#also question - were the FBI agents deaths announced to the general public

[optimisticgardenhologram]

....Mikami? Is that you?

[letterboxd]

The Other Bill and Ted.

As No Man of God hits theaters and VOD following its Tribeca premiere in June, director Amber Sealey talks to Dominic Corry about her Ted Bundy two-hander and answers our Life in Film questions.

Amber Sealey has been very acknowledging of the fact that her new film is one of many to center around the horrific crimes of serial rapist and murderer Ted Bundy. As she outlined in her Tribeca Q&A with Letterboxd, one way she intended No Man of God to stick out from the pack was through the use of consciously silent background characters who represent Bundy’s voiceless victims.

The structure and source of the film also help distinguish it from other Ted Bundy movies: No Man of God is based on the recordings of FBI agent Bill Hagmaier (played in the film by Elijah Wood), who was tasked with interviewing an incarcerated Bundy in the years leading up to his execution, in order to help determine whether or not he was criminally insane, which could’ve helped to remove Bundy from death row.

With many of Bundy’s victims never officially attributed to the killer, Hagmaier also sought to draw confessions, and something resembling remorse, out of Bundy, to help bring closure to those victims’ families. As detailed in the film, much of which was taken directly from transcripts of the interviews, Bundy and Hagmaier’s relationship was complicated, and the intimacy that develops between them informs No Man of God in often uncomfortable ways.

Luke Kirby and Elijah Wood in a scene from ‘No Man of God’.

Wood (also a producer on the film) and Luke Kirby turn in career-high work as Hagmaier and Bundy, respectively, while Sealey textures the film with some of the most emotive stock-footage montage sequences this side of The Parallax View. Among positive reactions to the film, Claira Curtis, in a four-star review, writes: “Perhaps one of the most successful elements lies in Amber Sealey’s uncentering of the ���genius’ moniker that has followed Bundy through his years of infamy.” On the pairing of Wood and Kirby in the leading roles, Connor Ashdown-Ford notes that “the chemistry between them both is so authentic it’s darn right unsettling”.

Unsettling is right. Late in the film, Sealey depicts a real-life TV interview that took place between Bundy and evangelical preacher/​author/​psychologist James Dobson (played by stalwart character actor Christian Clemonson), who uses Bundy to forward his anti-pornography agenda. Throughout this scene, the camera lingers on a young female member of the TV crew (played by an uncredited Hannah Jessup) as she silently reacts to being in Bundy’s presence. Emblematic of Sealey’s aforementioned philosophy in constructing the film, it’s a moment that appears to be having an impact on audiences, as detailed in Nolan Barth’s review: “She might have one of my favorite performances of this year? She shows us fascination, guilt, disgust and fear in like only 30 seconds of screen time. Give her an Oscar. Please.”

In an awkward incident that represents a perhaps unanticipated effect of there being so many contemporaneous movies with the same subject matter, director Joe Berlinger (Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, the Paradise Lost trilogy), who recently directed both the Zac Efron-starring scripted Ted Bundy biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile and the documentary Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, sent an email to Sealey ahead of No Man of God’s Tribeca premiere about remarks she had made while discussing how her film differentiated itself from the existing Ted Bundy movies. He felt she had accused him of glorifying Bundy. After Sealey took the exchange public, she explained to Variety that she had never singled out Berlinger’s films in any of her remarks.

In a conversation with Letterboxd, Sealey delves into her approach to No Man of God, and talks about some of her filmic inspirations.

‘No Man of God’ director Amber Sealey.

There is really effective and creepy use of stock-footage montages in this film. Sometimes you see that sort of thing at the beginning of a film, but it’s interesting that you keep going back to them after using them in the opening credits. What was the thinking in using those montages and how did you select the footage? Amber Sealey: The thinking for those was a couple things: One, we don’t leave the prison, and I wanted [the audience] to know a little bit what’s going on outside, in terms of the cultural zeitgeist, like what’s the tone of the time? What movies are popular? What books are popular? What are people wearing? I wanted to have there be a kind of cultural touchstone outside of the prison, but at the same time I wanted it to represent potentially a little bit of what was going on inside Bill’s mind. So the story of the montages as they go on, it gets a little bit more fucked up, for lack of a better word, for Bill, inside of his head.

We were originally going to shoot the crowd scenes [of protesters outside the prison] and recreate them and then because of Covid restrictions, we couldn’t do that anymore. So then I knew we were going to be using archival footage for the crowd, and I didn’t want the archival crowd footage to suddenly jump out as being so different from the rest of our film. We’re shooting on an ARRI camera, [so it’s] not going to look like a Hi-8 from the 1980s. I needed to incorporate this look, this ’80s grainy look into the rest of the movie so that it feels like it’s part and parcel of the film, part of the storytelling.

We got [the footage] in different ways. I have an old friend that I’ve known since I was like, two, he lived next door to me, and my cousin, they both had video cameras in the ’80s and would film everything. So some of that footage is old family footage of their family or friends. There’s a couple shots in there of my neighbors when I was growing up. Then some of it, we did a lot of research on [stock-imagery services] Getty and Pond5, just finding archival footage that we could use that really told the story that we wanted to tell with the montages. It was a lengthy process finding all of that footage for sure.

What was Bill Hagmaier’s involvement in the film? Bill is an executive producer on the film, so he was very involved. The transcripts of those conversations between Bill and Ted, we got from Bill. Bill gave us so much great stuff to work with—the newer FBI files that he was allowed to share with us and the recordings, and when the script was originally written it was written based off of those recordings, and the writer originally spoke to Bill and then when I came on board, I talked to him and then I changed the script, even more from conversations I had with him. He was just a resource.

Almost every [character] you see on screen, those are real people, and he hooked us up with a lot of those real people. I spoke with the prison guards and the wardens and all of that. Then he was just a resource in terms of like, I would ask him, “what color were your shoes?” “Did you carry this kind of briefcase or that kind of briefcase?” Because it was important to me that all that production-design stuff was really authentic. I liked to know, like, “what were your haircuts like then, Bill?” So he was available to talk about the emotional side of things, and then the real just humdrum kind of things. He’s just a lovely guy, he’s really supportive of me and of the film and he just wanted to be accessible as much as he could and he was. He’s a very humble, generous person.

Aleksa Palladino plays civil-rights attorney Carolyn Lieberman to Luke Kirby’s Ted Bundy.

What films did you watch, or cite as reference points in preparation for No Man of God? Literally hundreds and hundreds of movies. When I’m looking for my creative look, I just watched so many films, and a lot of old films. I’d have to go back and look at my look book to tell you all of them but I pull images from the weirdest places. But once I get past figuring out the creative look of the film, I don’t then like to watch the movies a lot because I try to really make it its own thing and I worry too much that I’ll be copycatting other artists and I want to try [to] avoid that.

What’s your favorite true-crime movie? Oh god, what was the one about the guy who like, went to the bathroom and confessed, accidentally? He forgot his mic was on? Do you remember that one?

The Jinx? Yeah. Even though it’s a documentary, I’m going to go with that.

What’s your favorite big-screen serial-killer performance? It has to be Luke Kirby. Luke Kirby as Bundy.

What was the first horror film you saw? My dad had me watch Cat People when I was nine. Does that count?

The Val Lewton one? The ’80s one.

Oh, the Paul Schrader one? Yes! The Paul Schrader one.

Nastassja Kinski in Paul Schrader’s ‘Cat People’ (1982).

When you were nine years old? Yeah. I also watched Blue Velvet when I was nine. Oh wow, thank you Dad.

What’s the most disturbing film you’ve ever seen? Most disturbing, hmm… Kids.

What film made you want to become a filmmaker? It was Michael Winterbottom’s Nine Songs. My first film was a reaction to that movie. I’m a huge Winterbottom fan. That’s a great movie, but also it advertises itself as being a real relationship and real sex and I watched it and I was like, well that’s not like any… it was like two models, you know? Their sex scenes were like a perfume ad and I was like, well that’s not what real sex looks like for real people. I made my first feature after that.

What’s your go-to comfort movie? Oh, so many, let’s think. The Proposal. I love Trainwreck. I really like rom-coms, like if I’m sick or something, I’ll watch rom-coms. Roman Holiday, stuff like that.

What’s a classic that you couldn’t get into or that you think is overrated? Umm. Star Wars. I’m trying to think, there’s something else that I just don’t like… everyone loves that singing movie. What’s that singing movie that when Moonlight won the Oscar, it got announced?

La La Land. Yeah. I was not into that.

What filmmaker living or dead do you envy/admire the most? Yorgos Lanthimos. Or Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

If you were forced to remake a classic movie, what would you remake? Grease.

Who would be in the cast of your Grease remake? Oh I don't even know but it would be much darker. It would still be a musical and still be funny, but much darker.

I would like to see that movie. I would too.

Related content

Diego’s list of films featuring the FBI

Boris1980’s list of films about serial killers

Follow Dominic on Letterboxd

‘No Man of God’ is in theaters and on VOD from August 27, 2021.

[orbemnews]

US Capitol rioters charged in Sicknick case were armed with bear spray but only used pepper spray, prosecutors say Prosecutors addressed the seemingly small but significant difference at a detention hearing for the two men charged in connection with the chemical attack. All sides now acknowledge that the defendants, Julian Khater and George Tanios, brought bear repellant to the Capitol and that Khater asked for it just moments before the attack but ended up using pepper spray instead. The clarification came a week after Washington’s chief medical examiner ruled that Sicknick had suffered strokes and died of natural causes a day after the attack. The finding undercut theories that an allergic reaction to the chemical spray may have led to his death. Taken together, these developments clarify key facts about the day before Sicknick’s death, which has emerged as one of the most well-known incidents from the insurrection. The narrative was already muddled by prosecutors repeatedly citing the bear spray, unsanctioned speculation from the former US attorney who led the probe, exaggerated statements from law enforcement and inaccurate early press reports about a fire extinguisher hitting Sicknick. Khater and Tanios have pleaded not guilty and maintain that they’re not a danger to the public. They’re seeking to be released from jail and will be before a federal judge again next week. Chemical breakdown Past testimony from Khater and the manager of a gun shop had already established that Tanios bought canisters of bear spray and pepper spray shortly before January 6. Prosecutor Gilead Light said Tuesday that it was the pepper spray that Khater allegedly used on Capitol grounds. A “smaller can of a different chemical spray” was used, but “the bear spray is relevant because it goes to the planning,” Light said, arguing that the defendants had geared up for violence and were ready to use the repellant. “It’s an uncontested fact that there are no bears in downtown DC.” CNN and other outlets had reported in February that a leading theory for investigators was that a chemical irritant, possibly bear spray, may have triggered a fatal reaction and killed Sicknick. Prosecutors also emphasized the bear spray angle. The Justice Department news release announcing the charges in March said the officers had been hit with an “unknown chemical substance,” but also quoted a video of Khater asking Tanios to “give me that bear s–t” shortly before the assault. At Tanios’ detention hearing in West Virginia, the phrase “bear spray” was brought up 20 times, according to a transcript. An FBI agent who testified at that hearing danced around the question of whether it had been deployed, saying the investigation was “ongoing” and that the canisters hadn’t been submitted for forensic analysis. But prosecutors did say the cans “appeared to be intact.” Khater’s attorney Joseph Tacopina needled prosecutors at Tuesday’s hearing by saying the bear spray “turned out not to be bear spray,” and argued that it was a “defensive” pepper spray. Will they be released? The muddled narrative has played out while Khater and Tanios fight for their release from jail. Most of the nearly 400 alleged rioters facing charges have been released before trial — even some who are accused of assaulting police officers. The Justice Department has struggled at times to convince federal judges that some of the defendants should stay behind bars, and several high-profile Capitol riot defendants have successfully overturned their detention orders. Federal judges previously ruled that they’re too dangerous to let out, but they’re challenging those decisions. Holding a defendant in jail before trial is not meant to be a punishment, and defendants are presumed innocent of the charges. But pretrial detention is used when someone is deemed to be a potential danger to the public or might not show up for future court hearings. Attorneys for Khater propose that he be released under a $15 million bond and put under house arrest because he has no history of violence, no engagement with extremist groups and didn’t go inside the Capitol. (He was still charged with entering restricted grounds because he was in an area that had been blocked off ahead of time and wasn’t open to the public on January 6.) Tanios’ lawyer brought in two witnesses who testified Tuesday in favor of his release. A 20-year veteran of the West Virginia National Guard called Tanios “a big teddy bear,” and one of Tanios’ cousins said he would “never see (Tanios) as a threat to leave his country” and flee before trial. “He’s looking forward to going to court and proving his innocence,” the cousin said. Prosecutors say the man planned for violence, helped the Capitol fall to the mob and still poses a threat. Judge Thomas Hogan will hear more arguments next week and issue a ruling. Murder probe fizzles Khater and Tanios’ case may be the only charges ever brought involving the Sicknick incident. Despite the Justice Department opening a murder investigation into Sicknick’s death, there have been several hints that prosecutors may never bring a murder case. The probe appeared to stall not long after it started due to a lack of evidence of any fatal injury. And the medical examiner initially kept the case “pending” even after releasing findings on others who died that day. The medical examiner’s recent ruling about the manner of death makes it a virtual certainty that prosecutors won’t able to go much farther than the existing assault case, legal experts said. “This, in fact, all but assures prosecutors won’t charge anyone with homicide related to Officer Sicknick’s death,” former US Attorney Preet Bharara told CNN. “The report appears conclusive that he died of natural causes, and it could look like overcharging if prosecutors went that route.” Medical examiner Dr. Francisco Diaz didn’t note any evidence that Sicknick had an allergic reaction to the chemical spray, and didn’t list any internal or external injuries. Yet in an interview with The Washington Post about his findings, Diaz left some uncertainty about how the Capitol attack had influenced Sicknick’s health, saying, “All that transpired played a role in his condition.” The US Capitol Police initially said on January 7 that Sicknick died “due to injuries sustained while on-duty” and “succumbed to his injuries” from the Capitol riot, a sentiment that was echoed by congressional leaders, White House officials and then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. When the autopsy results were released last week, indicating that Sicknick had died of natural causes, the Capitol Police said it “accepts” the findings but that he “died in the Line of Duty.” In court filings and arguments, prosecutors have never connected the chemical spray assault to Sicknick’s death. Khater and Tanios are charged in a 10-count indictment with conspiring to injure an officer, assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon, civil disorder and other crimes. Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst, said there are still options for prosecutors to hold people responsible for Sicknick’s death, though it’s unlikely to happen. “Under federal law, there is a felony murder law,” Honig said. “It means you’re liable for any death that occurs in the course of certain felonies, though it’s tough to find one that matches this set of circumstances. The only one that comes close — but is still a stretch — is burglary.” CNN’s Zachary Cohen contributed to this report. Source link Orbem News #armed #bear #Capitol #Case #charged #Pepper #Politics #Prosecutors #prosecutorssay-CNNPolitics #rioters #Sicknick #spray #USCapitolrioterschargedinSicknickcasehadbearspraybutonlyusedpepperspray

