticism for holding an abnormally brief news conference after announcing Kwarteng’s departure on Friday, lasting just eight minutes and 21 seconds.
The Daily Mail newspaper called the news conference a “car crash,” the Guardian front page decried “A day of chaos,” while the Mirror tabloid simply said “Time’s up.”
Britain’s opposing political parties, meanwhile, are calling for a general election.
“Changing the Chancellor doesn’t undo the damage made in Downing Street. Liz Truss’ reckless approach has crashed the economy, causing mortgages to skyrocket, and has undermined Britain’s standing on the world stage,” said Labour leader Keir Starmer, whose party is enjoying a boost in opinion polls. “We need a change in government.”
The smaller Liberal Democrat Party echoed a similar sentiment: “Enough is enough. It started with Boris Johnson failing our country, and now Liz Truss has broken our economy. It is time for the people to have their say.”
Truss’s promise to simultaneously slash taxes and maintain social programs without deep borrowing has left the market and her party members reeling over the last few weeks, plunging the pound and forcing the Bank of England to take unprecedented interventions to quell the financial revolt.
She swiftly replaced Kwarteng (who had been attending a meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington before frantically flying back to the U.K.), with a former foreign minister Jeremy Hunt, who pledged Saturday to restore economic credibility. Hunt lost the Conservative Party leadership race to Johnson in 2019.
Truss also walked back one of her top campaign pledges — and will now allow corporate taxes to rise from 19 percent to 25 percent in April 2023, she said.
Like other nations in Europe, Britain is grappling with rising inflation, a cost of living crisis and multiple worker strikes from transport to health and postal sectors, with some predicting a possible winter of discontent on the horizon.
The average price of lettuce, at least, hasn’t gone up too badly.
Karla Adam and William Booth contributed to this report.
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Sidney Powell Nonprofit Raised $16 Million Spreading Election Lies: Report
Sidney Powell Nonprofit Raised $16 Million Spreading Election Lies: Report https://digitalarizonanews.com/sidney-powell-nonprofit-raised-16-million-spreading-election-lies-report/
Powell worked with Trump and his allies to spread the lie that the election had been stolen from him. (Photo: Photo by Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Powell worked with Trump and his allies to spread the lie that the election had been stolen from him. (Photo: Photo by Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Conspiracy theorist and election denier Sidney Powell raised more than $16 million through a nonprofit as she spread the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
The nonprofit, Defending the Republic spent $8 million between Dec. 1, 2020, and Nov. 30, 2021, with nearly $4 million going to legal fees and another $2 million spent on “other” expenses, The Washington Post reported Friday.
An attorney, Powell worked with Trump and his allies to spread the lie that the election had been stolen from him. She has long claimed ― without evidence ― that Dominion Voting Systems machines were manipulated to add more votes for President Joe Biden. Dominion Voting Systems is now suing Powell for defamation.
The nonprofit has put its spending into “challenging issues and instances of government overreach and abuse of individual rights” and litigating “cases of constitutional infringement,” the filings said.
Read the full story at The Washington Post.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
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AZGFD To Help Build Bighorn Sheep Herd At Antelope Island
AZGFD To Help Build Bighorn Sheep Herd At Antelope Island https://digitalarizonanews.com/azgfd-to-help-build-bighorn-sheep-herd-at-antelope-island/
Posted at 10:14 AM, Oct 15, 2022
and last updated 2022-10-15 13:15:08-04
TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) is helping the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources build a herd of Bighorn Sheep.
During the second week of October AZGFD captured 27 Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep that will be released at Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake.
AZGFD Tucson helicopter captured 27 Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep this week for release to Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake by the UT Div. of Wildlife Resources. Staging from Morenic-Clifton areas, BLM, AZ Desert Bighorn Sheep Society, UA & KUIU helped health check & load. pic.twitter.com/wlGx4SHHIp
— AZ Game & Fish Dept (@azgfdTucson) October 14, 2022
According to AZGFD, there are over 300 bighorns in Eagle Creek and the Gila Mountains. Many of them have died in traffic accidents at the Morenci Mine and other populated areas.
This week’s bighorn capture in Morenci-Clifton for UT. There are 300+ bighorns in the area, to include Eagle Creek & the Gila Mtns. Many have died in traffic accidents at the Morenci Mine & in other populated areas. Meantime, UT is trying to build up the herd at Antelope Island. https://t.co/MuZUFKmEvA pic.twitter.com/jgMDvTjsWB
— AZ Game & Fish Dept (@azgfdTucson) October 15, 2022
AZGFD says BLM, AZ Desert Bighorn Sheep Society, UA, and KUIU helped health check and load the sheep.
