Two weeks ago, as she was preparing to walk across the graduation stage and finish her high school career, she got a call from March for Our Lives: It was time to organize.

“Most of the work was done by me and my co-director,” she said. “We both just graduated high school, and we spent two full weeks, night and day, getting everything we could.”

The result was a turnout of at least hundreds of people of all ages — Schramkowski said about 2,000 people RSVPed, but she thinks the number of people who took part was likely double that.

Marches against gun violence were planned in other cities across Georgia, including Marietta, Snellville, Gainesville, Columbus and Augusta. The national effort is a renewed push for gun control measures after recent deadly mass shootings — from the Uvalde, Texas, school where 19 students and two teachers were killed, to a Buffalo, New York, supermarket, where 10 people died.

Of those in attendance was 16-year-old Leah Cox. She brought her dad with her to the march to support a cause they both strongly believe in.

“I’ve grown up seeing these shootings on the TV screen, being reported for my entire life, and I think this is the least I could do to show my support,” she said. “Our schools should not be built to be bulletproof. You should be able to be in institutions of learning and not have to worry about gun safety and what could happen in the next moment.”

Like many protesters, Leah said she was deeply impacted by the Parkland shooting. She was in seventh grade at the time.

“I think hearing and seeing the coverage of this of the shooting, and the helicopters are hovering the school and seeing all the kids that had to run out and file out for safety, and hearing about how so many people died, I think it was really shocking to me,” Leah said.

ExploreA look back at the original 2018 march

Her father, Tyrone Cox, said he has always believed in gun control. When comparing today’s gun violence in schools to when he was in school, he says the difference is “unimaginable.”

“I think it’s just senseless,” he said. “And I think that all the politicians need to be held accountable.”

Many other parents were in attendance, both on their own and with their children in tow. One group, Moms Demand Action, had many protesters sporting their bright red T-shirts.

“I don’t want to be afraid for my children when they’re in college, but it happens on college campuses too,” mother Tommie Campbell said. “We just got to end this gun violence immediately. We can’t have the police afraid to go in and save children because they’re armed with more gun power than they are.”

Campbell, brought to tears while describing why she’s marching, said “something’s gotta be done.”

ExploreStacey Abrams, Brian Kemp push differing approaches to school safety

“I guess I understand that people are afraid, and they want to protect themselves, but I don’t think it’s acceptable to have machine guns,” she said.

The approximately one-mile march, which started at Ebenezer Baptist Church and ended at Woodruff Park, was punctuated by passionate speeches from community leaders and politicians, including U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath and Georgia NAACP President Gerald Griggs.

ExploreU.S. House approves McBath ‘red flag’ bill in response to mass shootings

Nearly every speaker mentioned the late congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis. Lewis marched alongside protesters in 2018 in Atlanta’s first March for Our Lives. That year’s rally, which happened less than two months after 17 students and adults were killed in the Parkland school shooting, featured student survivors as speakers and drew about 30,000 downtown.

On Saturday, Williams told the crowd, “Each of you is building on the legacy of my friend, my mentor, my predecessor, the late John Lewis.”

Credit: Reann Huber

Credit: Reann Huber

Credit: Reann Huber

Credit: Reann Huber

“Y’all, I’m proud of y’all,” Griggs said as he looked out into the crowd at Woodruff Park. “John would be proud of you right now. Martin (Luther King Jr.) would be proud of you right now. This is the birthplace of civil rights. But I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: We’re also the birthplace of social justice. So let’s send a message to Washington. The message is, protect these young people’s lives.”

Source Article from https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/young-people-call-for-change-decry-gun-violence-at-march-for-our-lives/GRGE7BSOYJEAJDUH74Z2M3HF2E/

The special election will be held on Aug. 16, which is also the day of Alaska’s primary contest for the House seat’s 2023-2025 term. So, voters will see some candidates’ names twice on one ballot: once to decide the outcome of the special election and once to pick candidates for the fall’s general election for the full two-year term.

For Ms. Palin, the race is a political comeback. As Senator John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential race, Ms. Palin lost to a Democratic ticket that included Joseph R. Biden Jr., and she resigned from the governor’s office, seeking to parlay her newfound profile into work as a well-paid political pundit. Ms. Palin had tapped into a similar anti-establishment, anti-news media vein of the Republican Party that later galvanized Donald J. Trump’s unexpected rise to the White House in 2016.

The results announced on Sunday are preliminary and could change over the next few weeks, as more ballots are processed and counted.

Alaska is a thinly populated state, with two U.S. senators but only one representative in the House. That small population is spread across an area that is larger than Texas, California and Montana combined, with about 82 percent of communities in the state inaccessible by roads.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/us/politics/palin-alaska-special-election.html

Former Dodgers player Steve Sax’s son was among the five Marines killed when their aircraft crashed during a training mission in California on Wednesday.

