Digital Arkansas News

Ben, We Hardly Knew Ye https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ben-we-hardly-knew-ye/ Thatcher Caryn @Caryn 9:15 AM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 I also like Sasse (fellow St. John’s College–not University, BTW) grad.  He’s thoughtful and articulate, though do I think he was frequently unfair to Trump.   I think he’ll better serve the nation in academia than in the swamp pit of either branch of Congress and probably be happier.  That student body is larger than my home town, a State (AK) capital no less! Inactive kedavis @kedavis 9:17 AM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 Oh good, let’s see Kelly and VTK fight! Member Vince Guerra @VinceGuerra 9:48 AM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 Kelly D Johnston: 74 million Trump supporters, even though a huge share of the latter category do still believe, you know, the untrue thing—the lie—that the election was stolen,” And for that reason, good riddance, but woe to those university professors who will be indoctrinating students with this garbage history. Member Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) @ArizonaPatriot 10:26 AM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 I no longer like Ben Sasse.  I am sad about this.  I recall liking him at one point. He was in a tough position politically.  I was very strongly anti-Trump during the primaries in 2016, though I refused to say “never.”  I gave Trump a chance to make his case to me, and cautiously gave him my vote in 2016.  I because a strong, and then enthusiastic, supporter of Trump over his first term.  He actually led me to reconsider many of my former views, which I appreciate. Kelly, I have to disagree with this part: Kelly D Johnston: He [Sasse] also recoiled at the Democratic politicization of the January 6th attack to denigrate all Trump supporters. “I don’t think we should bundle together the hundreds of violent mob rioters of January 6 and the 74 million Trump supporters, even though a huge share of the latter category do still believe, you know, the untrue thing—the lie—that the election was stolen,” Sasse told NPR. I don’t think that Sasse did this at all.  He voted for conviction in the second impeachment, didn’t he?  That was the politicization of the January 6 attack.  He can say whatever he wants, but going along with the post-January 6 Left-wing hysteria was pitiful, to me.  Going along with the simplistic narrative that concerns over the 2020 election are “the lie” is playing along with the Left-wing narrative. Sasse may just be too nice a guy.  You do indicate this, Kelly, with the part about being “friends” with Democrats.  The Democratic party is just plain Satanic at this point.  I realize that it’s not pleasant to think this about people, but about half of our countrymen favor killing babies, sanctify anal sex, and support castration and mastectomies for confused teenagers. Member Hang On @HangOn 10:51 AM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 I haven’t been a fan of National Review or their staff since the start of the Iraq War. Back then people like David Frum were writing that anyone who didn’t go along with their lies was unpatriotic. Iraq was a total and complete disaster, yet the same fools are still around lying, trying to get us involved in wars, sending Americans to die needlessly while they sit in safety, spending trillions of dollars we don’t have on nothing of value, killing tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians, torturing people in CIA run prisons with a gulag at Guantanamo, and to top it off losing the war they rushed into. Today, it’s Ukraine and it’s the same group of incompetent liars. Pointing out the obvious gets you branded as a Putin puppet. Sasser is among these people. The country is far better off without them. Member Ed G. @EdG 11:23 AM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 Kelly D Johnston: Perhaps unfairly, Sasse became known as a “never Trumper.” He was one of six GOP US Senators impacted by the events of January 6th at the US Capitol in 2021 who held Trump responsible and voted to impeach him. “This violence was the inevitable and ugly outcome of the President’s addiction to constantly stroking division … This is not how we peacefully transition power,” Sasse told Nebraska Public Media. “As the attack Wednesday was ‘unfolding on television, Donald Trump was walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as … rioters [pushed] against Capitol police, trying to get into the building,’ Sasse said. ‘That was happening. He was delighted,’” reported left-leaning HuffPost. “I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office,” Sasse told CBSNews. “He swore an oath to the American people to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. He acted against that. What he did was wicked.” Both of these statements are so fundamentally flawed that one’s motives, one’s character, or one’s intelligence are called into question for making them. [edited for Mark] The first statement is uttered without regard to the years long partisan, unethical, in some cases illegal, in all cases radical, attacks and division that predicated any response from President Trump. Does Sasse acknowledge any of that? If not, why the hell doesn’t he acknowledge any of that? If so, why single out Trump instead of any number of worse offenders (assuming that defensive retaliation is offending to begin with)? The second is just silly in light of all we know about Fake News. That’s not just a slogan or some slight bias. It’s real and we’ve seen major recent examples of it over and over. Yet he quotes HuffPo and CBS News as if these accounts as described can be thought of as undisputed truth enough to condemn Trump as wicked, and this wickedness is unwarranted and mostly a danger only from the direction of Trump and MAGA. How can he be that obtuse? Or is he getting something out of it? Member Mark Camp @MarkCamp 12:20 PM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 Ed G. (View Comment): Both of these statements are so fundamentally flawed that it calls into question one’s motives, one’s character, or one’s intelligence. The only way I can make sense of this sentence is this: You (not an inanimate “it”) are calling into question the motives, character, or intelligence of the author, Kelly Johnson (not some anonymous “one“). If I have misunderstood what you wrote, please correct me.  Member Ed G. @EdG 12:24 PM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 Mark Camp (View Comment): Ed G. (View Comment): Both of these statements are so fundamentally flawed that it calls into question one’s motives, one’s character, or one’s intelligence. The only way I can make sense of this sentence is this: You (not an inanimate “it”) are calling into question the motives, character, or intelligence of the author, Kelly Johnson (not some anonymous “one“). If I have misunderstood what you wrote, please correct me. I question the motive, character, and intelligence of the one who made the original statements, i.e. Sasse, because those statements are so fundamentally and obviously flawed. Everyone else has cause to do the same. Member cdor @cdor 12:27 PM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 Thanks for the knowledgeable, straightforward, and honest insight into Ben Sasse. I had come to see him only in the light of “Never-Trump”, even though I was aware of his original conservative bona fides. I wonder, however, how Senator Sasse knew what was going on in President Trump’s mind. I assume Sasse was in the Capitol Building and Trump was in the White House. Inactive kedavis @kedavis 12:38 PM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 cdor (View Comment): Thanks for the knowledgeable, straightforward, and honest insight into Ben Sasse. I had come to see him only in the light of “Never-Trump”, even though I was aware of his original conservative bona fides. I wonder, however, how Senator Sasse knew what was going on in President Trump’s mind. I assume Sasse was in the Capitol Building and Trump was in the White House. Mind-Reading Trump: It’s Not Just For Democrats. Member cdor @cdor 12:46 PM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 kedavis (View Comment): cdor (View Comment): Thanks for the knowledgeable, straightforward, and honest insight into Ben Sasse. I had come to see him only in the light of “Never-Trump”, even though I was aware of his original conservative bona fides. I wonder, however, how Senator Sasse knew what was going on in President Trump’s mind. I assume Sasse was in the Capitol Building and Trump was in the White House. Mind-Reading Trump: It’s Not Just For Democrats. Ha! Isn’t that the truth? No matter how much good one is doing, for the country and the world, if one is working from a conservative perspective, one must be perfect in all ways or one will be crucified for any perceived ill. This is our big problem and why we aren’t winning. Member Ed G. @EdG 12:55 PM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 cdor (View Comment): kedavis (View Comment): cdor (View Comment): Thanks for the knowledgeable, straightforward, and honest insight into Ben Sasse. I had come to see him only in the light of “Never-Trump”, even though I was aware of his original conservative bona fides. I wonder, however, how Senator Sasse knew what was going on in President Trump’s mind. I assume Sasse was in the Capitol Building and Trump was in the White House. Mind-Reading Trump: It’s Not Just For Democrats. Ha! Isn’t that the truth? No matter how much good one is doing, for the country and the world, if one is working from a conservative perspective, one must be perfect in all ways or one will be crucified for any perceived ill. This is our big problem and why we aren’t winning. True. The difference between Trump and Sasse is that Trump was on the front line while Sasse wasn’t. All that other stuff is true enough and good, but the moment (including the last several decades) demanded something more concrete and kinetic. It demanded fight, via civil means, not both sides-ism or worse. Member Western Chauvinist @WesternChauvinist 1:33 PM PDT ⋅ Oct 7, 2022 I put Sasse in the “insufferable scold” bucket. That may be unfair, but I haven’t s...

Warnock Says Walker 'has Trouble With The Truth' But Does Not Comment On Abortion Allegations – KRDO https://digitalarkansasnews.com/warnock-says-walker-has-trouble-with-the-truth-but-does-not-comment-on-abortion-allegations-krdo/ By Michael Warren, CNN Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said Saturday that his Republican rival Herschel Walker “has trouble with the truth” but did not directly address the recent allegation that Walker once paid for a woman to have an abortion. “It’s up to Georgia voters. It’s not up to him, it’s not up to me,” Warnock told reporters after a rally here. “We do know that my opponent has trouble with the truth. And we’ll see how all this plays out, but I am focused squarely on the health care needs of my constituents, including reproductive health care.” The Georgia Senate race has been rocked by an allegation first reported by The Daily Beast that the GOP nominee paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009. The woman told The New York Times that Walker asked her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later but she refused the request and their relationship ended. CNN has not independently confirmed the woman’s allegation about the abortion or that Walker urged her to terminate a second pregnancy. CNN has reached out to the Walker campaign for comment. Walker, who said in May he supports a full ban on abortions, with no exceptions, has denied the earlier report from The Daily Beast, calling the allegation a “flat-out lie.” Pressed by CNN on Saturday whether he believes Walker’s denial, Warnock declined to say. “What I believe is irrelevant because the people of Georgia will decide,” he said. Warnock has avoided directly commenting on the allegations since the Daily Beast story broke. At his rallies and in front of reporters, the Georgia Democrat avoids mentioning Walker’s name, referring to him instead as “my opponent.” The Senate contest between Walker and Warnock, who is seeking a full six-year term, is among the most competitive of the 2022 midterm elections and could be instrumental in deciding control of the evenly divided chamber. Republican groups have vowed not to abandon Walker, even as the scandal sent his campaign scrambling. Campaign manager Scott Paradise, addressing staff earlier this week, acknowledged that the initial Daily Beast report was a setback, but pointed to Trump’s victory in 2016 — despite the initial backlash to the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which he spoke crudely about groping women — as evidence that Walker remained a viable candidate. Earlier Friday, Walker’s campaign split from its political director, Taylor Crowe, over suspicions that he was leaking information to the media, two people familiar with the matter told CNN. Crowe did not respond to multiple requests for comment from CNN. It is unclear if there were other factors at play or if the move had any connection to the abortion allegations. The-CNN-Wire & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. CNN’s Gregory Krieg and Shania Shelton contributed to this report. Read More Here

Texas Police Fires Officer Who Shot A Teen Sitting In His Car In A Fast Food Parking Lot https://digitalarkansasnews.com/texas-police-fires-officer-who-shot-a-teen-sitting-in-his-car-in-a-fast-food-parking-lot/ A Texas police force has fired an officer who shot and wounded a teenager sitting in his car eating a hamburger. The San Antonio police department fired James Brennand after he shot Erik Cantu, 17, on 2 October in a fast-food restaurant parking lot, the agency’s training commander, Alyssa Campos, said in a video statement released Wednesday. Brennand had been sent to investigate an unrelated disturbance at the eatery when he saw Cantu inside a car that had evaded him a day earlier, Campos said. “As the officer attempted to gather information from witnesses, he noticed a vehicle that had evaded him the day before as the officer attempted a stop because the registered license plate did not match the actual vehicle,” she said. A Texas prosecutor said in a statement Friday that he has not seen enough evidence to file charges against the teenager, who, after Brennand approached him, backed up his car and struck the dismissed officer with an open door. “While Sunday’s shooting of an unarmed teenager by a then-San Antonio police officer remains under investigation, the facts and evidence we have received so far led us to reject the charges against Erik Cantu for further investigation,” district attorney Joe Gonzales said. Brennand had been on the police force for seven months when he violated both his training as well as agency procedures after approaching Cantu’s car, according to Campos. Campos said Brennand “abruptly opened the driver’s door and ordered the driver out of the car” before the arrival of backup officers whom Brennand had requested. Brennand’s body-worn camera captured a startled Cantu looking toward him while holding a hamburger, backing up the car and hitting the officer with the opened door. As the door closed and Cantu drove away, Brennand fired his service pistol several times at the driver, striking him. Cantu stopped nearby, and police soon found him and a passenger, who was not injured. “There is nothing I can say in defense of that officer’s actions that night,” police chief William McManus later said, according to the local news outlet WOAI-TV. “I think what happened, initially, there was some contact made, but that did not justify the shooting.” Cantu was hospitalized in stable condition, and before prosecutors refused the charges against the teen, police booked him with evading an officer and aggravated assault. Gonzales said his office had not decided whether to pursue charges against Brennand but that the police investigation into the shooting remained pending. Read More Here

Exxon Illegally Fired Two Scientists Suspected Of Leaking Information To WSJ, Labor Department Says | CNN Business https://digitalarkansasnews.com/exxon-illegally-fired-two-scientists-suspected-of-leaking-information-to-wsj-labor-department-says-cnn-business/ New York CNN  —  ExxonMobil has been ordered to reinstate two scientists who were fired after being suspected of leaking information to The Wall Street Journal, the US Labor Department said Friday. A federal whistleblower investigation found the oil and gas giant terminated the two computational scientists illegally in late 2020. The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration also ordered ExxonMobil to pay the two employees back more than $800,000 in back wages, interest and compensatory damages. An article in The Wall Street Journal last year claimed ExxonMobil might have inflated its production estimates and the value of oil and gas wells in the Texas Permian Basin, where much of US production is located. The story scrutinized the company’s assumption in its 2019 SEC filings that drilling speed would increase substantially in the next five years. Exxon denied the allegations at the time, maintaining that it was reaching its drilling targets. “The claims made about drilling rates are demonstrably false,” an ExxonMobil spokesperson said. The two unidentified employees “raised concerns about the company’s use of these assumptions in late 2020,” according to the Labor Department’s release. Exxon claimed it fired one scientist for “mishandling proprietary company information,” the Labor Department statement said, and the other for “having a ‘negative attitude,’ looking for other jobs, and losing the confidence of company management.” In a statement to CNN Business, Exxon denied the allegations and said that it will “defend itself accordingly.” “The terminations in late 2020 were unrelated to the ill-founded concerns raised by the employees in 2019,” an ExxonMobil spokesperson said. Though neither employee was revealed as a source for the Journal’s story, OSHA learned that the company knew one of the scientists was a relative of a source quoted in the WSJ article and had access to the leaked information. “ExxonMobil’s actions are unacceptable. The integrity of the US financial system relies on companies to report their financial condition and assets accurately,” said Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Doug Parker. Read More Here

