Ron Johnson Again Says Jan. 6 Was Not An 'armed Insurrection' Adds 'protesters Did Teach Us' How To Use Flagpoles As Weapons | CNN Politics
Ron Johnson Again Says Jan. 6 Was Not An 'armed Insurrection,' Adds 'protesters Did Teach Us' How To Use Flagpoles As Weapons | CNN Politics https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ron-johnson-again-says-jan-6-was-not-an-armed-insurrection-adds-protesters-did-teach-us-how-to-use-flagpoles-as-weapons-cnn-politics/
CNN —
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson repeated his claim Tuesday that the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was not an “armed insurrection,” adding however, that protesters “did teach us how you can use flagpoles, that kind of stuff, as weapons.”
“There weren’t thousands of armed insurrectionists. I asked the question of the FBI agent at a hearing on this, I said, ‘How many firearms were confiscated either in the Capitol or on Capitol ground?’ I didn’t know the answer. For all I know it was going to be a thousand. No, zero. Zero,” Johnson said at the Rotary Club of Milwaukee in Wisconsin, according to a video posted online by an NBC reporter at the event.
Johnson added that “protesters did teach us how you can use flagpoles, that kind of stuff, as weapons. But to call what happened on January 6 an ‘armed insurrection,’ I just think, is not accurate,” he added.
In a statement to CNN Tuesday, Johnson campaign spokesperson Alexa Henning said the senator was comparing the methods used by racial justice protesters in the summer of 2020 with the January 6 rioters.
“The senator was referring to – and his full quote shows – the actions of the rioters in the summer of 2020,” Henning said. “He acknowledges the left wing rioters know how to use flagpoles and other metals objects and water bottles as weapons. But there is a distinction between that and an armed insurrection. In summer 2020, leftists used bricks, water bottles, flagpoles, fireworks, Molotov cocktails, anything but a gun as a weapon to destroy cities but the media didn’t cover them as ‘violent’ or ‘armed.’ When protesters during January 6 used a flagpole, all of a sudden the types of objects they’d been using all summer were now considered part of an ‘armed’ insurrection. He is in no way condoning this action. He’s commenting on the hypocrisy of the situation.”
Henning also passed along a full transcript of Johnson’s remarks and a link to Twitter videos of protesters using flagpoles during anti-racist protests in 2020. According to the transcript provided by the campaign, Johnson said, “summer protesters did teach us all how we can use flagpoles, that kind of stuff as weapons.”
Johnson has repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of January 6 riot at the Capitol.
In the months following the insurrection, Johnson cast doubt on reports surrounding the riot, telling a conservative radio host last year, “those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law,” and later telling Fox News, “The fact of the matter is even calling it insurrection, it wasn’t.”
In an interview on Monday, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, his Democratic opponent in the key November Senate race, criticized Johnson for his statements about January 6.
“I won’t be lectured about crime from somebody who supported a violent insurrection that left 140 officers injured – one was stabbed with a metal stake, and another was crushed in a revolving door – it’s very hypocritical for Ron Johnson to want to bring up crime,” Barnes told MSNBC.
US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, in his testimony before the House Select Committee on January 6 in late July, said rioters used flagpoles against Capitol Police as weapons.
“A baseball bat, a hockey stick, a rebar, a flagpole, including the American flag, pepper spray, bear spray. So you name it. You had all these items and things that were thrown at us and used to attack us. Those are weapons,” he said.
Video from the committee also featured rioters beating Capitol Police with flagpoles.
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Oath Keepers Founder: Be ready To Fight After Trump Loss
Oath Keepers Founder: Be ‘ready To Fight’ After Trump Loss https://digitalarkansasnews.com/oath-keepers-founder-be-ready-to-fight-after-trump-loss/
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hours after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election, the leader of the Oath Keepers extremist group was discussing how to push President Donald Trump to go further in his fight to cling to power, according to messages shown to jurors Tuesday in his U.S. Capitol attack trial.
Prosecutors used Stewart Rhodes’ messages and recordings of him speaking from November 2020 to try to show that he had been working behind the scenes for two months to try to stop the transfer of presidential power before his followers attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Rhodes and four associates are facing charges of seditious conspiracy for what authorities allege was a detailed, drawn-out plot to keep Biden out of the White House that included putting armed teams on standby outside of Washington. Tuesday was the first full day of testimony in the high-stakes case that’s expected to last several weeks.
The five defendants are the first people arrested in the Jan. 6 attack to stand trial for seditious conspiracy — a rarely used Civil War-era charge that can be difficult to prove. Rhodes’ attorneys have said their defense will focus on Rhodes’ belief that Trump was going to invoke the Insurrection Act and call up the militia to support his bid to stay in power.
The messages were revealed during testimony of an FBI agent investigating the insurrection. In several messages sent around Nov. 7, 2020 — the day that The Associated Press and other news outlets called the election for Biden — Rhodes pressed others to refuse to accept the results and “bend the knee” to what he saw as an illegitimate administration. In one message, Rhodes urged his followers to get their “get your gear squared away” and be “ready to fight.”
In another — sent to a group called “FOS” or “Friends of Stone” that included Trump ally Roger Stone — Rhodes urged his fellow Oath Keepers to think of the ways early Americans had resisted the British.
“We are now where the founders were in March, 1775,” he wrote. He implored them to “step up and push Trump to finally take decisive action.”
“The final defense is us and our rifles,” Rhodes wrote to the group. “Trump has one last chance, right now, to stand. But he will need us and our rifles too.”
The evening of Nov. 9, Rhodes held a conference call with more than 100 of his followers to discuss the plan. It was secretly recorded by someone on the call and sent to the FBI.
Rhodes urged people on the call to go to Washington and let Trump know that “the people are behind him,” according to a recording played to jurors. Rhodes expressed hope that left-wing antifa activists would start clashes because that would give Trump the “reason and rationale for dropping the Insurrection Act.”
“So we have a chance to get President Trump to fight as Commander in Chief. If you’re going to have a fight, guys, you want to start now while he’s still Commander in Chief,” Rhodes told the group.
Rhodes said they would have some of their “best men bolstered up outside” — or “quick reaction forces” that he said would be “awaiting the president’s orders.” It needed to be that way because that gives you “legal cover,” Rhodes said on the call.
Rhodes’ attorney sought to show that prosecutors are cherry-picking messages from hundreds of chats on his phone. Defense attorney Phillip Linder pressed the FBI agent over whether he ever saw Rhodes encourage anybody to do anything illegal before prosecutors objected to the question.
“All we have is bombastic language,” Linder said.
Rhodes’ lawyers have said they will argue that their client can’t be guilty of seditious conspiracy because all of his actions were in anticipation of orders he expected were coming from Trump under the Insurrection Act. Even though Trump never did, Rhodes’ lawyers say he was merely lobbying the president to invoke the law, which gives the president wide discretion to decide when military force is necessary, and what qualifies as military force.
On trial with Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, are Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers; Kenneth Harrelson, another Florida Oath Keeper; Thomas Caldwell, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer from Virginia, and Jessica Watkins, who led an Ohio militia group.
Prosecutors showed jurors several items found at Caldwell’s home, including a notebook with writing about things like “comms” and “lookouts.” The FBI agent said that “was all indicative to us of some sort of an operation.”
Caldwell’s attorney, David Fischer, pressed the agent on whether the government has any witnesses who claim Caldwell had a plan to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6. The agent said it did not.
___
For full coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Arkansas Storm Team Weather Blog: Heres How To View Wednesdays International Space Station Flyover
Arkansas Storm Team Weather Blog: Here’s How To View Wednesday’s International Space Station Flyover https://digitalarkansasnews.com/arkansas-storm-team-weather-blog-heres-how-to-view-wednesdays-international-space-station-flyover/
by: Alex Libby
Posted: Oct 4, 2022 / 04:09 PM CDT
Updated: Oct 4, 2022 / 04:09 PM CDT
LITTLE ROCK, Ark – The International Space Station is set to fly over Arkansas Wednesday night and conditions are nearly perfect!
According to Spot The Station, the International Space Station will fly over Central Arkansas Wednesday night starting at 7:44 pm. It will first be visible in the northwest sky at 7:44 and be directly overhead around 7:47 and exit the southeast sky at 7:50.
Most of the time when the Space Station flies over Arkansas it is too low in the sky to see it, but Wednesday it will be 89° above the horizon which is directly overhead. It will be visible for a total of 6 minutes.
The high angle along with the weather will make for perfect viewing conditions. There won’t be a single cloud in the sky to block your view. Temperatures will be comfortably cool as well!
The International Space Station will look like a slow-moving star. Below is a video of it going over Little Rock on Sept. 14. This was recorded on a cell phone camera so it is hard to see.
Look above the top right window.
The Internation Space Station orbits the earth about every 90 minutes. It circles the earth 16 times per day! This means it is moving at around 18,000 miles per hour!
Seeing the International Space Station is pretty rare because all sightings will occur within a few hours before or after sunrise or sunset. This is the best viewing period as the sun reflects off the space station and contrasts against the darker sky.
– Meteorologist Alex Libby
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STAY INFORMED:
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Trump Senate Republicans Back Herschel Walker In Georgia Amid Abortion Allegations
Trump, Senate Republicans Back Herschel Walker In Georgia Amid Abortion Allegations https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-senate-republicans-back-herschel-walker-in-georgia-amid-abortion-allegations/
Former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party remained in Herschel Walker’s corner Tuesday following a report that alleged the pro-life Senate hopeful from Georgia paid for an ex-girlfriend to get an abortion 13 years ago.
Trump said Walker, whom he encouraged to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, has been “slandered and maligned by the Fake News Media and obviously, the Democrats.”
“Interestingly, I’ve heard many horrible things about his opponent, Raphael Warnock, things that nobody should be talking about, so we don’t. Herschel has properly denied the charges against him, and I have no doubt he is correct,” the former president said on Truth Social.
“They are trying to destroy a man who has true greatness in his future, just as he had athletic greatness in his past,” Trump continued. “It’s very important for our Country and the Great State of Georgia that Herschel Walker wins this Election. With all that Herschel has accomplished, when you come from Georgia, and you see the name Herschel Walker when voting, it will be very hard to resist. Don’t!”
Former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party remained in Herschel Walker’s corner.
The Washington Post via Getty Images
Trump said Walker, who is challenging Sen. Raphael Warnock, has been “slandered.”
ERIK S LESSER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who heads up the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said the attack on Walker was orchestrated by Democrats who fear they will lose control of the Senate in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
“When the Democrats are losing, as they are right now, they lie and cheat and smear their opponents. That’s what’s happening right now. They know they are on the verge of losing the Senate, and they know that Herschel Walker is winning, so they have cranked up the smear machine,” Scott said in a statement.
He compared the allegations against Walker to the attacks on conservative Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, but vowed they “will not work.”
Sen. Rick Scott said the attack on Walker was orchestrated by Democrats.
Rod Lamkey – CNP / MEGA
“Herschel has denied these allegations and the NRSC and Republicans stand with him, and Georgians will stand with him too,” the statement said.
Walker, who has spoken in support of a national abortion ban, denied the Daily Beast report that he paid for the abortion in 2009 in Twitter postings and an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
“It is a flat-out lie, and now you know how important this seat is,” the former football star told Hannity on Monday night.
“They’ll do anything to win the seat, lie, because they want to make it about everything else except for the true problems that we have in this country is,” said Walker, who is narrowly trailing Warnock according to a RealClear Politics average of the polls. “There’s inflation, the border wide open, crime, they don’t want to talk about that.”
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North Korean Missile Launch Raises Alarm In Washington
North Korean Missile Launch Raises Alarm In Washington https://digitalarkansasnews.com/north-korean-missile-launch-raises-alarm-in-washington/
A roadside screen in Sapporo in Hokkaido, on Oct. 4, 2022, shows a news report on North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile over the Japanese archipelago for the first time in five years.
Kyodo via AP Images
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration responded on multiple levels Tuesday to North Korea’s latest long-range ballistic missile launch, reaching out to allies in the region on diplomatic and military fronts, and at the leader level by U.S. President Joe Biden.
The missile was fired late Monday, flying over Japan early on Tuesday morning before landing in the Pacific Ocean.
This latest North Korean missile test — the 23rd one so far this year — was different because it marked the first time in five years that a North Korean missile had been fired directly over Japan. Residents in northern prefectures awoke to sirens and directions to take cover.
On Tuesday morning, Biden spoke to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to reinforce America’s “ironclad commitment to Japan’s defense,” and recognize the launch “as a danger to the Japanese people,” the White House said in a readout of the call.
