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NATO pivots to sending Ukraine air defenses after Russian missile attacks – POLITICO

In response, the alliance plans to discuss how best to protect Ukrainian infrastructure from the deadly strikes, Ambassador Julianne Smith said. Air defenses have emerged as the likeliest delivery in the near future.

“We are now shifting again to air defense,” Smith said in a briefing organized by her office, noting that in previous phases, NATO’s response centered on what Ukraine needed at specific moments of the war, namely munitions and coastal defense. Air defenses will form the “crux of the conversation tomorrow,” the first of two days of meetings at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

The events will include a meeting of the NATO defense ministers, as well as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a gathering of military leaders headed by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The challenge: The West has few air defense systems available for immediate donation, said Tom Karako, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. For example, Ukraine has asked for the U.S. Patriot missile defense system, but Washington has repeatedly said no due to the relative scarcity of the system, among other reasons.

Other immediate possibilities include the German InfraRed Imaging System Tail, a short to medium-range infrared homing air-to-air missile, or the U.S. Counter-Rocket, Artillery, Mortar system. Israel’s Iron Dome would also fit the bill, but Tel Aviv is expected to nix that proposal.

“There’s nowhere near enough to go around,” Karako said.

The vast majority of the strikes in Ukraine over the weekend were conducted using cruise missiles launched from bombers flying far off in Russian airspace, John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, told reporters on Tuesday. Ukrainian air defenses were able to shoot down some of the incoming missiles, Kirby said, but noted that “there is no one silver bullet weapon system” to counter the threat.

The U.S. military still has not fully solved the problem of how to protect its own people from missile and drone attacks, particularly in the Middle East. Iranian drones and cruise missiles pose a continuous threat to American personnel and infrastructure.

The West could “MacGyver” together an air defense solution for Ukraine by combining different capabilities, Karako said. But the question is what the different countries will be willing to give up from their own supply.

“We and the Ukrainians are now paying the cost of the last two decades of inattention to air defense and cruise missile defense,” Karako said. “We’ve taken air superiority for granted for way too long and this is what it looks like when you come up against an enemy with lots of air and missile power. Lo and behold air defense is in very high demand.”

Still, Zelenskyy is heaping pressure on G-7 nations to provide air defenses quickly. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said it was “urgent” that those systems make their way to Ukraine.

“There are a range of priority capabilities that this and the next phase of the war would suggest putting a premium on, and certain more advanced air defenses would be among them,” the RAND Corporation’s Barry Pavel said.

Following its successful counteroffensives in the east and south, Kyiv has reshuffled its wish list for weapons as it prepared for Russia to strike civilian targets, POLITICO reported last week, with air defenses shooting to the top of the list.

Kyiv re-upped its urgent request for those capabilities on Monday, according to a congressional aide and Ukrainian adviser, who were not authorized to speak on the record. Foreign Policy first reported the news. Ukraine is specifically pushing the U.S. to speed delivery of two National Advanced Surface-to-Air-Missile Systems that are scheduled to arrive in the next month.

Kyiv has also asked for the C-RAM and the Avenger, a vehicle-mounted mobile, short-range air defense system, according to the congressional aide.

U.S. officials said they are moving equipment to Ukraine as quickly as possible, and noted that Ukraine is already using existing systems to defend against missile attacks. For example, a video on Twitter showed the Ukrainian army shooting down an incoming cruise missile with the shoulder-fired Igla surface-to-air missile system.

Kirby pointed out that the U.S. and Western allies have already provided air defenses to Ukraine, including shoulder-fired U.S. Stinger anti-air missiles and an S-300 missile system from Slovakia. The U.S. also contracted with Raytheon to build eight additional NASAMS, Kirby said, but the Pentagon has said the systems won’t arrive for years.

“We will continue to work with them on additional needs going forward and that would include continuing to talk to them about additional air defense capabilities,” Kirby said. “I don’t have any other announcements to make.”

Lawmakers also called Tuesday for the Biden administration to send more sophisticated weapons to Kyiv immediately following the barrage of Russian missile attacks. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) urged Biden to send longer-range air defenses and fighter jets.