Trump Super PAC Reserves Millions In Airtime In Key States https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-super-pac-reserves-millions-in-airtime-in-key-states/ Published October 8, 2022 3:52PM article Former US President Donald Trump makes a speech at the 2022 Hispanic Leadership Conference in Miami, Florida, United States on October 5, 2022. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) ((Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)) NEW YORK – Former President Donald Trump is finally opening his checkbook, reserving millions of dollars in airtime for ads to bolster his endorsed candidates in key midterm races just one month before Election Day. Trump’s newly-formed MAGA Inc. super PAC will begin airing ads Saturday in Nevada, Georgia and Arizona, according to Medium Buying, an ad tracking firm. The group is already airing ads in Pennsylvania and Ohio, home to two of the most consequential and competitive Senate races in the country. The Georgia spending is particularly notable, coming as Trump’s hand-picked Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s campaign has been rocked by reports alleging he encouraged and paid for an ex-girlfriend’s 2009 abortion. Walker, a longtime football icon, backed a national ban on abortion during his primary, and has said he does not believe in exceptions even in cases of rape, incest or when the health of a pregnant woman is at risk. The Trump ad set to air in Georgia, which was shared with The Associated Press, does not include any mention of Walker. Instead it focuses on his rival, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and tries to cast Warnock and his party as too extreme. “From D-Day to drag queen story time, America has lost its way,” its narrator says. “Chaos at the border. Crime in our neighborhoods. A collapsing economy. Biden and Warnock did that,” it claims. In total, the super PAC appears to have spent close to $5 million on its initial investment. That includes $954,000 in Georgia, $512,000 in Nevada and $1.16 million in Arizona, according to Medium Buying, in addition to $1.34 million in Ohio and $829,000 in Pennsylvania, according to AdImpact, another ad tracking firm. MAGA Inc. spokesman Steven Cheung declined to say how much additional spending Trump had planned beyond the initial reservations. “We’re not going to telegraph our spending but it’s a significant buy,” he said. The super PAC’s first wave of ads are all negative spots aimed at turning voters off the Democratic rivals of Trump-endorsed candidates. The first attacked Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman, who is running against Republican nominee Mehmet Oz, by portraying Fetterman as soft on crime. “John Fetterman wants ruthless killers, muggers and rapists back on our streets,” it charges, labeling the lieutenant governor “dangerous.” The second targeted Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan for voting with his party as a member of Congress, using footage from a speech in which he joked that he would “suck up a little bit” to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, “his future boss.” Ryan, who is running against Trump-endorsed Republican JD Vance, has run as centrist trying to win back the Rust Belt voters who have soured on the party in recent years. The ads released so far notably do not feature or even mention Trump, who remains a deeply divisive figure, but one who is extremely popular with the Republican base. Trump had been under growing pressure to finally start spending on midterm races after playing an outsize role in the primaries and pushing his favored candidates. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in particular, had urged candidates with Trump’s support to ask him to open his checkbook heading into the race’s final stretch. The notoriously thrifty former president’s Save America PAC, his main fundraising vehicle since leaving office, ended August with more than $90 million in the bank. Trump aides have discussed transferring a portion of that money to MAGA Inc., which could later be used to support a presidential campaign should Trump decide to run again, though campaign finance experts are divided on the legality of such a move. Trump has continued to tease another presidential run, telling supporters at a rally in Warren, Michigan, last weekend, “We’ll be talking about great things hopefully in the not so distant future.” “Oh I think you’re going to be happy,” he went on to say. “But first we have to win a historic victory for the Republican Party this November.” Read More Here

Tom Henderson: The Errors Of Our Ways https://digitalarkansasnews.com/tom-henderson-the-errors-of-our-ways/ ‘The newspaper regrets the error.” Newspaper corrections traditionally end with words to that effect, and I like that phrase. Some people see corrections and apologies from a newspaper as a sign of incompetence. These days, when so few of our elected children admit their many mistakes, let alone regret them, I see newspaper corrections instead a sign of maturity. Grown-ups admit their mistakes. They own up to them. They apologize for them because they know mistakes have consequences. People who work for newspapers know that mistakes can be like toxic bacteria in the drinking water — microbes of misinformation spread rapidly, imperiling the health of the entire community. So they feel compelled to acknowledge those mistakes, no matter how embarrassing. Henrik Ibsen understood that point in 1882 when he wrote a play about a physician who discovers toxic bacteria in the drinking water. In the play, self-serving politicians, unwilling to admit their mistakes, whip up public hysteria against him for simply trying to provide accurate information to his community. The play is titled, “An Enemy of the People.” Does that sound familiar? When Donald Trump uses those same words to describe the press, he merely parrots every malignant scoundrel out there to vilify the mirror of his own grotesque reflection. Journalists spend a great deal of time defending their craft against Trump and his cultists. We promote ourselves as the champions of truth and justice, but you know what? We actually do owe you several apologies. Reporters too often eat what they’re fed, taking dictation rather than asking questions. They talk about people rather than talking to them. They focus on conflict rather than common ground. Critics say Americans deserve better journalism but, in fact, Americans are getting precisely the journalism they deserve. What journalists need to apologize for is giving it to them. National Newspaper Week is Oct. 2-9 this year, so this is the perfect time to issue an apology. Let me start by apologizing for the state of journalism education. Advertising and public relations have been incorporated into college journalism curriculum since journalism was first recognized as a legitimate academic discipline in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, the journalism schools of old were largely dedicated to the pursuit of, well, journalism — the detection and disposal of (politely put) effluvia. Now many journalism schools seem equally interested in the production and distribution of effluvia. Consider my alma mater — the University of Oregon, which increasingly seems like a wholly owned subsidiary of Nike, Inc. My old journalism school now invites students to focus their academic attention on video gaming, along with “advertising and brand responsibility.” Where students once learned how to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, they now learn how to best promote their masters’ brands. And, of course, everything is geared toward the digital. Some people will tell you there is nary a difference between digital and print journalism. All that’s changing is the delivery system. Treat these people gently. The poor dears have been asleep for the past 25 years. Not to brag, but I saw the dangers of the digital age back in 1980 as a 17-year-old high school student. Back then, clusters of computer geeks created bulletin boards where they could post and share written material. One such bulletin board was called Micro-Text and operated out of an electronics store in Salem. Chuck, the store’s owner, asked me to write weekly movie reviews for Micro-Text for $10 a week. I like to tell people I was the world’s first online movie critic, but I know that Chuck was not the first computer nerd to operate a bulletin board. He certainly wasn’t the first person to predict the coming of the World Wide Web either. There were books at the time about the coming “Videotext” revolution. What made Chuck particularly prescient is the spirited conversations he and I had about what form that revolution would take. He said the day was coming when every newspaper would have its own bulletin board — i.e., website. He rightly predicted that it would soon be hard to tell if the newspaper had a website or the website had a newspaper. The glory of all this, Chuck said, is that editors and publishers could tell exactly which stories people were reading and calibrate the news product to give readers what they wanted. Are readers apoplectic about the skin color of cartoon-character mermaids? Very well. Scrap the story on the destruction of the world’s coral reefs. Our readers’ wish is our command. Chuck saw all this coming. He eerily predicted the rise of clickbait and what is nowadays known euphemistically as “audience-driven journalism,”  though I still call it pandering. For Burger King, “Have it your way” is a swell bit of what the kids call brand ideation. But not for news outlets. Many critics, especially in this age of alternative facts, would argue otherwise. They see newspapers, and other elements of so-called “legacy media,” as outrageously arrogant for rubbing against the grain of their communities. The customer is always right, after all. The newspaper business is still a business, and as the people who count the beans like to say, you have to be a business before you can be a mission. I wish I had a bean for every time I heard that line, though the logic behind it is inescapable. I would simply argue that you have to be a mission, else there’s little point to being a newspaper business in the first place. There’s certainly more money to be made selling hamburgers than newspapers. However, a newspaper shouldn’t be a burger joint where you can order as much unhealthy food as you want. It should be like your family doctor who tells you all those burgers are clogging your arteries. Professionals like doctors, lawyers, scientists and journalists shouldn’t tell you what you want to hear. They should tell you what you need to hear. That attitude is a terrific business plan, the prevailing ethos contends — for bankruptcy. They ask, how does a business stay in business by giving consumers exactly what they don’t want to buy? For confirmation, they point to the number of people abandoning legacy media. I suspect the exodus has more to do with pandering than it does giving customers what they want. When you try to be all things to all people, you end up being nothing to no one. Many courageous newspapers and media outlets continue to uphold the best traditions of journalism and earn the respect of their readers without pandering, however. And present company is included. Who knows? The critics may be right. Maybe responsible journalism no longer sells. Maybe people want ginned-up stories about the gender of Potato Head dolls, the shoes worn by cartoon M&Ms and Karens clutching their pearls over the teaching of actual history in history class. After all, you spread enough of this effluvia into the air, and you eventually have a genuine odor problem to report. All this sounds like I’m excoriating readers for their stupidity — and I am, to an extent. Our society as a whole is dumb and getting exponentially dumber. In that sense, people truly do get the journalism they deserve. They wanted it. They clicked on it. They got more of it. Joseph Pulitzer, the 19th-century newspaper mogul who himself had a lot of things to apologize for, had the right idea when he wrote: “Every issue of the paper presents an opportunity and a duty to say something courageous and true; to rise above the mediocre and conventional; to say something that will command the respect of the intelligent, the educated, the independent part of the community; to rise above fear of partisanship and fear of popular prejudice.” We have so often fallen short of that mark in favor of giving readers what they want instead of what they need. For that, and for all our other failings, we should apologize — and pledge to do better. Guest writer Tom Henderson, now making his home in Independence, has served as a newspaper reporter, newspaper editor and journalism educator for more than 40 years. He worked at the News-Register from 2014 to 2020. He has since been working as an independent journalist, producing stories for a number of publications, including The Oregonian. A former adjunct professor, he has also been assisting with the journalism program at Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School in Portland. Read More Here

As Mar-A-Lago Case Advances, Trump’s Initial Success Could Fade https://digitalarkansasnews.com/as-mar-a-lago-case-advances-trumps-initial-success-could-fade/ Former President Trump’s battle against the Justice Department investigation into the mishandling of government records at Mar-a-Lago has now reached the highest court, but legal experts say he may not fare as well as his case is pushed before new judges.  Trump scored an initial victory before a federal district court judge in Florida, who granted his request to appoint a special master to review the more than 10,000 government documents seized at his home to determine whether any might be protected by executive or attorney-client privileges.  But as the case works its way through the court system, other judges seem more hesitant to grant Trump’s requests.  The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals served the Department of Justice (DOJ) an initial victory in the case, siphoning off the more than 100 classified records from special master review and later agreeing to an expedited schedule to review DOJ’s challenge to Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to approve the special master process.  But Trump’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court wasn’t treated like an urgent matter — Justice Clarence Thomas gave DOJ a week to respond.   “All indications are that the appellate litigation continues to move in the government’s direction,” Brad Moss, a national security law expert, told The Hill.  “The 11th Circuit is expediting the appeal of the special master appointment, and the Supreme Court is conversely taking its sweet time considering Mr. Trump’s appeal of the lifting of Judge Cannon’s injunction. If nothing else, the appellate judges are making clear how serious they take the government’s national security concerns and how little credence they place in Mr. Trump’s legal theories.”  Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court to intervene in the case was the latest step from a legal team that’s taken an aggressive posture in its battle with the Justice Department.  But the filing itself was actually quite narrow.  The request from Trump asks that the classified records in question are returned to the pool of documents included under the special master review, opting not to ask the court to exclude those documents from being used by the Justice Department as they continue their investigation — something Cannon had included in her original order.  “This is a very specific and narrow request by Trump, the merits of which turn on a technical jurisdictional question, but which runs into fatal procedural obstacles long before that. It’s not laughable, but only because it’s small,” Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law specializing in federal courts and national security law, wrote on Twitter.   “This is what good lawyers who are stuck do to appease bad clients….It’s a way of filing *something* in the Supreme Court without going all the way to crazytown and/or acting unethically,” Vladeck added.  Trump’s lawyers argued that the federal appeals court erred by allowing the Department of Justice to appeal a move that was procedural in nature.  They argued the appeal “impairs substantially the ongoing, time-sensitive work of the special master” and said the 11th Circuit’s intervention “effectively compromis[es] the integrity of the well-established policy against piecemeal appellate review.”  Trump’s team also recycled legal arguments from earlier briefs insinuating that he could have declassified the records in his home but stopped short of doing so. It’s a statement that generated skepticism from the special master, who initially asked the legal team to back the claim before Cannon stepped in and said Trump did not need to comply with the request.  Even if Trump convinced the court, the DOJ would still be able to use the documents in its investigation even as the special master reviewed them.  Moss, likewise, suspected the filing is likely to accomplish little for Trump.  “The appeal to the Supreme Court by the Trump legal team was done for one reason: Mr. Trump no doubt demanded something be filed. The narrowness of the appeal reflects the efforts by his lawyers to craft something — anything — they could justify as non-frivolous. Even if it succeeds, it would likely come too late in the special master process anyway to matter,” he said.  Brian Greer, a former attorney for the CIA, sees one potential upside for Trump — but only if the Department of Justice decides to prosecute him.  “Even if Trump is granted the relief they’re seeking, it’s not clear how helpful it’s going to be to them other than getting early access to those classified records,” he told The Hill.   “To me, the only real end game with the Supreme Court litigation, other than delay, is getting access to those records prior to an indictment so that they can start building their defense.”  The 11th Circuit agreement to an expedited review for the Justice Department’s case could also prove helpful for the government.  In its initial ruling, a three-judge panel for the court suggested Cannon erred by appointing the special master, a sign it may be convinced Trump has little claim as a former executive to any of the documents.  But as a practical matter it also aids their investigation.  “The Justice Department is correct in asserting that being unable to use the unclassified documents currently before the special master could hinder its ongoing investigation into the classified records,” Greer said.  “That’s because, as the Justice Department asserted, they may want to explore how those unclassified documents were commingled with the classified records, whether there are fingerprints on those documents, and to ask witnesses about those documents, all of which might be relevant to investigating the classified records,” he continued.  But the victories for the Department of Justice still delay the ultimate determination on the records.  The process before the 11th Circuit and Supreme Court could take months, and a ruling from the appeals court would likely come in December at the earliest.  “The timing is still not great for DOJ as they would likely want to complete any investigation involving the relevance of the unclassified records prior to bringing charges on the classified records,” Greer said.  Read More Here

FOX News Hires Trump Shill Kellyanne Conway, The Original 'Alternative Facts' Dispenser https://digitalarkansasnews.com/fox-news-hires-trump-shill-kellyanne-conway-the-original-alternative-facts-dispenser/ From the beginning of Donald Trump’s political misadventures, Fox News has been his de facto Ministry of Propaganda. This was true throughout his first campaign in 2016, when Fox News aired his every speech and rally in full without interruption. It was true throughout his occupation of the White House. And it remains true since his decisive loss to President Biden in 2020 that he still refuses to concede. Click here to Tweet this article For more than six years Fox News has spent half of their airtime fawning over Trump. The other half was spent attacking his Democratic opponents and policies, and inventing fake scandals. So no one should be surprised that the ultra-rightist network is now bolstering their roster of Trump-fluffers by hiring his former White House Counselor, Kellyanne Conway. RELATED: Battle of the Goliaths of Gaslighting: Trump Calls Kellyanne Conway a Liar – and Vice Versa Conway, you may recall, coined the phrase “alternative facts” when while trying to make excuses for another in a long line of Trump lies. It was a milestone moment in the media for a White House official to essentially admit that the president was making stuff up. And that performance has now earned Conway a paid position at Fox News. Conway is joining some of her former White House colleagues and Trump groupies at Fox. They include Trump’s former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who is now a co-host of “Outnumbered;” Larry Kudlow, who has own show on Fox Business; former Justice Department spokesperson, Kerri Kupec, who is Fox’s Washington, D.C. editor; Trump’s ex-Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, as a contributor. The most glaringly unseemly recruitment is that of Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, wife of Eric. It’s bad enough that Fox News stuffs its schedule with Trump’s political associates, but bringing on his family to give her view of him and his political aspirations is about as twisted as any media enterprise can get. Republicans complained about Chris Cuomo hosting a program on CNN, but for most of that time he wasn’t covering his brother, Andrew, the governor of New York. After he started covering him, CNN fired him. Conway is off to great start on Fox News. For instance, she maligned Democrats as being opposed to religion. According to Conway, voters… “…see a Democratic Party that’s openly hostile to religion these days. They can’t even give their thoughts and prayers when there’s a tragedy. It’s only thoughts now.” Kellyanne: You heard the foolishness of the President today who somehow got bamboozled into standing next to Ron and Casey Desantis. That's a problem for Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/fe9gXzk6Jm — Acyn (@Acyn) October 5, 2022 ‘ readability=”5.3155555555556″ x Kellyanne: You heard the foolishness of the President today who somehow got bamboozled into standing next to Ron and Casey Desantis. That’s a problem for Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/fe9gXzk6Jm — Acyn (@Acyn) October 5, 2022 Conway thinks that Democrats are hurting themselves by taking action to mitigate climate change. However, most Americans support the Democratic position on this issue. What’s more, Biden doesn’t have a “problem” because of his appearance with DeSantis. In fact, he campaigned on a platform of unity. It’s Republicans who condemn their own when they show even the slightest bit of collegiality with Democrats. And then there was this… “Whether it is student loan forgiveness or pardoning marijuana possession convictions, a bereft Biden tries hard to change the subject and get people who dislike him to dislike him a little bit less.” To be clear, what Conway is objecting to here is that Biden is doing precisely what the majority of the American people want him to do. He is fulfilling his campaign promises. Since when is it a political liability to seek approval from the people you are there to serve? RELATED: Lara Trump Admits on Fox News that Her Sugardaddy-In-Law Interfered with Justice Dept Business Those are just a few examples of the wit and wisdom that Conway was enlisted to provide. And from Fox’s perspective, she is already earning her pay. She is delivering on the Fox News mission of blatantly right-wing, partisan disinformation. It’s what Fox News was created for. So don’t be surprised when they hire Steve Bannon or Don Jr to anchor their nightly news. NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Read More Here