Capt. John J. Sax, 33, was among the crew that crashed in the desert near Glamis, California.

“It is with complete devastation that I announce that my precious son, Johnny was on of the five (5) US Marines that perished on Wednesday, June 8, in the Osprey Military crash near San Diego,” former All-Star Sax said in a statement obtained by CNN affiliate KCAL/CBS.

“For those of you that knew Johnny, you saw his huge smile, bright light, his love for his family, the Marines, the joy of flying airplanes and defending our country! He was my hero and the best man I know, there was no better person to defend our country.”

The Los Angeles Dodgers also released a statement on Twitter offering “thoughts and condolences” to all the families and friends of the lost Marines.

“The Los Angeles Dodgers are saddened to hear about the passing of Steve Sax’s son, John, and the five Marines who lost their lives in this week’s tragic helicopter accident,” the statement read.

The Marine Corps identified the four other service members as Cpl. Nathan E. Carlson, 21, of Winnebago, Illinois; Capt. Nicholas P. Losapio, 31, of Rockingham, New Hampshire; Cpl. Seth D. Rasmuson, 21, of Johnson, Wyoming; and Lance Cpl. Evan A. Strickland, 19, of Valencia, New Mexico.

All five members were based at Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton, California, officials said.

Equipment recovery efforts have begun and an investigation into the crash involving a MV-22B Osprey is underway, the Marines said.

CNN’s Barbara Starr and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/12/us/dodgers-steve-sax-son-marine-crash-osprey/index.html

Nick Nyein walked down Spring Street as the March for Our Lives L.A. drew to a close at City Hall Saturday, sweat dripping down his forehead, neck and back.

The 18-year-old knew the day would be hot — as one of three co-organizers of the L.A. march, it was his job to know— but that didn’t make it any more bearable.

But when he returned to the stage and surveyed the crowd, he saw how many people showed up after a slow start to the day. There were hundreds of raucous marchers.

Passing cars honked their horns, and drivers raised their fists in support. People waiting at a nearby bus stop yelled and joined the crowds chanting, “No justice, no peace.”

“This,” Nyein said, his voice breaking, “is all worth it now.”

Over 1,000 people gathered around City Hall downtown for the student-led march against gun violence, prompted by recent mass shootings, including one at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and another at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., that together killed 31 people.

The L.A. March for Our Lives rally was one of hundreds that took place across Southern California and the nation Saturday in solidarity with a flagship march in Washington, D.C. The movement emerged after the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead.

Just a few hours before the march in L.A., thousands of people streamed to the National Mall for the highest-profile demonstration to mark a renewed push for gun control. Cities including New York City, Atlanta and Chicago followed in suit.

In Los Angeles, organizers, gun violence survivors and gun control advocates rallied the crowd before the march to City Hall.

March co-organizer Shaadi Ahmadzadeh, 19, called for universal background checks, an increase in the age for legal gun possession from 18 to 21, and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

“I remind you,” she said, “this movement here is led by students — not by politicians — by students like me.”

Twitch streamer Hasan Piker told the crowd that he shoots guns but does not think anyone needs an AR-15. And, he said, he’s tired of Congress’ inaction.

Mia Tretta, 17, who survived the 2019 shooting at Saugus High School, talked about losing her best friend, Dominic Blackwell. She said loopholes in the law had allowed a minor to obtain a ready-to-assemble firearm and kill her friend.

“Our generation has grown up watching these horrific shootings unfold,” said Cameron Kasky, 21. “And we see the same cycle repeat itself: mass murders, specifically with an AR-15. Public outrage, thoughts and prayers, rinse and repeat.”

Kasky is a survivor of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, and helped organize the first nationwide March for Our Lives protest.

There was a sense of hopelessness in his voice, though — a recognition that there are fewer demonstrators around the country than there were in 2018, and a fear that people believe that nothing will change.

Kasky said he doesn’t blame anyone; he just wants the anger to still be there, and he wants politicians to be as uncomfortable going out in public as children are going to school.

“Don’t march because you think that the Senate is going to pass anything,” he said, his voice rising. “March to show them how angry we are. March to show them that we are not going to stop until they do what we demand.”

The U.S. House passed a bill last week that would enact some of the demonstrators’ desired reforms — raising the minimum age limit for buying a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21, and prohibiting the sale of ammunition magazines with a capacity of more than 15 rounds. But the measure has almost no chance of passing the Senate and becoming law.

The lawmakers took the action after a House committee heard testimony from recent shooting survivors and their family members, including an 11-year-old girl who covered herself with a classmate’s blood to play dead and avoid being shot at the Uvalde elementary school. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the May 24 attack, which also left 17 wounded.

March for Our Lives L.A. organizers said they wanted this march to be specific to the region and the gun violence experienced here. Though California has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, gun violence still affects more than 1,400 people a year.