“Putin’s barrage of strikes on civilian structures in Ukraine today, including a children’s playground and water and electric plants, is proof that Russia is a terrorist state committing acts of genocide,” Risch said in a statement. “Better arming and equipping of Ukraine will help save lives and give Ukraine the capacity to end this war faster. The Biden administration can and must do more to defend Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) urged the West to send longer-range artillery and additional air defense systems.

“Putin must be made to understand such brutal escalation and war crimes will not break the United States’ and the free world’s support of Ukraine,” he said in a statement.

Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/11/nato-sending-ukraine-air-defenses-russian-missile-attacks-00061223

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Judge in Trump’s hush money case expected to sentence him to ‘unconditional discharge’ – ABC News

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House committees advance contempt of Congress resolutions for Hunter Biden – CBS News

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It began with defiance at Columbia. Now students nationwide are upping their Gaza war protests – The Associated Press

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Mount Washington as cold as Mars with record-breaking wind chills of 110 below – New York Post

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Ukraine war live updates: Russia says after attack on Belgorod, ‘counter-terrorism’ operation is ongoing; Kyiv denies involvement – CNBC

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Uvalde school shooting: What we know one year later – The Texas Tribune

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How US police found killer Danelo Cavalcante using dogs, heat-sensing plane – Al Jazeera English

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Texas House of Representatives votes to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton – CNN

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What Trump’s war on the ‘Deep State’ could mean: ‘An army of suck-ups’ – CNN

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The conservative Supreme Court is just getting warmed up – POLITICO

In addition to overturning a nearly half-century-long federal right to an abortion, the court struck down gun-licensing laws in the most populous states, expanded state funding for religious schools, broadened the rights of public-school employees to pray publicly at work and halted lower court orders requiring two states to redraw congressional boundaries to give minority voters a better chance of electing candidates of their choice.

“What the court did just on abortion, guns and congressional power in the last eight days—that alone is momentous [but] if these justices stay together over the next few years, I don’t even think the first shoe has dropped,” University of California at Irvine Law Professor Rick Hasen said. “There’s so much more the Supreme Court could do to change American society.”

On Thursday, minutes after dealing a severe blow to President Joe Biden’s plan to reduce power-plant emissions to combat climate change, the high court announced it will take up a case from North Carolina next term that could give state legislatures vast power to draw district lines and set election rules even if state courts, commissions or executive officials disagree.

The so-called independent state legislature theory has lingered at the fringes of election-law debates for years, but was seized upon by former President Donald Trump in 2020 in his unsuccessful efforts to overturn Biden’s win.

“It’s kind of uncharted territory,” Hasen said. “It could have some far-reaching and unintended consequences.”

A sweeping Supreme Court ruling on the state-legislature issue might give state lawmakers the authority to appoint presidential electors, regardless of what state courts say or how a majority of a state’s voters cast their ballots.

In the 30 states with Republican legislatures, a ruling upholding the theory could give the GOP a big leg up in more routine House and Senate elections. But the effect in Democratic-run states could also be polarizing, with a redistricting commission in California put out of business and efforts by New York courts to limit gerrymandering reversed.

That case will join other polarizing issues already on the docket for next term: a new Voting Rights Act challenge from Alabama, a pair of cases challenging race-based affirmative action programs in higher education and a case brought by a web designer claiming that she should be able to ignore a Colorado law barring discrimination against same-sex couples.

As with many of the cases the Supreme Court decided in recent weeks, any of those cases could qualify as the most significant of an ordinary court term, but the justices have decided to hear them all.

Conservatives are almost giddy with the results of the first full court-term with six conservative justices since the court struck down much of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s.

“This was the most successful term in my memory for the Constitution and the rule of law,” said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network and a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas. “We now clearly have a majority of the court that’s willing to enforce the Constitution as written, even when under unprecedented outside pressure, threats and intimidation—even an attempted assassination.”

A statistical analysis by Adam Feldman of the Empirical SCOTUS website found conservative victories in close cases at the highest level since the 2017 term. Feldman said the arrival of Justice Amy Coney Barrett has also made it easier for conservatives to get the four votes needed to take a case.

“I think the big story is that the court was able to pick up cases that could push policy in a much more rightward direction now,” he said.

The string of sweeping, far-reaching decisions this term has led many Democrats to charge that the court is losing its legitimacy with the public, but a former Senate Judiciary Committee counsel Mike Davis said that is simply sour grapes over the outcome.