Trump Probe: Fulton Jurors Seek Testimony From Gingrich, Flynn https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-probe-fulton-jurors-seek-testimony-from-gingrich-flynn/ Country United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People’s Socialist Republic of Algeria, People’s Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People’s Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People’s Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People’s Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People’s Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People’s Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D’Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People’s Rep’c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People’s Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People’s Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People’s Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People’s Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People’s Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Read More Here

Tropical Storm Julia Forms, Expected To Become Hurricane https://digitalarkansasnews.com/tropical-storm-julia-forms-expected-to-become-hurricane/ INTERCOASTAL WATERWAYS. LOOK AT TROPICAL STORM JULIA. THIS LOOKS LIKE A HURRICANE. WE HAVE TO SEE WHAT RECON SAYS. IT IS NOT MOVING TOWARDS US. IT WILL MOVE INTO CENTRAL AMERICA, WEAKEN, CROSS TO THE PACIFIC WAR MOVE UP TO MEXICO. THERE’S A LOT OF WINDSHEAR. WERE NOT ANTICIPATING DEVELOPMENT. WE ARE GOING TO WATCH IT JUST TO BE ON THE SAFE SIDE. A GREAT STRETCH OF WEATHER THROUGH MONDAY. WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY AND FRIDAY RAIN CHANCES DRAMATICALLY INCREASE. IT IS NOT SUMMER WEATHER BUT IT IS RISING RAIN. Tropical Storm Julia forms, expected to become hurricane Tropical Depression 13 strengthened into Tropical Storm Julia on Friday. It’s headed toward Central America and is expected to strengthen into a hurricane.As of Saturday afternoon, the system was 80 miles east of Isla de San Andres, Colombia and 225 miles east of Bluefields, Nicaragua.Julia had winds of 65 mph, and the system was moving west at 18 mph.”On the forecast track, the center of Julia is expected to pass near or over San Andres and Providencia Islands later today and then move inland along the coast of Nicaragua early Sunday morning,” the National Hurricane Center said. “Strengthening is forecast, and Julia is expected to become a hurricane later today.”This storm is not expected to impact Florida. SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT:A hurricane warning is in effect for…* San Andres, Providencia, and Santa Catalina Islands Colombia* Nicaragua from Bluefields to Puerto CabezasA hurricane watch is in effect for…* Nicaragua north of Puerto Cabezas to the Honduras/Nicaragua borderA tropical storm warning is in effect for…* Nicaragua south of Bluefields to the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border* Nicaragua north of Puerto Cabezas to the Honduras/Nicaragua border* Pacific coast of Nicaragua* Pacific coast of HondurasA tropical storm watch is in effect for…* Honduras from the Nicaragua/Honduras border to Punta Patuca* Coast of El SalvadorKNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WATCH IS ISSUEDStay tuned to WESH 2 News, WESH.COM, or NOAA Weather Radio for storm updates.Prepare to bring inside any lawn furniture, outdoor decorations or ornaments, trash cans, hanging plants, and anything else that can be picked up by the wind.Understand hurricane forecast models and cones.Prepare to cover all windows of your home. If shutters have not been installed, use precut plywood.Check batteries and stock up on canned food, first-aid supplies, drinking water, and medications.The WESH 2 First Warning Weather Team recommends you have these items ready before the storm strikes.Bottled water: One gallon of water per person per dayCanned food and soup, such as beans and chiliCan opener for the cans without the easy-open lidsAssemble a first-aid kitTwo weeks’ worth of prescription medicationsBaby/children’s needs, such as formula and diapersFlashlight and batteriesBattery-operated weather radioWHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WARNING IS ISSUEDListen to the advice of local officials. If you are advised to evacuate, leave.Complete preparation activities.If you are not advised to evacuate, stay indoors, away from windows.Be alert for tornadoes. Tornadoes can happen during a hurricane and after it passes over. Remain indoors, in the center of your home, in a closet or bathroom without windows.HOW YOUR SMARTPHONE CAN HELP DURING A HURRICANEA smartphone can be your best friend in a hurricane — with the right websites and apps, you can turn it into a powerful tool for guiding you through a storm’s approach, arrival and aftermath.Download the WESH 2 News app for iOS | AndroidEnable emergency alerts — if you have an iPhone, select settings, then go into notifications. From there, look for government alerts and enable emergency alerts.If you have an Android phone, from the home page of the app, scroll to the right along the bottom and click on “settings.” On the settings menu, click on “severe weather alerts.” From the menu, select from most severe, moderate-severe, or all alerts.PET AND ANIMAL SAFETYYour pet should be a part of your family plan. If you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them too. Leaving pets behind, even if you try to create a safe space for them, could result in injury or death.Contact hotels and motels outside of your immediate area to see if they take pets.Ask friends, relatives and others outside of the affected area whether they could shelter your animal. ORLANDO, Fla. — Tropical Depression 13 strengthened into Tropical Storm Julia on Friday. It’s headed toward Central America and is expected to strengthen into a hurricane. As of Saturday afternoon, the system was 80 miles east of Isla de San Andres, Colombia and 225 miles east of Bluefields, Nicaragua. Julia had winds of 65 mph, and the system was moving west at 18 mph. “On the forecast track, the center of Julia is expected to pass near or over San Andres and Providencia Islands later today and then move inland along the coast of Nicaragua early Sunday morning,” the National Hurricane Center said. “Strengthening is forecast, and Julia is expected to become a hurricane later today.” This storm is not expected to impact Florida. SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT: A hurricane warning is in effect for… * San Andres, Providencia, and Santa Catalina Islands Colombia * Nicaragua from Bluefields to Puerto Cabezas A hurricane watch is in effect for… * Nicaragua north of Puerto Cabezas to the Honduras/Nicaragua border A tropical storm warning is in effect for… * Nicaragua south of Bluefields to the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border * Nicaragua north of Puerto Cabezas to the Honduras/Nicaragua border * Pacific coast of Nicaragua * Pacific coast of Honduras A tropical storm watch is in effect for… * Honduras from the Nicaragua/Honduras border to Punta Patuca * Coast of El Salvador KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WATCH IS ISSUED Stay tuned to WESH 2 News, WESH.COM, or NOAA Weather Radio for storm updates. Prepare to bring inside any lawn furniture, outdoor decorations or ornaments, trash cans, hanging plants, and anything else that can be picked up by the wind. Understand hurricane forecast models and cones. Prepare to cover all windows of your home. If shutters have not been installed, use precut plywood. Check batteries and stock up on canned food, first-aid supplies, drinking water, and medications. The WESH 2 First Warning Weather Team recommends you have these items ready before the storm strikes. Bottled water: One gallon of water per person per day Canned food and soup, such as beans and chili Can opener for the cans without the easy-open lids Assemble a first-aid kit Two weeks’ worth of prescription medications Baby/children’s needs, such as formula and diapers Flashlight and batteries Battery-operated weather radio WHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WARNING IS ISSUED Listen to the advice of local officials. If you are advised to evacuate, leave. Complete preparation activities. If you are not advised to evacuate, stay indoors, away from windows. Be alert for tornadoes. Tornadoes can happen during a hurricane and after it passes over. Remain indoors, in the center of your home, in a closet or bathroom without windows. HOW YOUR SMARTPHONE CAN HELP DURING A HURRICANE A smartphone can be your best friend in a hurricane — with the right websites and apps, you can turn it into a powerful tool for guiding you through a storm’s approach, arrival and aftermath. Download the WESH 2 News app for iOS | Android Enable emergency alerts — if you have an iPhone, select settings, then go into notifications. From there, look for government alerts and enable emergency alerts. If you have an Android phone, from the home page of the app, scroll to the right along the bottom and click on “settings.” On the settings menu, click on “severe weather alerts.” From the menu, select from most severe, moderate-severe, or all alerts. PET AND ANIMAL SAFETY Your pet should be a part of your family plan. If you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them too. Leaving pets behind, even if you try to create a safe space for them, could result in injury or death. Contact hotels and motels outside of your immediate area to see if they take pets. Ask friends, relatives and others outside of the affected area whether they could shelter your animal. Read More Here

Racial Equity In Marijuana Pardons Requires States’ Action https://digitalarkansasnews.com/racial-equity-in-marijuana-pardons-requires-states-action/ By pardoning Americans with federal convictions for marijuana possession, President Joe Biden said he aimed to partially redress decades of anti-drug laws that disproportionately harmed Black and Latino communities. While Biden’s executive action will benefit thousands of people by making it easier for them to find housing, get a job or apply to college, it does nothing to help the hundreds of thousands of mostly Black and Hispanic Americans still burdened by state convictions for marijuana-related offenses, not to mention the millions more with other drug offenses on their records. Advocates for overhauling the nation’s drug laws are hopeful that Biden’s pardons lead state lawmakers to pardon and expunge minor drug offenses from people’s records. After all, they say, dozens of states have already decriminalized cannabis and legalized it for a multibillion-dollar recreational and medicinal use industry that is predominantly white-owned. “We know that this is really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to people who are suffering the effects of (past) marijuana prohibition,” said Maritza Perez, director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit organization pushing for decriminalization and safe drug use policies. The decades-long “war on drugs,” a sweeping federal legislative agenda that Biden championed as a U.S. senator and that was mirrored by state lawmakers, brought about mass-criminalization and an explosion of the prison population. An estimated tens of millions of people have had a marijuana-related arrest on their record since 1965, the vast majority of them stemming from enforcement by local police and state prosecutors. But as many law enforcement officials like to point out, the majority of people who serve long sentences for marijuana-related offenses were convicted of more serious charges than possession, such as a weapons count or the intent to sell or traffic the drug on a larger scale. Such factors are typically how a case moves into federal territory versus state prosecution. Still, reform advocates counter that many of them aren’t violent drug kingpins. A 2021 Associated Press review of federal and state incarceration data showed that between 1975 and 2019, the U.S. prison population jumped from 240,593 to 1.43 million people. Of them, about 1 in 5 were incarcerated with a drug offense listed as their most serious crime. The passage of stiffer penalties for crack cocaine, marijuana and other drugs in the 1990s helped to triple the Black and Hispanic incarceration rates by the year 2000. The white incarceration rate only doubled. And despite state legalization or decriminalization of possession up to certain amounts, local law enforcement agencies continue to make more arrests for drug possession, including marijuana, than any other criminal offense, according to FBI crime data. The president’s pardon of more than 6,500 Americans with federal marijuana possession convictions, as well as thousands more with convictions in the majority-Black city of Washington, captures only a sliver of those with records nationwide. That’s likely why he has called on state governors to take similar steps for people with state marijuana possession convictions. “While white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted and convicted at disproportionate rates,” Biden said Thursday. “Just as no one should be in a federal prison solely due to the possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either.” With the president’s unambiguous acknowledgement of racial inequity in marijuana enforcement, drug law reform advocates and those with convictions now see an opening to push for far more remedies to the harms of the war on drugs. Weldon Angelos, whose 2003 federal case for selling $300 worth of marijuana to a confidential informant in Utah got him sentenced to 55 years in prison, said he knows many people who will benefit from the president’s pardon. But there are also many more who will not, he said. “I feel like this is a first step of (Biden) doing something bigger,” said Angelos who, after serving 13 years in prison, received presidential clemency and a pardon during the Obama and Trump administrations. He is now a drug law reform activist. Felony cannabis cases like his also deserve consideration, Weldon said. Biden’s pardon does not cover convictions for possessing marijuana with an intent to distribute, which could further widen the scope of people receiving relief by tens of thousands. Enacting a law that clears a person’s federal drug record, similar to what has been offered in nearly two dozen states where marijuana has been decriminalized or legalized recreationally, would make the conviction invisible to companies and landlords doing criminal background checks, he said. Even with the federal pardon, Weldon’s record is still visible, he said. “There’s a lot more that needs to be done here, if we really want to unwind the effects, and the racist effects, of the war on cannabis,” Weldon said. Some advocates believe the country should consider clearing more than just marijuana records. In the 1990s, Marlon Chamberlain was a college student in Iowa when he learned that his then-girlfriend was pregnant with his eldest son. He began using cannabis to cope with the anxiety of becoming a young father and, soon after, started selling the drug. “My thought was that I would try to make enough money and have the means to take care of my son,” said Chamberlain, a 46-year-old Chicago native. “But I got addicted to the lifestyle and I graduated from selling weed to selling cocaine.” Chamberlain said he had a slew of state charges for marijuana possession between the ages of 19 and 25. But it was a federal case for crack cocaine, in which authorities used his prior marijuana arrests to enhance the seriousness of their case, that upended his life. Chamberlain was sentenced to 20 years in prison before the punishment was reduced to 14 years under the Fair Sentencing Act that narrowed the sentencing disparity between crack and powder forms of cocaine. He was freed after 10 years. Even though he will not benefit from Biden’s marijuana pardon, Chamberlain sees it as an opportunity to advocate for the elimination of what he calls the “permanent punishments,” such as the difficulties in finding a job or housing that come with having a past drug offense. “What Biden is initiating is a process of righting the wrongs” of the drug war, he said. Colorado and Washington were the first states to legalize the recreational use of cannabis in 2012, although medical use had already been legal in several states. According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, 37 states, the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories now permit the medical use of cannabis. Nineteen states, D.C. and two territories have legalized its recreational use. And during next month’s midterm elections, voters in Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota will decide whether to permit recreational adult use of cannabis. That is reason enough for every state to look into mass-pardons and expungements, civil rights leaders say. “How fair is it that you will legalize marijuana now, tax it to use those state taxes to fund government, but forget all the people who are sitting in jails or were incarcerated when it was illegal?” NAACP President Derrick Johnson told the AP. “All those individuals who have been charged with marijuana crimes need to be pardoned, particularly those in states that have legalized marijuana.” Richard Wallace, executive director of Equity and Transformation, a social and economic justice advocacy group in Chicago, said state pardons must also come with some form of restitution to those who suffered economically under the racially discriminatory drug war. “We need to be thinking about building out durable reparations campaigns centered around cannabis legalization,” he said. “I think oftentimes we end up just fighting for the pardons and the expungements, and we leave out the economic component.” ——— Aaron Morrison is a New York City-based member of AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison. Read More Here