[the-record-newspaper]

Unsolved: Murder at Jumpingoff Place — the conclusion

“A Measure of Justice…”   Part XXV

Angela Billings visits her mother’s grave

By LARRY J. GRIFFIN

Special Reporter for The Record

Martin Luther King, Jr. had been sitting in an austere Birmingham jail for four days when he penned an open missive in response to criticism of his nonviolent tactics leveled by eight white Alabama clergy.  The clergymen admitted that racial injustices prevailed; but, these should be addressed in the nation’s courts as opposed to decried in public streets. They enjoined King and his followers to delay their overt actions and wait patiently while the jurisprudence system worked.

“This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never,’” Dr. King retorts in the April 16, 1963 letter that he commenced scribbling in the margins of a newspaper that one of his allies smuggled into the jail.  “We must come to see…that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”

No one knows for certain the historic origin of that quotation King attributed to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren.  According to Respectably Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations, it was first uttered by Great Britain Prime Minister, William Gladstone.   The derivation notwithstanding, the intent of the statement is clear and repercussions certain.  The Chief Justice, who succeeded Earl Warren—Warren Burger—explained three of them in a 1970 speech to the American Bar Association:

A sense of confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people and three things could destroy that confidence and do incalculable damage to society:  that people come to believe that inefficiency and delay will drain even a just judgment of its value; that people who have long been exploited in the smaller transactions of daily life come to believe that courts cannot vindicate their legal rights…; that people come to believe the law—in a larger sense—cannot fulfill its primary function to protect them and their families in their homes, at their work, and on the public streets.

In an effort to bring a “measure of justice�� to numerous individuals and their families victimized by longstanding, unresolved criminal cases , the FBI undertook a “cold case initiative,’ initially designed to actively investigate unsolved civil rights cases which have been on the books for years—some dating back to the earlier days of the Civil Rights Era.  When the Cold Case Initiative was officially announced in 2007, FBI Director, Robert Mueller, averred that successes in solving decades-old cases, “restored our hope and renewed our resolve.  We cannot right these wrongs.  But we can try to bring a measure of justice to those who remain.”

Though the definition can vary from agency to agency, a case is declared “cold” when “probative investigative leads have been exhausted.”  When evidence and clues dissipate and viable leads become non-existent, an investigation is generally shelved and active pursuit desists.  An unsolved case—one without final dispensation—may remain open but is rendered “inactive.”  It can be “reactivated” when subsequent evidence surfaces or credible leads resume.  

Periodically, an investigation stalls and becomes “cold” when a prisoner, awaiting trial, escapes—and it can remain cold indefinitely.  Exempli gratia:  the Sherry Hart murder case in which the primary suspect, Richard Lynn Bare, escaped from the Wilkes County Jail almost 33 years ago and has never been reapprehended.

When asked about the Hart case, Public Affairs Specialist Shelley Lynch, of the Charlotte office of the FBI maintained that Bare is not on any FBI Most Wanted List.  “At one point, we created a wanted poster as we do with many cases to assist our local law enforcement partners.  But that poster was removed long ago.”

However, this reporter forwarded to Ms. Lynch a Charlotte FBI link that opens to a wanted poster depicting Lynn Bare and detailing the charges against him.  When she attempted to access the link, she could not.  A screen shot of the poster was subsequently sent to her.  “Interesting that you can see it and I can’t,” Ms. Lynch mused.  Then she reiterated, “There is no current FBI reward or wanted poster or UFAP (Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution) warrant; and based on the screen shot you sent, the FBI did not offer a reward [even back then]….We have followed up on many tips over the years and will continue to do so if new information becomes available.”

Ms. Lynch concedes that the last tip the FBI received was in 2015; it did not “pan out.”

Paint the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) with that same “investigative brush.”  Like the FBI, the SBI maintains a case file regarding the Sherry Hart murder; yet, they consider it “cold” and treat it as such.  In a telephonic interview—referenced early in this series—Special Agent in Charge (SAIC) Paula Carson of the Hickory office, averred—several times—that “they followed-up leads if and as they occur.” Translation:  There are no investigative resources currently assigned to achieving a resolution to this case, nor have there been for a very long time.

And as of this writing, it remains unclear as to the nature of the charges against Lynn Bare and which ones remain in-force.  As previously noted, the first-degree murder charge against him was “dismissed with leave,” almost 24 years ago, pending his apprehension.  But is anyone seriously interested in his recapture given the fact that the evidentiary landscape has changed over the last 34 years?

Consider that many of the principals in this case, with first-hand information, are dead.  Ashe County Sheriff Gene Goss, who served as lead investigator and interrogator during the case’s infancy, died in 2014. Preceding him in death in the Fall of 2010, was SBI Special Agent, Stephen “Steve” Cabe with whom Goss collaborated during the investigation.  

Others who provided statements and offered information are also gone.  Sherry Hart’s parents, Joe and Betty Lyall; died in December, 2002 and September, 2011 respectively.  According to records, Richard Hart, Sherry’s ex-husband and father to their daughter, April Billings, died precipitously in September, 2002 from a heart attack, likely triggered by a comorbid diabetic condition.  

Betty Thompson Duvall, Sherry’s good friend, succumbed in April, 2014.  Ms. Duvall provided a statement detailing the last interactions she had with Ms. Hart, who dined with her during the early evening on the Sunday in which she was killed.

Richard Leon Bare and his wife, Lorene—Lynn Bare’s parents—both died in the month of July—the former in 2012, the latter in 2017.  Though both allegedly knew of their youngest child’s involvement in the killing of Sherry Hart within two weeks subsequent to the slaying—according to Dorothy Jenkins Staley’s statements to Sheriff Goss and Special Agent Cabe—it appears that neither Richard nor Lorene were ever questioned by authorities.  If they were interviewed, then records of their interrogations are not included in any case file examined to-date.

Sheriff Kyle Gentry, who was the Wilkes County Sheriff when Lynn Bare was incarcerated at county jail in 1985, passed away in October, 2000.  John Shepherd, one of the two detention officers that Gentry fired in the aftermath Bare’s escape, died in November, 2010.  

Perhaps the most impactful death relative to the case was that of Jeff Burgess, who died in San  Antonio, Texas on June 1, 2012.  Burgess, who accompanied Bare and Ms. Hart on that fateful Sunday Evening, January 15, 1984, made three insightful statements to authorities subsequent to his arrest on March 29, 1985.  Moreover, he acceded to testifying against his Cousin Lynn during Bare’s scheduled July 29th trial—a trial that is yet to convene.  

Several law enforcement officers have recently averred that the death of Jeff Burgess precipitated the collapse of the State’s murder case against Lynn Bare.  They argue that without the chief prosecutorial witness, it would be impossible to convict Bare of first-degree murder — even if he was recaptured.  

But would it be impossible to convict Bare on a lesser unlawful death charge?  Burgess’s demise notwithstanding, his sworn statements remain and are archived in the Ashe County evidence file.  Are they any less accurate now?  

Lynn Bare’s interview with Sheriff Gene Goss can also be found in the same file.  Scrutiny of the primary suspect’s statement recommends to suspicion that he is culpable.  Has this evidence somehow been rendered inefficacious and therefore would be ignored by the courts?  Bare’s escape from custody alone implies that he had some reason for running.  

And there are witnesses who do remain.

Dorothy “Dottie” Jenkins Staley, Lynn’s consort in 1984/85, resides in Wilkes County.  In her statements to authorities, she indicated that Lynn eventually told her what he had done—Jeff Burgess also referenced the fact that Lynn told Dottie Jenkins.  Further, Ms. Staley stated to Sheriff Gene Goss that Lynn’s parents and his sister Linda knew about the murder within two weeks of its occurrence.  

Linda Bare Copus has apparently been a lifelong resident of Ashe County; she and her husband own two businesses in Jefferson and are well known in the community.   There is no evidence in the case files to suggest that Linda has ever been questioned relative to her knowledge of her brother’s involvement in the murder of Sherry Hart and his escape from the Wilkes County Jail. It should be noted that in media interviews, Ms. Copus has consistently disavowed any knowledge of her brother’s actions or whereabouts.

Yet, there are two former deputy sheriffs who witnessed separate interactions between Linda Copus and Detention Officer Joe Carter.   Both former deputies currently reside in Wilkes County; and, insofar as can be determined, Mr. Carter is still alive and allegedly living in an adjacent county.

At the time of Sherry Hart’s murder, Lynn Bare was ostensibly a probation violator.  According to one document contained in the case file, he was convicted in 1982 of two counts of Breaking/Entering/Larceny and 12 instances of breaking into a drink machine—for which he received, “two-years confinement, two-years probation.”  Additionally, Bare’s escape from the Wilkes County Jail while awaiting trial is referenced in the same document.  It is, however, inconclusive, at this juncture, as to which of these lesser charges remain in-force.  

On December 2, 1985 in Asheville, the U.S. District Court of the Western District of North Carolina issued an arrest warrant for Richard Lynn Bare, Case Number 85-762 M, directing the U.S. Marshall or any authorized US Officer to arrest him on the following charge:

…traveling in interstate commerce from Wilkes County, North Carolina, to a state other than the State of North Carolina to avoid prosecution on one charge of murder, a felony in the State of North Carolina.

If apprehended, no bond was to be allowed.  The document was signed by J. Tolivar Davis, U.S. Magistrate, Western District of N.C. There is no extant document in the Ashe County evidence file rescinding this warrant; apparently it remains active. Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution—UFAP, referenced by Ms. Lynch of the Charlotte Office of the FBI—is factually a felony.  

But the poignant question remains:  Is there any law enforcement entity, either state or national, who is willing to devote investigative resources to apprehending a fugitive who has been at-large for almost 33 years—especially if it is adjudged that prosecution for the initial charge of murder would be; at the least, time-consuming and expensive; or at most, impossible?

In his 2014 book, Natchez Burning, author Greg Iles writes of cold cases which remain unsolved since the torrid days of the Civil Rights Movement. He opines that despite the aforementioned cold cases initiative,…the behavior of the FBI and the Justice Department relative to these cases is puzzling and sometimes inexplicable. “Where official progress has been made, it has been due to the commitment of dedicated family members, reporters, and individual prosecutors or U.S. attorneys rather than the sustained efforts of the FBI, and the Justice Department.”

Does this asseveration apply to the murder case of Sherry Lyall Hart?  If her parents, Joe and Betty Lyall, were alive today, they would doubtlessly concur.  Until their deaths, the Lyalls, invested time, energy, and personal financial resources to exact a “measure of justice” for their daughter deceased.  And when Betty Lyall died in 2011, she passed that “torch” to Sherry Hart’s daughter and only child, April Billings.

Throughout this series of 25 stories, April Billings has been supportive and willing to do whatever was necessary to supply this writer with information about her mother, family, and community.  Even during those couple of weeks when some of the details of her Mother’s brief life were difficult to read, she remained steadfast in her insistence that the story be told just as it was.  

This reporter first interviewed Ms. Billings in Ashe County on, as it happened, her 40th birthday—September 1, 2017.  “I was beginning to think that no one cared anymore; and then, you called,” she admitted. A little over two hours later, I posed one last question at the conclusion of that initial meeting:  “Do you hate Richard Lynn Bare?”  There was a noticeable pause.  And then with tears in her eyes and without a hint of malignant malice, April replied—simply—“Yes.”

Still, let there be no mistake—it’s not revenge that she is after; it is a reckoning.

Across many months and years now, April Billings has kept watch over her Mother’s gravesite, honoring her memory, and telling her children stories about a grandmother whom they never had the opportunity to know.  And she patiently, courageously awaits for her “measure of justice”—a justice that has been too long delayed - thus denied.

(Editor’s note: Thus conclude the 25-part series of the unsolved murder of Sherry Hart. More stories on this subject may appear in later edition if new information in the case should arise.)