The presidential call followed Monday night conversations held by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken with their Japanese and South Korean counterparts, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a briefing Tuesday.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also spoke by phone with his counterparts in Tokyo and Seoul, according to Pentagon readouts of the call.
A unifying thread running through all the official readouts of phone calls was the word “ironclad,” which is how each of these U.S. officials described America’s commitment to the defense of Japan and South Korea.
This commitment and its military alliances were audible and visible Tuesday in the skies above northeastern Asia.
In airspace over the Yellow Sea off the Korean peninsula, the U.S. and South Korea conducted joint aerial flight and precision targeting exercises on Tuesday in response to the missile launch. The training exercise included firing at a target on an uninhabited island.
A similar joint exercise was held for U.S. Marine Corps fighters and Japan air self-defense fighters, Jean-Pierre said at the White House.
While the exercises Tuesday were held specifically in response to the latest missile launch, they also served to strengthen trilateral coordination in the face of a threat that keeps growing, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
“Every time [North Koreans] do one of these launches, some are successful. Some are not. Some are only partially successful. But each time they do this, they learn. They get better. They get more capable,” Kirby said on Fox News Tuesday.
“That’s what makes us want to stay vigilant, and make sure that we’ve got the capabilities ourselves in the region to defend our national interest and those of our allies,” he said.
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Trump Asks Supreme Court To Intervene In Mar-A-Lago Dispute Local News 8
Trump Asks Supreme Court To Intervene In Mar-A-Lago Dispute – Local News 8 https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-asks-supreme-court-to-intervene-in-mar-a-lago-dispute-local-news-8/
By ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to step into the legal fight over the classified documents seized during an FBI search of his Florida estate, escalating a dispute over the powers of an independent arbiter appointed to inspect the records.
The Trump team asked the justices to overturn a lower court ruling and permit an independent arbiter, or special master, to review the roughly 100 documents with classified markings that were taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago.
A three-judge panel from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last month limited the special master’s review to the much larger tranche of non-classified documents. The judges, including two Trump appointees, sided with the Justice Department, which had argued there was no legal basis for the special master to conduct his own review of the classified records.
But Trump’s lawyers said in their application to the Supreme Court that it was essential for the special master to have access to the classified records to “determine whether documents bearing classification markings are in fact classified, and regardless of classification, whether those records are personal records or Presidential records.”
“Since President Trump had absolute authority over classification decisions during his Presidency, the current status of any disputed document cannot possibly be determined solely by reference to the markings on that document,” the application states.
It says that without the special master review, “the unchallenged views of the current Justice Department would supersede the established authority of the Chief Executive.”
The FBI says it seized roughly 11,000 documents, including about 100 with classification markings, during its search. The Trump team asked a judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, to appoint a special master to do an independent review of the records.
Cannon subsequently assigned a veteran Brooklyn judge, Raymond Dearie, to review the records and segregate those that may be protected by claims of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. The Justice Department objected to Dearie’s ability to review the classified records, prompting the 11th Circuit to side with the department.
Trump’s lawyers submitted the Supreme Court application to Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees emergency matters from Florida and several other Southern states. Thomas can act on his own or, as is usually done, refer the emergency appeal to the rest of the court.
____
Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter/etuckerAP
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Trump Asks Supreme Court To Intervene In Mar-A-Lago Dispute
Trump Asks Supreme Court To Intervene In Mar-A-Lago Dispute https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-asks-supreme-court-to-intervene-in-mar-a-lago-dispute/
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to step into the legal fight over the classified documents seized during an FBI search of his Florida estate, escalating a dispute over the powers of an independent arbiter appointed to inspect the records.
The Trump team asked the justices to overturn a lower court ruling and allow the arbiter, called a special master, to review the roughly 100 documents with classification markings that were taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago.
A three-judge panel from the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit last month limited the special master’s review to the much larger tranche of non-classified documents. The judges, including two Trump appointees, sided with the Justice Department, which had argued there was no legal basis for the special master to conduct his own review of the classified records.
But Trump’s lawyers said in their application to the Supreme Court that it was essential for the special master to have access to the classified records to “determine whether documents bearing classification markings are in fact classified, and regardless of classification, whether those records are personal records or Presidential records.”
“Since President Trump had absolute authority over classification decisions during his Presidency, the current status of any disputed document cannot possibly be determined solely by reference to the markings on that document,” the application states.
It says that without the special master review, “the unchallenged views of the current Justice Department would supersede the established authority of the Chief Executive.” An independent review, the Trump team says, ensures a “transparent process that provides much-needed oversight.”
The FBI says it seized roughly 11,000 documents, including about 100 with classification markings, during its search. The Trump team asked a judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, to appoint a special master to do an independent review of the records.
Cannon subsequently assigned a veteran Brooklyn judge, Raymond Dearie, to review the records and segregate those that may be protected by claims of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. She also barred the FBI from being able to use the classified documents as part of its criminal investigation.
The Justice Department appealed, prompting the 11th Circuit to lift Cannon’s hold on investigators’ ability to scrutinize the classified records. The appeals court also ruled that the department did not have to provide Dearie with access to the classified records.
Trump’s lawyers submitted the Supreme Court application to Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees emergency matters from Florida and several other Southern states. Thomas can act on his own or, as is usually done, refer the emergency appeal to the rest of the court.
Associated Press writers Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko contributed to this report.
Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter/etuckerAP
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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AP Explains: Voting Systems Reliable Despite Conspiracies
AP Explains: Voting Systems Reliable, Despite Conspiracies https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ap-explains-voting-systems-reliable-despite-conspiracies/
ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and his allies have whipped up a relentless campaign of attacks against voting equipment since his loss in the 2020 election. After nearly two years, no evidence has emerged that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election or that there was any widespread fraud.
Conspiracy theories spread online and in forums across the country nevertheless have undermined public confidence in voting machines and election results, while leading some counties to consider ditching the equipment in favor of hand-marked and hand-counted ballots.
Elections have been held across the country this year during a busy primary season. While programming errors sometimes occur and equipment can malfunction, no major problems have been reported. Voting equipment is tested before and after to identify any problems, while audits done after the election confirm it worked correctly.
The Associated Press explains how we got to this point, the efforts to increase security of the vote and the fallout from the false claims surrounding the 2020 presidential election.
VOTING TECHNOLOGY IN USE IN THE U.S.
The types of voting equipment used throughout the U.S. varies by location. For in-person voting, most people fill out ballots by hand, and those ballots are inserted into an electronic tabulator. In many cases, this happens at the polling location. Elsewhere, the ballots are collected in a secured box, with rules governing the chain of custody, and taken to an election office for electronic tabulation.
In some places, a specialized computer is used by voters to mark their ballots electronically. Those ballots are printed, reviewed by the voter for accuracy and then inserted into a tabulator at their polling location. A lawsuit in Georgia is challenging the use of these “ballot-marking” machines because they use bar codes to record votes.
Mailed ballots also are counted by tabulators at a local election office. A small number of jurisdictions, mostly small towns in New England, don’t use tabulators and count their ballots by hand.
HOW HAS THIS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?
After the “hanging chad” chaos of the 2000 election, Congress provided money for voting system upgrades. Many jurisdictions opted for electronic voting machines to replace their punch-card ballot systems. But those machines did not produce a paper record; instead, all votes were cast and recorded electronically.
For years, election security experts raised concerns about these “direct-recording” machines and the potential for someone to tamper with them. A more secure method, they say, is a system that uses paper ballots and electronic tabulation with post-election reviews and tests to ensure the machines faithfully recorded voters’ choices.
Over the last decade, state and local governments began replacing their paperless machines, a process that accelerated after the 2016 election and revelations that Russia had scanned U.S. voting systems looking for vulnerabilities. Today, paperless machines are used only in Louisiana and a small number of jurisdictions in Indiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Tennessee and Texas, according to Verified Voting, a group that tracks voting technology in the U.S.
CLAIMS MADE AFTER THE 2020 ELECTION
In the weeks after the 2020 election, Trump and his allies made numerous unsupported claims about voting machines, including that their software was created in foreign countries and designed to flip votes for desired candidates: “With the turn of a dial or the change of a chip, you can press a button for Trump and it goes to Biden,” Trump said in a Dec. 2 speech.
These claims have largely centered on Dominion Voting Systems, one of a handful of companies that dominate the U.S. voting technology market. In response, Dominion has filed defamation lawsuits against conservative media companies and Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, saying “lies and misinformation have severely damaged our company and diminished the credibility of U.S. elections.”
But rather than dissipate, conspiracies surrounding voting machines have only grown. Trump allies have been traveling the country to speak at conferences and with community groups, armed with algorithms and charts purporting to show machines have somehow been rigged.
Election technology expert Kevin Skoglund said part of the challenge is that voting systems are complex. It’s understandable that some people would be persuaded that something nefarious happened when it did not.
“If you are a person who is not technical, if someone is telling you the machines are cheating you, you might believe it because you don’t understand how the systems work,” Skoglund said.
ARE VOTING SYSTEMS SECURE?
Any device run by software — a cell phone, a laptop or voting system — is vulnerable to hacking. That’s why election experts have been pressing for the replacement of paperless voting machines.
Experts say the U.S. has taken steps to improve election security in recent years. That includes designating U.S. voting systems in 2017 as “critical infrastructure” — on par with the nation’s banks, dams and nuclear power plants.
Congress has sent nearly $900 million in election security funding to states, which has been used to replace outdated voting systems, hire cybersecurity staff and beef up cybersecurity defenses.
“There is no such thing as an invulnerable system,” said Larry Norden, an election security expert at the Brennan Center for Justice. “That doesn’t mean we can’t do better. We should always be looking at how we can do better, but you can’t eliminate risk.”
FALSE CLAIMS FUEL DOUBT AND SECURITY CONCERNS
The false claims have not only undermined public confidence in elections. They also have led to security breaches at some local election offices in Colorado, Georgia and Michigan.
Soon after the 2020 election, Trump allies seized on a programming error in a Michigan county and, through the courts, gained legal access to its voting system. But a copy of the county’s election management system was made available at an August 2021 event hosted by a Trump ally, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, according to attendees.
Also released at that event was a copy of the system used in Mesa County, Colorado. Details have surfaced recently of another suspected breach — in Coffee County, Georgia in January 2021 as Trump allies sought ways to overturn the result of the presidential election. And Michigan authorities are investigating after voting equipment in a handful of counties was made accessible to unauthorized people.
Those developments have prompted concerns that rogue election workers sympathetic to conspiracies might use their access to election equipment and the knowledge to launch an attack from within. A poll worker in Michigan was recently charged with inserting a personal thumb drive into an electronic pollbook during the state’s primary, while authorities in Colorado are investigating a case in which a voter is suspected of tampering with a voting machine earlier this year.
Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters Monday that threats to the security of elections have never been more complex — citing misinformation, the insider threats and harassment of election workers.
THE “MOST SECURE” ELECTION
After the 2020 presidential election, a coalition of federal cybersecurity and election officials along with state election officials and representatives from voting machine companies issued a statement calling it the “most secure in American history.”
The group said there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
This was due largely to paper records being available for an estimated 93% of all ballots cast and a system of post-election checks to test the accuracy of the electronic tabulators. In Georgia, the presidential vote was counted three times — once entirely by hand — and each tally affirmed President Joe Biden’s win in the state.
“It doesn’t matter what happens in the machine,” said Norden, of the Brennan Center. “We have a piece of paper that tells us whether votes were recorded accurately.”
___
Associated Press technology writer Frank Bajak in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.
___
Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics
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In Trump White House Classified Records Routinely Mishandled Aides Say
In Trump White House, Classified Records Routinely Mishandled, Aides Say https://digitalarkansasnews.com/in-trump-white-house-classified-records-routinely-mishandled-aides-say-2/
Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakashima and Jacqueline Alemany | The Washington Post
Aides who had worked in Donald Trump’s White House were not surprised this summer when the FBI found highly classified material in boxes at Mar-a-Lago, mixed with news clippings and other items.
They’d seen such haphazard collections before.
During his four years in office, Trump never strictly followed the rules and customs for handling sensitive government documents, according to 14 officials from his administration, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss what they called Trump’s mishandling of classified information.
He took transcripts of his calls with foreign leaders as well as photos and charts used in his intelligence briefings to his private residence with no explanation. He demanded that letters he exchanged with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un be kept close at hand so he could show them off to visitors. Documents that would ordinarily be kept under lock and key mingled with piles of newspaper articles in Trump’s living quarters and in a dining room that he used as an informal office.