North Korea Fires Suspected Ballistic Missile, Japan Says | CNN https://digitalarkansasnews.com/north-korea-fires-suspected-ballistic-missile-japan-says-cnn/ CNN  —  North Korea launched a suspected ballistic missile, the Japanese government said on Sunday. The Japan Coast Guard reported the possible ballistic missile from North Korea appears to have already fallen. The coast guard instructed vessels to pay attention to information and to not approach any objects which have fallen in the sea. It also asked vessels to report any relevant information. On Tuesday, North Korea fired another missile, without warning, which flew over and past Japan, causing Japan to warn its citizens to take shelter. The missile Tuesday traveled over northern Japan early in the morning, and is believed to have landed in the Pacific Ocean. The last time North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan was in 2017. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned if North Korea continues “down this road” of provocation following its ballistic missile launch Tuesday, “it will only increase the condemnation, increase the isolation and increase the steps that are taken in response to their actions.” The US imposed new sanctions Friday, following North Korean recent ballistic missile tests, the US Treasury and State Department said. North Korea usually fires its missiles into waters off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, making Tuesday’s flight over Japan considerably more provocative. Not including Sunday’s presumed launch, North Korea has fired six missiles in the past two weeks, which is an increase, even in a year with the highest number of launches since leader Kim Jong Un took power in 2011. The aggressive acceleration in weapons testing has sparked alarm in the region, with the US, South Korea and Japan responding with missile launches and joint military exercises. The US has also redeployed an aircraft carrier into waters near the peninsula, a move South Korean authorities called “very unusual.” This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Read More Here

Howard County Team Competes In National 4-H Food Challenge Finals – SWARK Today https://digitalarkansasnews.com/howard-county-team-competes-in-national-4-h-food-challenge-finals-swark-today/ LITTLE ROCK — A team of Arkansas 4-H members celebrated National 4-H Week by competing in the National 4-H Food Challenge finals and returning home with a sixth-place win. Adelene Westfall, Sarah Lamb, and Christian Trombley— competing as the “Seniors with Spatulas” — competed against 10 other teams from Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming at the competition, held Oct. 4 at the Texas State Fair in Dallas.  The Arkansas youth are members of the Howard County Teen Leader Club and longtime members of Arkansas 4-H. Westfall and Lamb, who attend Nashville High School, were part of the 2021 team that placed fifth at nationals last year. Trombley, a homeschooled student, joined the team this year. To qualify for the national competition, the teens won the Arkansas 4-H Food Challenge in August. “I’m super proud of them,” said Howard County Extension Agent Jean Ince, who coached the team and accompanied them to the competition. “They have all been cooking for a long time and still they learned so much.” Although they had hoped to win top honors, the trio felt good about their performance. “Our dish was good, and we did a good presentation,” Lamb said.  “We knew so much more this year than last year,” Westfall added. “We felt really good going into their competition.” The Food Challenge not only tests participants’ cooking skills, but also their knowledge about nutrition, health and food safety and their ability to effectively communicate as a team. During the competition, the teams had 40 minutes to prepare a dish using the main ingredient — which wasn’t unveiled until the start of the competition.  After plating their dish, teams had five minutes to present their dish to judges and discuss food preparation, safety concerns, serving size information, cost analysis and nutritional information. Judges considered appearance, quality, creativity, effective communication and teamwork when scoring.  For the past two months, the team has met weekly to practice their skills using different ingredients from the four groups: protein, grains, dairy, fruits and vegetables.  Mystery ingredients White beans were the star of the preliminary round. The Arkansas team created a soup using the canned beans, chicken broth, shredded chicken, cheese, chives, cumin and salt and garnished with tomato. Judges liked their soup well enough to advance the team to the final round where they were tasked with cooking with fresh mushrooms. The team created a Mediterranean-inspired dish using couscous, mushrooms, feta and vegetables. “I felt confident coming out of second round because we had worked with couscous and mushrooms before,” Westfall said. “We had previously made a recipe with eggplant and couscous, and when we saw there was couscous available, we swapped the eggplant for mushrooms.” Division of labor The teens spent the past few months practicing both their culinary skills and how to work as a team. Each had a defined role. Lamb — who her teammates call the ‘boss lady’ — took the lead in the recipe development and decided the menu with team input.  “My goal is always to have a bright, colorful, good-looking dish,” she said. Lamb frequently cooks for her family, competes in BBQ competitions and hopes to own a bakery one day.  Trombley — the team’s ‘wingman’ — functioned as the sous chef, chopping and mincing ingredients, prepping the work space and ensuring food safety. Westfall, a 4-H Ambassador and member of the state Healthy Living team, is considered the team’s scribe. She meticulously recorded the ingredients, proportions, nutritional content, serving size and notes needed for the team’s presentation to judges. Skills for a lifetime Healthy living is one of tenets of the 4-H program, which offers programs in nutrition, fitness, substance abuse, safety and social and emotional wellness. “We strive to equip young people with healthy living knowledge and skills to physically, emotionally, and socially prepare them to meet today’s challenges,” said Amanda Welch, a 4-H youth development associate for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Welch coordinates the statewide 4-H Food Challenge.  Last year, Arkansas 4-H applied for and received a Healthy Habits grants from the National 4-H Council and Wal-Mart Foundation. “Most of the grant money went to counties to use for healthy living programs,” Welch said. “Howard County used grant money to purchase cooking utensils and supplies required for the competition.” The teens all said they enjoyed the experience. For Trombley, it was because of the “friendship and teamwork.” Lamb said she is more comfortable with public speaking because of the competition, and Westfall, who memorized nutritional value of foods for the competition, said that information will continue to help her.  “I’ve learned so much about our bodies and what they need to function that I never would’ve thought about before this challenge,” Westfall said. “It’s taught me a lot that I can use to improve my health and my family’s.” 4-H is the premier youth development program of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service. Programs are offered in every county in Arkansas. To learn more about 4-H, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension.  About the Division of Agriculture The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.  The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.   The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs to all eligible persons without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Read More…

Trump’s Truth Social Is A ‘Rightwing Echo Chamber,’ Elon Musk Says: ‘Might As Well Call It Trumpet’ https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trumps-truth-social-is-a-rightwing-echo-chamber-elon-musk-says-might-as-well-call-it-trumpet/ Amidst renewed plans to buy Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired a shot at Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, calling it a “rightwing echo chamber” in an interview with Financial Times. “It might as well be called Trumpet,” Musk said. Musk said that Truth Social is indicative of social media splintering into various politically charged silos. His comments echo previous ones he made this past summer opposing Twitter’s decision to ban Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection on the grounds that his tweets incited violence. “I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” Musk said at the time. Also Read: Elon Musk Has 3 Weeks to Close Twitter Deal or Lawsuit Will Proceed, Judge Rules Musk has spent the past few months in a legal battle with Twitter after backing out of plans to acquire the social media platform over claims that Twitter was not doing enough to delete bot accounts on the site. Now, less than two weeks before Musk and Twitter were set to go to trial over the reneged deal, Musk is offering once again to buy the site for $44 billion, the same proposed price initially offered back in April. “I’m not doing Twitter for the money. It’s not like I’m trying to buy some yacht and I can’t afford it,” Musk told the Financial Times. “I don’t own any boats. But I think it’s important that people have a maximally trusted and inclusive means of exchanging ideas and that it should be as trusted and transparent as possible.” While a judge has postponed the trial because of the new proposal, giving Musk until Oct. 28 to complete the deal. But Twitter says they cannot trust that the billionaire’s offer is in good faith, calling Musk’s offer an “invitation to further mischief and delay” in new court filings on Thursday. Also Read: Twitter Shares Wobble as Elon Musk Unveils Plan to Fold Platform Into Super-App ‘X’ “Now, on the eve of trial, [Musk] declares [he] intend[s] to close after all. ‘Trust us,’ they say, ‘we mean it this time,’ and so they ask to be relieved from a reckoning on the merits,” the filing written by Twitter’s lawyers states. Meanwhile, Truth Social has been having some difficulties. Last month, investors pulled $138.5 million from the blank check company linked to Trump’s social media platform, and Digital World Acquisition Corp., which was supposed to deliver $1.3 billion to help the former president take on Twitter, has changed its address to a mailbox at a UPS store. The change of address came in the same disclosure that said investors had been pulling cash from the venture, which has generally disappointed after pulling in far fewer users than hoped. Also Read: Chris Christie Says He May Run Against Trump for the GOP Presidential Nomination in 2024 (Video) Read More Here

Trump Told Advisors Last Year He'd Return Mar-A-Lago Files In Exchange For 'sensitive' Documents About The FBI Probe Of His 2016 Campaign's Ties To Russia: NYT https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-told-advisors-last-year-hed-return-mar-a-lago-files-in-exchange-for-sensitive-documents-about-the-fbi-probe-of-his-2016-campaigns-ties-to-russia-nyt/ Trump floated the idea of trading Mar-a-Lago boxes for documents on the Russia probe, per The NYT. Aides to Trump did not pitch his proposal to the National Archives, knowing it would be rejected. Trump repeatedly delayed the agency’s calls for him to turn over the boxes, per the newspaper. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you’re on the go. Former President Donald Trump late last year floated the idea of swapping the files that he took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago in exchange for “sensitive” documents about the FBI investigation of his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, according to The New York Times. As the National Archives pressed Trump to return the scores of official documents that were being stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida and not in their possession, the former president — still smarting from the Russia probe — was frustrated by the government agency’s refusal to disclose documents that he felt would back up his claims, per The Times. Trump told advisors that in order to obtain access to those documents, he would give the archives the boxes of materials that were stored at Mar-a-Lago, according to the newspaper. Aides to the former president did not go through with the proposal, but it was one of many ways in which the former president repeatedly delayed calls by the archives to turn over the documents located at his personal residence. Shortly after Trump entered the White House, there were clear concerns about the then-president’s tendency to bring documents to his bedroom, and almost midway into his term, locating the files in the residence area of the historic building became an impediment, per individuals with knowledge of the situation who spoke with the Times. During Trump’s third year in office, top White House officials were aware of specific files being in places where they were not intended to be stored. After Trump left the Oval Office, Trump’s representatives were told by National Archives general counsel Gary M. Stern to have the former president return the files in the boxes. Stern had a number of talks with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about the files, along with three attorneys who had been employed in the White House Counsel’s Office. Per The Times, Stern continued to push for missing boxes in September 2021, but Trump informed Meadows that they held only newspaper clips and other personal items. Meadows relayed Trump’s message to former White House lawyer Patrick Philbin, who then gave the message to Stern. However, the archives stated that even newspaper clippings and article printouts were seen as presidential records that needed to be turned in to the agency. Near the end of last year, ex-White House advisor Eric Herschmann told Trump that he could be run into to significant legal problems if he didn’t hand over the documents that were being requested by the archives, according to The Times. After the former president told advisors that the boxes were “mine,” he agreed to go through the files in December 2021, per the newspaper. Stern was then told that the boxes were ready to be retrieved. Among Trump’s representatives, no one informed Stern that there were classified files within the boxes, according to The Times. Once the archives began to open the boxes, they realized they were viewing the files in a room not suitable for such high-level documents, and were expeditious in transporting the boxes to more secure zones where the files could be closely probed, per the newspaper. The FBI would later execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August in search of classified documents it suspected Trump took to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office. The Department of Justice is investigating whether Trump broke three federal laws relating to the handling of classified information, including the Espionage Act. Trump has long been fixated on the Department of Justice’s investigation into campaign ties to Russia leading up to his first presidential election; he has repeatedly called the probe a “hoax” that was intended to damage his presidency. Read More Here

October Surprise: Las Cruces Democrat Hit With Fundraising Allegations Ahead Of Election https://digitalarkansasnews.com/october-surprise-las-cruces-democrat-hit-with-fundraising-allegations-ahead-of-election/ Rep. Nathan Small decries ‘ridiculous political stunt’ LAS CRUCES ‒ Southern New Mexico’s former congresswoman and her husband, a state lawmaker seeking reelection on Nov. 8, were both hit with accusations of improper fundraising by Republicans this week, although the evidence made publicly available is scant. The allegations erupted in the final month of Las Cruces Democrat Nathan Small’s run for a fourth term in the state legislature. Xochitl Torres Small, a Democrat who represented New Mexico’s 2nd congressional district for a single term and currently serves as an undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was the subject of a Sept. 30 complaint from U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Torres Small’s successor in Congress, Republican Yvette Herrell, also sits on the oversight committee. Comer wrote to the Office of the Special Counsel on Sept. 30 requesting an investigation into Torres Small’s fundraising activity for Democrats, citing her role in founding Shield PAC, a political action committee supporting moderate Democrats in the House of Representatives, before her appointment to the USDA. Comer suggested Torres Small may have violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activities among federal employees depending on their position. The law would bar her from campaign fundraising and from political activity while on duty or using the imprimatur of her federal post. Since 2021, Torres Small has served as Undersecretary for Rural Development at the agency, which offers loans, grants and technical assistance for a range of needs in rural communities, including economic development, housing, infrastructure and emergency services. “Committee Republicans are concerned (Torres Small) continues to fundraise for Democrats while she serves as a political appointee in the USDA,” Comer wrote in his letter. “Additionally, information obtained by Committee Republicans appears to show that she may be using her official position to raise money for her spouse, NathanSmall’s, reelection campaign to the New Mexico House of Representatives.” Comer’s letter cites Torres Small’s past activity as a paid consultant to the PAC, which she agreed in writing last year to terminate upon her confirmation to the federal post. When asked for evidence that Torres Small had violated the Hatch Act, Comer’s office declined on grounds of protecting its sources. In a statement, Comer’s office wrote, “Republican Committee staff received credible information about a possible Hatch Act violation from a whistleblower and provided that to (the Special Counsel) for an investigation. Ensuring the protection of whistleblowers remains a top priority and we will have no further comment at this time.” The Special Counsel’s office confirmed receipt of Comer’s letter, but did not comment on it further. The office explained that Hatch Act investigations may take weeks to several months to complete, and that its findings “are typically provided to only the complainant and the subject of the complaint.” Small: ‘Ridiculous political stunt’ In New Mexico, state House Republican leader James Townsend of Artesia swiftly issued a letter to Nathan Small on Oct. 3 calling on him to return “every dollar your campaign has collected as a result of your wife’s potentially improper fundraising activities.” Small is not a federal employee subject to the Hatch Act. Comer’s letter insinuates, however, that Torres Small may have conducted fundraising on his behalf in violation of the law. When asked if Townsend had reviewed evidence of any improper fundraising on Small’s behalf, Republican caucus spokesperson Matthew Garcia-Sierra referred a reporter to Comer’s letter requesting an investigation into Torres Small’s activities and did not comment further. Small called the letters “a ridiculous political stunt without merit” in a statement, pushing back against Townsend and Comer as well as his challenger, Kimberly Skaggs, who is the state Republican Party’s executive director. The statement makes reference to recent political mailers paid for by the state party in which a figure depicted in a stock photo was darkened. “Representative Townsend and my opponent … oversaw the racist mailings with doctored images sent out last week against Democrats (in) the state,” he wrote. “And Congressman Comer has repeatedly defended Donald Trump’s big lie about the 2020 elections. Much like Trump, they make accusations without any factual basis for their own partisan benefit.” Comer has raised questions about the integrity of the 2020 elections but did not join Republicans, like Herrell, who objected to counting any of the electoral votes that secured the presidency for Joe Biden on Jan. 6, 2021. Algernon D’Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter. Read More Here