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/nation-and-world-news-briefs-associated-press/

Nation and world news briefs | Associated Press

AstraZeneca cleared by US regulators to resume vaccine trial

AstraZeneca Plc, the U.K. drugmaker developing a coronavirus vaccine with the University of Oxford, has been cleared by U.S. regulators to restart a trial halted in the country for more than a month on concerns about a volunteer who became ill, according to a person familiar with the decision.

The person asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

A decision to allow the study to resume would remove a significant impediment for AstraZeneca and Oxford as they try to get their coronavirus shot across the line. They are among the front-runners in the global quest for a vaccine, along with developers such as Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc.

AstraZeneca declined to comment. A representative for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Operation Warp Speed head Moncef Slaoui said in an interview earlier this week that the AstraZeneca trial and another study of a Johnson & Johnson vaccine candidate that had also been paused could resume in the coming days.

Questions have swirled around the AstraZeneca trials since an announcement in September that a participant in a U.K. study had developed an unexplained illness, and the partners have faced pressure to disclose more information about the episode. Although temporary halts are common, the interruption raised concerns about the prospects of one of the fastest-moving shots and highlighted the hurdles researchers face when developing a vaccine.

—Bloomberg News

———

Judge in Flynn case asks Justice Department to swear FBI records not further altered

WASHINGTON — The judge overseeing the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn ordered the Justice Department to swear that FBI records weren’t altered beyond the accidental attachment of yellow sticky notes indicating estimated dates for the documents.

Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department filed the documents in federal court in Washington in support of its request to drop the Flynn prosecution. The photocopies of hand-written notes by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, the onetime agent who started the 2016 probe into Russian election interference, accidentally included the attached post-its containing the dates.

After the notes were made public in the court docket, both McCabe and Strzok alerted the court that they hadn’t included the dates. The government has said the notes “were otherwise unaltered” but U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said he wants assurances.

Sullivan on Friday gave the Justice Department until Oct. 26 to submit declarations “pursuant to penalty of perjury” affirming the authenticity of the evidence, noting that “the government has acknowledged that altered FBI records have been produced by the government and filed on the record in this case.”

Flynn twice pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador in 2016, but the Justice Department now argues the case against him was cooked up by FBI staff, including McCabe and Strzok, who sought to undermine President Donald Trump’s administration. The U.S. has pointed to the notes to support its argument as Sullivan weighs dismissal.

McCabe has argued the FBI is distorting his notes and taking them out of context.

—Bloomberg News

———

51 civilians killed in Nigerian protests, president says

LAGOS, Nigeria — Fifty-one civilians have been killed since the start of anti-police brutality protests in Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari said Friday, the first time he has admitted there were deaths.

The president did not say whether security forces were responsible for the civilian deaths, but did note that 11 police officers and seven soldiers were “killed by rioters,” taking the total number of fatalities to 69.

“Throughout the disturbances, Security Agencies observed extreme restraint,” Buhari said in a virtual meeting with former Nigerian leaders on the security situation in the country, according to a transcript.

The United Nations and other members of the international community however, say that on Tuesday night security forces launched a bloody crackdown on protesters defying curfew in Lagos. Amnesty International says at least 12 protesters were killed that night alone.

Buhari noted that he had granted the protesters concessions, after the beginning of demonstrations about two weeks ago against a special police unit known for its brutality.

The government agreed to scrap the Special Anti Robbery Squad, or SARS, he said, but “protesters refused to call off the protest … Instead, they became emboldened and gradually turned violent.”

“It is unfortunate that the initial genuine … protest of the youths in parts of the country against SARS has been hijacked and misdirected,” the president added.

The transcript did not mention holding anyone accountable for the deaths, but said there had been widespread damage to property and that thousands of inmates had been freed from correctional centers during the unrest.

One of Nigeria’s main prisons was set on fire Thursday during the unrest.

The Lagos governor first denied there were any fatalities Tuesday night, later admitting one person died, while the Nigerian army called it “fake news.” Buhari appealed for calm but did not mention killings.

—dpa

———

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Copyright 2020 Tribune Content Agency.

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[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson:

July 22, 2020 (Wednesday)

Today Trump announced that he will send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of his push to advance the idea that he is a “LAW & ORDER” president. Trump insists that “violent anarchists” allied with “radical left” Democrats have launched “a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.” “This bloodshed must end,” he said. “This bloodshed will end.”

To hear the president tell it, the country is at war against a leftist enemy that is destroying us from within.

But his dark vision is simply not true.

While crime is indeed up in some cities in the last month or so since the stay-at-home orders lifted, crime is nonetheless down overall for 2020. Indeed, violent crime has trended downward now for decades. And more crime in the short term is not exactly a surprise, as we are in an unprecedented time of social upheaval, with a pandemic locking us in our homes, the economy falling apart, and police violence—particularly against Black people—in the news day after day.

What has changed in the last few months, though, is Trump’s strategy for the 2020 election. It is notable how desperate he appears to be to win reelection. While all presidents running for a second term want to win, most of them are also willing to lose if that’s what voters decide. Trump, though, has withheld military funding from an ally to try to rig the election—that was what the Ukraine scandal was about—and, according to John Bolton, begged Chinese leader Xi Jinping to make a trade deal to help get Trump reelected. The insistence that he absolutely must win sets the stage for the federal troops in our cities.

Trump had planned to run on what he believed to be a strong economy, for which he took the credit (although he inherited a growing economy from his predecessor, President Barack Obama). But then the coronavirus hit.

Determined to keep the economy humming along, Trump downplayed the dangers of the virus, convincing his supporters that it was not as serious as Democrats insisted it was; they were, he said, hoping to sabotage his reelection. Then, when it was clear the disease was not a hoax, he was unwilling to use the federal government to address the crisis, and his administration botched early testing and isolation. Death rates spiked as we locked down, but then, as it seemed that infections were leveling off, states reopened quickly, despite warnings from experts that they were opening too soon.

Now, of course, cases are skyrocketing. While the rest of the developed world has corralled the virus, we have had close to 4 million infections and more than 140,000 dead. Today more than 1000 people died of the disease. After weeks of refusing to wear a mask, Trump was finally forced to acknowledge that it is imperative for us to slow the spread of the coronavirus after prominent supporter and former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain apparently contracted Covid-19 at Trump’s Tulsa rally. Cain has been hospitalized since early July.

And yet, Trump is desperate to get children back into school and their parents back to work, in part because Republicans object to government social welfare programs like unemployment insurance, and in part because he wants the economy to rebound before the election. But on this, too, he has been stymied, as most parents are worried about exposing their children to the disease. More and more school districts are opting to start the school year online.

So, Trump’s campaign is trying to rally voters with the idea that American cities run by Democrats are seething with violence. And to create that violence, the administration is sending in law enforcement officers that belong to departments within the executive branch of the government.

Trump included the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, in his photo-op on June 1, after officers cleared peaceful protesters out of Washington D.C.’s Lafayette Square with tear gas and flash-bangs. But military officers and defense officials past and present pushed back strongly against the attempt to politicize the military, and made it clear they would not permit soldiers to be used in ways they considered unconstitutional.

So Trump is turning the officers of the executive branch into the president’s private army.

On June 26, Trump issued an “Executive Order on Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence.” That is the document supporting the deployment of officers from what appears to be Custom and Border Protection, wearing military uniforms, in Portland, Oregon. Their original mission was to defend the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, which had sustained vandalism and thrown fireworks.

The Executive Order blames the protests in Portland on “rioters, arsonists, and left-wing extremists who… have explicitly identified themselves with ideologies — such as Marxism — that call for the destruction of the United States system of government.” It says that those calling out racial bias in America are seeking “to advance a fringe ideology that paints the United States of America as fundamentally unjust and have sought to impose that ideology on Americans through violence and mob intimidation.” It claims: “These radicals shamelessly attack the legitimacy of our institutions and the very rule of law itself.”

The administration justifies the operations in Chicago and Albuquerque differently. On July 8, Attorney General William Barr announced a Department of Justice initiative called “Operation Legend,” named for a four-year-old victim of gun violence. Operation Legend began in Kansas City, Missouri, “to fight the sudden surge of violent crime.” Under the initiative, Barr is deploying federal agents from the FBI, U.S. Marshal Service, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) to “surge resources” first to Kansas City, and now to Chicago and Albuquerque. The DOJ also promised to move personnel to Kansas City—and now, presumably to the other cities— “to handle an anticipated increase in prosecutions.”

All the affected cities are run by Democratic mayors.

The Trump administration is hammering again and again on the idea that Democrats will bring chaos and violence to American streets. To illustrate that argument, it is instigating violent encounters. In Portland, officials said that the protests were calming down before the new federal force moved in. They asked for the officers to be removed, but Trump refused. His acting director of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, says: “I don’t need invitations by the state, state mayors, or state governors to do our job. We're going to do that, whether they like us there or not.”

Today, Tom Ridge, the country's first Director of Homeland Security, who served under President George W. Bush, warned that the department "was not established to be the President's personal militia." "It would be a cold day in hell before I would give consent to a unilateral, uninvited intervention into one of my cities," he said.

What is really at stake is the delegitimizing of Democrats altogether before the 2020 election. Today Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign and one of Trump’s personal lawyers tweeted: “No Democrat should EVER AGAIN be elected in the United States in any capacity. The government’s constitutional obligation is to preserve and protect OUR rights, not to preserve and protect their own power. They are willing to sacrifice America and our freedom and liberty. NO!!!”

(Wolf is not Senate-confirmed, and there is question about whether or not he’s even legally in his job, since he has now been 251 days in a post that can only have an “acting” director for 210. With no experience in intelligence or security, it is unlikely the former lobbyist could make it through the Senate, but Trump likes his loyalty.)

The Trump campaign has released an ad suggesting that the choice in 2020 is between “PUBLIC SAFETY” and “CHAOS AND VIOLENCE.” But observers quickly noted that the image of street violence in the ad was not from America, it was from Ukraine in 2014.

And the image was not of respectable police officers defending the rule of law. It was the opposite. It was a picture taken when democratic protesters were trying to oust corrupt oligarch Viktor Yanukovych from the Ukraine presidency. Yanukovych was an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and fled to Russia when he was thrown out of office in Ukraine. Yanukovych was in power thanks to the efforts of an American adviser: Paul Manafort, the same man who took over Trump’s ailing campaign in June 2016.

So to illustrate “chaos and violence,” the Trump campaign used an image of a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch’s specialized federal police wrestling a pro-democracy protester to the ground. And Donald Trump and that oligarch won power thanks to the same advisor.

Honestly, it’s hard to see the use of the image as a mistake.

[newstechreviews]

(KENOSHA, Wis.) — Prosecutors on Thursday charged a 17-year-old from Illinois in the fatal shooting of two protesters and the wounding of a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a night of unrest following the weekend police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Kyle Rittenhouse faces charges of first-degree intentional homicide, one count of first-degree reckless homicide, one count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment. He would face a mandatory life sentence if convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, the most serious crime in Wisconsin.

The attack late Tuesday — largely caught on cellphone video and posted online — and the shooting by police Sunday of Blake, a 29-year-old Black father of six who was left paralyzed from the waist down, made Kenosha the latest focal point in the fight against racial injustice that has gripped the country since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Kenosha police faced questions about their interactions with the gunman on Tuesday night. According to witness accounts and video footage, police apparently let the gunman walk past them and leave the scene with a rifle over his shoulder and his hands in the air, as members of the crowd yelled for him to be arrested because he had shot people.

As for how the gunman managed to slip away, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth has described a chaotic, high-stress scene, with lots of radio traffic and people screaming, chanting and running — conditions he said can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.

Video taken before the shooting shows police tossing bottled water from an armored vehicle and thanking civilians armed with long guns walking the streets. One of them appears to be the gunman.

The national and state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday called for the resignation of Beth and Kenosha Police Chief Dan Miskinis over their handling of Blake’s death and the subsequent protests.

Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Kenosha, was taken into custody Wednesday in Illinois. He was assigned a public defender in Illinois for a hearing Friday on his transfer to Wisconsin. Under Wisconsin law, anyone 17 or older is treated as an adult in the criminal justice system.

Rittenhouse’s attorney, Lin Wood, said the teenager was acting in self-defense. Cellphone footage shows the shooter being chased into a used car lot by someone before shots are heard and the person lies dead. The shooter then runs down the street where he is chased by several people shouting that he just shot someone. He stumbles after being approached by several more people and fires, killing another man and injuring a third.

“From my standpoint, it’s important that the message be clear to other Americans who are attacked that there will be legal resources available in the event false charges are brought against them,” he said. “Americans should never be deterred from exercising their right of self-defense.”

The two men killed were Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha, and Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of the city.

A third man was injured. Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, of West Allis, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Kenosha is recovering after surgery, said Bethany Crevensten, another activist. She said Grosskreutz was volunteering as a medic when he was shot and called him “a hero.”

Kenosha’s streets were calm Thursday following a night of peaceful protests and no widespread unrest for the first time since Blake’s shooting. There were no groups patrolling Kenosha’s streets with long guns Wednesday night and protesters stayed away from a courthouse that had been the site of standoffs with law enforcement.

During unrest the previous two nights, dozens of fires were set and businesses were ransacked and destroyed.

“Last night was very peaceful,” Beth said during a Thursday news conference during which he and other city leaders refused to answer questions. “Tuesday night, not quite so peaceful, but it wasn’t too bad.”

A sheriff’s department spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking clarity on Beth’s comment.

Kenosha police arrested nine people for disorderly conduct on Wednesday evening after they filled gas cans at a city gas station, the department said Thursday.