Officials and aides who worked in proximity to Trump said they are not sure how more than 300 classified documents ended up at his Mar-a-Lago estate, triggering a lengthy effort to retrieve them that has resulted in a criminal investigation. But in the waning days of his presidency, as Trump grudgingly began to pack up his belongings, he included documents that should have been sent to the National Archives and Records Administration, along with news articles and gifts he received while president, several former officials said.
What those ex-Trump aides and advisers saw in an inventory of items recovered by the FBI in August – classified documents in boxes, stored alongside newspaper and magazine articles, books and gifts – looked to them like the idiosyncratic filing system Trump used in the White House.
Senior aides said they tried for years to impose some order on the flow of classified information in the White House – with little success.
“The rigor I had felt at the end of meetings during the Obama administration . . . where someone very carefully collected all the pieces of paper or stayed behind in the room and made sure there was nothing left – that rigor just did not exist at the end during the Trump period,” said one former official who regularly attended Situation Room meetings.
A longtime adviser who still sees Trump regularly described him as a “pack rat” and a “hoarder.” Several former aides said Trump spent his time in office flouting classification rules and intimidating staffers who might try to take secret intelligence material away from him.
“I can’t say what went wrong that resulted in some boxes ending up at Mar-a-Lago,” said a former official who knew that Trump took classified information to his White House quarters. “But you can see that as an extension of four years of accommodating the president.”
A spokesman for Trump declined to comment for this article, other than to repeat a previously issued statement in which he accused the Justice Department of leaking information to The Washington Post to hurt Trump’s image. “President Trump remains committed to defending the Constitution and the Office of the Presidency, ensuring the integrity of America for generations to come,” that statement said.
Trying to keep track
Many of Trump’s aides had not previously worked in senior government positions, and they came to the White House naive about the established procedures for handling classified information. In August 2017, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who had served as secretary of homeland security, tried to set things straight.
Kelly issued written guidance requiring that any document sent to the president for his review first be cleared by the staff secretary, the official in charge of keeping track of documents, as well as the chief of staff. Kelly also set up rules for what to do after Trump had seen a document.
“All paper leaving the Oval Office must be submitted to the Staff Secretary for appropriate processing,” said the guidance, a copy of which was reviewed by The Washington Post. It was the staff secretary’s job to mark the document “President Has Seen” and submit it to the Office of Records Management. “This process is vital for compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” the guidance states, referring to the law that makes White House records the property of the federal government.
“It wasn’t perfect, but we did have a better idea of what was going and coming,” said a former senior administration official.
The White House normally establishes a “chain of custody” for classified documents, said Larry Pfeiffer, the senior director of the White House Situation Room in the Obama administration and a former CIA chief of staff. “They log [the documents], track them, give them numbers. If anyone says, ‘Hey, whatever happened to that memo given to the president?’ the [staff secretary] can say, ‘Hey, it’s in the national security adviser’s office.’ “
Former officials credited Kelly and then-Staff Secretary Rob Porter, as well as his successor, Derek Lyons, with trying to impose some order on Trump’s chaotic ways. But it was a struggle. John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, said Trump sometimes asked to keep material after intelligence briefings, with no clear pattern as to what he wanted. Sometimes, Bolton said, he would ask the president to give documents back. “It was very erratic,” he said. “Some things would catch his attention, and other things wouldn’t.”
Kelly said Trump “rejected the Presidential Records Act entirely.” He added that “many people would regularly say to him, ‘We have to capture these things.’ “
“What he did doesn’t surprise me at all,” Kelly said.
Two Trump advisers said he took, or had aides take, all the documents he wanted to the private dining room or the residence. These documents were not usually closely tracked, one of these people said. One former official said some classified documents in the residence were visible to anyone passing by.
Although it was not necessarily improper for a president to take classified information to the residence to continue working and White House staffers are accustomed to adjusting to any president’s working style and preference, it was not always clear that Trump needed the documents for official business, another former official said.
White House staffers found ways to accommodate Trump’s demands. The letters he exchanged with Kim, for example, were not stored in the White House space customarily used for sensitive documents but were kept where aides could quickly retrieve them at Trump’s request. The letters were among the items first flagged as missing by the Archives after Trump left office and were included in the 15 boxes of material sent back from Mar-a-Lago in January.
Aides also found other ways to circumvent Trump’s “sticky fingers,” as one put it. White House staffers retrieved from the residence documents that Trump had torn into pieces, then reassembled the papers and returned to them to secure facilities so that they could be preserved as presidential records. Others who routinely briefed Trump said they developed a practice of never leaving classified documents in his possession unless he demanded them.
Several former officials said they knew that the system, or lack of one, for handling classified information carried risks. Sensitive documents could get lost. Intelligence might fall into the hands of people not authorized to see it.
But Trump intimidated his aides. “They didn’t challenge him,” one former official said.
Several people singled out Mark Meadows, who became Trump’s chief of staff in March 2020 and stayed through the end of his term, as incapable of telling the president no. That set a tone that others followed, these people said.
“This characterization is completely absurd,” said Ben Williamson, a Meadows spokesman.
In the absence of higher authority backing them up, personnel in the staff secretary’s office could not be expected to remove documents from the president’s possession, another former aide said. “They would have gotten their heads cut off by the president if they tried to take things from him.”
Harried final days
Whatever fragile discipline Kelly and others tried to instill began to disintegrate after the 2020 election. The usual packing process that occurs during a presidential transition was delayed because Trump would not concede that he had lost reelection and did not want to move out of the White House, two former administration officials said. Many officials who by then had some experience with security procedures had left the White House, to be replaced by less-seasoned personnel who did not understand classification rules and were afraid to say no to the president, former officials said.
“This created the opportunity for mistakes to happen,” one of the former officials said. “What the president’s intent was is the key question,” the former official said of the transfer of classified material to Mar-a-Lago
As Trump dug in his heels, officials in the staff secretary’s office tried unsuccessfully to find some sensitive documents they believed were still in his possession. With the White House expected to hand over all original, relevant documents to the Archives, senior administration officials held several conversations about missing materials, former officials said.
Lyons, the staff secretary, and some White House aides discussed places in the residence and elsewhere in the White House where Trump could be keeping the documents, as well as gifts he had accumulated. There was no exact list of everythi...
The Final Defense Is Us And Our Rifles: Oath Keepers Leaders Talked Of Taking Up Arms Days After Biden
“The Final Defense Is Us And Our Rifles”: Oath Keepers Leaders Talked Of Taking Up Arms Days After Biden https://digitalarkansasnews.com/the-final-defense-is-us-and-our-rifles-oath-keepers-leaders-talked-of-taking-up-arms-days-after-biden/
Washington – In the days after media outlets calculated that Joe Biden had won the 2020 presidential election, prosecutors allege members of the far-right Oath Keepers group, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were making calculations of their own: how best to mount a resistance to Joe Biden’s presidency and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.
FBI Special Agent Michael Palian — assigned to investigate the group’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack – told a Washington, D.C., jury on Tuesday that records and text messages from Nov. 9, 2020, show that Rhodes and other Oath Keepers convened a call to discuss where their fight would go next.
Attributing Biden’s victory to unfounded claims of voter fraud, Rhodes allegedly stated that the voter fraud was an “insurrection that needed to be suppressed.”
Rhodes and codefendants Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson, Thomas Caldwell and Kelly Meggs are on trial for numerous felony counts including seditious conspiracy, the most serious charge so far levied in the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 probe. All have pleaded not guilty.
In a recorded portion of the Nov. 9, 2020 call played in court on Tuesday, Rhodes allegedly told attendees, “You gotta be willing to go to D.C. and street-fight Antifa…If the fight comes, let the fight come.” They were allegedly planning to be in Washington, D.C. for a rally in support of Donald Trump on Nov. 14, according to the FBI agent.
“I’m willing to sacrifice myself for that…Let the fight start there,” Rhodes said on the recording. “That would give President Trump what he needs.”
Prosecutors allege that the Oath Keepers were hoping that the former president would invoke the Insurrection Act, a centuries-old statute that calls upon citizens to stand up as members of an armed militia and fight. Violence in the streets, Rhodes contended on the call, would have given Trump that opportunity. Defense attorneys agree that that was the hope of the Oath Keepers, but they maintain that the members of the group did little wrong, since Trump never invoked the act.
In a text message sent to alleged Oath Keepers leaders around the same time – days after the 2020 election – Rhodes is accused of writing, “The final defense is us and our rifles,” indicating that if Trump failed to act, the Oath Keepers would step in.
The text messages, extracted by investigators from the defendants’ phones in the months after the Jan. 6 attack, were shown to the jury Tuesday.
In other texts, Meggs is accused of writing to an uncharged individual that they could amass weapons and supplies in nearby Virginia, where firearms laws are less strict, and respond to Washington, D.C., if Trump were to call upon them — and “not a minute sooner.”
“If it gets bad, a QRF for us with weapons to us,” read a text message written by Meggs and presented Tuesday. Prosecutors allege that it alludes to so-called “Quick Reaction Forces” the Oath Keepers planned on bringing to the D.C. area both before and during Jan. 6.
Defense attorneys say the Oath Keepers’ attention to firearms laws in the area and their reliance on the hope of the Insurrection Act prove the defendants’ intended to abide by the law.
But in opening arguments on Monday, prosecutors told the jury that Rhodes, Meggs, and their codefendants planned and briefly carried out a rebellion against their government, one that targeted the peaceful transfer of power from then-President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden.
The five defendants are part of a group of nine alleged Oath Keepers who are accused of seditious conspiracy — resisting by force the proper function of government.
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Live Updates: Russia's War In Ukraine https://digitalarkansasnews.com/live-updates-russias-war-in-ukraine-8/
6 min ago
US military aid to Ukraine hastens possibility of “direct military clash,” Russian diplomat says
From Mick Krever, Uliana Pavlova, and Josh Pennington
US military aid to Ukraine is hastening the possibility of a “direct military clash” between Russia and NATO, a Russian diplomat said on Tuesday.
“The US continues to pump more weapons into Ukraine, facilitating the direct participation of its fighters and advisers in the conflict,” Konstantin Vorontsov, the head of the Russian delegation to the United Nations Disarmament Commission, said at the UN General Assembly’s First Committee.
“Not only does this prolong the fighting, but it also brings the situation closer to a dangerous line of a direct military clash between Russia and NATO,” he added.
The diplomat’s comments come as the US announced an additional $625 million in security assistance to Ukraine. In a statement Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited Ukrainian forces effectively using US support to push ahead with their “successful counter-offensive to take back their lands seized illegally by Russia.”
1 min ago
“We want to liberate all of our territory,” key Zelensky advisor tells CNN
From CNN’s Emmet Lyons and Maddie Araujo
Ukraine intends to liberate all of the country’s territory, including Crimea which has been under Russian occupation since 2014, Mykhailo Podolyak, a key advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told CNN.
“We are for western values. We want to liberate all of our territory,” Podolyak said Tuesday. “All the threats by the Russian Federation will not stop Ukraine in order to liberate our territory … including the occupied territories from back in 2014.”
He was unambiguous on Ukraine’s aims following successful counteroffensives in the east and in the south of the country.
“We are liberating cities and towns in all sorts of directions. In the south, in Kharkiv, in Luhansk. We will have to hold on to those territories,” Podolyak told CNN. “Using western weaponry our partners have sent to us, it has proven to be more effective than all Russian repertory that the Russian army is using.”
“All of this mobilization panic that Russia is demonstrating shows the Russian army does not have enough soldiers,” he said.
Podolyak was Ukraine’s lead negotiator in the last round of diplomatic negotiations between Ukraine and Russia earlier this year.
45 min ago
Zaporizhzhia plant director will be replaced following release from Russia detention, UN nuclear watchdog says
From CNN’s Chris Liakos
Ihor Murashov, the director general of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, will not continue his duties at the facility following his release from Russian detention, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Tuesday.
Murashov was detained by a Russian patrol, the president of Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said on Saturday. Kotin said Murashov was in his vehicle on his way from the plant when he was stopped, taken out of the car, and driven in an unknown direction while blindfolded. The IAEA said Monday that it had received confirmation that Murashov had returned to his family safely.
“The IAEA understands that Mr Murashov is now with his family in territory controlled by Ukraine and will not be continuing with his duties at the ZNPP. It is not yet clear who will replace him in this role,” IAEA said in an updated statement on Tuesday.
The IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said that Murashov’s “absence from duty in this way had an immediate and serious impact on decision-making in ensuring the safety and security of the plant.”
Key things to know about the plant: The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear complex of its kind in Europe, was seized by Russian forces at the start of the war.