‘Black Holes’ And ‘reparations’: Remembering The Times Don Lemon Spread Misinformation On CNN Primetime https://digitalarkansasnews.com/black-holes-and-reparations-remembering-the-times-don-lemon-spread-misinformation-on-cnn-primetime/ CNN anchor Don Lemon bid farewell to his nightly audience on Friday evening during his last CNN primetime broadcast.  It marks the end of a CNN era filled with the host’s sensational, out-of-context, and flat-out untrue statements, sometimes uttered to attack conservatives or advance a liberal agenda. During his final show, Lemon aired highlights of his nearly-decade long primetime run. He noted the challenges that came with the job, some of which he admitted he did not rise to meet as well as he could. “I was not always perfect, because no one is perfect. There are immense pressures that come with this job and in particular this time slot at, 10:00 o’clock, when people are going to bed,” he said.  COMMENTATOR CORRECTS DON LEMON’S REPARATION CLAIMS | FOX NEWS VIDEO Don Lemon insists CNN didn’t demote him. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for THR) The liberal host has spent years on the primetime slot bashing conservative lawmakers, Republican voters, Trump supporters, coronavirus vaccine shirkers and climate change skeptics as conspiracy-peddlers and purveyors of misinformation. Despite trying to appear as a proponent of truth and journalistic integrity, the anchor has contributed his own fair share of questionable information to the air waves.  Here are five times Lemon was caught spreading misinformation of his own.  Lemon ‘lied’ about Joe Rogan using ‘horse dewormer’ to treat COVID-19 Last fall, the anchor embroiled himself and his network in controversy after claiming that podcast host Joe Rogan was taking a horse “deworming drug” to treat his case of COVID-19.  Rogan, who had mentioned on his podcast that he was taking Ivermectin for his bout with the virus, was accused by Lemon on air of taking a “horse dewormer,” as it has been used to treat horses dealing with parasites. During a guest panel on his show, Lemon claimed Rogan “took the deworming drug Ivermectin that’s been touted by fringe right-wing groups.” CNN chyrons during Lemon’s coverage of the subject also claimed, “Joe Rogan announces he has COVID, is taking horse dewormer Ivermectin,” and “Joe Rogan, controversial podcast host, says he has COVID, taking unproven de-worming drug.” (Don Lemon accused podcast host Joe Rogan of taking a “horse dewormer” to treat COVID-19 as if he were some “fringe right-wing” person. ) It was clear Lemon’s point was to smear Rogan as a “fringe right-wing” figure, though even CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta was forced to admit that Ivermectin has human applications – though unproven for COVID treatment – and that CNN was not honest about Rogan. Speaking to him on his podcast, Rogan asked Gupta, “Does it bother you that the network you work for out and out lied, just outright lied about me taking horse dewormer?” He responded, “They shouldn’t have said that.” Substack journalist Glenn Greenwald torched Lemon and CNN for the incident at the time, tweeting, “They told viewers he took horse dewormer: a 100% lie. He took the human version of ivermectin prescribed by his medical doctor. But as I said, lying is not frowned upon at CNN: it’s encouraged.” Lemon tried and failed to get British Royal Family commentator to admit U.K. owes indigenous people reparations During CNN’s “Don Lemon Tonight” coverage in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death in September, Lemon was stunned into silence by British Royals expert Hilary Fordwich after she pushed back on his narrative that the British crown owes descendants of the people it colonized reparations. Lemon addressed Fordwich, saying, “you have those who are asking for reparations for colonialism, and they’re wondering, you know, ‘$100 billion, $24 billion here and there, $500 million there.’” He added, “Some people want to be paid back and members of the public are wondering, ‘Why are we suffering when you are, you have all this vast wealth?’ Those are legitimate concerns.” Though Fordwich wasn’t buying the narrative. She turned it back on Lemon, saying there are plenty of Africans who sold their own people into slavery that owe descendants reparations, if paying reparations becomes a policy. She said, “Well I think you’re right about reparations in terms of – if people want it though, what they need to do is, you always need to go back to the beginning of the supply chain. Where was the beginning of the supply chain?” British culture Hilary Fordwich schools Don Lemon on reparations.  She continued, “That was in Africa. Across the entire world, when slavery was taking place, which was the first nation in the world that abolished slavery?” It was “the British,” Fordwich said, adding, “In Great Britain they abolished slavery. 2,000 naval men died on the high seas trying to stop slavery. Why? Because the African kings were rounding up their own people. They had them [in] cages, waiting in the beaches.” Summing it up, Fordwich said, “I think you’re totally right. If reparations need to be paid, we need to go right back to the beginning of that supply chain and say, ‘Who was rounding up their own people and having them handcuffed in cages. Absolutely, that’s where they should start.” DON LEMON CLAIMS ‘I WAS NOT DEMOTED’ AFTER NEWS HE’S LEAVING CNN PRIMETIME FOR MORNINGS | FOX NEWS VIDEO National Hurricane Center director throws cold water on Lemon’s claim that Hurricane Ian’s size is due to climate change Last month, Jamie Rhome, the acting director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Hurricane Center, refuted Lemon’s insistence that the intensity and large size of Hurricane Ian was caused by climate change.  At the time, the Florida-bound hurricane had been intensifying to near Category 5 levels. The anchor spoke to Rhome about the “period of rapid intensification” and specifically asked if “climate change” was causing this. Though Rhome was not interested in pinning the phenomena on climate change. He told Lemon, “We can come back and talk about climate change at a later time. I want to focus on the here and now. We think the rapid intensification is probably almost done. There could be a little bit more intensification as it’s still over the warm waters of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, but I don’t think we’re going to get any more rapid intensification.” Though Lemon was undeterred. He said, “Listen, I’m just trying to get, you said you want to talk about climate change. But what effect does climate change have on this phenomenon that is happening now? Because it seems these storms are intensifying. That’s the question.”  Rhome dismissed the climate change idea in regard to Ian, saying, “I don’t think you can link climate change to any one event. On the whole, on the cumulative, climate change may be making storms worse. But to link it to any one event, I would caution against that.” Still Lemon would not dispose with the climate change angle. He asked whether the populated and developed areas on Florida’s coastline were contributing to bigger storms. “Florida’s coastline has been massively developed. Is this impending storm a warning about that, given the strength of the storms that we are now seeing, as I said before, much bigger in intensity than in my 50-something years on this earth growing up on the Gulf Coast?” Don Lemon blasted for claiming Biden ‘lying’ about Georgia voting law was just him ‘misspeaking’ The CNN anchor was slammed last year for claiming that President Joe Biden misspoke when he made false statements that a major Georgia voting law ends voting on election day hours earlier than before. Though the Washington Post gave Biden’s claims “four Pinocchios” – its rating for the most egregious misinformation – and CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale admitted Biden wasn’t being truthful, Lemon insisted that Biden had accidentally said the wrong thing and that conservatives were making a big deal of the remark.  Dale explained Biden’s error, writing, “First, the new law does not change Georgia’s Election Day voting hours, which still end at 7 p.m. Second, while the law does set a default end time of 5 p.m. for early voting on weekdays and on Saturdays, counties were already allowed to end early voting at 5 p.m. under the previous law. The new law gives counties the option to offer early voting as late as 7 p.m. if they want to.” While covering the story on his show however, Lemon defended Biden’s patently false assertions.  He stated, “Get this, Republicans have a new talking point, trying to turn Trump’s big lie onto Joe Biden, saying Joe Biden is lying about what’s in Georgia’s new voting law that restricts ballot access.”  A corresponding chyron stated, “New GOP talking point: Trying to turn Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ on to Biden for misspeaking about Georgia’s voting law.” DON LEMON REJECTS ‘NARRATIVE’ NEW CNN BOSS WANTS TO SHIFT NETWORK TO POLITICAL CENTER WITH CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD On air, Lemon wonders if Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared into ‘black hole’ in Indian Ocean Near the beginning of his primetime CNN career, Lemon may have uttered his most fantastical and devoid-of-facts claim ever. In 2014, the anchor wondered on air if the infamous disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 happened because of a “black hole” in the Indian Ocean. During a CNN panel in March 2014, Lemon earnestly asked his guests whether it was “preposterous” that a black hole could have absorbed the commercial aircraft. The segment even featured a chyron stating, “The theory of black holes.”  In 2014, Lemon once asked a serious question to the panel on his primetime show whether it was “preposterous” to think a black hole swallowed Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.  (Paul Marotta/Getty Images) During the bit, Lemon read from a series of tweets theorizin...

Lindsey Graham Told Former Police Officer That Capitol Rioters Should Be Shot In Head https://digitalarkansasnews.com/lindsey-graham-told-former-police-officer-that-capitol-rioters-should-be-shot-in-head/ Republican senator Lindsey Graham told a former police officer who was severely injured in the attack on the Capitol that he should have shot Trump-supporting rioters in the head, according to a new book. The claim is one of a series of stunning revelations contained in former Capitol police officer Michael Fanone’s upcoming memoir Hold the Line. Mr Fanone writes that he met Mr Graham, a key Trump ally, four months after the deadly siege in May 2021. According to Politico, who obtained an advanced copy of the book, the South Carolina senator told him: “You guys should have shot them all in the head. We gave you guys guns, and you should have used them. I don’t understand why that didn’t happen.” The Independent has contacted Mr Graham’s office for comment. Mr Fanone reportedly told Mr Graham that laws covering the use of deadly force prevented them from opening fire on the crowd, Politico writes. Mr Fanone suffered a traumatic brain injury and had a heart attack after being beaten and repeatedly shocked with a stun gun on January 6. He has since quit the police and become a CNN contributor. He writes that the meeting with Mr Graham was attended by former Capitol officer Harry Dunn and family of slain officer Brian Sicknick to try to secure support for from Republican senators for a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection. Lindsey Graham told former Capitol police officer he should have shot Jan6 rioters in the head (Getty Images) Former D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone leaves the federal courthouse last week after the sentencing of Kyle Young (Associated Press) Mr Fanone secretly recorded a meeting with Kevin McCarthy around the same time in which he told the House GOP leader that his attempts to play down the Capitol riots were “not just shocking but disgraceful”, according to Politico.  Republicans eventually filibustered legislation that would have created an independent panel to investigate the attack. In an interview last week with Rolling Stone, Mr Fanone blasted Mr McCarthy as a “f**king weasel b***h” A judge in Washington DC sentenced a rioter who assaulted Mr Fanone to seven years prison on Wednesday. Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Kyle Young he was a “one man wrecking ball that day” as she handed down one of the longest sentences yet arising from the Capitol riot. Hold the Line will be released on 11 October. Read More Here

Texas’s Hispanic Voters Turn To Republicans Over Mexico Border Concerns https://digitalarkansasnews.com/texass-hispanic-voters-turn-to-republicans-over-mexico-border-concerns/ Democrats have dominated the heavily Hispanic Texas border town of McAllen for over 100 years. But ahead of November’s midterm elections, that support for President Joe Biden’s party is wavering amid record illegal immigration. “We didn’t join Trump, Trump joined us”, said Mayra Hinojosa Cantu, a first-generation Mexican-American in McAllen. She said there was a “misconception” about Hispanic voters, adding: “I don’t know how it got lost in translation, but [Mexican-Americans] are conservatives. They are very patriotic, they love their country, they love their [American] flag.” Inside her house in Edinburg, a suburb of McAllen, just 30 minutes from the Mexican border, two AR-15 assault rifles lay on a sofa, as a chihuahua yapped nearby. Mrs Cantu, whose husband is a Border Patrol agent, said she had reason to be cautious amid the influx of migrants and increasing crime. “My home got broken into [by the cartel] … I can no longer travel to Mexico because of the cartels.” She said it was wrong to think the harsh rhetoric directed by Mr Trump toward America’s southern neighbour had alienated Hispanic voters from the Republican Party. “I was never concerned about those words because, coming from a Border Patrol family, we hear daily what kind of people cross,” she said. “I hear of how many rapists have gone through, how many murderers, how many drug cartel people.” After losing her sewing business as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown, Mrs Cantu decided to get involved in politics and became a local Republican activist at the start of this year. Her house is littered with leaflets promoting beaming Republican candidates standing for various offices in the midterm elections being held on November 8. On that day, Americans will pass their first verdict on Joe Biden’s presidency in votes for both local and national representatives. Nationally, Republicans are aiming to take back control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which would allow them to block much of Mr Biden’s agenda in his two remaining years in office before the 2024 presidential race. In southern states in particular, illegal immigration has become a vital campaign issue. Over the past year, US Customs and Border Protection have detained a record 2.15 million migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, up 24 per cent on the previous 12 months. While Democrats seek to make the midterms about other issues, including the Supreme Court decision to overturn the Roe vs Wade abortion ruling, Republican candidates are laser-focused on immigration. In McAllen, a town of 142,000, residents see for themselves the illegal migrants who slip the net and make their way across the border into the land of opportunity. Standing on an observation deck overlooking the Rio Grande river, a Border Patrol agent said there had been a surge of crossings in McAllen since Mr Biden was elected. He told The Telegraph: “It was really, really bad about a year ago. A lot of families were coming across. It was a daily occurrence where you had hundreds and hundreds of people just crossing. “It’s causing a humanitarian crisis for them when they come over here, putting their lives in danger. It’s an issue that needs to be addressed, needs to stop being ignored.” Roughly 50 feet below him, a dozen Mexicans were visible deep in the river that marks the US-Mexico border. Some were fishing, some were conspicuously edging closer to the United States as the sun set. The agent pointed down to two men whose upper torsos were fully covered by the water and had found themselves on the American side of the river. Nearby, border agents were waiting in green and white pickup trucks, ready to intercept anyone who made it all the way across. While McAllen is 85 per cent Hispanic, Westley Wright – a Republican running on Nov 8 to represent it in the Texas state senate – said he was not concerned about his own non-Hispanic background. Mr Wright, wearing a Stetson hat, cowboy buckle and blue jeans, said his Texan roots could be traced back six generations, and his ranch has been in his family since the 1850s. He said: “Historically, people in south Texas have looked towards the Democrats. [But] the Democratic Party has changed and so their ideology does not line up with faith, family and freedom. “The Hispanic community, the south Texas community, there is not a division, and whether you are Anglo or Hispanic, we are south Texans foremost.” Along the border there is no question communities are feeling less safe amid the migration crisis, and that is fuelling Republican support. As illegal immigration has surged, so have gun sales. Texans bought more firearms in 2020 and 2021 – more than three million in total – than in any other years. Mr Wright’s personal gun collection included a small rifle that looked like a toy, made from rubber which was at one point hot pink before being worn away. It was given to his daughter when she was four years old. Asked if giving a gun to a four-year-old was too young, Mr Wright said: “It depends on the four-year-old and the environment.” In McAllen, Republicans already secured a major victory last year when Javier Villalobos overturned a Democrat majority to become the city’s first Republican mayor in 24 years. That was also part of a longer trend among Hispanic voters. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Texas’s Rio Grande Valley region by 39 percentage points. But four years later, a surge in Hispanic support for Mr Trump meant Mr Biden won it by just 15 points. This year, in the race for Texas governor, Greg Abbott, the Republican incumbent, is running eight points ahead in polls despite a high-profile, heavily funded and celebrity-endorsed campaign by Beto O’Rourke, his Democrat challenger. Mr Abbott’s position has been boosted after he began a well-publicised programme sending migrants north on buses to Democrat-run sanctuary cities like New York and Chicago. He has also sent buses of migrants to be dropped-off unannounced outside Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence in Washington. In McAllen, amid a backlash against Democrat border policies, Hispanic activists at a Republican event called “StrikeForce” were confident the red wave was coming in November. They gathered in a large meeting room decorated with patriotic symbols, including US and Texan flags, and cutouts of Mr Trump and Ronald Reagan. Chelsea Howell Garcia, a member of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Texas, said she had received abuse for supporting Mr Trump. But she said: “People in impoverished areas have been lied to [by the Democrats], have been told you’ve got to do this for the raza [the Hispanic people], for us. It’s not for us. Read More Here

The Caption For The Supposed Photograph Read, https://digitalarkansasnews.com/the-caption-for-the-supposed-photograph-read/ The latest Tweet by snopes.com states, ‘The caption for the supposed photograph read, “Official Trump rally photo where they had the largest crowd* ever, period.” The asterisk was linked to the words, “of quadruplets.” …’ Socially Team Latestly| Oct 08, 2022 09:14 PM IST The caption for the supposed photograph read, “Official Trump rally photo where they had the largest crowd* ever, period.” The asterisk was linked to the words, “of quadruplets.” https://t.co/Rr3E9sAoBj— snopes.com (@snopes) October 8, 2022 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user’s social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) Read More Here

