‘Shootings, Stabbings, Rapes, Carjackings.’  Trump Brings Roadshow to Ohio, Trashes
America

Peter Wade Sat, September 17, 2022

Election 2022 Trump - Credit: AP

If you ask the former president, America is in ruins. “We no longer have a border. Our country is being invaded. It’s an invasion by millions of illegal aliens,” Donald Trump said at his Saturday night rally, using the Great Replacement Theory’s racist “invasion” language, favored by violent white nationalists. “The economy is crashing. Your 401(k) is collapsing,” Trump told the crowd. “Shooting, stabbings, rapes, carjackings are skyrocketing.”

Trump delivered his speech, which started 45 minutes late, byspewing hate to an enthusiastic crowd in Youngstown, Ohio. Trump is in the state to campaign for Senate candidate J.D. Vance, who he endorsed and whose campaign recently required an urgent cash bailout. “J.D. is kissing my ass,” Trump said. “He wants my support so bad!”

But, per usual, Trump spent more time talking about himself and positioning himself as a victim of an “unhinged persecution” than building up the candidates he is there to support. He complained that Jan. 6 witnesses are compelled to turn on him. “They take good people and they say, ‘You’re going to jail for 10 years … unless you say something bad about Trump. In which case you won’t have to go to jail,'” he said. And Trump whined that he left a “very luxurious and enjoyable life” to enter politics.

Trump later pulled out another of his favorite talking points, painting himself as the victim of government spying. “They spied on my campaign. And nobody wants to do anything about it. Can you imagine if I spied on the campaign of — forget Biden — how about Obama’s campaign? Can you imagine what [the penalty] would be? Maybe it would be death. They’d bring back the death penalty,” Trump said. Later, Trump endorsed punishing drug dealers and human traffickers with the death penalty.

The former president also complained that Biden released crude from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve to reduce gas prices, claiming it is used “only for war” and apparently forgetting that he himself once tapped into the strategic reserve for the exact same reason.

“I don’t know if we’ve had a more radicalized or dangerous time in our country,” Trump said. Returning to his argument that America is falling apart, the former president zealously recited the details of gruesome crimes allegedly committed by immigrants. The hate continued when Trump mocked trans women in sports.

Before Trump’s speech, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) helped warm the crowd up and declared him the “one true leader” of the GOP. “The future under Republicans… loyally follows the one true leader of the Republican Party and you know who that is,” she said before injecting election fraud lies. “He’s the one we elected in 2016 and the one we re-elected in 2020, who won the election.” Fresh off appearing to kick a climate activist on video (she denies this), Greene scoffed at Democrats’ concerns about climate change. “We know that cheap gas won’t last,” she told the crowd. “You want to know why? Democrats worship the climate. We worship God.”

Trump bashed the Green New Deal as well, calling it “destructive” and “bullshit.” “I can’t think of a word that describes it better,” he said.

Also in the pre-Trump lineup: GOP congressional candidate J.R. Majewski, who has bragged that he was at the “base of the Capitol building” on Jan. 6 but claims he “committed no crimes” and “broke no police barriers.” Majewski in his speech said “my pronouns are patriot ass kicker” and promised to “turn that Green New Deal brown, like the turd it is.”

MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell made an appearance in the afternoon where he claimed he “prayed” for then-Democratic Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to win their elections in Jan. 2021 because if a Republican had won one of those seats, “most people in the country” would not believe his and Trump’s absurd claims that widespread “election crime” was taking place in the U.S.

The FBI this week seized Lindell’s phone while the pillow magnate was in line at a Hardee’s drive-thru. Trump, meanwhile, continues to fight the Justice Department’s search of his Mar-a-Lago compound and Georgia’s election interference prosecution alongside a host of other legal woes.

“We are a nation in decline,” Trump said toward the conclusion of the rally. As he spoke, dramatic classical strings music swelled in the background (yes, seriously), giving the moment a cinematic propaganda feel.

COPS OUT OF CONTROL 
Intervening bystander in Karen Garner arrest recognized as only one who 'did the right thing'

DISARM, DEFUND, DISBAND


Sady Swanson, Fort Collins Coloradoan
Sun, September 18, 2022 

On June 26, 2020 — the day 73-year-old Karen Garner was forcibly arrested by Loveland police officers — Reidesel Mendoza was “the sole person that did the right thing.”

Mendoza had stopped his car to confront the officers arresting Garner because "the way they were handling that situation was not the right way," he said in an interview Saturday, after receiving a citizenship award for his actions that day.

"I tried to do what was right," Mendoza said.