The plant and the area around it, including the nearby city of Enerhodar, have endured persistent shelling in recent months, with Ukraine and Russia trading accusations for the shelling.
The agency also said that “IAEA experts present at the ZNPP reported that repair work was completed today at the sprinkler pond in the area of Unit 5 and Unit 6, which had been damaged from shelling on 20 September.”
There has been no reported shelling in the vicinity of the ZNPP since Oct. 4, according to IAEA.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi is due to travel to Kyiv and then to Moscow later this week for consultations “aimed at agreeing and implementing a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the ZNPP as soon as possible.”
35 min ago
Ukrainian official: Russia is trying to establish a “state border” at line of control in Zaporizhzhia region
From CNN’s Yulia Kesaieva in Kyiv.
Russia is trying to establish a “state border” at the point that divides Russian and Ukrainian control in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, a regional Ukrainian official said on Tuesday.
The number of people crossing out of Russian-occupied territory through the Vasylivka checkpoint has dropped from several thousand per day last week — before Russia’s claimed annexations — to just a handful now, according to the Ukrainian government, which says that the crossing is effectively closed.
In establishing these borders, they are placing “rules to pass that they had come up with,” Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Authority, said on national television.
Zaporizhzhia is one four territories in Ukraine that Russia claims it is annexing.
“As a result, they are not allowing the men of the conscription age [to cross]. The day before yesterday only eight people managed to get out by some side and goat trails. Otherwise, one can say that transit in both directions has been stopped,” he said.
These actions replicate what Moscow “did with Crimea and Donbas,” Starukh said.
Ukraine is “trying to solve this issue through the international communities, and through addressing Russia, who are obliged to open the humanitarian corridors,” said Iryna Vereshchuk, the Ukrainian minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories.
The Kremlin does not appear to be clear on what territory exactly it has annexed, as large parts of the regions it says are Russia are still controlled by Ukrainian forces. On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “we will continue consulting with the population of these regions.”
1 hr 21 min ago
Leader of Belarus says his country is “participating” in the war but is not an active military party
From CNN’s Uliana Pavlova and Chris Liakos
Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko speaks during an interview at his residence, the Independence Palace, in the capital Minsk, on July 21. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images/File)
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday that his country has been caught up in the Russia-Ukraine war but that it is not an active military party to the conflict.
“As for our participation in a special military operation in Ukraine, we are participating. We do not hide it. But we are not killing anyone. We are not sending our military anywhere. We do not violate our obligations,” Lukashenko said during a military meeting, according to a video recording of the meeting by the state news agency Belta. Russia also calls its war in Ukraine a “special military operation.”
He then said that his country is “participating” in the war by preventing its spread into Belarus and by preventing “a strike on Belarus under the guise of a special military operation from Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.”
“As I said, no one will shoot Russians in the back from the territory of Belarus. That’s our participation,” the Belarusian leader said.
He added that Belarus is also caught up in the conflict as a point of entry for refugees.
“Yes, treat people if necessary. Yes, we feed people. And not only Russians. We feed most of all those refugees, beggars, poor people who come to us from Ukraine,” Lukashenko said. “… How not to feed them, how not to treat them? This is our participation in this military operation. There is no other way and there won’t be.”
He stressed that Belarus is not planning to announce any mobilization but that it intends to learn from Russia’s experience.
Lukashenko has been a close ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and Belarus was used as a launch point for Russian troops in February.
The Belarusian leader has previously said his country was “being dragged” into the war.
1 hr 37 min ago
US secretary of state announces details of additional $625 million in military assistance to Ukraine
From CNN’s Kylie Atwood
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the US is giving an additional $625 million in security assistance to Ukraine.
He cited Ukrainian forces effectively using US support to push ahead with their “successful counter-offensive to take back their lands seized illegally by Russia.”
“Pursuant to a delegation of authority from the President, I am authorizing our twenty-second drawdown of U.S. arms and equipment for Ukraine since August 2021. This $625 million drawdown includes additional arms, munitions, and equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories,” Blinken said in a statement. “This drawdown will bring the total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to more than $17.5 billion since the beginning of this Administration.”
Blinken committed the US to continuing support for Ukraine for as long as it takes, saying US President Joe Biden has already made that promise.
“At the UN General Assembly, President Biden made it clear yet again that we will support the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes. Recent developments from Russia’s sham referenda and attempted annexation to new revelations of brutality against civilians in Ukrainian territory formerly controlled by Russia only strengthens our resolve,” Blinken said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Bide...
Twitter Stock Surges On Reports Elon Musk Again Proposes Buying The Company At Full Price | CNN Business
Twitter Stock Surges On Reports Elon Musk Again Proposes Buying The Company At Full Price | CNN Business https://digitalarkansasnews.com/twitter-stock-surges-on-reports-elon-musk-again-proposes-buying-the-company-at-full-price-cnn-business/
New York CNN —
Twitter stock was halted twice, the second time for news pending, and rose around 13% in midday trading Tuesday following reports that Elon Musk has proposed to move forward with his deal to buy the company at the originally agreed upon price of $54.20 per share.
Bloomberg and the Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Musk had sent a letter to Twitter (TWTR) proposing to complete the deal as originally signed, citing people familiar with the negotiations.
Representatives for Musk and Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The news comes as the the two sides have been preparing to head to trial in two weeks over Musk’s attempt to pull out of the $44 billion acquisition agreement, which Twitter had sued him to complete. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal had been set to be deposed by Musk’s lawyers on Monday, and Twitter’s lawyers had planned to depose Musk starting on Thursday.
It also follows the release on Friday of a trove of Musk’s personal text messages about the deal. The messages offered a look at the cast of Silicon Valley insiders and billionaires — from Larry Ellison to members of the Murdoch family — who contacted him to weigh in on and, in some cases, offer financing for the deal.
Such an agreement could bring to an end a contentious, months-long back and forth between Musk and Twitter that has caused massive uncertainty for employees, investors and users of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.
Twitter’s board would likely agree to suspend the litigation to move forward with closing the deal, according to Josh White, assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University.
“The very public saga has certainly taken a toll on them and Twitter employees,” White said. “It is best for all parties to finish the deal and make a quick and seamless transition. I suspect it will close quickly.”
The saga began in April when Musk revealed he had become Twitter’s largest shareholder. Over the next several months, Musk accepted and then backed out of an offer to sit on Twitter’s board, threatened a hostile takeover of the company, signed an agreement to buy the company, started raising concerns about bots on the platform, attempted to terminate the agreement, was sued by Twitter to follow through with the deal and added claims from a Twitter whistleblower to his argument.
Musk initially moved to terminate the deal citing claims that the company has misstated the number of spam and fake bot accounts on the platform. Twitter claimed that Musk had breached the deal and was using bots as a pretext to exit a deal he’d gotten buyer’s remorse over after the broader market decline, which also hurt Tesla stock and, by extension, Musk’s personal wealth.
Throughout the back and forth, Twitter had maintained that it planned to follow through with deal at the price and terms originally agreed upon.
Many legal experts have said that Twitter has the stronger argument heading into court, and that Musk would a face a significant burden in trying to prove that the company had made materially misleading statements in its securities filings or in the deal contract.
The lawsuit was the final hurdle remaining in the way of the deal getting closed, after Twitter shareholders last month voted to approve the deal. The deal had originally been set to close this month.
With news that the deal could end up closing, attention may once again shift to what Musk’s control could mean for the social media platform.
Musk has previously suggested a series of potential changes to Twitter, the most significant of which could be returning former President Donald Trump to the platform and doing away with permanent account bans. Musk has also said he wants to make Twitter more open to “free speech” and could change its content moderation policies.
Twitter employees have also raised questions about what a Musk takeover could mean for benefits such as remote working and parental leave.
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Voting Rights: Supreme Court To Dig Into Claims Of Racial Gerrymandering In Alabama
Voting Rights: Supreme Court To Dig Into Claims Of Racial Gerrymandering In Alabama https://digitalarkansasnews.com/voting-rights-supreme-court-to-dig-into-claims-of-racial-gerrymandering-in-alabama/
WASHINGTON – Just over a year ago the Supreme Court walloped a key provision of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, making it tougher to establish that a change to an election law – say, cutting back on early voting – discriminated against minority voters.
Now, voting rights advocates fear, the court is winding up for another swing.
The justices will hear oral arguments Tuesday in a challenge to Alabama’s recently redrawn congressional map, which includes one district out of seven with a majority of Black voters – even though African Americans make up 27% of the state’s population. The court’s ruling could have sweeping implications for congressional maps nationwide.
Alabama officials assert the new districts are race-neutral and that creating a second African American district would require mapmakers to focus on race as their top priority, a command they say would itself amount to unconstitutional discrimination. Opponents say that argument turns the whole point of the Voting Rights Act on its head.
“The Voting Rights Act was created precisely to prevent the kind of manipulation of district lines that undermine the political power of Black communities that we see in Alabama,” said Sophia Lin Lakin of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that initially challenged Alabama’s new congressional districts last fall.
Impact: Supreme Court ruling could give advantage to restrictive voting laws
Midterms: How the Supreme Court is influencing the November midterm elections
Race: America’s fierce debate over voting access intensifies as midterm elections loom
The case arrives at the high court weeks before the November midterms, though the decision won’t land in time to affect this year’s election. It is one of several cases involving race the justices are considering as the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority has viewed policies that focus to combat discrimination with skepticism.
Conservatives who side with Alabama argue that lower courts have misread the Voting Rights Act. The intention is to bar discrimination, they say, not to compel states to go out of their way to do everything possible to avoid the appearance of discrimination.
“Alabama enacted districts in 2021 for the purely race-neutral purpose of equalizing the population across districts, while making minor changes to the overall map,” said Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network. “The plaintiffs are now demanding that the state’s race-neutral map be thrown out in favor of a racially gerrymandered map that makes radical changes to Alabama’s longstanding congressional districts. Nothing in the Voting Rights Act requires this.”
Looked at one way, the case is partly about a much broader question courts and lawmakers have wrestled with: Whether plaintiffs must show a state intended to discriminate against minority voters or whether the discrimination was a byproduct of other motives.
Robert Redford: Supreme Court should not dishonor 50th anniversary of Clean Water Act
More from Opinion: The Supreme Court’s new term could be historic. Remember that ‘legitimacy’ works both ways.
The Alabama litigation, Merrill v. Milligan, is one of two major election cases before the court this term. The other comes from North Carolina and raises the question of how much power state legislatures have to create the rules for federal elections without oversight from state courts. At issue there is the meaning of a clause in the Constitution that delegates responsibility for federal elections to the “legislature” of each state.
Guide: A look at the key cases pending at the Supreme Court
On the docket: Supreme Court to grapple with race, elections in new term
States redraw their congressional boundaries every decade following the census. In some states the process is governed by a non-partisan body, but in most cases the endeavor is a political one – led by state lawmakers who seek an advantage for their party. The Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts would not get involved in partisan gerrymandering suits. Racial gerrymandering, though, is another matter.
A 1986 Supreme Court decision, Thornburg v. Gingles, lays out how federal courts are supposed to determine whether a congressional map violates the Voting Rights Act. Courts must first consider factors such as whether there is a majority group large enough and compact enough to make up a district. Plaintiffs also must demonstrate that white residents vote together cohesively enough to defeat a minority group’s preferred candidate.
A three-judge federal court in January ruled against Alabama, asserting that its congressional map likely violated the Voting Rights Act in light of the factors set forth in Thornburg. The court said it didn’t regard the question of whether the maps violated the law “as a close one.” Two of the three judges were nominated by a Republican president.
The state asked the Supreme Court to put that ruling on hold temporarily and a 5-4 majority in February ruled that it was too late to change the map ahead of the state’s primary election in May.
“Filing deadlines need to be met, but candidates cannot be sure what district they need to file for,” Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in an opinion joined by Associate Justice Samuel Alito. “Indeed, at this point, some potential candidates do not even know which district they live in. Nor do incumbents know if they now might be running against other incumbents in the upcoming primaries.”
Shadow docket: Alabama redistricting case renews procedure fight among justices
Ruling: Supreme Court OKs congressional map lower court said may dilute Black vote
But the emergency order drew a dissent from Chief Justice John Roberts as well as the court’s three liberal justices. Associate Justice Elena Kagan said the decision “does a disservice to Black Alabamians who…have had their electoral power diminished – in violation of a law this court once knew to buttress all of American democracy.”
In a related decision in June, the Supreme Court allowed Louisiana to use a map in this year’s election that includes white majorities in five of six congressional districts. That litigation is on hold pending the outcome of the Alabama case.