'Malicious And Targeted' Sabotage Halts Rail Traffic In Northern Germany https://digitalarkansasnews.com/malicious-and-targeted-sabotage-halts-rail-traffic-in-northern-germany/ An ICE high-speed train arrives at the Hamburg-Altona train station, September 2, 2021. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer BERLIN, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Cables vital for the rail network were intentionally cut in two places causing a near three-hour halt to all rail traffic in northern Germany on Saturday morning, in what authorities called an act of sabotage without identifying who might be responsible. The federal police are investigating the incident, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said, adding the motive for it was unclear. The disruption raised alarm bells after NATO and the European Union last month stressed the need to protect critical infrastructure after what they called acts of sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com “It is clear that this was a targeted and malicious action,” Transport Minister Volker Wissing told a news conference. A security source said there were a variety of possible causes, ranging from cable theft – which is frequent – to a targeted attack. Omid Nouripour, leader of the Greens party, which is part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s federal coalition, said anyone who attacked the country’s critical infrastructure would receive a “decisive response”. “We will not be intimidated,” he wrote on Twitter. CHAOS BEFORE ELECTION DAY “Due to sabotage on cables that are indispensable for rail traffic, Deutsche Bahn had to stop rail traffic in the north this morning for nearly three hours,” the state rail operator said in a statement. Deutsche Bahn (DB) had earlier blamed the network disruption on a technical problem with radio communications. Spiegel magazine said the communications system was down at around 6:40 a.m. (0440 GMT). At 11:06 a.m, DB tweeted that traffic had been restored, but warned of continued train cancellations and delays. The disruption affected rail services through the states of Lower Saxony and Schlewsig-Holstein as well as the city states of Bremen and Hamburg, with a knock-on effect to international rail journeys to Denmark and the Netherlands. They came the day before a state election in Lower Saxony where Scholz’s Social Democrats are on track to retain power and the Greens are seen doubling their share of the vote, according to polls. Queues rapidly built up at mainline stations including Berlin and Hanover as departure boards showed many services being delayed or canceled. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke and Christian Ruettger; Editing by David Holmes and Mark Potter Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More Here

POLITICO Playbook: The Shoes Keep Dropping In Georgia https://digitalarkansasnews.com/politico-playbook-the-shoes-keep-dropping-in-georgia/ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. PRESIDENT — Just a few hours after the end of VLADIMIR PUTIN’s 70th birthday, a major explosion today set ablaze the only bridge connecting Crimea to Russia, killing three people and causing parts of the crucial supply route to collapse. Ukraine didn’t take credit in so many words, but some officials bragged about it indirectly. More from CNN … Alleged video of the blast GEORGIA ON MY MIND — You know things are bad when Bloomberg writes a paragraph explaining state election rules for replacing a nominee. HERSCHEL WALKER’s Georgia Republican Senate bid has suffered a brutal week after an allegation surfaced that he’d paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion — and new hits kept coming Friday. (The answer to the replacement question, by the way: Can’t happen. Walker will be on the ballot.) NYT’s Maya King, Lisa Lerer and Jonah Bromwich confirmed the reporting of The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger about the abortion in 2009 — and revealed that the woman now alleges Walker encouraged her to have a second abortion two years later. She refused, giving birth to a now 10-year-old boy with whom she says Walker has had a minimal relationship. (POLITICO has not independently verified the reporting.) Until Friday, Walker claimed he didn’t know the identity of the woman making the abortion allegation, and his campaign said he never paid for an abortion. Talking to NBC’s Marc Caputo, Walker had a somewhat different message: “I’m not saying she did or didn’t have one [an abortion]. I’m saying I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know.” Both Walker’s campaign and the woman shared text messages Friday between his wife, JULIE BLANCHARD, and the woman, which lay out an ongoing (and newly strained) relationship: “You know I have continually tried to bridge a better relationship between you and Herschel,” Blanchard wrote after the woman asked if she knew about the abortion. Sollenberger’s latest story includes new text messages shared by the woman between Walker and their son, whom she says he’s met only thrice. The messages lay out a heartbreaking narrative, apparently showing Walker lying to the boy in July about how many half-siblings he has, and Walker frequently sending unanswered texts that simply say, “Love you.” “What’s my favorite color?” the boy texted Walker last fall, per Sollenberger. “What grade am I in?And how old am I.” The next day, Walker wrote back, “God bless you, love you.” For Walker, who’s been a public critic of absentee fathers in the Black community and a hardline abortion opponent, the ongoing barrage of messy family details — and ensuing media circus — could threaten his campaign to unseat Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK. One Republican in the state texted Bloomberg’s Billy House an image of a sinking ship. But, but, but: Don’t count Walker out just yet. Georgia is a newly purple state in a red-tinted year, and in an era of hyper-polarized politics, scandal ain’t what it used to be. For the first time, DONALD TRUMP is jumping in to boost Walker financially, per Meridith McGraw. MAGA Inc., the new super PAC using Trump’s war chest in the midterms, put down $750,000 on Friday for a new ad that avoids mention of Walker: “From D-Day to drag queen story time, America has lost its way,” it says instead. “Radical Democrats are indoctrinating our children to hate America — opening our borders and crushing working people with taxes.” And on the campaign trail, Walker is leaning into an unapologetic conservative message attacking excessive “wokeness” in society, AP’s Bill Barrow reports from Emerson. “Walker says those who don’t share his vision of the country can leave, and he blasts his opponent … and the Democratic Party as the real purveyors of division.” Related reads: The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein in Atlanta on the Democratic fight to turn out young voters of color. … Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser on MAGA Inc.’s new TV ads in Arizona and Nevada. … Jessica Piper on why MAGA Inc.’s last-minute entry into the campaign will have a limited impact. Good Saturday morning from Spring Mills, Pa., where the first thing we heard as we pulled up to a nearby Sheetz was a complaint about the price of gas under President JOE BIDEN. Thanks for reading Playbook. Reach out at [email protected], or drop a line to the rest of the team: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza. BATTLE FOR THE SENATE GRANITE STATE SIREN — The NRSC is pulling $2.7 million in ad spending from New Hampshire, where DON BOLDUC is having trouble catching Sen. MAGGIE HASSAN, Natalie Allison and Burgess Everett report. The Senate GOP campaign arm is instead running an ad in conjunction with Bolduc. But the race is competitive, and the Senate Leadership Fund is still spending big. The NRSC will redirect the money to other top states. KFILE STRIKES AGAIN — Wisconsin Democrat MANDELA BARNES says in a new ad that it’s a “lie” he wants to defund the police and abolish ICE. But CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck dig up his social media posts from 2018 and 2019 that indicate otherwise: He said “I need that” about an “Abolish ICE” T-shirt and said “the wrong ICE is melting” in remarks to a local group, among other instances. BUCKS THE TREND — Pennsylvania Democrat JOHN FETTERMAN heads to Bucks County for a rally this weekend, “a test of Fetterman’s working-class appeal in a region known as pro-union,” the Philly Inquirer’s Julia Terruso reports. The bellwether purple county could be pivotal in November. — More broadly, the tightening race in Pennsylvania puts a lot of pressure on Fetterman’s claim that he could improve Democrats’ performance with rural, working-class white voters, NYT’s Trip Gabriel reports from Murrysville. Republican attacks on his privileged upbringing could undercut his everyman brand. And after his stroke, “his campaign has been forced to pivot from relying on Mr. Fetterman’s charisma before crowds … to a strategy focused heavily on social media and television ads.” DEPT. OF ADVANCE FAILS — Pennsylvania Republican MEHMET OZ held a fundraiser Thursday at a museum where he stood (and was photographed) in front of one of ADOLF HITLER’s cars, Jezebel’s Susan Rinkunas reports. The California event, hosted by Rep. MATT GAETZ’s (R-Fla.) brother-in-law, also featured NRSC Chair RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.) and Nevada’s ADAM LAXALT. JORDAN PETERSON called in, too. UP FOR DEBATE — The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has five takeaways from Barnes’ tete-a-tete Friday with Sen. RON JOHNSON. … And The News & Observer has five takeaways from the first showdown between CHERI BEASLEY and Rep. TED BUDD in North Carolina. — Meanwhile, Oz and Fetterman won’t debate until Oct. 25 — which Oz’s campaign calls too last-minute for many voters. The Inquirer’s Julia Terruso, Jonathan Lai and Jonathan Tamari dig into the numbers and surmise that most voters still won’t have cast a ballot by then, though. BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE REDISTRICTING VS. RED WAVE — Illinois Democrats gerrymandered the state’s House map to gain a seat and get some breathing room in retiring Rep. CHERI BUSTOS’ district. But in a tough year for Democrats, they’re now staring down unexpectedly difficult races in the 13th and the 17th, Shia Kapos reports from Chicago. Republicans REGAN DEERING and ESTHER JOY KING are proving to be strong candidates, and Dems worry that “as economic concerns spook voters,” seats they thought they’d taken care of could give the party a fright. HOT ADS Via Steve Shepard — Pennsylvania: The first ad from the Trump-linked MAGA Inc. picks up on Republicans’ crime attacks against Fetterman. He “wants ruthless killers, muggers and rapists back on our streets, and he wants them back now,” a narrator says. PHOTO OF THE DAY 9 THINGS THAT STUCK WITH US 1. BIG ABORTION RULINGS: Some abortions will remain legal in Arizona and Ohio after courts in both states put temporary holds on more restrictive laws Friday. The Arizona Court of Appeals halted enforcement of an 1864 law that bans almost all abortions; a 15-week ban remains in place, but Planned Parenthood said it would begin offering the procedure again, per the Arizona Republic. And an Ohio judge blocked a new fetal “heartbeat” law for now; a 22-week ban remains in place, per the Cleveland Plain Dealer. 2. CLAMPING DOWN: A new White House policy makes it official: The Biden administration is putting tighter limits on drone strikes used for counterterrorism outside of war zones, reversing a Trump-era move, NYT’s Charlie Savage reports. The policy “suggests that amid competing priorities in a turbulent world, the United States intends to launch fewer drone strikes and commando raids away from recognized war zones than it has in the recent past.” 3. LINCOLN LOGS: Nebraska Gov. PETE RICKETTS said Friday he won’t appoint himself to fill Sen. BEN SASSE’s seat if and when he leaves Congress, per the Omaha World-Herald. But political observers still think Ricketts is interested in becoming a senator: He could wait for his successor to tap him for the role instead. 4. HOT DOCS: “How Trump Deflected Demands for Documents, Enmeshing Aides,” by NYT’s Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt: “Mr. Trump, still determined to show he had been wronged by the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, was angry with the National Archives and Records Administration for its unwillingness to hand over a batch of sensitive documents that he thought proved his claims. In exchange for those documents, Mr. Trump told advisers [last year], he would return to the National Archives the boxes of material he had taken to Mar-a-Lago … Mr. Trump’s aides never pursued the idea. But … Mr. Trump spent a year and a half deflecting, delaying and sometimes leading aides to dissemble.” 5. MIGRANT FLIGHT FALLOUT: The Miami Herald’s Mary Ellen Klas and Nicholas Nehamas got their ...

Arkansas Semitruck Driver Dies In Crash On Highway 58 https://digitalarkansasnews.com/arkansas-semitruck-driver-dies-in-crash-on-highway-58/ An Arkansas semitruck driver died in a single vehicle crash Wednesday on Highway 58 west of Odell Lake, according to Oregon State Police. The truck driver was identified as Joshua Stewart, 38, of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Police and emergency personnel responded to the single vehicle crash near milepost 60 on the highway a little after 8 a.m., according to state police. Investigation found the westbound freightliner truck crossed into the eastbound lanes and overturned, sliding until it hit the guardrail on the eastbound shoulder. Stewart was transported to a local hospital and was later pronounced dead, state police said. Read More Here

Trump ‘tried To Trade Mar-A-Lago Records’ – Latest https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-tried-to-trade-mar-a-lago-records-latest/ Former US president Donald Trump claims he can declassify top secret documents just ‘by thinking about it’ The saga with former president Donald Trump and the classified or sensitive government documents he had in his home or office continues. On Saturday, The New York Times reported that Mr. Trump allegedly offered the National Archives a “deal to return the boxes” of documents he had in his possession last year “in exchange for documents he believed would expose the Russia investigation” as an FBI “hoax.” The report notes that Mr Trump didn’t know what the archives had but knew “there were items he wanted.” This allegation would confirm that Mr Trump knew last year that he had documents that belonged to the federal government. The Times also notes that Mr Trump and his representatives did not tell the archives that the boxes contained classified information. On Friday, reports broke that FBI special agents had reportedly interviewed multiple witnesses regarding whether former president Donald Trump has hidden classified or sensitive government documents at his Trump Tower home and office or his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Rolling Stone said that agents want to know if the one-term president moved documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to his other properties. Republican senators believed the party and its then president, Donald Trump, were “f****” during the first impeachment trial against the former president, a new book has alleged. Claims made by the authors of Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump, also included Texas senator Ted Cruz seeming to admit that Mr Trump was guilty. As the book’s authors, Politico’s Rachael Bade and The Washington Post’s Karoun Demirjian claim in an excerpt shared with HuffPost on Friday, Republican senator Mr Cruz told his colleagues: “Out of one hundred senators, you have zero who believe you that there was no quid pro quo. None. There’s not a single one”. Read More Here