Related: 27 Bighorn sheep captured in Tucson and taken to Great Salt Lake
——-
Corey Salmon is a real-time editor and associate producer for KGUN 9. He was born in New York but has lived in Tucson for over 10 years. Share your story ideas and important issues with Corey by emailing corey.salmon@kgun9.com or by connecting on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Cholla Trail Provides More Access To The Highest Peak In Phoenix AZ Big Media
Cholla Trail Provides More Access To The Highest Peak In Phoenix – AZ Big Media https://digitalarizonanews.com/cholla-trail-provides-more-access-to-the-highest-peak-in-phoenix-az-big-media/
Braden Cearley enjoys the strenuous hike up Camelback Mountain, where the reward at the top is a 360-degree view of the nation’s fifth largest city and its suburbs sprawled out below.
“When you start on the bottom, it’s a lot of scenic rocks and stereotypical desert stuff,” Cearley said. “But once you get about three quarters of the way, the trail starts going high enough up on the ridge where you can then see over the city of Phoenix.”
The 20-year-old from St. Louis is one of many Valley visitors and residents who welcomed the Sept. 30 reopening of the Cholla Trail on Camelback’s eastern ridge, which shut down in 2020 after a 300-pound boulder crushed a hiker’s legs. The trailhead has been moved away from homes, restrooms and drinking fountains have been added, and the trail has been made safer.
During the closure, the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department made major improvements to the trail, including relocating the trailhead from Cholla Lane to Invergordon Road in Paradise Valley, which becomes 64th Street in Phoenix.
Camelback Mountain rises where Phoenix touches Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. Its summit sits at 2,704 feet above sea level and is Phoenix’s highest peak. The Cholla Trail improvements recognize the community’s regard for this Valley landmark, which has a rich history of working to preserve and to protect it from development – including a 1950s plan to put a restaurant at the top.
Adam Waltz with Phoenix Parks and Recreation said the improvements to Cholla Trail help to create the safest atmosphere possible for hikers.
“You have a lot of people hiking, they may have headphones in walking down from the trail and now you have cars in the mix. We just want to make sure that everybody is safe,” he said.
The city has also removed unstable boulders around the trail and installed trail posts and signs to guide hikers.
Hikers take a break at the top of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix on August, 2022. From left to right: Heidi McNeil, Seeley James, Jes Dobbs. Kevin Hunt stands behind Dobbs followed by Ron Harper and Erika Castro. (Photo courtesy of Jes Dobbs/Camelback Culture)
A mountain worth fighting for
Before Camelback Mountain became a popular hiking destination, the Hohokam people considered the mountain a sacred place. A cave on the mountain’s north side is believed to have been used by the Hohokam as a religious and ceremonial place. Echo Canyon Trail leads hikers past the religious site today.
“It is quite a powerful, beautiful place to go and get this amazing 360 perspective,” said Marshall Shore, who is known as Arizona’s Hip Historian.
During the 1950s and ’60s, private investors bought up land around the mountain to construct houses, and there was talk about building a swimming pool and restaurant at the summit. In that time period, Phoenix’s population had grown from 100,000 to 400,000, and interest in living on Camelback was high.
Hikers and residents who loved its beauty voiced their concerns to the city. They worried that as more private homes went up, public access would be restricted.
The mountain, though, was outside city limits.
“If Barry Goldwater had not stepped in decades ago, it would be covered in homes, each one trying to top the next home,” Shore said.
The longtime senator and Republican icon made it his mission to protect Camelback Mountain. In 1965, Goldwater chaired the Preservation of Camelback Mountain Foundation, which raised money to keep development off of the mountain.
“He was really trying to help save those iconic features in the Valley,” Shore said.
Goldwater didn’t interfere with the private properties that were already built, but he did want to save the remaining open areas, specifically the summit.
The foundation’s goal was to raise $300,000 (about $2.8 million today) to buy land on the mountain to ensure public access. Goldwater treated this like an election campaign by getting the community and his closest allies to donate anywhere from 25 cents to $25,000. Nearby schools held canned food drives which added more money to the donation pile.
At one point, Goldwater even wore a Beatles wig to a high school dance and played “Silent Night” on the trombone. His brother had bet Goldwater $1,000 that he wouldn’t pull it off, but he did and his brother paid.
“He (Goldwater) was able to bring a lot of his folks in to help preserve what they knew and loved about Camelback,” Shore said. “If it hadn’t been him, someone else I would like to think, would come along, but I don’t know if they would have had his gravitas to be able to do as much as he was able to do.”
Despite their efforts, the community’s donations fell short in the mid 1960s, but Goldwater kept pushing.