In the most significant case to deal with voting rights since 2013, the Supreme Court last year upheld an Arizona law barring unions and advocacy organizations from collecting voters’ mail-in ballots, a practice critics call “ballot harvesting.” The court signaled that challenges to voting rules brought under the Voting Rights Act’s prohibition on discrimination – though still possible – may become far harder to win.
That opinion came eight years after the court gutted another provision of the Voting Rights Act that permitted the Justice Department to review election laws in states with a history of racial discrimination.
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Obituaries In Fort Smith, AR | Times Record https://digitalarkansasnews.com/obituaries-in-fort-smith-ar-times-record-61/
Garris Rustin Hattabaugh of Mansfield, AR died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family and friends, on October 1, 2022. Garris was born in Fort Smith on February 21, 1979 to Marquita and Steve Hattabaugh. He was the second of their four boys.
Garris graduated from Mansfield High School in 1997. He was a talented athlete and excelled in baseball, basketball, and football. Although he was a soft-spoken man of few words, when asked about certain teams and players, he could talk all day about his favorites and always knew their statistics. He was a self-employed dump truck driver and welder – an all-around hard-worker. He was an avid sportsman and loved being out in nature. Garris loved children and enjoyed times of playing with all the kids in the family. He liked nothing more than taking them fishing, hunting, or shooting a bow and arrow. Garris was a kind and gentle soul with a heart of gold. Every life he touched was better for having known him. He loved his family greatly, was loved in return, and will be deeply missed.
Garris leaves behind to cherish his memory, his parents: Steve and Marquita Hattabaugh of Elm Park, Arkansas, brothers Trevor Hattabaugh (Courtney) of Lucas Bottoms, Arkansas, Shay Hattabaugh (Brandy) of Elm Park, Arkansas and Chase Hattabaugh (Shannon) of Greenwood, Arkansas. Garris is also survived by his grandmothers Verla Bullock and Joyce Hattabaugh, one step son J.R. Powell and a precious friend Mandy Moore and her son Judd. Uncle Garris leaves an everlasting legacy with his nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews: Madison, Brooke, Bryar, Treven, Walker, Townes, Paisley, Reese, Addie, Mylee, Tinslee, Hunter, Brently and Bunny. Garris will be missed by all that knew him and the many whose lives he impacted including a host of extended family, friends and neighbors he loved dearly.
Garris was preceded in death by his grandfathers: Gene Bullock and Sherman Hattabaugh.
Garris’ celebration of life services will be at 2:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at Waldron First Church of the Nazarene in Waldron with Rev. Wally Beckman and Rev. Jeff Wilkinson officiating. Interment will follow at Freedom Cemetery near Waldron, Arkansas. Arrangements are being entrusted to the Heritage Memorial Funeral Home in Waldron, Arkansas.
Garris’ pallbearers will be Trevor Hattabaugh, Shay Hattabaugh, Chase Hattabaugh, J.R. Powell, Brian Owens (Boomer), Brian McCullah (Gordy), Klief Brown and Danny White. Honorary pallbearers will be Aaron Hopper, T.J. Pellam, Josh Sanford, Cody Smith and Shawn Cook.
Visitation with the family will be Tuesday, October 4, 2022 from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at Heritage Memorial Funeral Home in Waldron.
The family would like to extended a special heartfelt Thank You to Dr. Kurt Mehl, Dr. Nathan Bennett and Dr. Jeffery Blackwell for your care and compassion shown to our family.
You may leave words of comfort and remembrance for Garris’ family by visiting: www.heritagememorialfh.com.
Posted online on October 04, 2022
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Oath Keepers Trial: Messages After 2020 Election Show Plans For Armed Confrontation In D.C.
Oath Keepers Trial: Messages After 2020 Election Show Plans For Armed Confrontation In D.C. https://digitalarkansasnews.com/oath-keepers-trial-messages-after-2020-election-show-plans-for-armed-confrontation-in-d-c/
Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and other members of the right-wing extremist militia began planning for a violent confrontation in Washington, D.C. just days after Joe Biden was named the president-elect, according to audio recordings and messages shown Tuesday during their trial.
Five Oath Keepers, including Rhodes, face trial this month in the most high-profile case tied to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack so far.
The defendants face numerous crimes in connection to the events of that day, including the rare charge of seditious conspiracy – conspiring against the government through the use or threat of force in an attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power or functioning of the government.
The 2020 presidential election was called in Biden’s favor on Nov. 7, 2020. That same day, Rhodes called Biden an “illegitimate usurper” and issued a call to action via the encrypted messaging app Signal.
“The answer must be to refuse to accept, acknowledge, respect or obey any of these imposters or their pretend legislation…and get your gear squared away and ready to fight,” Rhodes wrote in a Signal chat called “Friends of Stone,” referring to Trump ally and political strategist Roger Stone.
Oath Keepers trial: Prosecutors argue militia members were ‘leaders’ on Jan. 6
Rhodes likened their circumstances to “where the Founders were in March 1775” and said that former President Donald Trump had “one last chance to stand. But he will need us and our rifles, too.”
“The final defense is us and our rifles,” Rhodes wrote.
By Nov. 9, more than 100 Oath Keepers were gathered on a conference call discussing plans to travel to the nation’s capital on Nov. 14, 2020 for the “Million MAGA March,” where tens of thousands of people would rally and march in protest of purported election fraud.
“(Trump) has to know that the people are behind him, that he will not be deserted, and he has to have positive pressure. So we’ve got to be in D.C.,” Rhodes said on the call. “You’ve got to be willing to go to D.C. and street fight Antifa.”
Oath Keepers trial: A 1800s-inspired defense meets most significant Jan. 6 prosecution yet
Rhodes continued that if Antifa – a name for anti-fascism activists and a boogeyman among conservatives – “went kinetic” on the group, that they’d have to “go kinetic” back.
“I’m willing to sacrifice myself for that,” Rhodes said.
The call included early plans to have armed quick reaction forces made up of “some of our best men” stationed outside D.C. limits to evade the city’s strict gun laws and awaiting Trump’s orders – efforts later replicated on Jan. 6, the prosecution alleges.
Earlier in the call, Rhodes said Trump needed to invoke the Insurrection Act, a statute from the 19th century that gives the president authority to call on military and National Guard forces to suppress an insurrection if a state requests it or if the insurrection makes it impossible to enforce federal law.
Oath Keepers trial: What we know about the Oath Keepers trial as opening remarks begin
Defendants Jessica Watkins and Kelly Meggs were also on the call, the prosecution said, and discussed which weapons could be legally brought into D.C., like pepper spray, tasers and stun guns – “and it doesn’t hurt to have a lead pipe with a flag on it,” Meggs said.
“We’re not getting out of this without a fight,” Rhodes said on the call. “There’s going to be a fight. But let’s just do it smart, and let’s do it while President Trump is still commander-in-chief.”
After the meeting concluded, in a Signal chat called “OKFL Hangout,” Meggs relayed Rhodes’ call to action to other Oath Keepers.
“Anybody not on the call tonight. We have been issued a call to action for DC,” he wrote. “This is the moment we signed up for.”
In a cross-examination of the government’s first witness, FBI Special Agent Michael Palian, Rhodes attorney Phillip Linder confirmed that no incidents related to the Oath Keepers were reported on the day of the Million MAGA March and that the FBI only obtained and reviewed about a half hour of the 126-minute Nov. 9 call.
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Former Trump Aides Say He Was Sloppy When It Came To Rules About Handling Classified Info: Report
Former Trump Aides Say He Was Sloppy When It Came To Rules About Handling Classified Info: Report https://digitalarkansasnews.com/former-trump-aides-say-he-was-sloppy-when-it-came-to-rules-about-handling-classified-info-report/
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Ted Cruz Stumps In Las Cruces Calls Congresswoman Yvette Herrell A
Ted Cruz Stumps In Las Cruces, Calls Congresswoman Yvette Herrell A https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ted-cruz-stumps-in-las-cruces-calls-congresswoman-yvette-herrell-a/
Cruz stops in New Mexico as part of 17-state midterm tour as he weighs his own 2024 run
LAS CRUCES – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, stopped in Las Cruces Monday night on a national tour stumping for Republican congressional candidates and gave a boost to New Mexico congresswoman Yvette Herrell.
“We’re going to fire Nancy Pelosi,” Herrell told an enthusiastic crowd at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. House Speaker Pelosi’s leadership has been a focus of Herrell’s campaign as Republicans aim to edge out Democrats to capture a majority in the House of Representatives in the Nov. 8 elections.
Herrell was introduced by her former state legislature colleague, Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, and spoke only briefly before introducing Cruz.
Without uttering the name of her Democratic opponent, former Las Cruces city councilor Gabe Vasquez, she tied him to Democratic leaders in Washington and said they “don’t believe in the American values that are important to us: Freedom. Family. Faith. That’s what we need to be fighting for every single day.”
Herrell, a realtor and former state House member from Alamogordo, is seeking a second term in Congress after unseating Las Cruces Democrat Xochitl Torres Small in 2020. Herrell represents New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional district, which encompasses the southwest corner of the state. Under its new boundaries, redrawn since the 2020 U.S. Census, the usually Republican stronghold includes more of the Albuquerque area than it previouslydid and its population of 706,000 leans slightly Democratic.
On the other hand, Herrell leads Vasquez in fundraising and has the backing of Republican leaders and political committees aiming to keep the seat red. Cruz called New Mexico a “battleground state,” although Herrell is the lone Republican in the state’s congressional delegation. Both senators and two other House members are Democrats.
“Let me just say Yvette Herrell is a rock star,” Cruz said, even though he was the headliner, delivering a half-hour speech loaded with jokes about President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders in Congress, with a sober core excoriating the other party for soaring inflation, crime and increased migrant encounters (including asylum seekers and others crossing without inspection) at the U.S.-Mexico border. Herrell’s district include 180 miles of that border and Cruz also represents a border state.
After graphic descriptions of extortion and abuse by human traffickers in Mexico, Cruz declared, “We’re dealing with millions of women and children being assaulted, being brutalized, being left for dead because of political decisions by the Democrats.”
The event was paid for by the Truth and Courage PAC as part of Cruz’s month-long “Take Back America” bus tour. The itinerary includes 17 states as Cruz is considered a possible candidate for a 2024 GOP presidential run. Cruz previously ran for the nomination in 2016.
The few hundred or so in attendance were invited outside the museum to sign the tour bus and pose for pictures with Cruz and Herrell.
Although they both steered clear of mentioning abortion at the rally, they did not shy away from it when asked directly by reporters. New Mexico is set to be the new home of the women’s health clinic at the center of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this summer in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the federal right to abortion set by Roe v. Wade in 1972.
Herrell and Cruz argued that American opinion favored at least some restrictions on access to abortions and put the onus on Democrats to define what limits they would support. A Pew Research Center survey this summer reported that 61 percent of American adults favor legal abortion in most or all cases, with a widening partisan gap in views among Democrats and Republicans.
Herrell said she was “unashamedly pro-life” and added, “I know there are some exceptions people agree with. I would like to see you ask the exact same question to my opponent. What are the exceptions that he believes in?”
Cruz said the Supreme Court ruling was a “victory for democracy,” arguing: “The status in this country now is that each state will decide the appropriate laws governing abortion and the laws are going to vary state by state, depending on the values and the mores of the citizens of those states.”
From Las Cruces, Cruz’s tour bus proceeded to Arizona with rallies planned there on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Herrell’s challenger was also planning to receive a high-profile guest: U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., was announced as the headliner at a fundraiser for Vasquez’s campaign at a private residence in Las Cruces. While Herrell has positioned herself as a supporter of former President Donald Trump and his policies, Lieu has established his profile as one of Trump’s most vocal critics in Congress.
Algernon D’Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.
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Both GOP Candidates Courting Veterans In Nevada Senate Race
Both GOP Candidates Courting Veterans In Nevada Senate Race https://digitalarkansasnews.com/both-gop-candidates-courting-veterans-in-nevada-senate-race/
Associated Press | Associated Press
RENO, Nev. — Common sense more than any campaign strategy dictated that Adam Laxalt not trumpet his own military service in Nevada’s sometimes-heated Republican Senate primary.
After all, the ex-attorney general, who served as a Navy judge advocate general in Iraq, was running against retired Army Capt. Sam Brown, a war hero who was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan and whose badly scarred face serves as a more powerful reminder of his sacrifice than his Purple Heart.
But with his former foe now turned patriotic ally, Laxalt, the son of a U.S. senator and grandson of another, is trying to make the most of his own military career.