Why Has Kanye West Turned On His Old Friend Jared Kushner? https://digitalarkansasnews.com/why-has-kanye-west-turned-on-his-old-friend-jared-kushner/ Kanye West took issue with a figure he’d previously professed his love for in his wide-ranging interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson: Jared Kushner. Throughout the explosive Thursday night sitdown between the pair, Kanye addressed a number of topics, including his pro-life stance, his decision to don a red MAGA cap, labelled the body positive moment “demonic” and admonished the fashion industry for encouraging his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, to “stick her a** out” for magazines. In one of the more zany and unexpected exchanges, Kanye sharply criticised Mr Kushner, a former senior White House adviser to his father-in-law, Donald Trump, insinuating that he was a person solely motivated by financial gain. “I just think it was to make money,” he told Mr Carlson of Mr Kushner’s work facilitating the Abraham Accords, a deal that sought to normalise ties between Israel and Arab nations. Though it seems relations between the two men have soured recently, the pair of Trump-loyalists were not always at odds with one another, as jovial meetings inside the White House have been documented going back as early as 2018. Here, we chart the chummy-turned-hostile relationship between Mr Kushner and Kanye and explain why the recent tensions have unfolded. Kanye West says his life was ‘threatened’ after wearing White Lives Matter shirt What were things like before? Before he began taking public blasts at Mr Kushner, Kanye and the 41-year-old investor had a buddy-buddy relationship that goes back well over a decade. While appearing on Fox News in August 2020 to discuss a meet-up that he’d had with The College Dropout artist, Mr Kushner shared that, “unlike others, I’m able to keep friendships across the aisle” and that he’d been friends with then-Kanye “for ten years”. “He’s a very very special person, he’s a very successful music artist, he’s a very successful designer, he’s been very successful in a lot of the things he has done,” he told host Bret Baier. Mr Kushner also seemed to have an outsized influence in Kanye’s political aspirations, being one of the first people that he reached out to when the billionaire rapper planned to announce his bid for president in 2020 and also being responsible for facilitating a meeting that landed him and his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, a meeting with the president to discuss sentencing reform. “I love Jared,” Kanye told Forbes in 2020, when they were reportedly speaking “almost daily”. The public courtship between the two remained positive up until as recently as this past January, when they were photographed out at a dinner in Miami. According to reporting from Page Six, the dinner at the celebrity hotspot Carbone in Miami Beach “was a purely private dinner” and there was “no business agenda.” When did things sour? Souring between the two seems to so far only be on Kanye’s side, as Mr Kushner has yet to make any public proclamations as grand as the rapper’s. On Thursday, Kanye took to his preferred social media platform for putting his foes on notice, Instagram, where he first attacked Mr Kushner’s venture capitalist brother, Josh. “F*** JOSH KUSHNER,” he wrote in a post that quickly racked up more than 100,000 likes. “WHAT IF I HAD 10% OF KARLIE KLOSS UNDERWEAR LINE WITHOUT YOU KNOWING. AND YOU ONLY HAD 5%,” he added, in apparent reference to Josh Kushner’s firm, Thrive Capital, which invested in Kardashian’s SKIMS. Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, blasts Jared and Josh Kushner on his Instagram account (Instagram/@Kanye West) The Yeezy designer then turned his ire on his one-time friend and phone buddy, Jared. “JARED WAS HOLDING TRUMP BACK,” he wrote in a post in all capital letters, before noting that Mr Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, “IS FIRE.” It’s unclear what stake Josh Kushner’s firm has in SKIMS, but the most recent rounds that Thrive participated in was back in January 2022. Kanye also reportedly owns a stake in his ex-wife’s shapewear company. What did Kanye say to Tucker Carlson about Jared? If the earlier Instagram posts had left any doubt that Kanye had actually fostered any ill will toward his one-time dinner companion, it was immediately cleared up on Thursday night when the interview between Kanye and Mr Carlson aired on the Fox News primetime program. Kanye took aim at the ex-president’s son-in-law while discussing the role his former friend played in normalising ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020, alleging that he was only motivated to turn a profit. “I just think it was to make money,” Kanye said, before walking back his statement and asking the Fox News host if that was “too heavy-handed to put in this platform,” to which Carlson responded “no.” Though he had some choice words for him on Thursday regarding the peace negotiations in the Middle East, Kanye once praised Mr Kushner for the work he achieved, which he highlighted as something no one could’ve done in “30 years”. “Jared Kushner will have done more for peace in the Middle East than anyone in 30 years,” he tweeted on 15 September 2020. Kanye’s critiques, however, aren’t completely unfounded, as the former White House adviser is currently being probed by the House Oversight Committee over a $2bn investment that the Saudi Arabian government gave to a firm created by Mr Kushner, which was deposited in accounts shortly after he departed from the White House last year. Still, the famed rapper-turned-entrepreneur took to calling out Mr Kushner for matters other than his motivation for monetary gain, shaming him and other so-called “handlers” in the White House for getting in the way of Trump’s agenda. “These guys might have been really been holding Trump back and being very much a handler right then,” Kanye said of Mr Kushner and his brother, Josh, on Thursday. “They loved to look at me or look at Trump like we’re so crazy and they are businessmen.” And what about Trump? Both the former president and Kanye have repeatedly embraced their unwavering support of each other’s ambitions – political or otherwise. In December 2016, just weeks before the then-president elect’s inauguration, there was the infamous incident where the rapper descended from elevator from Trump Tower after meeting with the former real estate mogul and posed for a photo-op to a flurry of photographers and press. “Just friends, just friends. He’s a good man, doing well. We’ve been friends for a long time,” Mr Trump said of the pair’s meeting. Throughout the Trump administration, Kanye continued to show his support for the then-president and don the red hat, a decision that he told Mr Carlson on Thursday drew ire from within his closest circles. His “so-called friends slash handlers” reportedly warned him that his career would be over if he continued to stump for Mr Trump, adding that they said: “I would be killed for wearing the hat.” Asked on Thursday if his feelings for the 45th president have altered in the years that have passed since he left office, Kanye paused and even eked out a smile as he seemed to reflect on the question and his feelings about the man he once called “superman”. “Come on man, Trump’s the s**t. What do you mean? He has his own buildings. What are you talking about? He’s like Ralph Lauren. He made Ivanka,” he said to a giggling Mr Carlson. Outside of the two men sharing great admiration towards one another, it would seem that the former president also shares common ground in his dislike for his son-in-law. According to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s new book, Confidence Man, Trump was once only seconds away from firing off a tweet that would’ve alerted his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, that they were fired. Ms Haberman also reported that the former president also grew tired of his son-in-law’s presence and described him as sounding “like a child”. Read More Here

McChristian, James Curtis “J.C.” (Cleveland) https://digitalarkansasnews.com/mcchristian-james-curtis-j-c-cleveland/ James Curtis “J.C.” McChristian, Jr. passed away peacefully the morning of October 6, 2022, surrounded by his loving family. J.C. was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas on August 11, 1935 to James Curtis McChristian, Sr. and Thurza Virginia Shreve. He attended the University of Arkansas before serving in Korea as a Sergeant in the Marine Corps. On June 27th, 1964, he married the love of his life, Carolyn Joyce Gattis. They soon welcomed two daughters, Janet and Rebecca. His family would always remain the most important part of his life. After beginning his financial career in the Arkansas poultry industry, he went on to become a founding member and the Chief Financial Officer of Systematics, Incorporated. A pioneering data processing firm at a time when computers were groundbreaking rarities, Systematics was later acquired by Alltel Corporation and is today a part of Fidelity Information Systems. J.C. was a similarly remarkable civic leader. As President of the Fort Smith Rotary Club, he was especially proud of their success vaccinating children against polio worldwide. He was a 33rd degree Master Mason in the Scottish Rite. A spiritual man and lifelong Methodist, J.C. was a member of the Fort Smith First United Methodist Church and, upon moving to Cleveland, Tennessee in 2013, attended Broad Street United Methodist Church. A fiercely loyal fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, J.C. had an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball. He possessed a magnificent eye for model train layouts and an infectious sense of humor. He was an avid history buff, the family historian, and a most beloved grandfather who never failed to make his children and grandchildren laugh with him.  He will be profoundly missed by all who were fortunate enough to know him. J.C. is survived by his loving wife, Carolyn (née Gattis); his daughters, Janet McChristian Viguet and Rebecca McChristian McIntire, and his sons-in-law, Robert Viguet, Jr. and Edward McIntire, Jr., and his grandchildren, Meridith Viguet Mathews, Elise Viguet, John Viguet, Jay McIntire, and Maddox McIntire. The family will observe a private graveside service at the Chattanooga National Cemetery. Memorial donations may be made to the Broad Street United Methodist Church, designated for the Chancel Choir or the Unity Center. Read More Here

Texas Officer Fired After Shooting Hamburger-Eating Teenager https://digitalarkansasnews.com/texas-officer-fired-after-shooting-hamburger-eating-teenager/ A Texas police officer who shot and wounded a teenager who had been sitting in his car eating a hamburger has been fired, police said. San Antonio Officer James Brennand was fired after shooting Erik Cantu, 17, on Oct. 2 in a fast food restaurant parking lot, police training commander Alyssa Campos said in a video statement released Wednesday. Brennand had responded to an unrelated disturbance at the fast-food restaurant when he saw the Cantu inside the car, which had evaded him a day earlier, Campos said. A Texas prosecutor said in a statement Friday that he has not seen enough evidence to file charges against the teenager. “While Sunday’s shooting of an unarmed teenager by a then-San Antonio Police officer remains under investigation, the facts and evidence we have received so far led us to reject the charges against Erik Cantu for further investigation,” Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said. In this image taken from Oct. 2, 2022 police body camera video and released by San Antonio Police Department, San Antonio Police officer James Brennand shoots Erik Cantu, who was holding a hamburger in a fast food restaurant parking lot, as Cantu drives away in San Antonio, Texas. Brennand opened fire several times wounding the unarmed teenager as he drove away. Brennand was fired after the shooting, police training commander Alyssa Campos said in a video statement released Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. (San Antonio Police Department via AP) HOGP Brennand, who had been on the force for less than one year, violated his training and police procedures after approaching the car, Campos said. “The officer abruptly opened the driver’s door and ordered the driver out of the car” before the arrival of backup officers that Brennand had requested, Campos said. Cantu, in the officer’s body camera video, looks toward Brennand while holding a hamburger, then backs the car away, striking the officer with the open door. In this image taken from Oct. 2, 2022 police body camera video and released by San Antonio Police Department, Erik Cantu looks toward San Antonio Police officer James Brennand while holding a hamburger in a fast food restaurant parking lot as the officer opens the car door in San Antonio, Texas. Brennand opened fire several times wounding the unarmed teenager as he drove away. Brennand was fired after the shooting, police training commander Alyssa Campos said in a video statement released Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. (San Antonio Police Department via AP) HOGP Brennand then opened fire several times as the door closed and Cantu drove away. Cantu, who was struck by gunfire, stopped nearby where he and a passenger, who was not injured, were found by police. “There is nothing I can say in defense of that officer’s actions that night,” Police Chief William McManus told WOAI-TV. “I think what happened, initially, there was some contact made, but that did not justify the shooting.” In this image taken from Oct. 2, 2022 police body camera video and released by San Antonio Police Department, Erik Cantu drives away as San Antonio Police officer James Brennand shoots his pistol at the car in a fast food restaurant parking lot in San Antonio, Texas. Brennand opened fire several times wounding the unarmed teenager as he drove away. Brennand was fired after the shooting, police training commander Alyssa Campos said in a video statement released Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. (San Antonio Police Department via AP) HOGP Cantu was hospitalized in stable condition and initially charged with evading police and aggravated assault. Gonzales, the district attorney, said no decision had been made on whether to pursue charges against Brennand, pending the outcome of a police investigation into the shooting. “As we do with all officer-involved shootings that result in death or serious injury, we will submit the case to a Grand Jury for their consideration. Until that happens, we can make no further comment on this matter,” Gonzales said. Police and an attorney for Cantu did not immediately return phone calls for comment on Friday. ___ Today in history: Oct. 8 1919: Alvin C. York Updated 41 min ago In 1918, U.S. Army Cpl. Alvin C. York led an attack that killed 25 German soldiers and resulted in the capture of 132 others in the Argonne Forest in France. U.S. Army 1956: Don Larsen Updated 40 min ago In 1956, Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in a World Series to date as the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 5, 2-0. AP 1981: Presidents Updated 40 min ago In 1981, at the White House, President Ronald Reagan greeted former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon, who were preparing to travel to Egypt for the funeral of Anwar Sadat. AP 1985: Leon Klinghoffer Updated 40 min ago In 1985, the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro (ah-KEE’-leh LOW’-roh) killed American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, who was in a wheelchair, and threw his body overboard. AP 1998: Impeachment Updated 40 min ago In 1998, the House triggered an open-ended impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton in a momentous 258-176 vote; 31 Democrats joined majority Republicans in opening the way for nationally televised impeachment hearings. CSPAN 2002: Ports Updated 40 min ago In 2002, a federal judge approved President George W. Bush’s request to reopen West Coast ports, ending a 10-day labor lockout that was costing the U.S. economy an estimated $1 to $2 billion a day. AP 2005: Earthquake Updated 40 min ago In 2005, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake flattened villages on the Pakistan-India border, killing an estimated 86,000 people. AP 2011: Al Davis Updated 40 min ago Ten years ago: Al Davis, the Hall of Fame owner of the Oakland Raiders, died at age 82.  AP 2015: Paul Prudhomme Updated 40 min ago In 2015, chef Paul Prudhomme, 75, who’d sparked a nationwide interest in Cajun food, died in New Orleans. AP 2016: Donald Trump Updated 40 min ago Five years ago: Donald Trump vowed on Twitter to continue his campaign even though he said the “media and establishment” wanted him out of the race “so badly”; many Republicans were calling on Trump to abandon his presidential bid in the wake of the release of a 2005 video in which he made lewd remarks about women and appeared to condone sexual assault. AP 2017: Mike Pence Updated 40 min ago Vice President Mike Pence left the 49ers-Colts game in Indianapolis after about a dozen San Francisco players took a knee during the national anthem; Pence tweeted that he wouldn’t “dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag or our National Anthem.” Mandel Ngan 2020: Gretchen Whitmer Updated 40 min ago One year ago: Authorities in Michigan said six men had been charged with conspiring to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in reaction to what they viewed as her “uncontrolled power.” (One of the six pleaded guilty and was sentenced to just over six years in prison.) Michigan Office of the Governor 2020: Whitey Ford Updated 40 min ago One year ago: Whitey Ford, a Hall of Fame pitcher for the New York Yankees, died at 91. AP 2021: Journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia Updated 40 min ago Journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for their fight for freedom of expression in countries where reporters faced persistent attacks, harassment and even murder. Alexander Zemlianichenko What others are reading… Read More Here