“The Supreme Court is not supposed to be democratically representative by design,” said Davis, former nominations counsel to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). “They’re supposed to protect minority rights and us from government, whether it’s tyranny or anarchy….The Democrats, the left, are trying to delegitimize the Supreme Court because they lost control of it.”

Many on the left have seized on Thomas’ musings in the abortion case about the court revisiting rights to same-sex marriage or contraception, abortion-rights opponents said they don’t see the court having the appetite to delve into those issues anytime soon.

James Bopp Jr, general counsel for National Right to Life and a prominent litigator on life and campaign finance issues, said he was elated about the abortion ruling.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled this was culmination of the life’s work. I’ve been waiting for this day since I was a senior in law school,” Bopp said.

However, the conservative lawyer said he thinks Thomas’ thoughts about same-sex marriage and contraception precedents are no indication that those are issues the court plans to dive into.

“I learned a long time ago it takes five votes. You will notice that no other justice joined his concurrence,” Bopp said.

Severino agreed, saying she expects major legal battles over abortion at the state level, while the Supreme Court remains focused on other issues like expanding rights to religious expression. The court did just that this term in the so-called praying coach case out of Washington state and is poised to grapple with similar questions this fall in the case about the religious, Colorado web designer who is asserting a right to refuse to serve same-sex couples.

“Freedom of conscience is an area that is likely to continue to be really significant,” she said.

The high court and the conservative legal movement also seem intent on keeping up pressure to chop back the power of federal agencies to regulate everything from automobiles to marketing to pollution.

One of the Supreme Court’s final rulings Thursday, delivered 6-3 along the usual ideological lines, rejected the Biden administration’s plan to try to limit climate change by reducing greenhouse cases from power plants. The ruling was not as hostile to agency authority as some expected, but still left little leeway for the administration to implement carbon-emission limits without Congress.

Other cases that could be more damaging to federal agency power are looming. One case decided last month by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit could upend the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement efforts by requiring all such cases be brought in federal district courts, rather than in front of administrative law judges. That decision could wind up at the Supreme Court within a year or two, prompting the justices to consider whether Congress went too far in delegating power to the SEC.

“Anything that relies on a very general mandate from Congress is at risk,” Fordham University Law Professor Jed Shugerman said.

As more pitched battles loom, Severino also vowed that the enormous victory for the conservative legal movement in the abortion case after decades of strategizing, litigating, fundraising and organizing doesn’t mean that those advocates are going to declare victory and go home.

“It’s not about that one case. It’s about an approach to judging,” she said. “No one’s going to throw up their hands and say, ‘OK, we’re done.’”

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/30/the-conservative-supreme-court-is-just-getting-warmed-up-00043656

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Hurricane Nigel forms in the Atlantic, forecast to rapidly intensify into major Cat. 3 storm: NHC – FOX 35 Orlando

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In Florida primary, Matt Gaetz is fighting a battle over the future identity of the GOP – NPR

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Japan puts missile defences on alert as North Korea warns of satellite launch – Reuters

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Xi to Unveil Leadership in China Communist Party Congress: Live Updates – The New York Times

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Jimmy Kimmel Goes to Town on ‘Inebriated’ Rudy Giuliani’s Election-Night Scheme – The Daily Beast

On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel dedicated his late-night monologue to what he called “Episode 2 of CSI: I Can’t Believe Donald Trump’s Not in Jail Yet”—otherwise known as the Jan. 6 congressional hearings.

Trump’s bizarre decision to “reject the advice” of members of his team and declare victory on Election Night, despite even Fox News saying he’d lost, allegedly came from “an apparently inebriated” Rudy Giuliani.

“Apparently inebriated—which, by the way, is the title of Rudy Giuliani’s biography,” joked Kimmel. “Rudy Giuliani told him to go out and say he won. The way that you can tell Rudy is drunk is his breath smells more like booze than cigars and cat turds for a change.”

The allegation that Giuliani was a drunken mess was backed up by former Trump aide Jason Miller who, when asked whether there was anyone that night who “in your observation had had too much to drink,” replied, “Um… Mayor Giuliani.”