He is relying on familiar GOP buzzwords in appealing to veterans to help save the country from “the left” and calling Democrats the party of the “megarich” as he tries to unseat Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.
In some cases he is also capitalizing further on his military experience — and Cortez Masto’s lack of it — with links to conservative issues from U.S. border safety to government overreach on things like COVID-19.
He warns about the dangers of Afghan terrorists, prematurely released from captivity, sneaking into the U.S. and pledges to reinstate military members who were discharged for refusing to get coronavirus vaccinations.
They’re the kind of campaign issues that strike a chord with many rallying around candidates like Laxalt, backed by former President Trump in a Western battleground that Republicans view as one of their best chances to turn a blue Senate seat red.
“First and foremost, there is no substitute for service. And we all know that,” Laxalt said recently at the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, where he and Brown served up free hot dogs. “Obviously, Sen. Masto hasn’t served.”
It’s a line he couldn’t use in debates with Brown, who denounced Laxalt during the primary as part of the “elite” Washington establishment.
Laxalt — the grandson of former U.S. Sen. and Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt, and son of former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. — spent much of his early life in the D.C. area.
He graduated from Georgetown law school, was an assistant law professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and served with the JAG Corps in Iraq but didn’t engage in the sort of field combat Brown saw with the 1st Infantry in 2008.
At the VFW, Laxalt was introduced by an ex-commander of a B-2 test squad who created a potentially awkward moment when referencing Laxalt’s role in the military before the room eventually erupted into laughter.
“I’ll forgive him for being a JAG,” Air Force Col. Tony Grady said. “But then, not really, because when I was a commander, the JAG was in my hip pocket, to keep me out of trouble.”
Brown never claimed his military record outranked Laxalt’s, but he did make veiled references during the primary to the way each got where they are.
“I wasn’t born into power,” Brown said in his first ad, describing the Taliban bomb that “nearly killed me,” the soldiers who dragged his burning body to safety under mortar fire and his subsequent 30 surgeries.
Each pitch ended with the same tag line: “Career politicians can’t fix Washington; they broke it.”
Initially, the quote was juxtaposed with images of Cortez Masto and President Joe Biden but later was accompanied by photos of Cortez Masto and Laxalt.
Now, Brown is singing Laxalt’s praises and pleading with vets of all political stripes to rally behind him.
“What we do in primaries as Republicans is identify who can lay down the most effective fire, and they become the main effort,” Brown said. “Our duty is to go out there and be those foot soldiers for Adam Laxalt.”
At the VFW, Laxalt linked Cortez Masto to Democratic policies he says have weakened the U.S. military, disrespected its soldiers and made young Americans less likely to enlist. His biggest applause came when he ridiculed those who “wonder why” military recruiting is down.
“Well, how about because they kicked out service members for refusing to take the COVID shots?” Laxalt said. “We have Navy SEALS after 12-year investments and 15 tours of duty to terrible places. I’m a guaranteed vote to reinstate those people.”
Laxalt said he’d heard Cortez Masto hadn’t held a town hall meeting with veterans for at least a year.
Not true, her campaign said.
Cortez Masto, whose father and grandfather served in the U.S. Army, hosted at least a dozen events with Nevada veterans in the past year “to make sure she’s hearing their concerns and is able to deliver the federal support they need,” her campaign said in an email.
Her accomplishments include approval of the construction of a national veterans cemetery in Elko that locals had sought for nearly a decade.
She helped pass a bill guaranteeing health and compensation benefits for veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Her legislation to protect VA benefits for student veterans was signed into law, as was a measure she backed to improve veterans’ access to mental health services.
As he did during the primary, Laxalt reminds vets he founded the nation’s first state office of military legal services as Nevada’s attorney general — a creation the Pentagon eventually embraced and several states later adopted.
He touts his JAG work in Iraq — where his legal team oversaw more than 20,000 detainees — when blasting the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, “leaving billions of dollars of weapons behind” for potential terrorists.
He said the “Afghan debacle” marked the first time Americans “took the measure of this commander in chief and knew he was not up to the job.”
“Sen. Masto is not holding him accountable,” Laxalt said. “A terrorist that was released in Afghanistan could actually be in this country today. This is a huge issue, and it’s an absolute shame that Sen. Masto is dead silent on this.”
Cortez Masto insists she has pushed back on Biden’s method of withdrawal from Afghanistan after criticizing Trump’s proposal to withdraw without a plan in place.
She gets high marks from Ross Bryant, a retired Army veteran who is the executive director of UNLV’s Military & Veteran Services Center in Las Vegas.
Bryant describes himself as a moderate Republican who has voted for candidates in both parties. He’s glad when veterans are elected to Congress and acknowledges the veteran community “is sometimes very harsh: ‘If you are not a vet, you don’t know what it’s like.’”
He said that Laxalt “did great for us” as attorney general, and that Brown’s backing should carry weight with some: “He’s been wounded, he’s one of us.’”
But, he said, it’s wrong to portray Cortez Masto as anything but a staunch, effective advocate for veterans. He ticks off a list that includes expanding Agent Orange coverage to toxic burn-pit exposures, pressuring federal agencies to set up booths at UNLV’s veteran job fairs, and reversing benefit formulas during the COVID pandemic that would have drastically reduced $9 million worth of vet benefits for remote-students at UNLV alone.
“At the end of the day, she has delivered. She’s been a rock star for us,” Bryant said.
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In Trump White House Classified Records Routinely Mishandled Aides Say
In Trump White House, Classified Records Routinely Mishandled, Aides Say https://digitalarkansasnews.com/in-trump-white-house-classified-records-routinely-mishandled-aides-say/
Aides who had worked in Donald Trump’s White House were not surprised this summer when the FBI found highly classified material in boxes at Mar-a-Lago, mixed with news clippings and other items.
They’d seen such haphazard collections before.
During his four years in office, Trump never strictly followed the rules and customs for handling sensitive government documents, according to 14 officials from his administration, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss what they called Trump’s mishandling of classified information.
He took transcripts of his calls with foreign leaders as well as photos and charts used in his intelligence briefings to his private residence with no explanation. He demanded that letters he exchanged with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un be kept close at hand so he could show them off to visitors. Documents that would ordinarily be kept under lock and key mingled with piles of newspaper articles in Trump’s living quarters and in a dining room that he used as an informal office.
The warrant authorizing the search of former president Donald Trump’s home said agents were seeking documents possessed in violation of the Espionage Act. (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
Officials and aides who worked in proximity to Trump said they are not sure how more than 300 classified documents ended up at his Mar-a-Lago estate, triggering a lengthy effort to retrieve them that has resulted in a criminal investigation. But in the waning days of his presidency, as Trump grudgingly began to pack up his belongings, he included documents that should have been sent to the National Archives and Records Administration, along with news articles and gifts he received while president, several former officials said.
What those ex-Trump aides and advisers saw in an inventory of items recovered by the FBI in August — classified documents in boxes, stored alongside newspaper and magazine articles, books and gifts — looked to them like the idiosyncratic filing system Trump used in the White House.
Senior aides said they tried for years to impose some order on the flow of classified information in the White House — with little success.
“The rigor I had felt at the end of meetings during the Obama administration … where someone very carefully collected all the pieces of paper or stayed behind in the room and made sure there was nothing left — that rigor just did not exist at the end during the Trump period,” said one former official who regularly attended Situation Room meetings.
A longtime adviser who still sees Trump regularly described him as a “pack rat” and a “hoarder.” Several former aides said Trump spent his time in office flouting classification rules and intimidating staffers who might try to take secret intelligence material away from him.
“I can’t say what went wrong that resulted in some boxes ending up at Mar-a-Lago,” said a former official who knew that Trump took classified information to his White House quarters. “But you can see that as an extension of four years of accommodating the president.”
A spokesman for Trump declined to comment for this article, other than to repeat a previously issued statement in which he accused the Justice Department of leaking information to The Washington Post to hurt Trump’s image. “President Trump remains committed to defending the Constitution and the Office of the Presidency, ensuring the integrity of America for generations to come,” that statement said.
Many of Trump’s aides had not previously worked in senior government positions, and they came to the White House naive about the established procedures for handling classified information. In August 2017, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who had served as secretary of homeland security, tried to set things straight.
Kelly issued written guidance requiring that any document sent to the president for his review first be cleared by the staff secretary, the official in charge of keeping track of documents, as well as the chief of staff. Kelly also set up rules for what to do after Trump had seen a document.
“All paper leaving the Oval Office must be submitted to the Staff Secretary for appropriate processing,” said the guidance, a copy of which was reviewed by The Washington Post. It was the staff secretary’s job to mark the document “President Has Seen” and submit it to the Office of Records Management. “This process is vital for compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” the guidance states, referring to the law that makes White House records the property of the federal government.
“It wasn’t perfect, but we did have a better idea of what was going and coming,” said a former senior administration official.
The White House normally establishes a “chain of custody” for classified documents, said Larry Pfeiffer, the senior director of the White House Situation Room in the Obama administration and a former CIA chief of staff. “They log [the documents], track them, give them numbers. If anyone says, ‘Hey, whatever happened to that memo given to the president?’ the [staff secretary] can say, ‘Hey, it’s in the national security adviser’s office.’ ”
Former officials credited Kelly and then-Staff Secretary Rob Porter, as well as his successor, Derek Lyons, with trying to impose some order on Trump’s chaotic ways. But it was a struggle. John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, said Trump sometimes asked to keep material after intelligence briefings, with no clear pattern as to what he wanted. Sometimes, Bolton said, he would ask the president to give documents back. “It was very erratic,” he said. “Some things would catch his attention, and other things wouldn’t.”
Kelly said Trump “rejected the Presidential Records Act entirely.” He added that “many people would regularly say to him, ‘We have to capture these things.’ ”
“What he did doesn’t surprise me at all,” Kelly said.
Two Trump advisers said he took, or had aides take, all the documents he wanted to the private dining room or the residence. These documents were not usually closely tracked, one of these people said. One former official said some classified documents in the residence were visible to anyone passing by.
Although it was not necessarily improper for a president to take classified information to the residence to continue working and White House staffers are accustomed to adjusting to any president’s working style and preference, it was not always clear that Trump needed the documents for official business, another former official said.
White House staffers found ways to accommodate Trump’s demands. The letters he exchanged with Kim, for example, were not stored in the White House space customarily used for sensitive documents but were kept where aides could quickly retrieve them at Trump’s request. The letters were among the items first flagged as missing by the Archives after Trump left office and were included in the 15 boxes of material sent back from Mar-a-Lago in January.
Aides also found other ways to circumvent Trump’s “sticky fingers,” as one put it. White House staffers retrieved from the residence documents that Trump had torn into pieces, then reassembled the papers and returned to them to secure facilities so that they could be preserved as presidential records. Others who routinely briefed Trump said they developed a practice of never leaving classified documents in his possession unless he demanded them.
Several former officials said they knew that the system, or lack of one, for handling classified information carried risks. Sensitive documents could get lost. Intelligence might fall into the hands of people not authorized to see it.
But Trump intimidated his aides. “They didn’t challenge him,” one former official said.
Several people singled out Mark Meadows, who became Trump’s chief of staff in March 2020 and stayed through the end of his term, as incapable of telling the president no. That set a tone that others followed, these people said.
“This characterization is completely absurd,” said Ben Williamson, a Meadows spokesman.
In the absence of higher authority backing them up, personnel in the staff secretary’s office could not be expected to remove documents from the president’s possession, another former aide said. “They would have gotten their heads cut off by the president if they tried to take things from him.”
Whatever fragile discipline Kelly and others tried to instill began to disintegrate after the 2020 election. The usual packing process that occurs during a presidential transition was delayed because Trump would not concede that he had lost reelection and did not want to move out of the White House, two former administration officials said. Many officials who by then had some experience with security procedures had left the White House, to be replaced by less-seasoned personnel who did not understand classification rules and were afraid to say no to the president, former officials said.
“This created the opportunity for mistakes to happen,” one of the former officials said. “What the president’s intent was is the key question,” the former official said of the transfer of classified material to Mar-a-Lago
As Trump dug in his heels, officials in the staff secretary’s office tried unsuccessfully to find some sensitive documents they believed were still in his possession. With the White House expected to hand over all original, relevant documents to the Archives, senior administration officials held several conversations about missing materials, former officials said.
Lyons, the staff secretary, and some White House aides discussed places in the residence and elsewhere in the White House where Trump could be keeping the documents, as well as gi...