Explosion Hits Crimean Bridge, Damaging Russian Supply Route To Ukraine https://digitalarkansasnews.com/explosion-hits-crimean-bridge-damaging-russian-supply-route-to-ukraine/ KYIV, Ukraine — A giant explosion ripped across the Crimean Bridge, a strategic link between mainland Russia and Crimea, in what appeared to be a stunning blow early Saturday morning to a symbol of President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to control Ukraine. The damage to the bridge, which provided a road and rail connection between Russia and the Ukrainian peninsula the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014, is another serious setback to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, disrupting a crucial supply route. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged that the government had no timeline for repairing the 12-mile bridge. Russia’s Investigative Committee, a top law enforcement body, said a truck explosion had ignited fuel tankers as a freight train crossed the bridge. The cause of the truck blast was not immediately clear. After the explosion, thick plumes of smoke and flames could be seen from a distance. Putin in 2018 personally opened the $4 billion bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge because it spans the Kerch Strait between the Black and Azov seas. The commissioning of the bridge was intended to symbolize Russia’s ownership of Crimea. Russia’s invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 turned out to be a precursor to the invasion Putin launched this year, in which the peninsula has been used as a major base of operations for Russian forces. Russia has claimed to have annexed four other Ukrainian regions. The blast was celebrated in Kyiv, where government officials hailed it and posted images on social media of collapsed concrete spans of the bridge and footage of the apparent moment of the blast, showing vehicles driving across the bridge just seconds before a giant fireball consumed the area. Mykhailo Podoloyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky called it “the beginning.” “Everything illegal must be destroyed,” Podolyak added on Twitter. The Ukrainian government provided no immediate official statement on the cause of the blast. But in a taunt, the government’s official Twitter account posted: “sick burn.” A Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post on Saturday that Ukrainian special services were behind the bridge attack. The Ukrainska Pravda news site first reported the government’s purported role, citing an unidentified law enforcement official who said Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, was involved. Ukraine previously has mounted daring attacks deep in Russian-held territory, including on an air base in Crimea and on military targets across the border in Russia’s Belgorod region. But if the bridge explosion is confirmed to have been planned, it would be the most stunning strike yet by Ukraine, which has been under invasion since late February by Russia’s far larger and better-equipped military. Russian authorities said the blast occurred around 6 a.m. local time. A video posted by government newspaper Izvestia appeared to show it at 6:03 a.m. Initial information suggested three people had been killed, including the driver of the truck that appeared to explode and two people whose bodies were recovered from the water, the Investigative Committee said. The Investigative Committee said the truck’s driver had been identified as a resident of the Krasnodar region of Russia. “The investigation has begun at his place of residence,” it said. “The route of the truck and the relevant documentation is being studied.” Russian officials have long warned of severe retaliation for strikes on Russian territory. The explosion injects a new element of tension into the war at a time when Putin and those around him have repeatedly warned that Russia could use nuclear weapons. President Biden warned this week of possible nuclear “Armageddon,” reflecting heightened alarm in the United States, which has the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal after Russia’s. Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, tweeted a picture of the damaged bridge and said: “@Crimea, long time no see” along with a heart emoji. And the head of Ukraine’s postal service said the agency would issue a new stamp showing a damaged bridge reading: “Crimean Bridge — Done.” Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, addressed the spate of memes and mocking social media posts from Ukraine. “The Kyiv regime’s reaction to the destruction of civilian infrastructure demonstrates its terrorist nature,” Zakharova posted on Telegram. Throughout the war, Russia has repeatedly bombed Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, including railroad stations, residential housing blocks, hospitals, schools and theaters. Leonid Slutsky, a lawmaker in the Russian Duma, said reprisal was “unavoidable” if Ukrainian responsibility was confirmed. “The answer must be harsh, but not necessarily head-on,” he said. “Russia has extensive experience in combating terrorists, and those who use their methods should also understand this very well.” Peskov said that Putin had been briefed by ministers and government authorities about the “emergency” on the bridge and had ordered the establishment of an investigative commission including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, officials in Crimea, and the FSB, Russia’s security service. The commission has been directed “to find out the reasons behind the accident and eliminate consequences as soon as possible,” Peskov said, according to Interfax, the Russian news agency. The Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case regarding the incident and had sent forensic experts to the scene. The bridge is the only direct road and rail connection to Crimea from mainland Russia. The crippling of such a key artery will affect Russia’s ability to reinforce and resupply its troops as Ukraine presses a counteroffensive to reclaim occupied territory in the southern Kherson region. In recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have accelerated their advance into towns and villages seized by Russia, in the northeast Kharkiv region, and Donetsk to the east, and in Kherson to the south. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Russian forces would receive “continuous support” in areas north of Crimea. “The Russian group of troops involved in the special military operation in the Nikolaev-Kryvorozhsk and Zaporozhsk operational directions are continuously supplied in full by land corridor and partially by sea transport,” the defense ministry said, according to Ria Novosti, a state-controlled news agency. The extent of the damage to the bridge, and whether any of it would remain passable to vehicles, was not immediately clear. Peskov told Ria Novosti there were “no forecasts on the timing of the reconstruction” of affected areas. While Russian Railways canceled all passenger service to and from Crimea and said that tickets would be refunded without charge, the Transport Ministry later said train service was expected to resume by Saturday evening. Russian authorities immediately sought to head off fears that the explosion would cause shortages of fuel, food and other essentials in Crimea, noting that Russia’s military occupation had created Putin’s long-sought “land bridge” to Crimea. “A land corridor through the new regions has been established,” said Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the head of Crimea. Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhayev initially cited a rush to buy gasoline and announced a limit on grocery purchases of three kilograms, or three packs of products per person but later said the restrictions were lifted. Sergey Aksyonov, who heads the Crimea region, said reconstruction of the bridge would begin as soon as the investigation was completed. “There are no risks in this regard, as well as no reason for panic,” he said, according to Tass. “By our joint efforts we will overcome everything. There is no doubt about that.” Abbakumova reported from Riga, Latvia. Isabelle Khurshudyan and Kamila Hrabchuk in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, and Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv contributed to this report. War in Ukraine: What you need to know The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, following staged referendums that were widely denounced as illegal. Follow our live updates here. The response: The Biden administration on Friday announced a new round of sanctions on Russia, in response to the annexations, targeting government officials and family members, Russian and Belarusian military officials and defense procurement networks. President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Friday that Ukraine is applying for “accelerated ascension” into NATO, in an apparent answer to the annexations. In Russia: Putin declared a military mobilization on Sept. 21 to call up as many as 300,000 reservists in a dramatic bid to reverse setbacks in his war on Ukraine. The announcement led to an exodus of more than 180,000 people, mostly men who were subject to service, and renewed protests and other acts of defiance against the war. The fight: Ukraine mounted a successful counteroffensive that forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September, as troops fled cities and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment. Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground from the beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work. How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating. Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video. Read More Here

A Broke Marching Band Parades On Capitol Hill To Practice. Magic Ensues. https://digitalarkansasnews.com/a-broke-marching-band-parades-on-capitol-hill-to-practice-magic-ensues/ The mostly low-income kids in the Eastern High School Marching Band are beloved by the mostly affluent D.C. homeowners who witness their practices October 8, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT Eastern High School band director James Perry, right, gives direction to the students as they march through Capitol Hill neighborhood to prepare for homecoming and the 100th anniversary of the school. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) Rush hour traffic slammed to a halt as the high school band director walked backward into the busy Capitol Hill intersection, followed by a line of teens gripping trombones, trumpets, french horns and flutes. The thunk-thunk-thunk of bass drums reverberated in the damp October air. “Straight ahead, band, you got to be lookin’ straight ahead,” James Perry, director of the Eastern High School Marching Band, shouted at the students through his megaphone. “Hey, hey, hey, hey!” they chanted back. Eastern High’s homecoming and a celebration of the school’s 100th anniversary were just days away, and the 65-member band — known as “The Blue and White Marching Machine” — was practicing for a performance Saturday that would draw hundreds of Eastern students, parents and alumni. Now, they followed a familiar path, down A Street NE toward Lincoln Park, delighting neighbors and anyone else who stumbled upon them. Practically everyone pulled out their cellphone to record the band as it passed. With four students across, they took up the entire road. Eastern High School marching band practiced their performance ahead of their homecoming in Capitol Hill on Oct. 6. (Video: Lizzie Johnson/The Washington Post) People cheered and shouted encouragement from their front stoops, car windows and the small tables set up outside the local coffee shop, Wine & Butter. Children chased the teens down the block. Sometimes passing patrol cars would flick on their lights and block oncoming traffic so the students could safely pass. Only the dogs weren’t fans. They lunged at the ends of their leashes or cowered behind their owners, uncertain. But Perry, 41, who also works as an attendance counselor at Eastern, didn’t take it personally. He chalked it up to the drums. As the students high-stepped down the street, over wet leaves and under a sky of sagging rain clouds, the driver of a black Toyota Camry rolled down his window and peered out. A woman smoking a cigarette, blue handbag slung over one shoulder, stopped on the sidewalk, gawking. “Hey band?” Perry shouted. “What?” “Hey band?” “E-H-S!” they yelled. They passed million-dollar rowhouses decorated for Halloween, with pumpkins heaped on porch steps and ghosts of stiff gauze frozen on lawns. A toddler pressed against the front door of one home, his breath fogging the glass. Nearby, Katie Telligman, 42, put on a warm jacket and stepped outside her home to better hear the music. “This has been one of the greatest things we’ve discovered since moving to this street five years ago,” said Telligman, who works in communications and has lived on Capitol Hill since 2002. For a while, the pandemic had disrupted these impromptu parades. Now the neighborhood valued them even more. “We’ve watched some of the kids grow up,” Telligman said. “It’s so unique and brings joy to people’s lives. They don’t put this on the real estate listings for the street, but they should. Where else in D.C. can you find this?” ‘The Pride of Capitol Hill’ In Room W01, Perry aimed to give his students something they couldn’t always find elsewhere at Eastern High — a place to dream. Eastern’s 735 students, nearly all Black and most from poor families, face obstacles the affluent residents surrounding the school rarely do. Eastern has long struggled with low test scores, high absenteeism and constant teacher burnout. But in the band room, the teens felt like they had a chance to aspire for more. “The main thing is family and new opportunities,” explained Marckelle Hodge, 17, a senior trombonist. “It’s more than I would’ve had in other programs. I want to get good grades, go to college, and make it out of my neighborhood. I’m thinking Texas Southern.” Perry, who played alto saxophone in Norfolk State University’s band, knows that such a thing is possible. Recent graduates of Eastern’s program have received full-ride scholarships to Columbia, Florida A&M, Mississippi State and other universities — places he tries to take the students for band competitions to show them what’s possible. What isn’t covered by a student’s scholarship is augmented by care packages from their musical alma mater. The boxes from the band arrive stuffed with laundry detergent, socks and underwear, towels, deodorant and other college kid essentials. Many of Perry’s students “come from tough backgrounds and deal with a lot at home,” he said. For 15 years, he’s directed the program, which includes younger students from nearby middle schools that lack music programs. Perry raises money for the band program by charging booking fees for their performances in the community. It costs $750 — plus transportation — for an appearance from the drum line. The entire band costs $1,500. It takes about two performances to pay for a competition, he said, usually in the Washington region but sometimes as far away as Atlanta. The buses are the most expensive part. In 2019, Perry said he donated his own money to the band by selling his car so the teens could travel and afford new warm-up uniforms. He now walks to work, he said. The Capitol Hill Community Foundation also gave the band a $20,000 grant to repair and replace instruments and announced plans to raise $90,000 more. The band kids have always been scrappy. They used to play at Metro stations to raise money. They washed their threadbare uniforms at the laundromat because they couldn’t afford dry-cleaning, hand mending them as needed. But the band’s motto — “The Pride of Capitol Hill” — has proved true time after time. The community, Perry said, “has really just adopted them.” In 2008, when the band needed $3,000 for the bus ride to a performance in Ohio, neighbors raised the money. And in 2015, when the band needed another $4,000 to get to Virginia, the community stepped up again. The students practice three times a day, before, during and after school, usually finishing at 7 p.m. Perry often reminds them that their reputation as “the city’s premiere band” means everything. The band room reflects their success. The piano and lockers are topped with colorful trophies and other awards. They’ve performed in four NFL halftime shows, three presidential inauguration parades and the opening ceremony for the FIFA World Cup Games. When The Washington Post moved out of its old building in Northwest D.C., Eastern’s band marched through the newsroom. Anything but excellence, Perry tells the kids, is “bad for the brand.” When students talk over each other or fail to listen, he makes them do push-ups, calling it “character building.” He doesn’t tolerate misbehavior. “It’s Homecoming week!” Perry yelled into his megaphone Tuesday afternoon as they started practice. The students were clustered on the football field — hoods cinched around their faces to wield off the rain — preparing for their foray around Capitol Hill. “The performance is on Saturday, y’all,” he continued. “Do we give up? Or do we maintain our energy? Y’all understand?” “Yes sir!” they shouted back. Davon Richardson, a 15-year-old sophomore who plays the trumpet, peppered Perry with questions, eager to get going. He was in a thin shirt, despite the 53-degree weather, and jumped from foot to foot to stay warm. He liked parading through the neighborhood, he said. The residential streets they marched down reflected a different reality than their school — the homeowners were predominantly White — but the students loved it. “People cheering out their houses and listening to and enjoying us,” Richardson said. “I like hearing them yell.” “Yeah, it feels like I’m making people’s day,” added Tobias Johnson, 16, a junior who also plays the trumpet. “I see them smile, and it makes me so happy.” Their instruments might be old and their uniforms worn. Their section might be short two trumpets. But they knew they had an unparalleled capacity to spark joy. The strains of “Just Got Paid” by Johnny Kemp thundered down the street. It was one of the band’s favorites, along with “I Would Die For You” by Prince. The teens continued high-stepping — all knobby knees and twirling drumsticks — as they ventured deeper into the neighborhood. In house after house, heads popped out front doors. The music was the only lure that could prompt them outside on a drizzling afternoon. “Go band, go band!” yelled Adrianne Marsh, 44, a political consultant, who bobbed and swayed to the beat with her two young daughters. On the sidewalk, a blonde girl in a school backpack shimmied her shoulders. Her younger brother leaned back in their mother’s arms to see better. Just then, two girls in pink shoes darted past them, hand-in-hand, chasing after the band. One of them was Bahman Koosha’s 6-year-old daughter, Nikki Koosha, who said her favorite instrument is the drum because it makes her “feel happy.” “I like that the band is noisy,” she said. “Almost every other day, we come and watch,” said Koosha, 41, an engineer. “As soon as the kids hear them, we have to go out,” agreed Filip Medic, 42, a director at a nonprofit. He paused, watching as his 3-year-old, Tessa Medic, took off running again with Nikki. At the end of the block, the band paused. Perry blew into his whistle. The teens quieted, and he gave a few pointers over the megaphone. “My fingers are freezing,” a flutist whispered to her classmate. “They’re going to fall off.” A few moments later, they turned...

The U.S. Is The World’s Largest Oil Producer. You’ll Still Pay More For Gas. https://digitalarkansasnews.com/the-u-s-is-the-worlds-largest-oil-producer-youll-still-pay-more-for-gas/ When the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners — often known as OPEC Plus — announced a production cut of 2 million barrels of oil on Wednesday, the reaction in the United States was less than positive. In a statement, the White House called the decision “shortsighted” and vowed to look at alternatives for U.S. oil supply. But the oil cut raised a question. Over the past few decades, various presidents have stressed the importance of U.S. “energy independence.” (Former president Donald Trump famously claimed that under his term, the U.S. achieved energy independence, only to lose it under President Biden.) Since 2018, however, the United States has been the largest producer of oil and gas in the world and a net exporter — the country exports more than it imports. Why, then, do U.S. oil prices hinge on the actions of an international oil cartel? The answer — like the global oil market — is complex. The most straightforward answer, according to Ann-Louise Hittle, vice president of oils research at the research and consultancy company Wood Mackenzie, is that U.S. demand still outstrips its own supply. “We’re the world’s largest producer, but we’re also the world’s largest consumer,” she said. The U.S. produces 18.8 million barrels of oil per day but consumes slightly more — 20.5 million barrels per day. (The world as a whole consumes about 100 million barrels per day.) That difference means that no matter what, the U.S. has to purchase oil on the global market. So when supply in the market contracts slightly — as it will with the decision from OPEC Plus — that can affect prices in the U.S. And even if U.S. production exactly matched U.S. demand, the country would still be importing and exporting oil constantly. Crude oil can be heavy or light, sweet or sour, and those qualities affect how much it needs to be refined and for what uses. U.S. oil companies constantly export crude oil and import refined oil, and vice versa. But there is another, more complicated explanation as well. “When it comes to insulating our economy from global oil price shocks, being a big producer means next to nothing,” said Bob McNally, the founder and president of the Rapidan Energy Group and the author of “Crude Volatility: The History and Future of Boom-Bust Oil Prices.” “Real power in the oil market comes from being able to stabilize prices,” he said. McNally argues that what matters most for stabilizing global oil prices is “spare production capacity” — defined as how much a producer can ramp up oil production within 30 days. That spare production capacity allows a producer to ramp up — or slow down — oil production basically at will, shifting global prices. Saudi Arabia has a huge amount of spare production capacity: around 2 million barrels of oil a day. Once, the United States did have spare production capacity that was managed by the Texas Railroad Commission. But as more easily reached oil dried up — to be replaced by harder-to-reach shale oil — that power disappeared. Today, the United States’ spare production capacity is zero. U.S. oil producers, many of whom are beholden to their shareholders, can’t hold on to spare capacity in the same way as their Middle East counterparts. Spare production capacity “is expensive to maintain, which is why no other producers maintain it,” said Hittle. In the U.S., she added, investors would never put up with spending capital to develop production and then letting it sit idle until the right moment. Is there any solution to the United States’ role in the global market? Some researchers have suggested that the government could promise to buy more oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, a stockpile of hundreds of millions of barrels of oil that is supposed to help insulate U.S. consumers from oil price shocks. (Earlier this year, Biden ordered the release of 1 million barrels of oil a day in an attempt to lower oil prices.) But experts say that the SPR is becoming worryingly depleted — and that it’s simply not a strong enough tool to counter the actions of OPEC. “It’s like bringing a squirt gun to a firefight with guys with guns,” McNally said. If the SPR becomes too drained, he argues, oil prices will rise even faster — and there will be no remaining buffer to protect U.S. consumers. Biden has also urged oil producers in the United States to drill more to help lower prices — but the president simply doesn’t have authority to order companies to produce more. And oil companies, recently burned from price crashes in the beginning of 2020, are hesitant to repeat the same mistakes. In the short term, McNally says, the best thing that the country can do is not make the situation worse. “There’s no magic wand for short-term price volatility,” he said. “It’s going to be a wild ride until we have a scalable, affordable and reliable alternative to oil for transportation.” Read More Here