Kimmel couldn’t help but laugh. “OK, so Rudy was drunk. The big question is: What’s Donald Trump’s excuse? He doesn’t even drink! I mean, this testimony from his lawyers, his staffers, his campaign advisers, his own family—there are really only two options here: Either Donald Trump was lying and committed multiple crimes trying to strong-arm an election, or he’s off his freakin’ rocker. I guess it could be both.”

When Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner was asked during his testimony if he’d ever shared his perspective on Giuliani’s drunken plan with the president, he stammered and responded, “Um… I guess… Uh… Yes.”

Source Article from https://www.thedailybeast.com/jimmy-kimmel-goes-to-town-on-inebriated-giulianis-election-night-scheme

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Highland Park Fourth of July parade mass shooting, 5 dead, 16 hospitalized – Chicago Sun-Times

Five people were killed and 16 others wounded when a gunman started shooting 10 minutes after the Highland Park Fourth of July parade kicked off Monday morning, authorities said.

Shortly after noon, the Highland Park police said it remained an “active incident” and urged people to stay away.

A Chicago Sun-Times reporter saw blankets covering three bloodied bodies and five other people wounded and bloodied near the parade’s reviewing stand.

Several witnesses said they heard multiple shots fired. One witness said he counted more than 20 shots.

Miles Zaremski, a Highland Park resident, told the Sun-Times: “I heard 20 to 25 shots, which were in rapid succession. So it couldn’t have been just a handgun or a shotgun.”

Zaremski said he saw “people in that area that got shot,” including “a woman covered with blood . . . She did not survive.”

Police were telling people: “Everybody disperse, please. It is not safe to be here.”

As they fled the parade route on Central Street in downtown Highland Park, panicked parade-goers left behind chairs, baby strollers and blankets as they sought cover, not knowing just what happened. Even as people ran, a klezmer band, seemingly unaware of the gunfire, continued to play.

Police from Highland Park and several other jurisdictions, including the Illnois State Police, some armed with rifles, were patrolling the area, looking for whoever fired the shots.

Adrienne Drell, a former Sun-Times reporter, said she was sitting on a curb along Central Avenue watching the parade when she saw members of the Highland Park High School marching band start to run.

“Go to Sunset,” Drell said she heard the students shout, directing people to nearby Sunset Foods.

A man picked her up off the curb and urged her to get out, Drell said.

“There’s panic in the whole town,” she said. “Everyone is just stunned beyond belief.”

She ran across to a nearby parking lot with other people who had been watching the parade.

“It was a quiet, peaceful, lovely morning, people were enjoying the parade,” Drell said. “Within seconds, to have that peacefulness suddenly ripped apart, it’s scary. You can’t go anywhere, you can’t find peace. I think we are falling apart.”

Terrified parade-goers fled Highland Park’s Fourth of July parade after shots were fired, leaving behind their belongings as they sought safety.

Lynn Sweet / Sun-Times

Eric Trotter, 37, who lives blocks from the shooting, echoed that sentiment.

“I felt shocked,” Trotter said. “How could this happen in a peaceful community like Highland Park.”

As police cars sped by on Central Avenue, sirens blaring, Alexander Sandoval, 39, sat on a bench and cried. He’d gotten up before 7 a.m. to set up lawn chairs and a blanket in front of the main stage of the parade. He lives walking distance from there, so he went home to have breakfast with his son, partner and stepdaughter before going back for the parade.

Hours later, he said he and his family ran after hearing the gunfire, afraid for their lives.

“We saw the Navy’s marchers and float pass by, and, when I first heard the gunshots, I thought it was them saluting the flag and shooting blanks,” Sandoval said. “But then I saw people starting to run, and the shots kept going. We started running.”

He said that, in the chaos, he and his partner ran in different directions, he with his son, she with her daughter.

“I grabbed my son and tried to break in to one of the local buildings, but I couldn’t,” Sandoval said. “The shooting stopped. I guess he was reloading. So I kept running and ran in to an alley and put my son in a garbage dumpster so he could be safe.”

Then, he said he ran in search of the rest of his family and saw bodies in pools of blood on the ground.

“i saw a little boy who was shot being carried away,” Sandoval said. “It was just terror.”

He found his partner and stepdaughter, safe, inside a McDonald’s nearby.