That’s how many survived shootings in L.A. in 2021 — the second year in a row in which gun violence has increased in the city. There were 400 people killed in L.A. last year, marking a more than 50% increase in homicides since 2019.

Marchers yelled, “Whose streets? Our streets,” holding up signs with messages including, “A well-regulated militia doesn’t kill children” and “We’re done taking bullets for Congress.”

Erin Barker, 23, said she lost a family member in a drive-by shooting, and another relative survived a mass shooting at Northern Illinois University. She has been coming out to protest since she was 18.

“I grew up watching and hearing about these mass shootings. It hit close to home when Sandy Hook happened; it hit closer to home when the Pulse nightclub shooting happened, as a gay person,” Barker said. “The problem is you’re not listening. The problem is that people are continuing to die on your watch.”

Bree Pavey’s shirt commemorated the victims of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado. She said she had met many survivors of the shooting since 2009 as an artist on the theater production “The Columbine Project.” The work has left an imprint on her heart, she said, and she sees Columbine as a turning point for gun violence in this country.

As the demonstration came to a close, co-organizer Anna Pham said that although while the day was a success, she worries that if people do not go home from the march and continue to reach out to politicians, this momentum will fizzle out.

“This situation itself is so helpless that if we stay back and just look and just feel helpless, we will feel even worse.” Pham said.

“But if we try to do something about it,” she said, “we channel our energy, or we channel our desperation into something so that we feel that we’re doing something. And sometimes we do, and those moments when we have those victories, no matter how big or small, it makes it all worth it.”

Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-06-11/march-for-our-lives-rally-set-for-downtown-l-a

A truck full of masked men from the Patriot Front extremist group were arrested near an Idaho city’s Pride in the Park event, police say.

Law enforcement stopped a U-haul truck in downtown Coeur d’Alene on Saturday afternoon and detained 31 people, all wearing the same outfit, who were inside, according to KREM2.

The men inside the U-haul were all dressed the same in khakis, blue shirts, beige hats and a white cloth covering their faces. Officers cuffed them with zip ties, put them in police vans and took them away from the scene.

Police said the men had shields, shin guards, riot gear and a smoke grenade with them when they made a traffic stop.

“They came to riot downtown,” the city’s police chief Lee White told a press conference on Saturday.

The group’s members were charged with conspiracy to riot, a misdemeanor charge, and police said they had an “operations plan” with them.

Police said that they were tipped off by a “concerned citizen” who saw the men “looking like a little army” load up into the truck at a hotel, and not from an informant within the group.

Investigators said the members came from states across the country and were in the process of being booked. The police chief said that the men had Patriot Front logos on their clothes and hats.

Those arrested came from Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Illinois, Wyoming, Virginia and other states as well, police said.

“It appears they did not come here to engage in peaceful events,” Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris told the Coeur d’Alene Press.

Videos on social media showed police in tactical gear forcing the men to kneel down with their hands placed behind their backs.

Patriot Front is described by the Anti-Defamation League as a white supremacist group.

Police said there were groups walking around the Pride event with long guns, handguns and bear spray.

Source Article from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/idaho-patriot-front-pride-masked-men-b2099081.html

Former Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Steve Sax’s son was among the five people killed during a military aircraft crash on Wednesday.

Capt. John J. Sax, the son of Steve Sax, was one of the crew members of the Osprey tiltrotor aircraft that crashed in Imperial County, California.

Steve Sax told CBS Los Angeles that his son was on board the aircraft.

“It is with complete devastation that I announce that my precious son, Johnny was one of the five US Marines that perished on Wednesday, June 8, in the Osprey Military crash near San Diego,” Sax said.

MARINES KILLED IN MILITARY AIRCRAFT CRASH IN CALIFORNIA HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED

Capt. John J. Sax, 33, of Placer, California, an MV-22B Pilot, who died on June 8, 2022. (3rd Marine Aircraft Wing)
(3rd Marine Aircraft Wing)

“For those of you that knew Johnny, you saw his huge smile, bright light, his love for his family, the Marines, the joy of flying airplanes and defending our country! He was my hero and the best man I know, there was no better person to defend our country,” he added.

Steve Sax said that his son wanted to be a pilot since he was a kid and talked about the different planes flying in the sky when playing Little Leauge baseball.

“There was never any doubt from a young age that Johnny would be a pilot and his passion was to fly!” Sax said in the statement. “This loss will change my life forever and is a loss to not only the Marines but this world!”

5 US MARINES CONFIRMED DEAD AFTER MILITARY AIRCRAFT CRASHES IN CALIFORNIA

The Los Angeles Dodgers tweeted that the baseball organization is saddened to hear about Sax’s loss.

“The Los Angeles Dodgers are saddened to hear about the passing of Steve Sax’s son, John, and the five Marines who lost their lives in this week’s tragic helicopter accident. Our thoughts and condolences go out to their families and friends,” the statement reads.