Finally, in 1969, Goldwater and the community’s efforts were answered by a federal grant. The grant, combined with the foundation’s donations, was enough to buy the higher elevations of the mountain.
A year later, Phoenix built Echo Park and started building a hiking trail to the summit.
“We all know that nothing is forever and things change,” Shore said. “ But hopefully, those limited amounts of public beauty that are so accessible continue to stay that way.”
In December 2018, the Phoenix City Council voted to declare Camelback Mountain a preserve. The declaration was the result of efforts between the Phoenix Mountains Preservation Council, the Parks and Recreation Department and other community members.
“From time to time, there have been people that wanted to have a cable car up Camelback Mountain to a restaurant or something,” said Libby Goff, secretary of the Phoenix Mountains Preservation Council. “If we don’t have Camelback Mountain designated as a preserve, then then we don’t have a lot of ground to stand on in trying to prevent that kind of thing from happening.”
The council, founded in 1970, works to protect the natural beauty of Phoenix’s multiple mountain park areas and their access to the public.
Goff said making sure Phoenix’s landmarks stay untouched is a daily task, but one that’s ultimately rewarding.
“I am a native of Phoenix, and I’ve been hiking since I was a kid,” Goff said. “I realized, I’m enjoying hiking on trails several times a week. I want to make sure that this is around for many years to come.”
Echo Canyon or Cholla Trail?
Camelback Mountain has four trails, but the best known are Echo Canyon and Cholla, which reach the summit.
“You weren’t like a true Phoenician until you did at least Cholla, if not Echo,” Shore said.
Echo Canyon, with its steep roughly 1.42 mile hike to the summit, is considered more challenging than Cholla. Hikers gain about 1,280 feet in elevation as they navigate large boulders most of the way to the top.
“It’s decently taxing if you’re not used to hiking or that kind of cardio,” Cearley said. “If you’re a first timer, it may not be the smartest idea to just jump in.”
Cholla Trail is a 1.42 mile hike and gains about 1,250 feet in elevation. Both Cholla and Echo Canyon take two to three hours to complete.
Cholla might sound like an easier trail because it’s less steep, but it comes with its own set of difficulties.
“You’ve got that east exposure, and particularly in the beginning part of the day,” said Jes Dobbs, owner of apparel brand Camelback Culture. “So I think one of the bigger dangers of Cholla is people thinking that it looks easy, but not preparing with that hydration and getting quickly dehydrated.”
Despite the dangers, both trails offer glimpses of wildlife, including Harris’s antelope squirrels, quail, road runners, hawks, chuckwallas and the occasional rattlesnake. This is what draws Cearley to the mountain.
“My favorite thing is seeing the birds or just the lizards on your way up,” he said. “Seeing the animals that have just naturally adapted to be in such an inconvenient place is pretty cool.”
The mountain and its people
For many, Camelback Mountain is more than just a hike; it’s a community. For Dobbs, the mountain was inspiration.
“In summer of 2017, I was looking at the mountain and this graphic came into my head,” said Dobbs, who used to be an interior designer. “I made the first shirt by hand.” The image featured the mountain’s silhouette and looked similar to the Superman logo.
Dobbs intended the shirt to be a one-off, but others saw the unique design and wanted their own. That’s how Camelback Culture began.
The shirts became something of a uniform for avid Camelback hikers, who started to connect through Dobbs’ apparel. After making hundreds of shirts, Dobbs expanded the community by creating a social media page for hikers.
“I figured it would help create a real community vibe, more universally, so that people would just be able to claim sort of more of a home ownership for it,” Dobbs said. “I really felt that it would help keep it (Camelback Mountain) nicer so that we can kind of all become guardians of it.”
Dobbs said she immediately knew when the hiker’s leg was crushed by the boulder on Cholla Trail and that it was only a matter of time before this popular route would close. The pandemic, she said, also was a factor.
“All the regulars keep joking about it – like the two weeks story,” Dobbs said. “Then it went to the two months story, and then it was six months, and it just kept going.”
Dobbs knew some homeowners near the Cholla trailhead didn’t want the trail to reopen, complaining of trespassing, trash and crime. So she took on the role of activist, pushing the city to be more transparent with the public and talking about how vital the mountain is for the hiking community.
“You do not park yourself on a natural resource that should be open to the public, and then get upset that they want to access it,” Dobbs said. “I harassed the city, and anybody I could on my social media to open it becau...