Riot Kitchen, a Seattle-based nonprofit that serves food at demonstrations, said its members were filling up gas cans for their vehicles and to power a generator for their food truck, and posted a bystander’s video on Twitter that it said showed the arrests.

In the video, black SUVs converge on a minivan at an intersection near a gas station. Several officers in heavy vests get out pointing guns at the van. Moments later an officer shatters the passenger side window with a baton, unlocks the van and pulls out a person who does not appear to offer any resistance.

Police said they received a tip about “suspicious vehicles” with out-of-state license plates, and arrested the group on the suspicion that they were “preparing for criminal activity.” Police said they found fireworks, gas masks, helmets, heavy vests and “suspected controlled substances” in the vehicles.

Blake was shot in the back seven times Sunday as he leaned into his SUV, in which three of his children were seated.

State authorities have identified the officer who shot Blake as Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department.

Authorities said Sheskey was among officers who responded to a domestic dispute, though they have not said whether Blake was part of the dispute. Sheskey shot Blake while holding onto his shirt after officers unsuccessfully used a Taser on him, the Wisconsin Justice Department said. State agents later recovered a knife from the floor on the driver’s side of the vehicle, the department said. State authorities did not say Blake threatened anyone with a knife.

Ben Crump, the lawyer for Blake’s family, said Tuesday that it would “take a miracle” for Blake to walk again. He called for the arrest of Sheskey and for the others involved to lose their jobs. State officials have announced no charges.

Blake’s father told the Chicago Sun-Times on Thursday that he was upset to learn his son was handcuffed to the hospital bed.

“He can’t go anywhere. Why do you have him cuffed to the bed?” said his father, also named Jacob Blake.

Online court records indicate Kenosha County prosecutors charged Blake on July 6 with sexual assault, trespassing and disorderly conduct in connection with domestic abuse. An arrest warrant was issued the following day. The records contain no further details and do not list an attorney for Blake.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that all hospitalized patients in police custody are restrained unless undergoing medical procedures, and that it was working “to ensure a safe and humane environment for Mr. Blake.”

At a news conference, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers replied “hell yes,” when asked if he was concerned about Blake being handcuffed. “He paid a horrific price already,” the governor said.

The governor has authorized the deployment of 500 members of the National Guard to Kenosha, doubling the number of troops in the city of 100,000. Guard troops from Arizona, Michigan and Alabama were coming to Wisconsin to assist, Evers said Thursday. He did not say how many.

In Washington, the Justice Department said it was sending in more than 200 federal agents from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The White House said up to 2,000 National Guard troops would be made available. The Justice Department also announced that the U.S. attorney’s office and FBI would conduct a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Blake, in cooperation with Wisconsin state law enforcement agencies.

___

Scott Bauer reported from Madison. Associated Press reporters Jake Bleiberg in Dallas, Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin; Don Babwin and Sophia Tareen in Chicago; and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed, as did news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York.

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Prosecutors Charge Illinois Teen With Homicide After Fatal Shooting in Kenosha

(KENOSHA, Wis.) — Prosecutors on Thursday charged a 17-year-old from Illinois in the fatal shooting of two protesters and the wounding of a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a night of unrest following the weekend police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Kyle Rittenhouse faces charges of first-degree intentional homicide, one count of first-degree reckless homicide, one count of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment. He would face a mandatory life sentence if convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, the most serious crime in Wisconsin.

The attack late Tuesday — largely caught on cellphone video and posted online — and the shooting by police Sunday of Blake, a 29-year-old Black father of six who was left paralyzed from the waist down, made Kenosha the latest focal point in the fight against racial injustice that has gripped the country since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Kenosha police faced questions about their interactions with the gunman on Tuesday night. According to witness accounts and video footage, police apparently let the gunman walk past them and leave the scene with a rifle over his shoulder and his hands in the air, as members of the crowd yelled for him to be arrested because he had shot people.

As for how the gunman managed to slip away, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth has described a chaotic, high-stress scene, with lots of radio traffic and people screaming, chanting and running — conditions he said can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.

Video taken before the shooting shows police tossing bottled water from an armored vehicle and thanking civilians armed with long guns walking the streets. One of them appears to be the gunman.

The national and state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday called for the resignation of Beth and Kenosha Police Chief Dan Miskinis over their handling of Blake’s death and the subsequent protests.

Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Kenosha, was taken into custody Wednesday in Illinois. He was assigned a public defender in Illinois for a hearing Friday on his transfer to Wisconsin. Under Wisconsin law, anyone 17 or older is treated as an adult in the criminal justice system.

Rittenhouse’s attorney, Lin Wood, said the teenager was acting in self-defense. Cellphone footage shows the shooter being chased into a used car lot by someone before shots are heard and the person lies dead. The shooter then runs down the street where he is chased by several people shouting that he just shot someone. He stumbles after being approached by several more people and fires, killing another man and injuring a third.

“From my standpoint, it’s important that the message be clear to other Americans who are attacked that there will be legal resources available in the event false charges are brought against them,” he said. “Americans should never be deterred from exercising their right of self-defense.”

The two men killed were Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha, and Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of the city.

A third man was injured. Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, of West Allis, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Kenosha is recovering after surgery, said Bethany Crevensten, another activist. She said Grosskreutz was volunteering as a medic when he was shot and called him “a hero.”

Kenosha’s streets were calm Thursday following a night of peaceful protests and no widespread unrest for the first time since Blake’s shooting. There were no groups patrolling Kenosha’s streets with long guns Wednesday night and protesters stayed away from a courthouse that had been the site of standoffs with law enforcement.

During unrest the previous two nights, dozens of fires were set and businesses were ransacked and destroyed.

“Last night was very peaceful,” Beth said during a Thursday news conference during which he and other city leaders refused to answer questions. “Tuesday night, not quite so peaceful, but it wasn’t too bad.”

A sheriff’s department spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking clarity on Beth’s comment.

Kenosha police arrested nine people for disorderly conduct on Wednesday evening after they filled gas cans at a city gas station, the department said Thursday.

Riot Kitchen, a Seattle-based nonprofit that serves food at demonstrations, said its members were filling up gas cans for their vehicles and to power a generator for their food truck, and posted a bystander’s video on Twitter that it said showed the arrests.

In the video, black SUVs converge on a minivan at an intersection near a gas station. Several officers in heavy vests get out pointing guns at the van. Moments later an officer shatters the passenger side window with a baton, unlocks the van and pulls out a person who does not appear to offer any resistance.

Police said they received a tip about “suspicious vehicles” with out-of-state license plates, and arrested the group on the suspicion that they were “preparing for criminal activity.” Police said they found fireworks, gas masks, helmets, heavy vests and “suspected controlled substances” in the vehicles.

Blake was shot in the back seven times Sunday as he leaned into his SUV, in which three of his children were seated.

State authorities have identified the officer who shot Blake as Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department.

Authorities said Sheskey was among officers who responded to a domestic dispute, though they have not said whether Blake was part of the dispute. Sheskey shot Blake while holding onto his shirt after officers unsuccessfully used a Taser on him, the Wisconsin Justice Department said. State agents later recovered a knife from the floor on the driver’s side of the vehicle, the department said. State authorities did not say Blake threatened anyone with a knife.

Ben Crump, the lawyer for Blake’s family, said Tuesday that it would “take a miracle” for Blake to walk again. He called for the arrest of Sheskey and for the others involved to lose their jobs. State officials have announced no charges.

Blake’s father told the Chicago Sun-Times on Thursday that he was upset to learn his son was handcuffed to the hospital bed.

“He can’t go anywhere. Why do you have him cuffed to the bed?” said his father, also named Jacob Blake.

Online court records indicate Kenosha County prosecutors charged Blake on July 6 with sexual assault, trespassing and disorderly conduct in connection with domestic abuse. An arrest warrant was issued the following day. The records contain no further details and do not list an attorney for Blake.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that all hospitalized patients in police custody are restrained unless undergoing medical procedures, and that it was working “to ensure a safe and humane environment for Mr. Blake.”

At a news conference, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers replied “hell yes,” when asked if he was concerned about Blake being handcuffed. “He paid a horrific price already,” the governor said.

The governor has authorized the deployment of 500 members of the National Guard to Kenosha, doubling the number of troops in the city of 100,000. Guard troops from Arizona, Michigan and Alabama were coming to Wisconsin to assist, Evers said Thursday. He did not say how many.

In Washington, the Justice Department said it was sending in more than 200 federal agents from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The White House said up to 2,000 National Guard troops would be made available. The Justice Department also announced that the U.S. attorney’s office and FBI would conduct a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Blake, in cooperation with Wisconsin state law enforcement agencies.

___

Scott Bauer reported from Madison. Associated Press reporters Jake Bleiberg in Dallas, Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin; Don Babwin and Sophia Tareen in Chicago; and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed, as did news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[bountyofbeads]

Giuliani's work for Iranian group with bloody past could lead to more legal woes

Giuliani ally Michael Mukasey’s move to register as a lobbyist for an Iranian dissident group may spur the DOJ to investigate, experts say.

By Julia Ainsley, Andrew W. Lehren and Rich Shapiro | Published October 17, 2019, 11:59 AM EDT | NBC News | Posted October 17, 2019 1:40 PM ET |

In the spring of 2017, former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey met with representatives of the Iranian dissident group Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization until 2012.

Mukasey wasn't alone. Joining him at the meeting was another high-profile American political figure: Rudy Giuliani.

For nearly a decade, the former law partners have pushed the agenda of the MEK, giving paid speeches and writing newspaper op-eds expressing support for a group linked to the deaths of six Americans in the 1970s.

But it wasn’t until late last month that Mukasey registered as a foreign agent lobbying pro bono for MEK’s political arm. Giuliani still hasn’t, raising the possibility that the Justice Department could target him in an illegal lobbying probe, experts say.

“This is the kind of scenario that very commonly leads them to launch an investigation,” said Josh Rosenstein, a Washington-based lawyer who advises clients on compliance with federal lobbying laws.

If Giuliani and Mukasey were "working together or in parallel," Rosenstein added, "then it's a huge problem for Giuliani."

Mukasey’s move to register as a lobbyist for the MEK's political affiliate comes as Giuliani, the former New York City mayor-turned-personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, is facing growing legal peril connected to his international business activities.

Giuliani’s overseas dealings, primarily in Ukraine, are under fresh scrutiny after two of his associates were charged last week in a scheme to funnel foreign money to U.S. politicians.

The New York Times has reported that Giuliani’s business dealings are under federal investigation and prosecutors may be looking at his exposure for failing to file as a foreign agent.

Legal experts say Giuliani’s work on behalf of the MEK and its political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also raises questions about whether he may have run afoul of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. The law requires American citizens to disclose to the Justice Department any lobbying or public relations work on behalf of a foreign entity, regardless of whether they’re paid for the representation.

A review of the group’s government filings shows that Giuliani met with MEK officials at least once every year since 2014. A range of issues were discussed, including “Iran's nuclear weapons as well as Iran's terrorism in the region, including Iraq and Syria” in 2014, the plight of Iranian dissidents living in Iraq in 2015, and the protests in Iran in 2018.

During that period, he has appeared at MEK-related events in Poland, Albania, Paris and Washington. FARA experts say Giuliani’s speech in Washington in May 2018 and U.S.-based writings in support of the group are particularly problematic.

“This certainly walks like a FARA issue and talks like a FARA issue,” said Matthew Sanderson, a defense lawyer who specializes in foreign lobbying cases.

He said the Justice Department will likely try to “develop facts to determine whether these efforts to influence public opinion in the U.S. were at the request or direction of MEK, a foreign interest.”

“This is a particularly unusual situation because Mr. Giuliani was acting as the president’s counsel, all while acting in ways that suggest he was simultaneously representing certain foreign interests,” Sanderson said.

In an interview with NBC News, Giuliani said he has no reason to register as a foreign agent because, unlike Mukasey, he's not planning to speak to U.S. government officials about the MEK.

"I'm not doing what he's doing," Giuliani said. "He's not registering for any previous activity. He's registering because he's asking for a specific meeting with the government."

Giuliani would not elaborate on the reason for the meeting. Mukasey declined comment.

Representatives for the group's political arm did not return requests for comment.

Formed in the 1960s as a Marxist-Islamist movement, the MEK has a bloody history.

The group, whose name translates as “People’s Holy Warriors of Iran,” is accused of killing six Americans before the 1979 Iranian revolution and assassinating Iranian diplomats in the subsequent years.

A longtime ally of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the MEK was placed on the State Department’s terror blacklist in 1997. The group enlisted an A-list cast of former American political and law enforcement leaders as part of its effort to remove itself from the terrorist list and enhance its reputation in the West.

The strategy worked. In 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a decision to remove the group from the list.

Daniel Benjamin, a State Department counterterrorism coordinator from 2009 to 2012, has focused extensively on the network of American politicians who have been paid by MEK, including Giuliani and Mukasey.

“I found it pretty distasteful that they were shilling for this group even if it was delisted,” said Benjamin, now a professor at Dartmouth College. “This is a group that has American blood on its hands, and it’s never owned up to that."

Benjamin said the group has long attracted anti-Iran hard-liners who recruit like-minded peers.

“Look at those who have gone on their gravy train and then go to their events and say MEK is going to bring democracy and peace to Iran,” Benjamin said. “Basically these guys bring aboard their pals. Especially among the hardest line anti-Iran folks, this is the place to go. Though plenty of people become much more hard line once their pockets are filled with MEK money.”