Capt. John J. Sax was among the five people who died, which include Cpl. Nathan E. Carlson, 21, of Winnebago, Illinois; Capt. Nicholas P. Losapio, 31, of Rockingham, New Hampshire; Cpl. Seth D. Rasmuson, 21, of Johnson, Wyoming; and Lance Cpl. Evan A. Strickland, 19, of Valencia.

A statement from the Marine Aircraft Wing Communication Strategy and Operations office said that Losapio and Sax were pilots of the Marine Medium Tiltrotor (VMM) Squadron 364, Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft MAW), and the other individuals were crew chiefs.

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Cpl. Nathan E. Carlson, 21, of Winnebago, Illinois; Capt. Nicholas P. Losapio, 31, of Rockingham, New Hampshire; Cpl. Seth D. Rasmuson, 21, of Johnson, Wyoming; Capt. John J. Sax, 33, of Placer, California; and, Lance Cpl. Evan A. Strickland, 19, of Valencia, New Mexico were killed when an MV-22B Osprey they were riding in crashed near Glamis, California on June 8, 2022. (3rd Marine Aircraft Wing)
(3rd Marine Aircraft Wing)

“It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the loss of five Marines from the Purple Fox family” said Lt. Col. John C. Miller, Commanding Officer of VMM-364, according to the statement.

“This is an extremely difficult time for VMM-364 and it is hard to express the impact that this loss has had on our squadron and its families,” Miller added. “Our primary mission now is taking care of the family members of our fallen Marines and we respectfully request privacy for their families as they navigate this difficult time.”

John J. Sax leaves behind his wife, Amber, who is currently pregnant with the couple’s second child. He also leaves behind his daughter, who is 20-months-old.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/us/former-la-dodgers-player-steve-saxs-son-killed-military-aircraft-crash

The Associated Press is following the election in Alaska.

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Source Article from https://thehill.com/news/state-watch/3517853-live-results-alaska-primary/

WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of demonstrators descended on Washington and at hundreds of rallies across the United States on Saturday to demand that lawmakers pass legislation aimed at curbing gun violence following last month’s massacre at a Texas elementary school.

In the nation’s capital, organizers with March for Our Lives (MFOL) estimated that 40,000 people assembled at the National Mall near the Washington Monument under occasional light rain. The gun safety group was founded by student survivors of the 2018 massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school.

Courtney Haggerty, a 41-year-old research librarian from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, traveled to Washington with her 10-year-old daughter, Cate, and 7-year-old son, Graeme.

Haggerty said the December 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, when a gunman killed 26 people, mostly six- and seven-year-olds, came one day after her daughter’s first birthday.

“It left me raw,” she said. “I can’t believe she’s going to be 11, and we’re still doing this.”

Kay Klein, a 65-year-old teacher trainer from Fairfax, Virginia, who retired earlier this month, said Americans should vote out politicians who refuse to take action in November’s midterm elections, when control of Congress will be at stake.

“If we truly care about children and about families, we need to vote,” she said.

‘ABSOLUTELY ABSURD’

A gunman in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 children and two teachers on May 24, 10 days after another gunman murdered 10 Black people in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in a racist attack.

The shootings have added new urgency to the country’s ongoing debate over gun violence, though the prospects for federal legislation remain uncertain given staunch Republican opposition to any limits on firearms.

In recent weeks, a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators have vowed to hammer out a deal, though they have yet to reach an agreement. Their effort is focused on relatively modest changes, such as incentivizing states to pass “red flag” laws that allow authorities to keep guns from individuals deemed dangerous.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat who earlier this month urged Congress to ban assault weapons, expand background checks and implement other measures, said he supported Saturday’s protests. read more

“We are being murdered,” said X Gonzalez, a Parkland survivor and co-founder of MFOL, in an emotional speech alongside survivors of other mass shootings. “You, Congress, have done nothing to prevent it.”

Among other policies, MFOL has called for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks for those trying to purchase guns and a national licensing system, which would register gun owners.

Biden told reporters in Los Angeles that he had spoken several times with Senator Chris Murphy, who is leading the Senate talks, and that negotiators remained “mildly optimistic.”

The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a sweeping set of gun safety measures, but the legislation has no chance of advancing in the Senate, where Republicans view gun limits as infringing upon the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Speakers at the Washington rally included David Hogg, a Parkland survivor and co-founder of MFOL; Becky Pringle and Randi Weingarten, the presidents of the two largest U.S. teachers unions; and Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C.

Two high school students from the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland – Zena Phillip, 16, and Blain Sirak, 15 – said they had never joined a protest before but felt motivated after the shooting in Texas.

“Just knowing that there’s a possibility that can happen in my own school terrifies me,” Phillip said. “A lot of kids are getting numb to this to the point they feel hopeless.”

Sirak said she backed more gun restrictions and that the issue extended beyond mass shootings to the daily toll of gun violence.