“This doesn’t happen here,” he said. “It shouldn’t happen anywhere.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he was “closely monitoring the situation in Highland Park” and that the Illinois State Police were on the scene.

The parade had a heavy presence of police and fire vehicles.

Blood pooled at Port Clinton Square in Highland Park.

Lynn Sweet/ Sun-Times

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Source Article from https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/7/4/23194354/highland-park-fourth-july-parade-gunfire

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Pa. Senate debate: Fetterman says debate against Oz will be ‘a challenge’; Fios TV customers won’t be able to watch – The Philadelphia Inquirer

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U.S. close to providing Ukraine with long-range cluster missiles – The Washington Post

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Trump fires back at Jan. 6 committee, calls hearings ‘disgraceful performance’ – ABC News

Former President Donald Trump on Friday fired back at the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

“There’s no clearer example of the menacing spirit that has devoured the American left than the disgraceful performance being staged by the unselect committee,” Trump said at a conference hosted by the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Nashville, Tennessee.

“They’re con people,” Trump continued. “They’re con artists.”

The committee has held three of the seven public hearings scheduled for this month, laying out what it says was a “sophisticated, seven-part plan” by Trump and his supporters to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Trump was well aware of the fact that he lost, the committee argued, using testimony from members of his inner circle. But he moved ahead anyway with an illegal plot to remain in power and raised millions of dollars in the process of pushing the “big lie” that he was the real winner.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr told the committee in a taped deposition that Trump’s claims of election fraud were “bull—-.” Ivanka Trump, also previously deposed by the panel, said she agreed with Barr’s conclusion that the election was not stolen.

Trump — who already dismissed his daughter’s testimony — on Friday accused the committee of taking the taped depositions out of context.

“The committee refuses to play any of the tape of people saying the good things, the things that we want to hear,” he said. “It’s a one-way street. It’s a rigged deal.”

Trump also slammed Republicans who crossed him and sit on the committee: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

The latest hearing on Thursday zeroed in on the intense pressure Trump and others heaped on then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly reject state electors and block the congressional certification of Biden’s win.

The pressure campaign put Pence in danger, lawmakers and witnesses said, with the vice president forced to hide underground for more than four hours after coming within 40 feet of the mob of rioters at the Capitol.

When Pence refused to follow Trump’s plan, a “heated” phone call ensued the morning of Jan. 6, Ivanka Trump and other witnesses told the committee. One Trump aide in the Oval Office at the time recalled Trump mockingly referring to Pence as a “wimp.”

Trump said Friday he never called Pence a “wimp” but continued to badger his vice president for not sending election results back to state legislatures, something both Trump and Pence were advised repeatedly was illegal, according to testimony given at the Jan. 6 committee hearings.

“Mike did not have the courage to act,” Trump said, likening him to a “robot” and “human conveyor belt” for following the advice of those who said he didn’t have the authority to reject state electors.

Former Pence attorney Greg Jacob and former federal judge Michael Luttig explained to the committee for hours Thursday their assessments that the vice president did not have the authority to do what Trump was asking. Luttig warned that if Pence had followed through with it, it would’ve plunged the nation into a constitutional crisis.

Trump on Friday continued to air false, baseless claims about the 2020 election, telling the crowd he didn’t believe he lost despite being defeated in both the Electoral College and the popular vote, as well as losing scores of lawsuits challenging election results.

The ex-president also touted the number of people at his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, calling it the largest group he’s ever spoken in front of and describing an atmosphere of “unbelievable love and patriotism.”

Trump even went so far as to weigh whether his Jan. 6 speech drew as many people as the famous “I Have A Dream” speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963.

The House committee has used footage from the Ellipse speech in multiple hearings to bolster its assertions that Trump was pressuring Pence to overturn the election and encouraging his supporters to go march to the Capitol.

On Friday, Trump also teased a potential 2024 run for president, pledging that if he were elected again he would consider delivering pardons to those prosecuted for their involvement in the insurrection — which Trump described as “a simple protest” that “got out of hand.”

“Most people should not be treated the way they’re being treated,” Trump said.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-fires-back-jan-committee-calls-hearings-disgraceful/story?id=85463648

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Special Counsel Weiss opposes Hunter Biden appearing virtually in court on ‘serious’ felony charges – Fox News

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