Garner — who has dementia — was accused of leaving Walmart that day without paying for $13.88 worth of merchandise, but staff stopper her and retrieved the items before she left. Garner was walking home when officer Austin Hopp stopped her. About 30 seconds after Hopp got out of his car, he forced Garner to the ground and tried to arrest her.


Another officer — Daria Jalali — arrived shortly after to help Hopp restrain Garner. Sgt. Philip Metzler arrived after the two officers got Garner in one of their patrol cars.

Mendoza saw how the officers were treating Garner and decided he needed to intervene.

“Do you have to use that much aggression,” Mendoza could be heard saying to Hopp in Hopp’s body camera footage, released to the public by an attorney who represented Garner's family in a civil lawsuit filed against the city.

Hopp then told him to “get out of here, this is not your business,” and further explained, “this is what happens when you fight the police.”

Later, in a conversation between Mendoza and Metzler on the scene captured on Metzler's body camera footage, Mendoza said, ““when you see a person walking and the next thing you see is a cop throwing them to the ground without her using force or nothing, what’s going to be your reaction?”

“I’m not sure but usually I would think that the police have a reason to arrest her,” Metzler replied, and repeatedly told Mendoza he didn’t have all the information so he can’t judge the officers’ actions.

“You may think you’re defending her but she’s the one that committed a crime,” Metzler said in the body camera footage.

Garner had her shoulder dislocated and arm fractured during the arrest, according to a civil lawsuit settled by the city with Garner’s family by the city for $3 million.

Hopp and Jalali were both criminally charged for their actions in this incident. Hopp was sentenced to five years in prison for second-degree assault, and Jalali was sentenced to 45 days in jail and three years of probation for failing to intervene.

In addition to Hopp and Jalali, Metzler and community service officer Tyler Blackett resigned from the department. Another officer, Paul Ashe, was fired as part of the investigation into officers' actions during and after Garner's arrest, but is suing the department for wrongful termination.
'Everybody has the right to speak up'

Mendoza was commended for intervening in Garner's arrest during Loveland's Latine Heritage Month Celebration at Foote Lagoon on Saturday, by being presented a citizenship award.

“Everybody has the right to speak up,” Mendoza said after being presented the award. “... If you see something that is not right, you have the right to speak. That can change someone else’s life.”

The award was presented in part by the Community Trust Commission, which was formed by the Loveland city council to aide in rebuilding trust with the community and its police department.

Interim Loveland Police Chief Eric Stewart applauded Mendoza's courage in stepping up that day, and said the public plays in key role in successful policing, referencing one of Robert Peel's — who he said is considered the father of modern policing — principles: "The public are the police and the police are the public."

"Clearly we can’t police without the public. We certainly didn’t do a great job that day,” Stewart said. "... I'm sorry we let you down that day."

Loveland Mayor Jacki Marsh thanked Mendoza for overcoming fear to do the right thing in intervening, something not everyone would do in a similar situation.

“You have my heartfelt appreciation and admiration," Marsh said to Mendoza. "... I cannot thank you enough, for in that horrible day, you were the ray of hope, the ray of sunshine for Karen Garner. You were the sole person that did the right thing that day.”

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Man who intervened in Loveland Karen Garner arrest awarded

Republicans were wrong on abortion

and Democrats are using that to rally

women voters

Carli Pierson, USA TODAY

Sat, September 17, 2022 

Republicans have spent the past months proving a point I've been trying to make: Repealing Roe was never about federalism and state's rights. It has always been, and always will be, about taking away women's bodily autonomy.

I am not surprised that it didn't take long for anti-abortion extremists to show their true colors and push for even more restrictions on abortion rights, as well as some outrageous proposals for "solutions" to an inevitable wave of unwanted pregnancies because of Roe being overturned. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham is one of the more prominent Republicans who seems to have missed the "it's about federalism, we're pro-states" nonsense the GOP was pushing when they got rid of the constitutional right to an abortion this summer. As an unmarried, childless male, the South Carolina senator decided to push for a federal 15-week abortion ban and further erode the rights of women in states where they still have agency over their bodies, states like Colorado (where a woman's fundamental right to abortion was reaffirmed statutorily post-Dobbs), and California (where access to abortion was expanded after Roe fell). 

GOP and political stunts: Ron DeSantis' Martha's Vineyard stunt cruelly uses migrants as human pawns, helping no one

In 2022, women's bodies are not where Republicans want to wage political war.

The Democrats rallying on abortion

Because it's a midterm, predictions would normally be that the president’s party is almost guaranteed to lose seats. President Obama had historic midterm losses in 2010, while President Trump lost the House to Democrats in the 2018 midterms. The trend runs back to before World War II. 