“People are able to get military-grade guns in America,” she said. “It’s absolutely absurd.”

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/us/thousands-rally-against-gun-violence-washington-across-us-2022-06-11/

Prosecutors are scrutinizing the plan by Mr. Trump’s allies to create alternate slates of pro-Trump electors to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in key swing states, with a federal grand jury issuing subpoenas to people involved. That investigation brings prosecutors closer to Mr. Trump’s inner circle than any other inquiry.

No sitting or former president has ever been put on trial. Aaron Burr was charged with treason after leaving office as vice president in a highly politicized case directed from the White House by President Thomas Jefferson, but he was acquitted after a sensational trial. Ulysses S. Grant, while president, was arrested for speeding in his horse and buggy. Spiro T. Agnew resigned as vice president as part of a plea bargain in a corruption case.

The closest a former president came to indictment was after Richard M. Nixon resigned in the Watergate scandal in 1974, but his successor, Gerald R. Ford, short-circuited the investigation by preemptively pardoning him, reasoning that the country had to move on. Mr. Clinton, to avoid perjury charges after leaving office, agreed on his last full day in the White House to a deal with Mr. Ray in which he admitted giving false testimony under oath about his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, temporarily surrendered his law license and paid a $25,000 fine.

Should the Justice Department indict Mr. Trump, a trial would be vastly different from House hearings in ways that affect the scope and pace of any inquiry. Investigators would have to scour thousands of hours of video footage and the full contents of devices and online accounts they have accessed for evidence bolstering their case, as well as anything that a defense lawyer could use to knock it down. Federal prosecutors would probably also have to convince appeals court judges and a majority of Supreme Court justices of the validity of their case.

For all of the pressure that the House committee has put on the Justice Department to act, it has resisted sharing information. In April, the department asked the committee for transcripts of witness interviews, but the panel has not agreed to turn over the documents because its work is continuing.

Although critics have faulted Mr. Garland, attorneys general do not generally drive the day-to-day work of investigations. Mr. Garland is briefed nearly every day on the inquiry’s progress, but it is being led by Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. attorney in Washington, who is working with national security and criminal division officials. Lisa O. Monaco, the deputy attorney general, broadly oversees the investigation.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/11/us/politics/jan-6-prosecute-trump.html

March for Our Lives, the student-led movement focused on gun violence prevention, returns to Washington this weekend for a mass demonstration in the wake of recent shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.

The DC march on Saturday afternoon at the Washington Monument is set to feature a slate of speakers pushing for action on gun violence. Rallies are also scheduled in more than 400 US cities in nearly all 50 US states Saturday.

“After countless mass shootings and instances of gun violence in our communities, it’s time to take back to the streets and march for our lives,” the organization’s website states. “We marched in 2018 after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, and now we’re headed back to DC.”

The marches come alongside a renewed push in Congress for gun control. Lawmakers have been facing intense pressure to act in the wake of the recent mass shootings, and at least 10 Republicans need to vote with Democrats in order to clear the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster and pass legislation.

Despite widespread GOP opposition, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the lead Democrat in the bipartisan negotiations, told CNN he believes there will be more than 10 Republicans supporting gun safety measures in the Senate.

“I think we will put together a package that will get more than 10 Republican votes,” he told CNN’s John Berman on “New Day” on Thursday.

March for Our Lives last held a rally in DC in 2018 following the deadly shooting rampage at a Parkland, Florida, high school. Survivors of the shooting delivered a resounding message that Washington’s inaction on the scourge of gun violence is no longer acceptable.

“To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to sit down, stay silent and wait your turn, welcome to the revolution,” then-Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Cameron Kasky told the crowd in Washington at the time.

“Either represent the people or get out. Stand for us or beware.”

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/11/politics/march-for-our-lives-dc/index.html

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/10/ivanka-trump-jan6-committee-testimony/

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) didn’t make any new friends in the GOP with her star turn bashing former President Trump in prime time on Thursday night. It doesn’t bother her a bit.

Cheney, a dynastic figure who sits in the House seat once held by her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, used her high perch on the Jan. 6 select committee to accuse Trump of abusing the powers of the presidency to orchestrate nothing short of an attempted coup — explosive charges that have reinforced her status as Public Enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the MAGA faithful. 

The much-watched hearing has further complicated Cheney’s path to reelection in deep-red Wyoming, a Trump stronghold where her primary opponent has the energetic backing of the 45th president, who is actively stumping against the mutinous incumbent. 

But as Cheney’s attacks on Trump have grown only louder, it’s increasingly clear that she’s motivated by something other than securing her future in the lower chamber. Whether that thing is a self-sacrificing desire to save the country’s democratic traditions from the former president or an egomaniacal effort to advance her own fame and political powers largely depends on the perspective of her fans and critics.