“The big question,” Benjamin added, "is where does all this money come from?”

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described the organization as a fringe group with mysterious benefactors that garners scant support in its home country.

“Their population in Iran hovers between negligible and nill,” Sadjadpour said.

Still, the MEK’s roster of supporters includes an array of prominent Americans: former FBI Director Louis Freeh; former Democratic governors and presidential candidates Howard Dean and Bill Richardson; Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton; and former Obama national security adviser James L. Jones.

In speeches and media interviews, Giuliani and the others have insisted the MEK is now a democratic-minded opposition group committed to overturning the mullah-led government in Tehran. They say their support for the group is also based on humanitarian motives — to ensure the safety of the Iranian dissidents living in Iraq who face the threat of attacks.

Giuliani’s MEK advocacy dates to at least 2010. In December of that year, he and Mukasey were among a group of prominent Republicans who traveled to a rally in Paris where they called on the Obama administration to remove MEK from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.

“For your organization to be described as a terrorist organization is just really a disgrace,” Giuliani declared before a crowd of Iranian exiles, according to an article in The Washington Post.

Mukasey urged the White House to offer “all possible technical and covert support to those fighting to end oppression in Iran.”

“What it has done and what it is doing is nothing less than an embarrassment,” he told the crowd, according to The Post.

The following year, Giuliani and Mukasey co-wrote an op-ed in the National Review with two other MEK supporters defending the organization.

In the 2011 piece, headlined “MEK is not a terrorist group," Giuliani and the others argued against suggestions that the authors were providing material support to a terror group. The MEK has "provided valuable intelligence to the United States to Iranian nuclear plans," they wrote.

In his FARA filing, dated Sept. 26, Mukasey wrote that he's not being compensated for his MEK advocacy.

"The registrant has agreed to communicate with executive branch and legislative officials in the United States government on behalf of the foreign principal and its members on an unpaid basis," the filing says. "However, the foreign principal will reimburse the registrant for direct expenses such as filing costs and travel."

The filing lists Sept. 20, 2019, as the date of the agreement with MEK.

Sanderson, the defense lawyer who focuses on government lobbying, said the listing of that date could pose problems for Mukasey if he started doing lobbying work for MEK before then.

"Filing a late registration, especially if you're not accurate in your description, could result in charges," Sanderson said.

But Sanderson added that filing late is still better than not filing at all. "If you approach the government and proactively say, 'I'm registering,' even if it's late, you're in a much better position than if the government comes to your door."

Giuliani would not say how much the group pays him for his appearances. He said there's no reason why the Justice Department would target him for activities that dozens of other former U.S. politicians and military figures are participating in.

"If I have to register, so do three former heads of the joint chiefs of staff and eight very prominent Democrats and eight very prominent Republicans," Giuliani said.

In an interview with NBC News' Andrea Mitchell in Poland this past February, Giuliani said he worked to get the MEK off the terror list because "there was no evidence of any kind of terrorist activity for over 20 years, if any, and they were basically revolutionaries who overthrew the shah."

"They believe in democracy, in human rights, rights of women," said Giuliani, who was appearing at an MEK event.

In the interview, he also defending advocating for the MEK while also working as the president's personal lawyer.

"I'm a private lawyer, so private lawyers have private clients," Giuliani said. "This has been a client of mine for years. Maybe if I was taking a new position. Maybe if i was taking a bold new different position. I'm just repeating what I said 11 years ago, 10 years ago."

Mukasey told The New York Times in 2011 that he had been paid his standard speaking fee — $15,000 to $20,000, according to the Web site of his speakers’ agency — to deliver talks at MEK-related events.

He insisted that his decision to advocate on behalf of the group was not driven by money. "There’s no way I would compromise my standing by expressing views I don’t believe in," Mukasey told The Times.

Federal prosecutors have brought few FARA cases over the years. But the law garnered renewed attention during the special counsel’s investigation into Russian election interference.

Two Trump associates, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, were charged with failing to register as foreign agents.

Giuliani's contacts with the MEK extended into this past summer. In July, he traveled to Albania to meet with the group's president, Maryam Rajavi.

An article from the MEK's official website said Giuliani "emphasized that America stands on the side of the Iranian people and supports their struggle for freedom."

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Sondland to testify that Trump directed Giuliani to push Ukraine scheme

"My understanding was that the president directed Mr. Giuliani’s participation, that Mr. Giuliani was expressing the concerns of the president," he'll say, according to prepared testimony obtained by NBC News.

By Josh Lederman | Oct. 17, 2019, 9:30 AM EDT Updated Oct. 17, 2019, 11:07 AM EDT | NBC | Published October 17, 2019 1:40 PM ET |. VIDEO |

WASHINGTON — U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland will tell Congress on Thursday that Rudy Giuliani told him President Donald Trump wanted Ukraine’s new government to investigate both the 2016 election and a natural gas firm tied to Hunter Biden, according to prepared testimony obtained by NBC News.

Sondland will testify that Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, even mentioned getting the Ukrainians to investigate "the DNC server" — a reference to a Democratic National Committee computer that plays prominently in a debunked conspiracy theory about Ukrainian interference in 2016.

The ambassador is expected to tell House investigators that he ultimately learned that Giuliani, far from freelancing, was advancing Trump’s goals when he pushed for Ukraine to investigate the president’s political opponents.

"My understanding was that the president directed Mr. Giuliani’s participation, that Mr. Giuliani was expressing the concerns of the president," Sondland plans to say, according to the prepared testimony.

A key figure in the unfolding impeachment inquiry, Sondland had no diplomatic experience before Trump nominated him in 2017 to become ambassador to the E.U., a club of nations that does not include Ukraine. He was a wealthy hotelier who donated about $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee and refers to himself in his prepared testimony as a “lifelong Republican.”

Nonetheless, Sondland casts blame directly on the president in the 18-page statement he plans to read to House lawmakers before answering their questions in the closed-door session. He also chastises his employer — the State Department — for trying to block his testimony.

Sondland asked Ukrainians during private White House talk about gas firm linked to Hunter Biden

In the prepared testimony, he repeatedly says he was "disappointed" in Trump’s decision-making on Ukraine and Giuliani’s involvement and asserts the president was in a "bad mood" the day Trump told Sondland by phone there were no quid pro quos involved in granting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a coveted meeting with Trump.

Although likely to be challenged by lawmakers on several fronts, Sondland in his testimony paints a damning portrait of a troika of senior officials — Sondland, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker — begrudgingly engaging with Giuliani against their better instincts, out of desperation to advance U.S.-Ukraine relations.

While Sondland’s timeline of events largely matches the one described by others who have already testified, his version absolves him of any wrongdoing or of having any foreknowledge of a scheme to use U.S. foreign policy to advance Trump’s political interests. His characterization is at stark odds with both the testimony of other officials and with written records obtained by the House in its impeachment inquiry.

"I knew that a public embrace of anti-corruption reforms by Ukraine was one of the pre-conditions for securing a White House meeting with President Zelenskiy," Sondland is expected to say, according to the prepared testimony. He’ll argue that because advocating good governance in Ukraine has been a U.S. priority for decades, "nothing about that request raised any red flags."

"I did not understand, until much later, that Mr. Giuliani’s agenda might have also included an effort to prompt the Ukrainians to investigate Vice President Biden or his son or to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly, in the president’s 2020 re-election campaign," Sondland wrote in the prepared testimony.

There is no evidence of corruption by either Biden.

Sondland’s depiction of a Trump-ordered campaign to pressure Zelenskiy to open an investigation adds to a growing body of testimony corroborating the underlying allegations contained in a whistleblower’s complaint that led the House to launch impeachment proceedings late last month. Trump has maintained he did "nothing wrong" and that all his efforts on Ukraine were both legal and appropriate.

Yet George Kent, a top State Department official for Europe, told lawmakers this week that he was sidelined by "the three amigos" — Sondland, Perry and Volker — and told to "lay low" after he raised concerns about Giuliani, NBC News reported. Former top State Department adviser Michael McKinley testified that he resigned this month in part because he was "disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents."

Trump’s ex-Russia aide testifies in impeachment inquiry

Fiona Hill, until recently the top Europe official in Trump’s White House, testified this week that Giuliani and Sondland circumvented National Security Council officials to run a shadow Ukraine policy. She described hearing Sondland tell visiting Ukrainian officials in June that Trump would grant Zelenskiy a visit if he opened an investigation and later mentioning Burisma after escorting the Ukrainians to the White House basement. Burisma Holdings is the Ukrainian gas company whose board the former vice president's son Hunter Biden joined in 2014.

And Volker, the envoy for Ukraine negotiations who resigned last month, turned over text messages to Congress showing himself, Sondland and a top Zelenskiy aide discussing exact language that Zelenskiy should utter in announcing the investigation sought by Trump.

In one text exchange, acting Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor expressed alarm that the Trump administration was conditioning the release of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on help with Trump’s re-election campaign, calling it "crazy."

Several hours later, Sondland texted back, telling Taylor that Trump "has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind." He suggests they stop discussing the matter via text message.

But Sondland plans to tell Congress that any suggestion he was trying to avoid creating a written record of their conversation is "completely false."

"I simply prefer to talk rather than to text," Sondland will say, according to the prepared testimony.

In a letter, obtained by NBC News, sent to the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Reform committees, Sondland’s attorneys explained that he was unable to turn over documents — including his communications — that they requested because they have been given to the State Department.

But they added that Sondland “has encouraged the State Department to provide the Committees with the requested documents in advance of his deposition. He strongly believes that disclosure will lead to a more fulsome and accurate inquiry into the matters at issue and will corroborate the testimony that he will give in key respects.”

Not only will Sondland assert he never heard the Bidens mentioned in any White House discussions, but he’ll also say he doesn’t recall any discussions about withholding military aid in exchange for help with Trump’s re-election. His prepared statement suggests that Taylor’s Sept. 9 text message was the first he learned about that concern.

"Taking the issue seriously, and given the many versions of speculation that had been circulating about the security aid, I called President Trump directly. I asked the president: 'What do you want from Ukraine?'" Sondland will tell Congress. "The president responded: 'Nothing. There is no quid pro quo.'"

Sondland goes on to say: "The president repeated: 'no quid pro quo' multiple times. This was a very short call. And I recall the president was in a bad mood."

Sondland will also testify that several months before that exchange, in May, he joined Perry, Volker and GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin in the Oval Office to brief Trump on their recent trip to Kyiv for Zelenskiy’s inauguration. He’ll say the returning delegation wanted Trump to grant Zelenskiy a White House visit but that Trump was "skeptical" about Zelenskiy’s seriousness in addressing corruption.

"He directed those of us present at the meeting to talk to Mr. Giuliani, his personal attorney, about his concerns," Sondland will say. "It was apparent to all of us that the key to changing the president’s mind on Ukraine was Mr. Giuliani."

In a rare critique of the president by one of his own political appointees, Sondland is expected to tell lawmakers that he, Perry and Volker were "disappointed" by that May 23 meeting and were "also disappointed by the president’s direction that we involve Mr. Giuliani."

Indeed, much of Sondland’s statement to Congress appears aimed at shifting the blame for any deviations from proper procedure on others: Giuliani, Hill, former national security adviser John Bolton and Trump himself. Sondland says he would never have recommended that "Giuliani or any other private citizen" be involved in foreign policy and only did so "given the president’s explicit direction."

National security adviser John Bolton with President Trump in the Oval Office on Sept. 28, 2018.Oliver Contreras / The Washington Post via Getty Images file

NBC News reported this week that Bolton was so concerned when Sondland told Ukrainian officials that Trump would meet with Zeleneskiy if he opened an investigation that he directed Hill, the Europe expert, to report the situation to the top National Security Council lawyer.

But, according to the prepared testimony, Sondland will say that Bolton and Hill never raised any concerns to him about Ukraine policy. He’ll state that he was "surprised and disappointed" by Hill’s reported "critical comments" about him and believes her testimony must have been "the product of hindsight."

Further minimizing his own role in the Ukraine matter, Sondland will say he only recalls meeting Giuliani once and speaking to him by phone just two or three times — for only a few minutes each. He’ll say it was Perry and Volker who "took the lead on reaching out to Mr. Giuliani, as the president had directed."

As for the public statement committing to an investigation that he and Volker discussed having Ukraine’s government issue, Sondland will say he recalls it being written mostly by the Ukrainians, with Volker’s "guidance" and Sondland’s assistance "when asked."

Text messages given by Volker to Congress showed Volker proposing to Sondland that they get Zelenskiy to refer to "alleged involvement of some Ukrainian politicians" in interference in U.S. elections.

"We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma and the 2016 U.S. elections," Volker and Sondland agreed that the Ukrainian president should say at a news conference.

Trump has long promoted the baseless theory that Ukraine — not Russia — was responsible for 2016 election meddling. Zelenskiy never did make the statement.

Expert worries 'all we'll have is war, no diplomacy' under Trump

According to the prepared testimony, Sondland will also offer effusive praise for former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was ousted by Trump in May amid a smear campaign promulgated by Giuliani, his associates and Ukraine’s then-prosecutor general. Trump, in the July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy that prompted the whistleblower complaint, refers to Yovanovitch as "bad news."

"I found her to be an excellent diplomat with a deep command" of Ukraine issues, Sondland plans to say, calling her a "delight" to work with and insisting he never participated in any campaign to disparage or dislodge her. He plans to add: "I regretted her departure."