Abortion-rights supporters cheer as the proposed Kansas constitutional amendment fails on Aug. 2, 2022.

But instead of a referendum on the economy, it seems like access to reproductive healthcare is top of mind since the Dobbs decision, with women turning out in unprecedented numbers to register to vote. For instance, in Pennsylvania 62% of new female voters registered as Democrats (15% registered as Republican). In Kansas, 70% of newly registered women voters signed up as Democrats. In Wisconsin, women have out-registered men by almost 10%, with Democrats making up 52.36% of all of those newly registered voters (16.59% of new voters registered as Republicans.) In Michigan, women are out-registering men by 8.1 percentage points as new voters and Democrats are out-registering Republicans by 18 percentage points. Louisiana, Florida and Texas are seeing similar phenomena.

So, no on states' rights? Lindsey Graham mansplains his federal abortion ban: 'I picked 15 weeks.' Got it, ladies?

And voter registration isn't the only good thing happening for Democrats worried about abortion rights receding even more. In Ohio, a judge just temporarily blocked that state's six-week abortion ban, saying it violated "Ohio’s Equal Protection and Benefit Clause," and restored the previous limit of 20 weeks while the case proceeds.

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In Michigan, a state judge recently ruled that a 91-year-old law that banned abortion violated the state constitution. In Kansas, voters upheld the right to abortion after state legislators proposed an amendment to the state constitution that would have repealed the right to an abortion in the deeply red state, even though that right was affirmed in a state Supreme Court ruling in 2019. And in New York Democrat Pat Ryan, who made abortion rights a cornerstone of his campaign, recently beat out a Republican candidate in a special election for control of the state's 19th congressional district.

No tangible action by Republicans to help women

So what are the humanitarian solutions Republicans have come up with to help women and girls facing unwanted pregnancies: expecting raped children to give birth, building more baby drop boxes for unwanted newborns?

It's as insulting as it is pathetic and sad. Everyone knows that regular polling over the years has consistently shown that Americans support abortion care. Yasmin Radjy, Executive Director of the progressive political group Swing Left, told me that "In terms of where voters are, Republicans and Independents agree with Democrats that women should have the right to safe and legal abortion. 77% of Americans agree on that point."

Unsurprisingly, after Roe was overturned and the unthinkable actually happened, support for abortion rights actually increased.

June 24, 2022: Abortion rights demonstrators march through the streets to protest the Supreme Court's decision in the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health case in Detroit, Michigan. The Court's decision in the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health case overturns the landmark 50-year-old Roe v Wade case, removing a federal right to an abortion.

So it's mind-boggling that Republican lawmakers pushed through with these unpopular policies, against the wishes of voters. The need to access abortion care cuts across party lines and abortion bans were never going to be good politics. And they did all this without having a set plan to support the people they decided to force into parenthood.

All the lonely people: Why Americans' isolation is a threat to our democracy

But not everyone in the GOP is putting their head in the sand. In a bid to save their November campaigns other Republicans are scrambling to scrub their websites of hardline anti-abortion rhetoric because, well, it was a bad idea in the first place.

But it's too late. Americans know who's to blame for this human rights monstrosity and they're going to take them to task come November.

Extreme factions of the GOP have misread Americans. Come November, it's all about abortion rights. 

Carli Pierson, a New York licensed attorney, is an opinion writer with USA TODAY, and a member of the USA TODAY Editorial Board. Follow her on Twitter: @CarliPiersonEsq. 

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Abortion bans are firing up Democrats in lead up to November elections

I was a Kansas doctor for 20 years. Abortion can be complex, but it’s always personal


Gemunu Amarasinghe/Associated Press file photo

Dan Murphy 

Sun, September 18, 2022 

Twenty years as a family doctor in Johnson County gave me a close-up view of the abortion discussion as it grew more and more intense.

I learned firsthand that an unexpected pregnancy is a shock. Even worse is unexpected bad news during a much-wanted pregnancy.

One of my patients faced both challenges. As soon as she knew that she was pregnant, she decided to place her child for adoption. Two weeks before her due date, she realized that the baby wasn’t moving. Her baby’s heart had suddenly stopped beating. Her baby had died.

She chose to induce labor that evening, delivering a perfect-looking baby boy who would never know life. Technically, I had performed an abortion.

Later that year, another young woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy she planned to keep. Her grandmother, her only support, asked me privately why the system had made it so hard for the new mom to have the abortion she really wanted. I had no answer.