Obituary For Maxine Dorothy Rathjen https://digitalarizonanews.com/obituary-for-maxine-dorothy-rathjen/
Rathjen, Maxine Dorothy Kind, thoughtful and generous are just some of the words that would describe Maxine Rathjen. A loving wife, a wonderful mother, doting grandmother and great grandmother, Maxine was a lifelong teacher. On September 29, 2022 she gave us her last lesson. She taught us how to say good-bye. As her health slowly faded Maxine said she had two goals for 2022. She wanted to celebrate her 70th wedding anniversary with her partner for life, husband Neal. And she wanted to see her 90th birthday in early September. With family all around, that 70th anniversary was a joyful expression of love. Her birthday on September 7, was a celebration of a life well lived. Maxine Bookmeier was born in Waterloo, Iowa on September 7, 1932, to Marguerite and Harry Bookmeier during the depth of the Great Depression. Along with her brother, Bob, she learned the value of hard work on the farm and off, and doing the best with what you have. In eighth grade she met Neal, and they had been together ever since. After graduating from LaPorte City High School they earned education degrees from Iowa State Teachers College. They took their teaching gigs on the road with stops in Orange, Iowa, Strawberry Point, Iowa, the Chicago area, Kenosha, Wisconsin and finally Milwaukee where she finished her career. During that time Maxine balanced her career with raising a family, son, Jeff and daughter, Amy, and finishing her Bachelor’s Degree. She had a teacher’s gift of organization and kept it all together as they made their way through a wonderful life. After retiring Maxine and Neal moved to White Bear Lake, MN to be near Amy and her family. To keep things even and to get out of the Minnesota winters, they also bought a townhome in Mesa, AZ and spent the cold months with Jeff and his family. Always one to jump in and volunteer, Maxine contributed her time to their churches, hospital, South Shore Yacht Club in Milwaukee, where they spent many happy years as boaters, and finally at Johanna Shores, helping other residents and staff. Maxine was a top notch bridge, Quiddler and Rummikub player. She was a wonderful cook and baker, a trait she learned from her mother. Her cookies, bars and potato salad were highly anticipated during the holidays and disappeared in very short order. She loved having her family gathered round and the laughing and the talking would go on for hours and hours. She never tired of it and would have a constant smile that never left her face, always listening and watching her growing family speak of their adventures and advancements. Carrying on Maxine’s legacy is her loving husband Neal, son Jeff (Rossana) daughter Amy (Peter), grandchildren Kirsten (Mike), Parker (Brandi), David, Kate (Andrew), Annie (Dami), Aubrey (Evan), and Mason (Brittany). Great-grandchildren include James, Harrison, Marion, Mase, Henry and Addie. Maxine is also survived by her brother Bob (Joan), brother-in-law Garth (JoAnn), and many nieces and nephews along with her dear friends at Johanna Shores. Memorial Service will be held at Johanna Shores Fellowship Hall, 3200 Lake Johanna Blvd., Arden Hills, MN on Monday, October 24th at 3:30pm. Memorials can be directed to: Presbyterian Homes Foundation – Employee Education Fund Salvation Army American Cancer Society White Bear Lake United Methodist Church
Published on October 16, 2022
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Documents Show Top DeSantis Officials Were Personally Involved In Martha's Vineyard Flights
Documents Show Top DeSantis Officials Were Personally Involved In Martha's Vineyard Flights https://digitalarizonanews.com/documents-show-top-desantis-officials-were-personally-involved-in-marthas-vineyard-flights/
“Very good,” Uthmeier texted. “You have my full support. Call anytime.”
“Copy. Thanks,” Keefe responded.
On the day of the first flight from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Keefe texted Uthmeier: “Wheels up” and “Should be in contact again around 1100 eastern.”
The documents provide the clearest picture yet of the extent to which DeSantis’ top officials were involved in the planning and execution of the flight. They include nearly 150 pages of material such as text messages, photos of migrants boarding private planes and partially-redacted Department of Homeland Security waivers signed by migrants taking the flights. Names of individual migrants are blacked out of the waiver documents but most list Venezuela as the country of origin.
DeSantis for nearly a year had championed the program and convinced the Republican-led Legislature to give him $12 million of initial funding for the overall effort to transport migrants.
DeSantis’ flight caused outrage from Democrats, who accused DeSantis of human trafficking and using vulnerable asylum seekers as political props. Republicans, however, applauded DeSantis, saying he brought attention to the steep increase in immigration along the southern border.
The DeSantis administration is facing multiple lawsuits over the program, including one filed last Monday by The Florida Center for Government Accountability alleging DeSantis was not releasing records related to the flights. The Treasury Department’s watchdog is looking into whether the Florida governor improperly used money connected to federal Covid-19 relief funds to pay for the flights while a sheriff in Texas is probing whether the flights broke any laws.
DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said on Saturday that the release of documents was not related to the Florida Center for Government Accountability’s lawsuit, but rather part of “ongoing records requests.” He did not respond to questions about other aspects of the flight, or the records themselves.
Michael Barfield, director of public access with the Florida Center for Government Accountability, called the release “piecemeal.”
“The Governor’s Office continues to play fast and loose with the right of Florida citizens to know what their government is doing,” he said in a statement. “These records should have been produced within a day or two of the initial request. Instead, 25 days later we continue to get a piecemeal release of records.”
Text messages between Keefe and Uthmeier on Sept. 5 also indicate that officials in Texas were aware of Florida’s program and knew the flights were coming.
“TX is aware of Dash, FYI,” Uthmeier wrote on Sept. 5. “No worries here.”
“Texas is aware and good with Dash?” Keefe responds. “Please confirm.”
“Call when convenient,” Uthmeier responded.
It’s unclear who or what “dash” is and questions to DeSantis’ office for clarification were not returned.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said he was not involved in DeSantis’ flights from his state to Martha’s Vineyard. But his administration has bused thousands of migrants from the southern border to blue strongholds, including New York City and Chicago. Abbott has also bused dozens of migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris’ Washington, D.C. residence. His office did not respond to requests for comment about the Texas messages indicating Texas was “aware” of some version of the Florida plans.
While DeSantis has only executed one transport, his administration on Sept., 20 appeared to be organizing another flight of migrants, this time to President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware, which was first reported by the Miami Herald.
Records at the time showed a flight operated by the same vendor as the Martha’s Vineyard flights was headed to Nashville, then New Jersey, which set off immigration groups in those cities to rush to the airport to provide any services the migrants might need. Flight records at the time showed a flight operated by the same vendor as the Martha’s Vineyard flights were headed to Delaware.
That flight, though, was canceled, stranding migrants that had been recruited for the flight stranded in Texas. The Miami Herald reported that a woman identified as “Perla” was the one who showed up at a hotel in San Antonio to recruit them for the flights, and ultimately later abruptly informed them of its cancellation. The New York Times identified “Perla” as Perla Huerta, a military veteran who spent two decades in the U.S. Army.
“Perla’’ also shows up in screenshots of What’s App messages that were sent to Keefe included in the most recent trove of released documents.
“They will hate me today, but this opportunity no one would have given them,” read one message, written in Spanish, in response to a message that directly referenced “Perla.”
In another message, at least one migrant seemed to express gratitude for being part of the program, saying they feel like they were put in a “bed of gold.”
Keefe was hired by DeSantis in Sept. 2021 to serve as Florida’s first-ever public safety czar, a position DeSantis immediately framed as focusing on illegal immigration.
Keefe previously was a named partner at an Okaloosa County law firm that is among the biggest in the region and on multiple occasions represented Vertol Systems, the vendor the DeSantis administration has so far paid $1.5 million tied to the migrant flight program.
Gary Fineout contributed to this story.
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Joe Koch, 75, Chandler, AZ (Formerly Lincoln, NE) https://digitalarizonanews.com/joe-koch-75-chandler-az-formerly-lincoln-ne/
News
Joe Koch, age 75, passed away suddenly on September 27, 2022 at St. Mary’s Hospital in Nebraska City. Harry Joe Koch was born on November 14, 1946 in Lincoln, NE; the son of Harry and Ruby Ann (Grimes) Koch. He grew up and attended school in Lincoln
Joe Koch, age 75, passed away suddenly on September 27, 2022 at St. Mary’s Hospital in Nebraska City.
Harry Joe Koch was born on November 14, 1946 in Lincoln, NE; the son of Harry and Ruby Ann (Grimes) Koch. He grew up and attended school in Lincoln, graduating from Lincoln High with the Class of 1965.
He entered the United States Army on March 7, 1966 and proudly served his country. While in the Army he was attached to a Green Beret Unit and was a Helicopter Mechanic. Joe was honorably discharged on March 6, 1969 after three years of service to his country.
He was united in marriage to Barbara Ann John on September 14, 1974 in Lincoln, NE. They shared 48 years together before his passing.
He worked at Meadow Gold as a Deliveryman and then as a salesman for Coca-Cola. His favorite hobby was classic cars and he was a member of the Classic Car Club.
Joe is survived by his wife Barbara Koch; son Dan Sigerson of Nebraska City, NE; two grandchildren; sister Rita Call of Chandler, AZ; life long friend Mike Stidhem of Beatrice, NE; other family and friends.
A Celebration of Life Service will be held from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 22, 2022 at the Berean Church, 6400 S. 70th Street in Lincoln, NE.
Memorials may be given to the family in his memory.
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