What is not in question is that Cheney has staked her legacy on her relentless anti-Trump activism — a reputation that will become only more deeply entrenched as the select committee airs its investigative findings in a long series of public hearings that will dominate discussion in Washington through the rest of the month.

“President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the select committee, said during the panel’s prime-time hearing Thursday night. 

For the like-minded Trump critics, Cheney is an enormous asset to the investigation, offering the committee not only a good dose of bipartisan legitimacy, but also a seasoned legal mind who knows the ins and outs of the GOP conference and its complicated dealings with the former president. 

“She’s an awesome lawyer, … [and] she was the chair of the House Republican Conference,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former professor of constitutional law who also sits on the investigative panel. “So she obviously knows the terrain better than anyone else on the committee.”

To Trump’s allies on and off of Capitol Hill, however, Cheney is simply a traitor to the party — a “Pelosi Republican” who’s been all but disowned as GOP leaders try to tap Trump’s popularity in their effort to flip control of the House in November’s midterm elections.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who wants to take the speakership next year, said this week that the responsibility for the Jan. 6 falls on “everybody in the country.”

In one sense, Cheney is an unlikely figure to assume the role of Republican iconoclast. Her family ranks among the most powerful GOP dynasties of the last half century, and her father’s unique brand of conservatism — combined with his no-apologies approach to power-policymaking — made him a favorite with the Republican base. 

In a similar vein, Liz Cheney’s staunch conservative positions — including strong attacks on gay marriage during an early campaign — made her a villain in the eyes of Democrats nationwide, but helped propel her quickly into the leadership ranks once she arrived on Capitol Hill in 2017. 

In another sense, however, Cheney is the natural fit to play Trump’s foil. 

Trump had devoted much of his successful 2016 campaign bashing the overseas entanglements of the Bush-Cheney administration, most notably the 2003 decision to launch the Iraq War, which was championed by the elder Cheney. After taking the White House, Trump continued those attacks on the old Republican guard that had pushed an aggressively interventionist foreign policy, a group that included both of the Cheneys. 

Although Cheney had opposed Trump’s first impeachment, she was furious with his actions surrounding the attack on the Capitol, where a violent mob of Trump supporters tried to overturn his election defeat. More than 150 police officers were injured in the rampage. 

Cheney was one of just 10 Republicans to support Trump’s impeachment following the riot, and she’s jumped headfirst into her role investigating the tragedy. On Thursday, she used the platform of the televised hearing to warn those Republicans still backing Trump that history won’t treat them kindly. 

“Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain,” she said.

Supporters of the far-reaching investigation note the significance of having a Republican of Cheney’s stature joining the probe.  

“It’s important, because like she said, this is not about political parties, or your political views. It’s about finding out the truth,” U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell said following the hearing. “And from what the committee laid out today, it seems like there’s a lot more that needs to be done.” 

But Cheney’s recalcitrance has come with political costs. 

Last year, after Cheney refused to stop criticizing Trump for his role in the Capitol riot, the GOP conference voted overwhelmingly to boot her out of leadership, replacing her with a Trump loyalist, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who has embraced the former president’s lies about a stolen election. 

More recently, the Republican National Committee voted to condemn Cheney — along with the only other Republican on the select committee, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) — for their willingness to join Democrats in the Jan. 6 investigation. That decision, the Republican National Committee charged, “has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic.”

In the wake of Thursday’s select committee hearing, the attacks on Cheney from Trump’s allies have grown only more pronounced. During the hearing, Tucker Carlson, the wildly popular Fox News pundit, characterized Cheney as “the Iraq War lady” who’s now “lecturing us about honor and truth.”

Carlson’s guest was Joe Kent, a Trump supporter from Washington state who’s launched a primary challenge against Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who also supported Trump’s second impeachment. He, too, had some sharp words for the Wyoming Republican. 

“It’s absolutely absurd and insulting,” Kent said of Cheney’s attacks on Trump’s defenders. “She thinks that we can’t go back and look at her record that she has been lying to the American people basically for her entire career and profiting off of it, but also she has to bring up this whole, ‘Oh it must be a big Trump thing.’”

Kent said the Capitol rioters were in Washington on Jan. 6 not because of anything Trump did or said, but because “a vast majority” of Americans “did not feel like their voices were heard at the election box, and therefore things started to get a little bit dicey.” 

In the face of such attacks, Cheney has found a new group of allies: Democrats, who have always opposed her conservative policy prescriptions, but are now cheering her on as she takes on a shared adversary in Trump.

“Liz Cheney and I do not agree on almost probably 80 percent of the contentious issues that come up, give or take 10 points,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters this week. “But what she is standing up for is the truth.”

“That’s why she was removed as the leader of the Republican Party,” he continued. “Because the Republican Party didn’t want to hear the truth.”