That new mom was 11 years old. She wasn’t mature enough to choose adoption or abortion. But she was suddenly a mother.

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling in June suddenly limited women’s options.

A record number of Kansans went to the polls six weeks later to preserve reproductive freedom. They voted overwhelmingly to maintain choice for the people of Kansas. Voters in the 3rd District spoke out by a 2-1 margin in favor of choice.

National support for access to abortion reached an all-time high across demographic lines in July of this year according to a Pew Research Poll.

Since the Dobbs decision, Republican political candidates have raced to distance themselves from their earlier opposition to abortion access. Even candidates who had called for total abortion bans without exception have scrubbed those statements from their campaign literature. They now promise to oppose any nationwide ban, even if their records suggest otherwise.

At the same time, Republicans in Congress have introduced a federal bill to restrict abortion access in all states. They would impose even more restrictions than the current Kansas law we voted to preserve in August. Their extreme anti-choice supporters say they are working to ban abortions nationally without exception. So, now we must decide whether we want elected officials who will stand firm for reproductive rights on the national level.

Some anti-choice candidates are now scrambling to decide whether federal politicians or state politicians should make the decision. They all believe that women shouldn’t make their own choices. They insist that government should control women’s choices and women’s bodies.

The November election will demand that we decide again about abortion access because the Dobbs decision took away federal protection for women’s rights. So, what should we believe?

I ask you to believe in the wisdom of women themselves to choose appropriately. Not once in 20 years of medicine did I ever recommend abortion. It was my place to explain the options. It was the woman’s place to choose the option best for her and her family. That is the fundamental basis of our individual constitutional rights.

The Nov. 8 general election requires us to choose: Whom do we trust? The choice is exceptionally clear.

I will vote for candidates whose past actions match their current positions on abortion access. I will vote for candidates who recognize that women are capable of determining their own futures. I will vote for candidates who reject government control over women’s bodies — either at the state or federal level.

Please do the same.

Dan Murphy has lived and worked in Johnson County for 45 years. He recently retired after practicing family medicine in Merriam for nearly 20 years.

Florida's Ron DeSantis is on the cusp of raising more than any governor — ever

Ben Werschkul

·Washington Correspondent

Sat, September 17, 2022 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis broadcast his national ambitions this week by taking credit for a flight that sent undocumented immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, making him the latest conservative lawmaker to protest the rise in illegal immigration by shipping border crossers to a liberal state.

The governor's stunt may have broken the law, and spurred locals to assist the migrants. It’s nonetheless likely to strengthen his position as former president Donald Trump’s most formidable rival in 2024 among Republican primary voters. DeSantis has attracted national attention for championing his state's so-called don't say gay law and for downplaying the risks of COVID-19.

But it's his fundraising prowess that perhaps cements his standing as the primary Trump alternative. After years of diligently gathering checks, the Florida governor is now on the cusp of a major milestone. He is set to soon take the mantle of having raised the most money of any candidate for governor — ever.

That’s according to data from OpenSecrets.org that goes back decades.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks after the primary election for the midterms during a rally in Tampa in August. (REUTERS/Octavio Jones)

“The DeSantis story is more about a politician who's using his state campaign to be a test site for a potential presidential run," Sarah Bryner, the director of research and strategy at OpenSecrets, told Yahoo Finance on Friday.

DeSantis has structured his fundraising in a new way, directing donors both to his campaign committee and his political action committee. The PAC has been successful, Bryner notes, because it has no contribution limits.

The biggest checkbooks on Team DeSantis

Plenty of wealthy donors have taken full advantage of that quirk in campaign finance laws.

A key donor is Citadel CEO Ken Griffin. The hedge funder has backed DeSantis for years, giving $5 million for his current campaign on top of contributing $5.75 million in 2018.

Griffin declined to list DeSantis as his favorite candidate during a May appearance at the Milken Institute Global Conference. However, he conceded that DeSantis “has done a lot of things right” when it comes to preparing for 2024.

Griffin also said at that appearance that he didn’t appreciate the governor's recent campaign against the The Walt Disney Company (DIS) over his opposition to the state's anti-gay law. “It can be portrayed or feel or look like retaliation,” Griffin said.

Citadel CEO Ken Griffin speaks at the 2022 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California in May. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)

According to the latest data, DeSantis has raised over $174 million since he took office. That's much more than he is likely to need to hold his seat, where he enjoys a polling edge against Democratic rival, Charlie Crist. While this money is ostensibly being raised for the upcoming governor's race, it's clearly aimed at 2024 — and whatever DeSantis doesn't spend can be saved for the future.