The Ukraine story has been playing out for a lot longer than you might think

Although Sondland will assert that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo supported his involvement on Ukraine — even sending him a "great work" congratulatory note and encouraging him "to keep banging away" — he also sharply criticizes the State Department in his prepared statement.

Under Pompeo, the State Department initially blocked Sondland’s testimony by directing him not to appear via an email to his lawyers just hours before his scheduled hearing last week. Sondland will say that the decision "disappointed" him.

Sondland’s rescheduled deposition Thursday is occurring under formal subpoena from the House, which Sondland will say "supported my appearance." He also plans to tell lawmakers he has not shared his prepared statement with either the White House or the State Department in advance of Thursday’s hearing.

"Some may want me to say things to protect the president at all costs; some may want me to provide damning facts to support the other side. But none of that matters to me. I have no interest in pursuing higher office or taking political shots," Sondland will say, according to the prepared testimony. "These are my own words."

*********

Trump's letter to Turkey's Erdogan shows the U.S. is struggling to keep up with Ankara

The Turkish president was able to end the U.S. partnership with his arch enemy, the Kurds, by leveraging Trump and Putin against each other in Syria.

By Soner Cagaptay, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy | Published Oct. 16, 2019, 5:05 PM EDT | NBC News | Posted October 17, 2019 1:35 PM ET |

President Donald Trump’s letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging him not to go after an enemy Kurdish military group in neighboring Syria as U.S. troops depart the war-torn country, indicates that the U.S. president wants to corner his Turkish counterpart. But Erdogan, who has run Turkey for nearly two decades, may well be smarter than to let himself be trapped.

So far, the Turkish president shows no sign of stopping his relentless advance despite the threat of American sanctions Trump delivered in his missive, made public Wednesday but penned last week. Erdogan has calculated that even if the sanctions come, they won’t be sufficient to disrupt the Turkish military strategy; he figures that what Trump wants most is to bring U.S. troops home, and he won't do much more to prevent the offensive against the Kurds.

Erdogan wants to see Ankara rising as a great power with influence over Muslims across Turkey’s former Ottoman Empire possessions.

Erdogan is without doubt the most consequential Turkish leader in nearly a century. The move is just the latest example of Erdogan’s ability to play off major world powers to get what he wants — though at the cost of his international relationships.

In 1923, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk established modern Turkey in his image as a secular state oriented toward Europe and the West. Styling himself as the new Ataturk since becoming prime minister in 2003, Erdogan has revolutionized Turkish politics, striving to recast the country from the top down in his own image: profoundly Islamic and socially conservative.

Moreover, Erdogan’s “new Turkey” is primarily oriented not toward the West but the Middle East. Erdogan wants to see Ankara rising as a great power with influence over Muslims across Turkey’s former Ottoman Empire possessions.

Erdogan’s quest for greatness for Turkey is not unusual. It is, in many ways, a continuation of the policies of the Ottoman sultans as well as Ataturk, all of whom sought great power.

However, Erdogan’s path to the same end is different. While his predecessors folded Turkey into the West to exert global influence, Erdogan’s goal is to make Turkey a stand-alone power: first in the Middle East, then globally.

Accordingly, Erdogan has sought to influence the affairs of Turkey’s Muslim-majority neighbors. One of his most dramatic moves on this score has been to intervene in neighboring Syria’s civil war by supporting and arming rebels trying to oust the regime of Bashar al-Assad — hoping to replace him with leadership in Damascus friendly to Ankara.

The United States has also intervened in Syria. Most substantially, following the rise of the Islamic State militant group that flourished in the vacuum created by Syria’s war, the U.S. started to partner in 2014 with the Syrian Kurdish group YPG. That has helped make the YPG a part of the most effective force fighting ISIS and challenging Assad.

But the YPG, or Kurdish People’s Protection Units, is an off-shoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has committed repeated attacks on Turkish civilians as part of its decadeslong war with Ankara. The PKK is a terror-designated entity by Turkey, the U.S. and other NATO member countries.

Turkey never accepted the U.S. policy of working with a group that reports to its sworn enemy, but it tolerated it as long as it was tactical and helped undermine ISIS. In the aftermath of the fall of ISIS’s “caliphate” in 2017, though, Ankara started to insist that Washington end its relationship with the YPG. American officials had previously told Turkey that its cooperation with the Syrian Kurds was not just tactical, but also temporary and transactional — a message recounted to me by numerous U.S. officials.

After Washington did not wean itself from the YPG at the speed Ankara wanted, Erdogan last week decided to launch a military offensive into Syria. His goal: to undermine the YPG’s budding political presence and strengthening enclave in northeastern Syria.

To this end, Erdogan called Trump on Oct. 6. Although the White House later denied it, the readoutof the call suggests that Trump indeed greenlighted the assault. Trump, who does not want to keep U.S. troops in Syria any longer, gladly offered to withdraw American forces from Syria and pave the way for the Turkish incursion so Ankara could take responsibility for the battle against ISIS.

Similarly, Russian President Vladimir Putin also tacitly approved of the Turkish offensive, hoping that subsequent events would bog Turkey and Washington down further in Syria. The YPG collapsed like a house of cards only four days into the Turkish military operation against it.

In January 2018, Erdogan used a similar tactic, complaining to Putin about the protection the Russian and Assad regime had extended to the YPG in its other enclave, in northwestern Syria. That resulted in Putin — who has a new policy of courting Erdogan — giving Ankara its own green light for an offensive against the YPG, culminating in a complete takeover of the Kurdish area by Turkey and its allies in Syria.

Erdogan has achieved his primary goal of breaking the U.S.-YPG partnership thanks to his crafty policy of leveraging Trump and Putin against each other, and manipulating Washington by playing on the theme that Moscow is willing to do more for Turkey regarding the YPG than is the U.S.

But notwithstanding this military victory, Erdogan’s policy has had mixed results. While delivering a serious blow to the Kurds, he has failed to shape the outcome of events in Syria, where Turkey-backed rebels have been overwhelmed by the support Assad has received from Russia and Iran. Both countries are historic Turkish adversaries, and in the end neither side will allow Erdogan to exit the war in Syria with glory.

In the broader Middle East, the Turkish president’s backing of the Muslim Brotherhood has put him at odds with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries that see the political Islamist group as their greatest domestic threat. It’s also a reason why Israel, once a close ally of Turkey’s, has started to align with Gulf monarchies against Erdogan.

Turkey has not only failed to earn star-power status in the region but, as of 2019, has actually been left with no Middle Eastern friends other than Qatar.

Accordingly, and ironically, Turkey has not only failed to earn star-power status in the region but, as of 2019, has actually been left with no Middle Eastern friends other than Qatar.

What’s more, Turkey can no longer rely on its traditional allies, such as the U.S. and European states. Although Erdogan has had some success in building influence across the Balkans and Africa thanks to local dynamics in these regions, his policies have left Turkey overall more isolated than ever. The letter from Trump is only more harsh evidence of the bridges he’s burned.

This doesn't mean the complete bankruptcy of Erdogan’s foreign policy, however. Ankara is currently stuck among the NATO-led West, the Muslim Middle East and the Russian “North,” and Erdogan will continue to play these blocs against one another as he has done in northern Syria to get at least some of what he wants: more territory, a diminished Kurdish threat and a “say” in Syria’s future.

[trunewsofficial]

Here's What TruNews Discovered at Jeffrey Epstein's Infamous Zorro Ranch

Just hours after the death of disgraced former financier Jeffrey Epstein, TruNews correspondent Edward Szall and TruNews producer Matt Skow visited his alleged “breeder facility” at his Zorro Ranch near Stanley, N.M. They left for the 8,000-acre estate on Friday without knowing what would happen early Saturday morning. But after learning of Epstein’s reported death, they approached the property with a new mission: to see if they could find someone working there who could respond to the news. Instead, the found the estate was mostly empty, although there were signs someone was there. This included several vehicles, as well as a relatively recent arrival: a large recreational vehicle with its rooms extended, implying it was in use. Szall and Skow didn’t spend too long on the property, but while they were there, they observed a few oddities, including: • a cast iron coat of arms with the date 1610 emblazoned on it that appears to have symbols reminiscent of the European Habsburg Dynasty; • a pair of African fertility statues sitting in an alcove on the main building’s roof, but behind iron bars; and • large curtains over many of the windows, as well as iron bars over some of the bars, preventing anyone outside from seeing in, or anyone inside from getting out. Upon closer examination of the vehicles parked on the property, Szall said he observed two bicycles attached to the back of an SUV. One of those vehicles appeared to be meant for a young girl. Although they did not see anyone, they left when dogs began barking outside. Click here to watch the entire video: https://ift.tt/2KvUGTJ During Monday night’s God-cast, TruNews founder and host Rick Wiles had a message for the FBI: “I sent Edward and Matt out there to scout out the place, so that FBI agents could find it. So, if you don’t know how to get there, if the FBI would call us, we’d be glad to tell you how to find Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, because obviously in 30 years, the FBI has not been able to get out there and do a serious investigation.” The TruNews team discussed the video in greater detail, as well as a number of today’s headlines related to Epstein’s death and the investigation into his child sex trafficking ring. You can see those headlines below. In the meantime, Wiles had a message for those who were directly involved in Epstein’s operation, and who are likely responsible for his death: “We’re going to be given the official narrative, and six months from now, if you question it and you post something on Facebook or YouTube or Twitte that questions the official narrative, you will be labeled a conspiracy theorist and possible homeland security threat. “They expect us to believe it, but we don’t believe it, we’re not going to believe it, and we’re going to find out who you are, what you’re doing, and we’re going to lock you up. We’re not going to allow you to run this country anymore.” FBI RAIDS PEDOPHILE ISLAND According to The Daily Mail, FBI agents were seen raiding Epstein’s personal island, Little Saint James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands today. At least one dozen agents stormed the island aboard speedboats, and were later seen driving around the more-than-70-acre island on golf carts. The Daily Mail provided video, which it says it obtained from an anonymous source who observed the activity while aboard a chartered boat trip around the island, which has been alternately dubbed “Pedophile Island” and “Orgy Island.” Agents were also later seen walking about the main estate. The newspaper, one of the few in the mainstream media that has not let the Epstein story go cold, additionally reported that Epstein purchased two more properties in Florida through a shell company. One of them, located nine miles south of his West Palm Beach mansion, has a swimming pool, fourth bathrooms, but no bedrooms. The report states the current occupant of the home is listed as the son of two Finnish nationals, and it’s not clear what connection—if any—they may have to the disgraced former financier. It was purchased with the same company that also bought the West Palm Beach property, as well as Great Saint James Island near his principal residence in the Virgin Islands. JFK-MLK PATHOLOGIST OBSERVES AUTOPSY New York City Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson says an autopsy was carried out Sunday, and that it produced inconclusive results that require additional investigation. A private pathologist—Dr. Michael Baden—was hired to observe on behalf of Epstein’s “representatives,” a move Dr. Sampson said was routine under the circumstances. Baden previously held Sampson’s job more than 40 years ago and has participated in a number of high-profile death investigations. He also chaired the forensic pathology panel that investigated the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. BARR: ‘THEY SHOULD NOT REST EASY’ Meanwhile, Attorney General William Barr has issued a stark warning to those who collaborated with Epstein in his sex abuse and human trafficking operation. He also slammed the manner in which Epstein was handled by the Manhattan Correctional Center, where he is alleged to have hanged himself. Batt told participants at a police event this morning in New Orleans: “'I would like to briefly address the news from the Manhattan Correctional Center over the weekend regarding Jeffrey Epstein. “This case was very important to the Department. It was important to the dedicated prosecutors and agents who investigated the case and were preparing it for trial. Most importantly, this case was important to the victims who had the courage to come forward and deserved the opportunity to confront the accused in court. “I was appalled—indeed, the entire Department was—and frankly angry, to learn of the MCC’s failure to adequately secure this prisoner. “We are now learning of serious irregularities at this facility that are deeply concerning and that demand a thorough investigation. The FBI and the Office of Inspector General are already doing just that. “We will get to the bottom of what happened at the MCC and we will hold people accountable for this failure. “Let me assure you that this case will continue on against anyone who was complicit with Epstein. Any co-conspirators should not rest easy. The victims deserve justice, and we will ensure they get it.” The two prison guards who were responsible for monitoring Epstein when he is alleged to have taken his own life have since “lawyered up,” while the head of their union is blaming the situation on a lack of funding and overworked staff, laying the blame at President Trump’s feet. LAWYERS FOUGHT TO END SUICIDE WATCH According to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, the former financier was meeting for up to 12 hours a day with his attorneys, and that the had requested he be removed from suicide watch. He was supposed to have a cellmate, but that inmate was later transferred, and he was supposed to be checked every 30 minutes. Some media reports have suggested Epstein’s first “attempted suicide” was instead an effort to get away from his previous cellmate, former NYPD officer Nicholas Tartaglione. The former cop was being held on suspicion of killing four men over a drug deal gone bad. Tartaglione denied having anything to do with the “suicide” attempt and later claimed he had saved Epstein’s life by calling for help. Another inmate had been slated to join Epstein on Friday, just hours before he was found dead in his cell, but that unnamed inmate was removed almost immediately under mysterious circumstances. VICTIM: MAXWELL PARTICIPATED IN SEX SESSIONS Epstein’s former partner/girlfriend/madame, Ghislaine Maxwell, has been identified by one of the former financier’s most high profile victims. Virginia Roberts Giuffre says she was loaned out to Prince Andrew and others—including former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. But, the former sex slave also claims Maxwell participated in sex sessions, as well, and is likely now feeling the heat from federal prosecutors. Although she has always denied any wrongdoing, reports have emerged that she may be ready to cooperate with investigators to round up others who were involved in the child sex trafficking. The New York Post notes that Epstein’s death now allows prosecutors to target their own witnesses, now that “they don’t need them anymore.” In addition to Maxwell, this could also include: • Sarah Kellen Vickers—a former Epstein assistant, alleged to have kept a Rolodex of young girls to be recruited for her boss, who is now married to NASCAR driver Brian Vickers. • Adriana Ross—former Epstein staffer who allegedly arranged many of his “predator” sessions, who has been connected to visits by Prince Andrew and President Bill Clinton. • Lesley Groff—former Epstein staffer who allegedly arranged travel for young girls under the auspices of providing “massages.” • Nadia Marcinkova—alleged Epstein “sex slave” who is an FAA-certified commercial pilot, rated for Gulfstream II, III and IV aircraft, and who has been accused of engaging in sexual encounters with young girls. MORE DETAILS COMING There are still thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—documents yet to be released as part of a public records lawsuit filed in Florida related to a defamation case involving several of Epstein’s victims. His alleged suicide occurred just 24 hours after more than 2,000 pages of documents had been released, providing lurid allegations of sex abuse of young girls. In New York, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said: “To those brave young women who have already come forward and to the may others who have yet to do so, let me reiterate that we remain committed to standing for you, and our investigation of the conduct charged in the indictment—which included a conspiracy count—remains ongoing.” The lawyers representing Epstein’s victims have announced they will file civil lawsuits against his estate this week. One of those attorneys, Roberta Kaplan, told reporters: “I can promise you I will get to [Epstein’s assets] on behalf of my client, come hell or high water.” A new law, called the Child Victims Act, will go into effect Wednesday. That will allow the attorneys up to one year to sue over allegations of sexual abuse, regardless of when the alleged acts took place. It is believed an “avalanche of civil suits” are coming against the Epstein estate. FRANCE LAUNCHING INVESTIGATION Marlene Schiappa, the French Minister of Women’s Affairs, and Adrien Taquet, a junior minister for the protection of children, have announced their intent to launch an investigation into Epstein’s possible links to France, claiming it would be “essential” for victims to do so. American prosecutors have revealed that he had a luxury apartment in Paris and used a fake Austrian passport to travel to the country in the 1980s. This follows a statement from Innocence en Danger that called for an investigation. It stated that a “reliable source” had confirmed that several of Epstein’s victims were of French nationality. (Photo Credit: Google Maps) source https://trunews.com/stream/heres-what-trunews-discovered-at-jeffrey-epsteins-infamous-zorro-ranch