Apple Forced To Change Charger In Europe As EU Approves Overhaul
Apple Forced To Change Charger In Europe As EU Approves Overhaul https://digitalarkansasnews.com/apple-forced-to-change-charger-in-europe-as-eu-approves-overhaul/
EU Parliament approves single charger reform
Standard is USB-C, used in Android-based devices
Common charging port required for new phones from autumn 2024
Laptops will have to be compatible with single charger from 2026
BRUSSELS, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Apple (AAPL.O) will have to change the charger for its iPhones in the European Union from autumn 2024 to comply with new rules introducing a single charging port for most electronic devices.
The reform passed by an overwhelming majority in the European Parliament on Tuesday, the first of its kind anywhere in the world, potentially strengthens the EU’s role as a global standard-setter on telephone technology. The vote confirmed an earlier agreement among EU institutions. read more
The new rules will make USB-C connectors used by Android-based devices the standard across the 27-nation bloc, forcing Apple to change its charging port for iPhones and other devices.
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It will also apply to laptops from 2026, giving manufacturers longer to adapt, although many already use USB-C.
Apple is expected to be the most affected of the big providers of electronic devices to European customers, although analysts say the impact could be positive if it encourages shoppers to buy the U.S. company’s new gadgets instead of ones without USB-C.
Shares in European semiconductor manufacturers rose on Tuesday after the vote, including those of Apple suppliers STMicro and Infineon .
The deal also covers e-readers, ear buds and other technologies, meaning it may also have an impact on Samsung (005930.KS), Huawei [RIC:RIC:HWT.UL] and other device makers, analysts said.
Apple, Samsung and Huawei were not immediately available for comment.
Under the reform, mobile phones and other devices sold after autumn 2024 will have to be compatible with the single charger, said Alex Agius Saliba, the EU lawmaker who steered the reform through the EU assembly. Old chargers will not be outlawed, however, so that customers can continue to use older models.
The large size of the EU market means the new rules may lead to changes in other countries.
An AirPower wireless charger is displayed along with other products during an Apple launch event in Cupertino, California, U.S. September 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo
GRADUAL PHASE-OUT
Saliba told a news conference that outlawing old chargers would have had a disproportionate impact on consumers and the environment, but noted that the change is expected to lead to a gradual phase-out of older products.
In total 13 categories of electronic devices will have to adapt by autumn 2024.
The Parliament extended the original proposal from the EU’s executive Commission which covered only seven types of devices. Lawmakers also added laptops from 2026.
Apple has in the past warned that the proposal would hurt innovation and create a mountain of electronics waste.
The change had been discussed for years and was prompted by complaints from iPhone and Android users about having to switch to different chargers for their devices.
The European Commission has estimated that a single charger would save about 250 million euros ($247.3 million) for consumers.
Half the chargers sold with mobile phones in 2018 had a USB micro-B connector, while 29% had a USB-C connector and 21% a Lightning connector, which is used by Apple, a 2019 Commission study showed.
Apple is working on an iPhone with a USB-C charging port that could debut next year, Bloomberg reported in May.
The Commission has also been mandated by lawmakers to assess the possible regulation of wireless charging, but an EU official said no decision has been made yet, noting that the technology is not yet mature.
($1 = 1.0106 euros)
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Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Catherine Evans
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Republican Party Stands By Herschel Walker As He Denies He Paid For An Abortion
Republican Party Stands By Herschel Walker As He Denies He Paid For An Abortion https://digitalarkansasnews.com/republican-party-stands-by-herschel-walker-as-he-denies-he-paid-for-an-abortion/
A report published late Monday alleges that GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who has vehemently opposed abortion rights, paid for an abortion for his girlfriend in 2009. He called the accusation a “flat-out lie.” Bill Barrow/AP hide caption
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Bill Barrow/AP
A report published late Monday alleges that GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who has vehemently opposed abortion rights, paid for an abortion for his girlfriend in 2009. He called the accusation a “flat-out lie.”
Bill Barrow/AP
The national Republican party apparatus is standing behind its U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia, Herschel Walker, following a report in the Daily Beast that alleges he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009.
Walker, a vocal abortion opponent, called the report a “flat-out” lie in a statement posted on Twitter.
“I never asked anyone to get an abortion,” Walker told Fox News shortly after the story broke Monday night. “I never paid for an abortion. And it’s a lie. And I’m going to continue to fight. They want this seat. Right now, they’ve energized me even more.”
NPR has not independently confirmed the account.
The Daily Beast granted the woman anonymity to protect her privacy. The report says she provided a copy of a check from Walker, a receipt from an abortion clinic and a get-well card he allegedly signed. Walker told Fox News he sends money and get-well cards to a lot of people.
Georgia is one of the GOP’s top prospects to pick up a seat in the Senate.
“When the Democrats are losing, as they are right now, they lie and cheat and smear their opponents,” Sen. Rick Scott, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wrote in a statement. “Herschel has denied these allegations and the NRSC and Republicans stand with him, and Georgians will stand with him too.”
Walker, a vocal abortion opponent, supports a federal ban on the procedure
In May, WABE asked Walker to describe his stance on abortion
“There’s no exception in my mind. Like I said, I believe in life,” Walker said.
Abortion has played a prominent role in the Georgia midterms since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In 2019, Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who’s up for reelection this fall, signed a law banning most abortions after about six weeks with few exceptions. The law just took effect this summer, following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
But Walker has gone even further, pledging to support a national abortion ban.
At a Rosh Hashanah campaign event on Monday, Walker’s Democratic opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock, reaffirmed his support for abortion rights.
Walker, a onetime University of Georgia football star, is a legend in Georgia, and he sailed to victory in Georgia’s May primary. But a few weeks out from Election Day, Walker is trailing Warnock in most polls.
Walker has a history of misleading or false statements. He has exaggerated his academic, business and philanthropic records. Since he launched his campaign, several additional children he did not disclose to the public or, reportedly to his campaign, have come to light.
Walker’s son, who regularly shares his conservative viewpoints on social media and has not openly criticized his father’s campaign in the past, tweeted “I’m done,” along with a thread of messages detailing his father’s allegedly destructive behavior toward his family.
“I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability,” Christian Walker wrote. “But how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some “moral, Christian, upright man.” You’ve lived a life of DESTROYING other people’s lives. How dare you.”
Walker has spoken about accusations of domestic violence against his ex-wife, citing mental illness, saying he is better now and that the two remain friends. Opposition ads featuring Walker’s ex-wife talking in an interview about how he held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her have blanketed Georgia’s airwaves for weeks.
“A month ago, I thought Walker was a sure thing,” conservative radio host Erick Erickson wrote in his newsletter Tuesday. “Now, I think he is less likely to win unless he mounts an immediate response. Georgia is not a deeply red state, and even Alabama elected Doug Jones instead of Roy Moore.” In 2017, Alabama elected Democrat Doug Jones over Republican Roy Moore, who had been accused of sexual misconduct.
While Walker quickly consolidated support with base Republican voters in the primary, some independent-minded suburban voters who will vote Republican for governor and other races say they will vote for Warnock, the libertarian candidate or leave the Senate race blank.
“It troubles me a little bit, some of the allegations against Herschel Walker,” Republican Greg Minert said last month. “So if it’s true, it could change my mind.”
Last cycle, Democratic victories in Georgia’s Senate races determined control of the U.S. Senate, so the outcome of this election could also have national implications.
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Lady Panthers Battle To Fort Smith Win https://digitalarkansasnews.com/lady-panthers-battle-to-fort-smith-win/
The Benton Lady Panthers are all smiles after winning the 41st Annual Ft. Smith Invitational Volleyball Tournament this past Saturday in Fort Smith. The tourney win, their second of the season, puts Benton at 19-0 overall on the season, ranked No. 2 in the state by SBLive.
Special to The Saline Courier
Sweeping their way through pool play at the 41st Annual Ft. Smith Invitational tournament in Fort Smith, the Benton Lady Panthers stayed perfect on the year, winning all three of their bracket play matchups to win the tournament title this past Saturday. The Lady Panthers improve to 19-0 going into a busy week this week, starting with today’s 5A South Conference match at Lake Hamilton, Wednesday’s senior night battle with 6A Cabot and Thursday’s league match with White Hall.
Benton senior Abigail Lagemann, 10, competes in a match earlier this season. Lagemann had a good Ft. Smith Invitational volleyball tournament this past weekend.
JUSTIN MANNING/jaysphotodesign.com
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Lucero Announce New Album 'Shouldve Learned By Now' Share One Last F.U.
Lucero Announce New Album 'Should’ve Learned By Now,' Share “One Last F.U.” https://digitalarkansasnews.com/lucero-announce-new-album-shouldve-learned-by-now-share-one-last-f-u/
Country punk vets Lucero have announced a new album, Should’ve Learned By Now, due February 24 via Liberty & Lament/Thirty Tigers (pre-order). It was produced by Matt Ross-Spang, and first single “One Last F.U.” sounds like classic Lucero. Bandleader Ben Nichols says:
“One Last F.U.” is where this whole new record started. It’s a song that was too offensive and goofy to be on the last few Lucero albums. I was dating a girl a while back that lived on the West Coast and I remember thinking to myself “I ain’t gonna be here very long” and that ended up being the first line of the chorus. The phrase “one last fuck you” popped into my head one night later and bam I had a whole chorus. The rest of the song was simply about wanting to be left alone while I drank at the bar. That could be taken in a kind of grumpy/antagonistic way, but I feel okay singing the song because I’ve been both characters at different times. Sometimes I’m the one wanting to be left alone and sometimes I’m the drunk one blabbing all night to someone that just wants to be left alone.
[…] I had a particular sound I was looking for on each record and there was no room for any goofy rock and roll or cute witticisms or even simply upbeat songs. But now finally, it was time to revisit all of that stuff and get it out in the world. That’s how we got to the appropriately-for-us-titled album Should’ve Learned by Now. The album is basically about how we know we are fuckups and I guess we are ok with that.
Check out the new song below.
Lucero also have a tour with L.A. Edwards this month, hitting the NYC-area on October 14 at Asbury Lanes and October 18 at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Tickets are still available. All dates are listed below.
Tracklist
1. One Last F.U.
2. Macon If We Make It
3. She Leads Me
4. At The Show
5. Nothing’s Alright
6. Raining For Weeks
7. Buy A Little Time
8. Should’ve Learned By Now
9. Drunken Moon
10. Time To Go Home
Lucero — 2022 Tour Dates
October 6 – Little Rock, AR @ The Hall
October 7 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
October 8 – York, PA @ White Rose Music Festival
October 9 – Harrisonburg, VA @ The Golden Pony
October 11 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
October 12 – Charleston, SC @ Music Farm
October 14 – Asbury Park, NJ @ Asbury Lanes
October 15 – Pawtucket, RI @ The Met
October 16 – Ardmore, PA @ The Ardmore Music Hall
October 18 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
October 19 – Hamden, CT @ Space Ballroom
October 20 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
October 21 – Buffalo, NY @ Buffalo Iron Works
October 22 – Titusville, PA @ Titusville Iron Works
October 25 – Columbus, OH @ Skully’s Music Diner
October 26 – Detroit, MI @ The Majestic Theatre
October 27 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
October 28 – Kalamazoo, MI @ Bell’s Eccentric Cafe
October 29 – St. Louis, MO @ Old Rock House
October 30 – Bloomington, IL @ Castle Theatre
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Judge Expects Steve Bannons Wall Fraud Trial In Nov. 2023
Judge Expects Steve Bannon’s Wall Fraud Trial In Nov. 2023 https://digitalarkansasnews.com/judge-expects-steve-bannons-wall-fraud-trial-in-nov-2023/
NEW YORK (AP) — Steve Bannon’s trial on charges he defrauded donors who gave money to build a wall on the U.S. southern border might not happen until late next year, a judge said Tuesday.
Judge Juan Manuel Merchan said he anticipates Bannon, former President Donald Trump’s longtime ally, will go to trial in November 2023 — about a year before the 2024 presidential election.
Manhattan prosecutors charged Bannon, 68, last month with state-level money laundering, fraud and conspiracy charges related to the “We Build the Wall” campaign. Bannon has pleaded not guilty.
The New York case stems from much of the same alleged conduct as a federal case cut short last year by a Trump presidential pardon.
Prosecutors say that Bannon falsely promised donors that all money would go to constructing a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon arrives at court, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/John Minchillo
Instead, prosecutors allege, Bannon was involved in transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars to third-party entities and used them to funnel payments to two other people involved in the scheme.
At a hearing Tuesday, Merchan set various deadlines for pretrial motions through next summer and gave Bannon’s lawyers until February to comb through evidence and file motions.