Source Article from https://thehill.com/news/house/3519545-liz-cheney-doesnt-care-what-the-pro-trump-gop-thinks-of-her/

March for Our Lives, the student-led movement focused on gun violence prevention, will return to Washington this weekend for a mass demonstration in the wake of recent shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.

The DC march is set to start Saturday afternoon at the Washington Monument, where rallygoers will hear from a slate of speakers pushing for action on gun violence. Rallies are also scheduled in states across the country Saturday.

“After countless mass shootings and instances of gun violence in our communities, it’s time to take back to the streets and march for our lives,” the organization’s website states. “We marched in 2018 after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, and now we’re headed back to DC.”

The marches come alongside a renewed push in Congress for gun control. Lawmakers have been facing intense pressure to act in the wake of the recent mass shootings, and at least 10 Republicans need to vote with Democrats in order to clear the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster and pass legislation.

Despite widespread GOP opposition, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the lead Democrat in the bipartisan negotiations, told CNN he believes there will be more than 10 Republicans supporting gun safety measures in the Senate.

“I think we will put together a package that will get more than 10 Republican votes,” he told CNN’s John Berman on “New Day” on Thursday.

March for Our Lives last held a rally in DC in 2018 following the deadly shooting rampage at a Parkland, Florida, high school. Survivors of the shooting delivered a resounding message that Washington’s inaction on the scourge of gun violence is no longer acceptable.

“To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to sit down, stay silent and wait your turn, welcome to the revolution,” then-Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Cameron Kasky told the crowd in Washington at the time.

“Either represent the people or get out. Stand for us or beware.”

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/11/politics/march-for-our-lives-dc/index.html

SINGAPORE (AP) — U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stressed American support for Taiwan on Saturday, suggesting at Asia’s premier defense forum that recent Chinese military activity around the self-governing island threatens to change the status quo.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Austin noted a “steady increase in provocative and destabilizing military activity near Taiwan,” including almost daily military flights near the island by the People’s Republic of China.

“Our policy hasn’t changed, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be true for the PRC,” he said.

Austin said Washington remains committed to the “one-China policy,” which recognizes Beijing but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei.

Taiwan and China split during a civil war in 1949, but China claims the island as its own territory and has not ruled out using military force to take it.

China has stepped up its military provocations against democratic Taiwan in recent years, aimed at intimidating it into accepting Beijing’s demands to unify with the communist mainland.

“We remain focused on maintaining peace, stability and the status quo across the Taiwan Strait,” Austin said in his address. “But the PRC’s moves threaten to undermine security, and stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”

He drew a parallel with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying that the “indefensible assault on a peaceful neighbor has galvanized the world and … has reminded us all of the dangers of undercutting an international order rooted in rules and respect.”

Austin said that the “rules-based international order matters just as much in the Indo-Pacific as it does in Europe.”

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is what happens when oppressors trample the rules that protect us all,” he said. “It’s what happens when big powers decide that their imperial appetites matter more than the rights of their peaceful neighbors. And it’s a preview of a possible world of chaos and turmoil that none of us would want to live in.”

Austin met Friday with Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe on the sidelines of the conference for discussions where Taiwan featured prominently, according to a senior American defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details of the private meeting.

Austin made clear at the meeting that while the U.S. does not support Taiwanese independence, it also has major concerns about China’s recent behavior and suggested that Beijing might be attempting to change the status quo.

Wei, meanwhile, complained to Austin about new American arms sales to Taiwan announced this week, saying it “seriously undermined China’s sovereignty and security interests,” according to a Chinese state-run CCTV report after the meeting.

China “firmly opposes and strongly condemns it,” and the Chinese government and military will “resolutely smash any Taiwan independence plot and resolutely safeguard the reunification of the motherland,” Wei reportedly told Austin.

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Wu Qian quoted Wei as saying China would respond to any move toward formal Taiwan independence by “smashing it even at any price, including war.”

In his speech, Austin said the U.S. stands “firmly behind the principle that cross-strait differences must be resolved by peaceful means,” but also would continue to fulfill its commitments to Taiwan.

“That includes assisting Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability,” he said.

“And it means maintaining our own capacity to resist any use of force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security or the social or economic system of the people of Taiwan.”

The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed U.S. relations with the island, does not require the U.S. to step in militarily if China invades, but makes it American policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and to prevent any unilateral change of status by Beijing.

Austin stressed the “power of partnerships” and said the U.S.’s “unparalleled network of alliances” in the region has only deepened, noting recent efforts undertaken with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN; the growing importance of the “Quad” group of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia; and the trilateral security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS.

He dismissed Chinese allegations that the U.S. intends to start an “Asian NATO” with its Indo-Pacific outreach.

“Let me be clear, we do not seek confrontation or conflict and we do not seek a new Cold War, an Asian NATO, or a region split into hostile blocs,” he said.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles told the forum that AUKUS, under which Australia will acquire nuclear-powered submarines from the U.S. with the help of Britain, was a technology-sharing relationship, and “not in the set of arrangements as you would describe NATO.”