[racingtoaredlight]

Opening Bell: July 19, 2019

Weeks after a U.S. military drone was shot down by Iran in the Persian Gulf, tensions rose further in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday after the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command announced that the U.S. Navy had shot down an Iranian drone. The drone was allegedly shot down, or taken down in some unspecified way, by the USS Boxer, an amphibious warship which carries up to 2,000 Marines and can put them ashore with landing craft carried in a stern well-deck or by helicopter from its flight deck. The Boxer is at the center of a task force carrying the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit into the Gulf. The Pentagon’s statement was bare and Central Command did not add much other than to say that warnings were issued before the drone was taken down. Iran offered virtually no statement other than to acknowledge that some sort of incident had taken place. This also comes on the heels of a video showing boats allegedly belonging to belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps circling and then closing in on an oil tanker that had gone missing recently and which the Iranian foreign ministry announced that the Iranians had reported that it had been disabled. Now it seems that Iran seized the oil tanker for allegedly trying to smuggle stolen Iranian crude oil out of the Gulf. Not even this is completely clear, however, and as both Britain and the U.S. send more ships to the region, the amount of uncertainty going forward is certain to increase.

 The night before last at a rally in North Carolina, President Donald Trump continued to rail against Rep. Ilhad Omar (D-Minn.) and, amidst the frenzied energy in the room, the audience began to cry out “send her back,” in an apparent mimic of a tweet the president sent out days earlier and directed at four Democratic congresswomen, including Omar. The cries mirrored in tone and anger those leveled at 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Amidst widespread condemnation, which is somewhat more muted among Republican members of Congress, Trump appeared yesterday to walk back the events of the rally, telling reporters that he did not care for the chant and asserted that he tried to interrupt it by beginning to speak again quickly (something which video of the event, which shows Trump listening to the crowd for a full 13 seconds before saying anything, immediately belies). There is no question at this point that Trump sees more value in throwing red meat to his base supporters, which includes unabashed white nationalists, than in being conciliatory or bridge-building in any way, and yet there are apparently still advisors within the White House and members of Congress with connections to the White House, who are able to get through to the president that, on occasion, his statements or actions go too far. It remains an open question how many such individuals are among his 2020 campaign staff.

Yesterday at a bail hearing in New York, a federal judge issued a 33-page decision in which he denied bail to multi-millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein’s defense lawyers had proposed a rather bold bail agreement in which Epstein would be released from jail but confined to his Manhattan home—a mansion rumored to be worth approximately $75 million—and guarded by private security force paid for by Epstein out of his own pocket. Epstein would also voluntarily give up his passport and have his private plane—though which one is not known since he is rumored to own several—de-registered from the FAA, preventing it from flying. Prosecutors responded to the defense’s bail proposal by rejecting it and introducing evidence that Epstein had a safe in his Manhattan home in which FBI agents discovered, among other things, a Saudi Arabian passport under a fake name and piles of cash and diamonds. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman decided that, under the circumstances, Epstein was certainly a flight risk and would instead remain confined leading up to his trial. As Epstein, who has lived an outrageously luxurious lifestyle, sits behind bars, the question now becomes whether he feels enough pressure to begin working with prosecutors to give up other perpetrators; and over the years Epstein entertained and became friends with dozens of very wealthy and powerful men in this country and outside of it. If so, it is not impossible that some extremely high profile men could stand accused of a litany of sex-based crimes. Either way, it seems like Epstein’s days of using his enormous wealth to escape consequences for his actions, may finally be over.

In 1984, Coca Cola, the original and most iconically American soft drink brand, announced to great fanfare and press coverage the Lincoln Center in New York, that it had created a new recipe for Coke with an improved taste. Anyone reading these words knows exactly what happened next: New Coke almost immediately bombed as a product and Coca Cola was virtually forced to pull New Coke from the market after only two months and reintroduce its old recipe, now branded as “Coke Classic.” It is one of the most well-known cautionary tales in corporate American history: if you change a well-known product, especially one as closely associate with Americana as Coke, there will be consequences. The only problem with this cautionary tale is that it is not true. New Coke was introduced in 1985 precisely because “Coke Classic” sales were slipping and the company was thought to be a hidebound American company unable to adapt to the times. This was compounded by Pepsi’s successful marketing campaign touting its attraction to younger Americans, who were called the “Pepsi Generation.” There are actually threads in the public reaction to and takedown of New Coke that would be familiar to anyone today who has spent time on social media, especially Twitter: one person’s cranky opinion can be used to coalesce with the minority opinion of others in a group setting, opinions that might otherwise have never felt important enough to express. At its core, the demise of New Coke is not at all about whether or not people actually preferred the taste of Coke Classic, but is instead bout individuals looking for and apparently seeing the opportunity for a quick payout and other absurd details that I have left out of this summary; seriously you need to read this to see the pants-on-head level of crazy and existential fear that was invoked because a new soft drink was introduced.

Bob Ross was, and remains to this day even more than two decades after his death, one of the faces most associated with public television. For over a decade, he painted sceneries in oil, standing at an angle to his canvas so that viewers could watch him create “happy little trees,” and marvel at his massive perm. While Ross’s paintings seemed to be created from whole cloth—or blank canvas, if you prefer—in front of our eyes during a recording, each painting made on-air was actually one of three; one painted before the show for reference, the one painted on air and on which Ross frequently made ad-lib changes to, and one that was painted afterward for his instructional books and videos. Collectively Ross’s paintings, because they all exist as triplets, are known as “Bob Ross Triptychs.” By some estimates, Ross painted between 1,100 and 1,300 paintings on his show, and by others he created over 30,000 unique pieces of art. So the question is, where are Bob Ross’s paintings? The New York Times went looking and it seems that finding a genuine Bob Ross painting in public is so difficult that a high-priced market exists for those that are authenticated and available for sale. And while Bob Ross Inc. will investigate the authenticity any alleged Bob Ross painting and issue a certificate of authenticity if appropriate, this can only be done by traveling to their Virginia headquarters; pictures and digital copies will not be examined. Bob Ross never wanted his paintings to be exhibited, but those that are, apparently fetch quite the high price.

Since the 1960s, demographers have shown us that Americans are attending church less, show less inclination to identify with a particular religious confession, and embrace atheism at greater levels. One measure of this is seen, in particular, in the Catholic Church, which depends greatly upon individuals joining the priesthood or a convent and giving up considerable material comfort. In the 1960s, there were 180,000 American nuns, but by the 2000s, there were fewer than 60,000, and more were older than 90 than were younger than 60. As Millennials and the so-called Generation Z that follow them come of age, it would seem that this trend would continue and that certain religious orders and ways of life may cease to exist entirely. Only this may not be happening. There is a surge in young Americans expressing interest in and entering both the priesthood and becoming nuns. This article, rather convincingly, surmises a number of social issues and trends; being told that you can be anything is not as empowering as its proclaimers like to believe, and can instead inflict a serious burden on the receiver of such a homily. The order and tradition of the convent has become appealing to Millennials, as has the lack of personal choice that goes in to committing one to such a life. But what is most interesting about this article is that, like The Young Pope writ large, this young new generation of Americans expressing interesting in the Church and in the convent, are yearning for the most conservative elements of both.

As we enter the latter half of 2019 and all questions related to the 2020 census have now been settled (famous last words with this administration), we can now begin to surmise what the next census will mean for redistricting battles that are sure to follow in 2022 and beyond. Kyle Kondik of the Center for Politics looks at the effects of the Supreme Court’s decision in Rucho v. Common Cause and what this means, and doesn’t mean, for election battles in the coming decade.

 Welcome to the weekend.

[lodelss]

Kirstjen Nielsen’s Brutal and Calamitous Leadership of the Department of Homeland Security Comes to an End She implemented some of the Trump administration’s most vicious policies and repeatedly violated the law.

Late yesterday, President Trump announced that Kirstjen Nielsen has resigned as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Trump said that Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), will serve as Acting Secretary.

Nielsen’s tenure as head of one of the country’s largest government agencies was a humanitarian catastrophe, consistently showing a clear disregard for civil rights and people’s lives. Indeed, just over a week prior to her resignation, CBP agents forced asylum-seekers to sleep outside beneath a bridge in El Paso in extremely low temperatures and deprived of medical care.

Implemented family separation and expanded immigration detention

The most infamous chapter in Nielsen’s time at DHS was her implementation of an unfathomably cruel family separation policy. The administration tore thousands of children from their parents — without even keeping track of many of the families it separated — in an effort to punish and deter families who were lawfully seeking asylum in the United States. McAleenan, Nielsen’s acting replacement, signed a memo recommending the policy.

Nielsen’s imposition of the family separation policy was a humanitarian and legal disaster that was ultimately curtailed by an ACLU lawsuit and immense public outcry. But even after the administration formally ended the policy, Nielsen continued to shamelessly lie about it, going so far as to deny that the policy ever existed. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) asked the FBI to investigate whether Nielsen committed perjury when she testified to Congress that “we’ve never had a policy for family separation.”

A DHS inspector general report found that the department failed to track the children they separated from their parents, and DHS used information from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to arrest and deport sponsors and potential sponsors of the detained children. And yet, the separation of families at the border continues.

The detention and separation of families was part of a broad attack on asylum-seekers and immigrants generally under Nielsen.

She presided over a huge expansion in immigration detention. The number of people in DHS custody skyrocketed during her tenure, reaching 50,000 on average per day in March. Since the department’s detention spending soared past the already bloated-budget approved by Congress, DHS had to funnel dollars from other agencies, including FEMA funds meant for disaster relief, in order to cover the costs of jailing immigrants in facilities notorious for substandard medical care, abusive practices, and violations of people’s constitutional rights.

Restricted asylum and protections for immigrants

She attempted to curtail asylum protections in numerous unlawful ways. For example, she ordered that people who had entered the country in between official points of entry were not eligible for asylum, even though United States law provides precisely the opposite. In November, the ACLU and partners won an initial ruling preventing the asylum ban from going into effect.

She also terminated Temporary Protected Status for people from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nepal and failed to redesignate TPS for those from Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, despite the fact that violence and natural disasters have displaced tens of thousands of people in their home countries. While she was serving in the administration but prior to her time as DHS Secretary, Trump also announced the termination of TPS for people from Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan. The ACLU of Southern California and partners obtained a ruling in October blocking the termination of TPS for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan, citing “serious questions as to whether a discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor” in their decisions.

After Trump reportedly made racist comments regarding immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, and African nations, and instead wanted to prioritize immigrants from Norway, Nielsen denied to Congress that the president used the word, but explained that he “was using tough language.” She also denied that his remarks were racist, bizarrely insisting that she herself didn’t know that Norway was a predominantly white country.

Nielsen also was in charge of implementing Trump’s Muslim ban — she was confirmed to her post one day after the Supreme Court allowed the third version of the ban to take full effect — and served as Chief of Staff to former DHS Secretary John Kelly during the implementation of the first and second versions of the Muslim ban.