Prosecutors say so far they’ve turned over about four terabytes of material — the size equivalent of millions of written pages or hundreds of hours of video.
If Bannon’s trial happens in November 2023, it could coincide with the trial in the New York attorney general’s fraud lawsuit against Trump and his company.
Attorney General Letitia James’ office said in court papers last week that she intends to seek a trial date before the end of 2023.
Trump has been been laying groundwork for a potential comeback campaign for president in 2024.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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It Shouldn https://digitalarkansasnews.com/it-shouldn/
The Washington Post//Getty Images
This! This is the thing that will sink Herschel Walker’s campaign!
Yes, it’s bad, at least in the sweet-summer-child vision of politics: Walker is running a campaign based on Christian Conservative Family Values, including banning abortion in all cases including rape and incest, and The Daily Beast produced evidence Monday night that he paid for an abortion in 2009. The conservative media apparatus was immediately plunged into disarray: Erick, son of Erick hopped out in front of things at 7:28 p.m. to declare that it was old news: “I thought we all knew this,” he tweeted. Then, at 7:33, he added an update: “Note Walker is denying it. I thought it was an old story.” He added a shrug emoji. Walker is indeed denying the story, and threatened to sue the Beast. But all over the tweet machine, right-wingers could be found calling the story fake news and/or old news. Walker didn’t do it, and also he’s a changed man since those bad old days!
The truth is that Walker could pay for an abortion today, right now, and these people would still support him and his quest to ban abortions. He could escort someone to the clinic this afternoon and get 42% of the vote next month. It’s not exactly a revelation to point out that Republican politicians want to ban abortion for other people, not themselves or their (alleged) mistresses. It’s a nice data point for Frank Wilhoit’s maxim that “conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” But more than that, it’s a testament to the fact that all that matters is what jersey you’re wearing and whether you say the right things about Those People.
After all, Donald Trump was also held up as a family values champion, a joke that needs no explanation, and it was Trump who tapped Herschel Walker for this gig, presumably on the grounds that he’d endorsed Trump and he was famous in Georgia. (Walker was, for everything else, a phenomenal running back.) Like Trump’s, though, the candidacy was cooked up in a lab to expose the “family values” stuff as just some threads in the Republican uniform. These are the things we say to get them to vote for us. It soon emerged that Walker had a bunch of kids with different women. But well before all of that, his ex-wife alleged he held a gun to her head and told her he was going to blow her brains out, one of many violent encounters she says she had with the former professional football player. Last night, Walker’s son, Christian—who’s spent the last year or so building a brand as a conservative media star—seemed to confirm the above:
I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us. You’re not a “family man” when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence.
I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability. But how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some “moral, Christian, upright man.” You’ve lived a life of DESTROYING other peoples lives. How dare you.
It was never in doubt whether or not Walker is a “family man,” but it’s always been guaranteed that millions of people will pull the lever for him while declaring that he is.
This content is imported from twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
I’ve stayed silent for nearly two years as my whole life has been lied about publicly. I did ONE campaign event, then said I didn’t want involvement.
Don’t you dare test my authenticity. Here is the full story: pic.twitter.com/ekVEcz8zq3
— Christian Walker (@ChristianWalk1r) October 4, 2022
Beyond this scandal or that one, though, there’s the basic notion that it would require a “scandal” for someone to choose not to vote for Herschel Walker to be a United States senator. What is the affirmative argument that Herschel Walker should make the laws we all have to live by? What does he know about…anything? He says himself that he’s “not that smart.” How did we get to a place where it was acceptable to vote for stupid people to run the country? Maybe it always has been. Anti-intellectualism is nothing new as a feature of American political life. But it feels particularly acute these days when the main criterion for success as a Republican is a complete lack of shame. There are Democrats who say and do stupid things, and who fail their constituents, but how many truly compare even to the halfwit who could soon be the Speaker of the House if Republicans are successful in November?
There have always been idiots in public office, but Trump seems to have ushered in an era when competence and “knowing things” are completely irrelevant. Walker’s plan to prevent school shootings is, along with prayer, “a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at social media.” But don’t worry, he’s at least coming to grips with his personal shortcomings: “I’m always accountable to whatever I’ve ever done,” he once said, “And that’s what I tell people: I’m accountable to it.”
Jack Holmes is a senior staff writer at Esquire, where he covers politics and sports. He also hosts Useful Context, a video series.
This content is imported from OpenWeb. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
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Opinion | How Democrats Can Crush Dangerous GOP Extremists
Opinion | How Democrats Can Crush Dangerous GOP Extremists https://digitalarkansasnews.com/opinion-how-democrats-can-crush-dangerous-gop-extremists/
Is rhetoric passe?
Traditional media consider the economy, abortion, crime, and immigration as key 2022 variables. Can Democrats still find messages that elevate the possible death of a working Democracy—access to voting, majority rules, rule of law, peaceful transfer of power—to become a tie-breaker in a tight election?
Those who discount political slogans as a side-show have overlooked Abraham “The Rail Splitter” Lincoln, the propaganda of “Blood and Soil” in 1920s Germany, the “I Like Ike” slogan of the early 1950s, Reagan’s “Morning in America,” and of course the infamous “Make America Great Again” pitch—all of which provided a strategic lens to focus target audiences.
As the clash between democracy and despotism hurtles toward November, American politics now has become a contest between governing Democrats trying to enact policies for families and GOP insurgents running on faux populism to blur their right-wing radicalism. Trump Republicans largely just rotate loaded culture-war phrases—words like “Woke,” “Canceled,” “Fake News,” “Socialist,” “Trans,” “Open Borders,” and “Critical Race Theory”—in order to slyly scratch the itch of anxious white voters and to villainize Democrats. (Earlier iterations included “death panels,” “death taxes,” “migrant caravans,” “the war on Christmas,” and “Dr. Seuss…”—the opportunities to trigger the confirmation biases of their easily-triggered base are endless.)
Yet such language has indeed managed to steer much of the national conversation due to voters with five-second attention spans, smash-mouths at Fox News, and the sad reality that hateful rhetoric can attract more attention than positive policy. Adding to the problem has been the reluctance of above-the-fray Democrats to return fire. “Democrats Deliver,” “For the People,” and “Build Back Better” were nice homilies but drowned out by far-right polemicists with the subtlety of Russian foot soldiers.
In this Age of Rage, Democrats need more passionate, memorable language to contrast the moral values and political vision of the two major parties. President Biden did launch a strong counterattack with his “defense of democracy” speech in Philadelphia in early September. While that alone won’t sway any significant number of Trump cultists, the goal is more modest—if even 5 percent of Independents, soft-Republicans, and non-voters understand that extremism isn’t patriotism then a 7 million vote margin of victory in 2020 could grow into a 12 million vote margin by 2024 while making any attempt to sabotage democracy appear treasonous.
Early evidence—Democratic successes in six of six by-elections since 2020 and the 60% Kansas vote for reproductive choice—offers a hint that may be happening. Whether Democrats can continue their momentum will likely depend on their willingness to maintain three strategies: 1) stay on offense; 2) keep tattooing Trump on the back of Republicans; and 3) show how anti-majoritarian rules—e.g., about dark corporate money, gerrymandering, and the filibuster—have big consequences, like screwing millions of workers out of a higher minimum wage.
Contrast #1: “Mainstream vs. Extreme.”
Most voters know at some inchoate level that a party now dominated by theocrats, corporatists, and white nationalists is fundamentally different from one led by Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
But simply attacking “extremists’” may fall short since the MAGA playbook will simply find some hyperbolic reference as a flimsy rebuttal. What about AOC—isn’t she extreme? Or what about that guy who considered killing Justice Kavanaugh? Or they will pout that calling them “extremists” is like Hillary implying that all Republicans are “deplorable.”
No, not all Republicans, but many. Here are the receipts:
Team Trump tried to violently overthrow our constitutional democracy by stopping the peaceful transfer of power; promised, if reelected, to pardon those convicted of insurrection-connected crimes; misled the public early in the Covid-19 pandemic destroying tens of thousands of lives; are openly conspired to rig the next election; want to criminalize all abortions; enforce new state laws making it harder for minorities to vote; and invoke the parlance of war to inflame MAGA mobs who then threaten local officials.
This already malevolent list only grows as the news and a slew of books continues to further incriminate—never exonerate—the ex-president. At the same time, GOP presidential contenders continue their near-gravitational race-to-the-bottom to see who can incite Trump’s far-right base the most.
According to multiple polls, some half of registered Republicans doubt Obama is an American, associate pedophilia with the Democratic Party, and believe that white people suffer more discrimination than Black people .…while 60-70 percent embrace The Big Lie that Biden stole the 2020 election. This QAnon-level insanity provides an array of material for powerful messages: e.g., “Big Brother Republicans are dangerous extremists.”
Contrast #2: Whose side are you on?
Since at least the Robber Baron era, Republicans exploit patriotic poetry during campaigns (“the Exceptional Nation”) and then prosaically deliver lower taxes and deregulation to their wealthy donors once in office. But events such as January 6 and the Dobbs decision by U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing majoirty put Democrats in a position to win the age-old election question, Whose side are you on?
Look at the history of social progress from FDR to Biden opposed by Republicans: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, stronger labor laws, the Affordable Care Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, civil rights legislation, environmental and consumer protections, and recent investments in the future like the bipartisan infrastructure law and the more recent Inflation Reduction Act. Imagine America without them.
Compare that to the 2022 plan of Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the head of the National Senate Campaign Committee, to attack Social Security and bedrock anti-pollution laws that keep our air and water clean. Democrats can now stick Scott’s party with a slogan they can run against: “Let’s Make America 1922 Again.”
CONTRAST #3: “The Party of Corruption”
Despite a long run as the party of “law and order,” today’s GOP is compromised by violent militants and lawless leaders. When the majority of a party says they believe the Jan. 6 mob were “patriots” and that’s party’s leaders warn of “riots in the streets” if Trump is charged, it should be impossible to pose as sentries of safety.
Worse, the far-right so often talk up a “coming Civil War” within the context of their “Second Amendment rights” that they appear indifferent to the impact their incendiary words have on millions of armed and unstable followers, such as the gunman who attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati after Trump called them “thugs.” The unwillingness of Republican officials to condemn violence can only be seen as coaxing more of it. And any organization that opposes a ban on the AR-15—the weapon of choice for slaughtering children—can effectively be called “soft on crime.”
The Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) recently estimated that Trump committed as many as 55 crimes while in office. Indeed, there’s so much illegality in TrumpLand that perpetrators ironically benefit from scandal fatigue as frequency normalizes corruption. When one law or norm appears to be broken, Trumpers always conjure up some excuse and soon enough another scandal arrives to distract from the previous.
But explaining away any single scandal ignores how MAGA’s whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts. Trump himself is now the subject of at least six criminal probes, surely a record for an ex-leader in a western democracy. Politifact reports that there were 142 people indicted over 18 years in the Nixon, Reagan, and Trump administrations. In the 20 years under Carter, Clinton, and Obama, there were only 3.
Recall when a few “influence peddlers” in 1948 and the gift of a vicuna coat to Ike aide Sherman Adams in 1956 made corruption a big issue in both those election years. From the vantage point of 2022, to quote Dustin Hoffman in Wag the Dog, “this is nothing.”
Since Sen. Joe McCarthy gleefully described the Democratic Party as the “Party of Treason” when it clearly wasn’t, it should be kosher to call today’s GOP the “Party of Corruption” which it very much is.
Contrast #4: Freedom or Fascism?
Anat Shenker-Osario, podcast host and founder of ASO Communications, has attracted much notice for showing how the GOP embraces the language of freedom while trying to ban abortions, books, vaccines, trans kids, marriage equality, and voting rights. Leading Democrats like Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and newly-elected Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) have all embraced this winning formula.
It used to be seen as a naive epithet to call the GOP “fascists” (or even “semi- fascists” in Biden’s telling). But if their unapologetic assaults on freedom and democracy are not an American version of fascism—by a party forever calling Democrats “communists” and “socialists”—what would be?
To take one example, “Critical Race Theory”—which is taught in zero grade schools—should lead Democrats to reply: “Stop exploiting hatred. Parents want educators choosing books, not politicians banning them.”
Contrast #5: 50% More Economic Growth.
World-wide inflation is too high (due largely to the pandemic, Putin’s war, and corporate price-gouging). Yet Democrats also deserve polemical blame for allowing Republicans to be seen as better on the economy by 14 points in a recent NYTimes/Siena poll.
If you add up economic growth for every president since 1961, it rose 50 percent faster under Democratic administrations. Trump and B...