Australian abruptly pulled out of a deal with France for submarines to sign on to the AUKUS deal, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Saturday that he had agreed to pay Paris 555 million euros ($584 million) in compensation.

France’s new defense minister, Sebastien Lecornu, suggested his country was willing to put the matter behind it, saying the alliance with Australia was a long one, recalling the sacrifice of the “young Australians who came to die on French soil during World War I.”

“There are ups and downs in all relations between countries, but when there were real dramas, Australia was there,” he said.

_____

Rising reported from Bangkok

Source Article from https://apnews.com/f96014dba8daf5002e5136c9cd4227a1

A Maryland factory worker accused of killing three coworkers and injuring two other people in a Thursday shooting was charged with dozens of felonies, including murder, authorities said Friday.

Joe Louis Esquivel, 23, of Hedgesville, WV, was hit with a slew of murder, attempted murder, assault and weapons charges in connection with the Smithsburg massacre, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.

He was behind bars with no bond Friday night, officials said.

Esquivel went to his car to get a gun after working a full shift at Columbia Machine, Inc. Thursday. He returned to the concrete product factory’s break room and allegedly opened fire on fellow workers around 2:30 p.m., according to authorities.

After allegedly killing Mark Frey, 50; Charles Minnick Jr., 31; Joshua Wallace, 30, and critically injuring another colleague, Esquivel fled in his Mitsubishi Eclipse before he was stopped by state police about ten miles away, police said.

Police work near the scene where Joe Esquivel opened fire at a factory where he killed three people.
AP
Esquivel is now behind bars and being held with no bond.
AP

A shootout with two Maryland State Troopers ensued. Esquivel allegedly struck one of them, and he was shot when they returned fire, officials said. Both were hospitalized and expected to survive.

A search of the alleged murderer’s West Virginia home turned up additional firearms, sheriffs said.

The identities and conditions of the injured Columbia Machine worker was not released.

Source Article from https://nypost.com/2022/06/10/worker-charged-in-deadly-maryland-factory-break-room-shooting/

In launching its case to the American public, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection made a central argument: Look at the tape.

The centerpiece of Thursday night’s hearing was a video reconstruction of the attack on the Capitol. Over 10 minutes, it went point by point, showing the rioters overwhelming and beating police officers as the mob broke into the building to stop the certification of Donald Trump’s election loss.

The video had a powerful impact inside the hearing room and among Democrats. Police officers in the audience consoled one another as they relived the violence. U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn teared up during the footage of rioters hitting his colleagues with flagpoles and baseball bats.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York posted a photo on Instagram of her television with images of the riot. “There was (and continues to be) a widespread GOP campaign to downplay the scale of this attack,” she wrote in a caption.

“We were trapped on the campus with no way out,” she added. “This is what a US terrorist attack looks like.”

Meanwhile, many Republicans downplayed the new footage or didn’t watch it at all. Unlike other networks, Fox News did not air the committee hearing and allotted hours to hosts and guests who denigrated it. Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesman, said: “This isn’t a legislative hearing, it’s a production.”

Here are some of the key moments from the committee’s video.

THE PROUD BOYS

Three months after Trump said they should “stand back and stand by,” the Proud Boys had many members stationed in Washington.

The committee’s video shows members of the far-right extremist group gathering on the National Mall hours before Trump’s speech exhorting his supporters to “fight like hell.” By the time Trump spoke near the White House, members of the Proud Boys had already reached the Capitol several blocks away.

The group’s former top leader is now charged with seditious conspiracy, as are other members. Federal prosecutors allege they carried out a coordinated attack on the Capitol.

THE BREACH

By 1 p.m., as Speaker Nancy Pelosi began the certification of electoral votes, rioters had already breached police lines east of the Capitol.

A riot was declared at 1:50 p.m., and lawmakers were soon moved to safety. New video aired Thursday shows people running in the office of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.

THE POLICE

Undermanned officers fought assailants who came with weapons and bear spray. The officers’ body cameras and overhead security footage captured much of the melee.

Why the National Guard wasn’t already there and why it took so long for Guard members to arrive are questions that remain disputed among key figures. The U.S. Capitol Police chief that day has alleged that the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms delayed responding to his pleas, which those officials have denied. The Pentagon has said it did not have full forces ready and needed several hours to deploy.

The chief and both sergeants-at-arms resigned after the attack.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/8814bc945be4ac4efde25dfe9e719278

Those tweets were widely shared by his fans, and congressional investigators on Thursday shared video testimony from rioters who said they saw them as calls to action. On Dec. 13, 2020, the day before the electoral college planned to seal President Biden’s victory, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, emailed Arizona state lawmakers with links to a YouTube video, urging them to “put things right.”

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/10/trump-parler-getter-truth-social-jan-6/