Nielsen also championed the attempt to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), issuing a memo purporting to justify the administration’s decision to end the program, which provides protections for certain young immigrants, but was rebuffed by a federal court.

Paved the way to build Trump’s wall and expanded warrantless searches at the border

When Trump shut down the government for weeks in order to secure billions of more dollars to build his border wall, Nielsen was consistently at his side and parroting his false talking points. Even before the shutdown, Nielsen helped build Trump’s wall by waiving federal, state, local, and tribal laws and undermining border communities in order to accelerate its construction, and afterwards championed the president’s bogus “national emergency” declaration to build the wall, an unconstitutional order that the ACLU has challenged in court. The border wall would increase the number of deaths among migrants as they are “funneled” to harsher domains.

Along the border, the number of warrantless searches of electronic devices, such as cellphones and laptops, by CBP agents increased under the Trump administration. While Nielsen did not start the policy of warrantless searches, she defended DHS’s practices that violate people’s Fourth Amendment rights — practices that the ACLU, together with the Electronic Frontier Foundation — is challenging in a groundbreaking lawsuit. Under Nielsen’s leadership, social media “vetting” expanded dramatically, despite concerns about unfairly targeting Muslim immigrants and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, and expanding to all immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants.

Nielsen’s disastrous and unlawful policies could fill a book, and this is only a summary of some of her most egregious actions, which extend to tear-gassing toddlers and being in charge while two children died in Border Patrol custody.

Her resignation comes only days after Trump withdrew his nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), saying that he wants “tougher” people to carry out his anti-immigrant policies. Seeing as Nielsen was one of Trump’s most brutal cabinet secretaries, this does not bode well for the president’s permanent replacement.

All in all, Nielsen’s legacy as an apologist and enabler of Trump’s detention and deportation machine will go down in history as one of the crucial — and cruel — moments of this presidency.

Published April 8, 2019 at 07:00PM via ACLU http://bit.ly/2Vx0ijm

[nancydhooper]

Kirstjen Nielsen’s Brutal and Calamitous Leadership of the Department of Homeland Security Comes to an End

She implemented some of the Trump administration’s most vicious policies and repeatedly violated the law.

Late yesterday, President Trump announced that Kirstjen Nielsen has resigned as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Trump said that Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), will serve as Acting Secretary.

Nielsen’s tenure as head of one of the country’s largest government agencies was a humanitarian catastrophe, consistently showing a clear disregard for civil rights and people’s lives. Indeed, just over a week prior to her resignation, CBP agents forced asylum-seekers to sleep outside beneath a bridge in El Paso in extremely low temperatures and deprived of medical care.

Implemented family separation and expanded immigration detention

The most infamous chapter in Nielsen’s time at DHS was her implementation of an unfathomably cruel family separation policy. The administration tore thousands of children from their parents — without even keeping track of many of the families it separated — in an effort to punish and deter families who were lawfully seeking asylum in the United States. McAleenan, Nielsen’s acting replacement, signed a memo recommending the policy.

Nielsen’s imposition of the family separation policy was a humanitarian and legal disaster that was ultimately curtailed by an ACLU lawsuit and immense public outcry. But even after the administration formally ended the policy, Nielsen continued to shamelessly lie about it, going so far as to deny that the policy ever existed. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) asked the FBI to investigate whether Nielsen committed perjury when she testified to Congress that “we’ve never had a policy for family separation.”

A DHS inspector general report found that the department failed to track the children they separated from their parents, and DHS used information from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to arrest and deport sponsors and potential sponsors of the detained children. And yet, the separation of families at the border continues.

The detention and separation of families was part of a broad attack on asylum-seekers and immigrants generally under Nielsen.

She presided over a huge expansion in immigration detention. The number of people in DHS custody skyrocketed during her tenure, reaching 50,000 on average per day in March. Since the department’s detention spending soared past the already bloated-budget approved by Congress, DHS had to funnel dollars from other agencies, including FEMA funds meant for disaster relief, in order to cover the costs of jailing immigrants in facilities notorious for substandard medical care, abusive practices, and violations of people’s constitutional rights.

Restricted asylum and protections for immigrants

She attempted to curtail asylum protections in numerous unlawful ways. For example, she ordered that people who had entered the country in between official points of entry were not eligible for asylum, even though United States law provides precisely the opposite. In November, the ACLU and partners won an initial ruling preventing the asylum ban from going into effect.

She also terminated Temporary Protected Status for people from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nepal and failed to redesignate TPS for those from Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, despite the fact that violence and natural disasters have displaced tens of thousands of people in their home countries. While she was serving in the administration but prior to her time as DHS Secretary, Trump also announced the termination of TPS for people from Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan. The ACLU of Southern California and partners obtained a ruling in October blocking the termination of TPS for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan, citing “serious questions as to whether a discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor” in their decisions.

After Trump reportedly made racist comments regarding immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, and African nations, and instead wanted to prioritize immigrants from Norway, Nielsen denied to Congress that the president used the word, but explained that he “was using tough language.” She also denied that his remarks were racist, bizarrely insisting that she herself didn’t know that Norway was a predominantly white country.

Nielsen also was in charge of implementing Trump’s Muslim ban — she was confirmed to her post one day after the Supreme Court allowed the third version of the ban to take full effect — and served as Chief of Staff to former DHS Secretary John Kelly during the implementation of the first and second versions of the Muslim ban.

Nielsen also championed the attempt to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), issuing a memo purporting to justify the administration’s decision to end the program, which provides protections for certain young immigrants, but was rebuffed by a federal court.

Paved the way to build Trump’s wall and expanded warrantless searches at the border

When Trump shut down the government for weeks in order to secure billions of more dollars to build his border wall, Nielsen was consistently at his side and parroting his false talking points. Even before the shutdown, Nielsen helped build Trump’s wall by waiving federal, state, local, and tribal laws and undermining border communities in order to accelerate its construction, and afterwards championed the president’s bogus “national emergency” declaration to build the wall, an unconstitutional order that the ACLU has challenged in court. The border wall would increase the number of deaths among migrants as they are “funneled” to harsher domains.

Along the border, the number of warrantless searches of electronic devices, such as cellphones and laptops, by CBP agents increased under the Trump administration. While Nielsen did not start the policy of warrantless searches, she defended DHS’s practices that violate people’s Fourth Amendment rights — practices that the ACLU, together with the Electronic Frontier Foundation — is challenging in a groundbreaking lawsuit. Under Nielsen’s leadership, social media “vetting” expanded dramatically, despite concerns about unfairly targeting Muslim immigrants and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, and expanding to all immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants.

Nielsen’s disastrous and unlawful policies could fill a book, and this is only a summary of some of her most egregious actions, which extend to tear-gassing toddlers and being in charge while two children died in Border Patrol custody.

Her resignation comes only days after Trump withdrew his nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), saying that he wants “tougher” people to carry out his anti-immigrant policies. Seeing as Nielsen was one of Trump’s most brutal cabinet secretaries, this does not bode well for the president’s permanent replacement.

All in all, Nielsen’s legacy as an apologist and enabler of Trump’s detention and deportation machine will go down in history as one of the crucial — and cruel — moments of this presidency.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/kirstjen-nielsens-brutal-and-calamitous-leadership-department-homeland via http://www.rssmix.com/

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PITTSBURGH — The man charged in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was brought into court in a wheelchair Monday, as some members of the Jewish community and others objected to President Donald Trump’s planned visit, accusing him of contributing to a toxic political climate in the U.S. that might have led to the bloodshed.

With the first funerals set for Tuesday, the White House announced Trump and first lady Melania Trump will visit on the same day to “express the support of the American people and to grieve with the Pittsburgh community” over the 11 congregants killed Saturday in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.

Some Pittsburghers urged Trump to stay away.

“His language has encouraged hatred and fear of immigrants, which is part of the reason why these people were killed,” said Marianne Novy, 73, a retired college English professor who lives in the city’s Squirrel Hill section, the historic Jewish neighborhood where the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue took place.

Meanwhile, the alleged gunman, 46-year-old truck driver Robert Gregory Bowers, was released from the hospital where he was treated for wounds suffered in a gun battle with police. Hours later he was wheeled into a downtown federal courtroom in handcuffs to face charges.

Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers vowed to rebuild following a weekend massacre at his Pittsburgh synagogue where Robert Gregory Bowers is accused of killing 11 people in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. (Oct. 29)

A judge ordered him held without bail for a preliminary hearing on Thursday, when prosecutors will outline their case. He did not enter a plea.

During the brief proceeding, Bowers talked with two court-appointed lawyers and said little more than “Yes” in a soft voice a few times in response to routine questions from the judge. Courtroom deputies freed one of his cuffed hands so he could sign paperwork.

He was expressionless.

“It was not the face of villainy that I thought we’d see,” said Jon Pushinsky, a congregant who was in court for the hearing.

Federal prosecutors are pressing for the death penalty against Bowers, who authorities say expressed hatred of Jews during the attack and later told police, “I just want to kill Jews” and “All these Jews need to die.”

After the hearing, U.S. Attorney Scott Brady called the shootings “horrific acts of violence” and added: “Rest assured we have a team of prosecutors working hard to ensure that justice is done.”

The weekend massacre — which took place 10 days before the midterm elections — heightened tensions around the country, coming just a day after the arrest of the Florida man accused of sending a wave of pipe bombs to Trump critics.

The mail bomb attacks and the bloodshed in Pittsburgh set off debate over whether the corrosive political atmosphere in Washington and beyond contributed to the violence and whether Trump himself bears any blame because of his combative language.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, said the White House should contact the victims’ families and ask them if they want the president to come. He also warned Trump to stay away when the first funerals are held.

“If the president is looking to come to Pittsburgh, I would ask that he not do so while we are burying the dead,” Peduto said. “Our attention and our focus is going to be on them, and we don’t have public safety that we can take away from what is needed in order to do both.”

The White House did not immediately respond to the mayor’s request. Asked if Trump has done enough to condemn white nationalism, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said he has “denounced racism, hatred and bigotry in all forms on a number of occasions.”

Some looked forward to Trump’s visit.

David Dvir, 52, an Israeli-born Squirrel Hill locksmith whose shop is festooned with Israeli and American flags, said “we need to welcome” Trump, for whom he voted, because “it’s our president.”

Kristin Wessell, a homemaker who lives near Squirrel Hill, said Trump should steer clear of Pittsburgh to let the victims’ families “grieve how they see fit.”

“I feel a lot of his comments are very much dog whistles to nationalists and white supremacists and racists. So, yeah, I do place part of the blame on this on him,” said Wessell, a Democrat, who was passing out bouquets to passersby across the street from a kosher grocery store. “Anti-Semitism has always existed. But I feel like he is giving cover to people to be more blatant about it. And to be more violent about it, rather than trying to calm and heal.”

The youngest of the 11 dead was 54, the oldest 97. The toll included a husband and wife, professors, dentists and physicians.

Bowers was charged with offenses that included causing death while obstructing a person’s right to the free exercise of religion — a hate crime — and using a gun to commit murder. He was also charged under state law with criminal homicide, aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation.

The president of the hospital where a wounded Bowers was taken said that he was ranting against Jews even as Jewish staff members were treating him.

“He’s taken into my hospital and he’s shouting, ‘I want to kill all the Jews!’ and the first three people who are taking care of him are Jewish,” Jeffrey Cohen of Allegheny General Hospital told WTAE-TV. “Ain’t that a kick in the pants?”

Cohen, who is also Jewish and a member of Tree of Life synagogue, said he stopped by Bowers’ room.

“I just asked how he was doing, was he in pain, and he said no, he was fine,” he told WTAE. “He asked who I was, and I said, ‘I’m Dr. Cohen, the president of the hospital,’ and I turned around and left.”

He said the FBI agent outside Bowers’ room told him he didn’t think he could have done that. “And I said, ‘If you were in my shoes I’m sure you could have,’” Cohen said.

Just minutes before the synagogue attack, Bowers apparently took to social media to rage against HIAS, a Jewish organization that resettles refugees under contract with the U.S. government.

“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people,” he is believed to have written on Gab.com, a social media site favored by right-wing extremists. “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

HIAS had recently weighed in on the migrant caravan heading toward the U.S. from Central America, urging the Trump administration to “provide all asylum seekers the opportunity to present their claims as required by law.” The president has vilified the caravan and pledged to stop the migrants.

One of the targets of the mail bomb attacks last week was liberal Jewish philanthropist George Soros, who has been accused by far-right conspiracy theorists of paying migrants to join the caravan.

Bowers was a long-haul trucker who worked for himself, authorities said. Little else was known about the suspect, who had no apparent criminal record.

___

This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of “Pushinsky” and “Jeffrey” and to show Jeffre Cohen’s comments were made to “Good Morning America,” not WTAE-TV.

By ALLEN G. BREED, MARK SCOLFORO and MARYCLAIRE DALE – 0ct 29. 2018 – 6:32 PM EDT ___

Associated Press reporter Claudia Lauer contributed to this report from Philadelphia.

___

For AP’s complete coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shootings:

https://apnews.com/Pittsburghsynagoguemassacre

Trump Visit Stirs Debate; Massacre Defendant In Court PITTSBURGH — The man charged in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was brought into court in a wheelchair Monday, as some members of the Jewish community and others objected to President Donald Trump’s planned visit, accusing him of contributing to a toxic political climate in the U.S.