The biggest contributor on record is Robert Bigelow. The owner of the Budget Suites hotel chain has written exactly one check so far this election cycle: $10 million to the DeSantis PAC. Bigelow has bestowed his fortune on a range of unlikely causes, from UFO-hunting to "consciousness studies" to inflatable space habitats, according to Forbes.

Another mega-donor is Richard Uihlein and his wife, who have chipped in $1.2 million. Uihlein, worth an estimated $3.9 billion, gave Trump money during the 2020 contest, according to Federal Election Commission data, but hasn't given to the former president since then. Still, he's backed an array of Trump-aligned candidates such as Herschel Walker in Georgia and Blake Masters in Arizona this year.

Plenty of other big names grace the DeSantis donor database. Notable financial figures include Charles B. Johnson of Franklin Resources ($594,919 since 2019); Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus ($500,000), hedge funder Paul Tudor Jones ($400,000), and more.

Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus during a ribbon cutting ceremony in 2005. (Barry Williams/Getty Images)

DeSantis has already set the fundraising record among non-self-financing governors and willI likely soon surpass the totals achieved by Meg Whitman in California and Jay Pritzker in Illinois in recent years. Those two billionaires spent millions of their own money on their respective campaigns

DeSantis and Trump ‘building their war chests’

The Florida governor has also gotten notice, but not yet any money, from another key GOP bankroller. Billionaire Peter Thiel, the key Trump donor in 2016 who sat out the 2020 presidential race, said at a recent conservatism conference that DeSantis is “probably the best of the governors in terms of offering a real alternative to California,” Insider reports.

Neither Trump nor DeSantis has yet declared plans to run for president in 2024, though Bryner notes they're both building their campaign war chests and may end up competing for donors in 2023.

Then-President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis participate in a "COVID-19 Response and Storm Preparedness" event in Belleair, Florida in 2020. (REUTERS/Tom Brenner)

Trump is handily beating DeSantis in nearly every poll, which can be far from a reliable indicator this far ahead of an election. The former president has maintained his usual bravado in the face of the possible challenge.

Asked about potential competition from DeSantis, Trump told Yahoo Finance in an interview last year: “I'd beat him like I would beat everyone else.”

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

Ted Cruz Tells Sean Hannity Transporting Migrants Is Illegal – but Advocates for It Anyway (Video)



Katie Campione
Sat, September 17, 2022

Texas Senator Ted Cruz argued during a Friday appearance on Fox News that transporting migrants across state lines could be illegal — yet still praised the recent actions of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and advocated for more similar moves.

Cruz, who is a lawyer and graduate of Harvard Law School, was asked by Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday to weigh in on the situation “from a legal standpoint.”

“Let’s say I went down to the border and I brought a big truck with me, and I picked up a bunch of illegal immigrants, and I started transporting them across the country,” Hannity said. “Would I or would I not likely be arrested for human trafficking and would it be illegal to do that for me, if I did that?”



Cruz was clear in his response: “For you, a citizen, you could easily be arrested. Although, to be honest, Joe Biden’s Justice Department wouldn’t arrest you.”

The senator added that the law “is clear” on the matter, before peculiarly accusing President Biden of being “the biggest human trafficker on the face of the planet.”

Earlier this week, Florida Governor DeSantis took responsibility for two planes from San Antonio, Texas, that were full of migrants, which touched down in Martha’s Vineyard. The move has drawn heavy criticism from late-night hosts like Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert, as well as legal experts and celebrities.

Also Read:
Joy Reid Compares Ron DeSantis’ Immigrant Flights to 1960s Segregationists’ ‘Reverse Freedom Rides’ North and West (Video)

This isn’t the first time a Republican lawmaker has done so. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been busing migrants to Washington, D.C. for months.

According to legal experts who spoke with The Washington Post, the law isn’t quite as clear as Cruz makes it out to be. If the migrants willingly chose to be transported to these cities, then it can’t necessarily be likened to human trafficking.

Border patrol officials are able to transport migrants, noted Bridgette Carr, a law professor at the University of Michigan. She added: “I would be curious if that immunity extends beyond federal officials, since immigration is generally a power the feds regulate exclusively.”

Also Read:
Ron DeSantis Roasted Over Martha’s Vineyard Debacle: ‘The Hypocrisy Is Real’

Local Armenians protest U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan's military forces

Louis Sahagún
Sat, September 17, 202

Demonstrators supporting Armenia protest on Saturday outside the Azerbaijani Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

More than 100 people gathered outside the Azerbaijani Consulate in Los Angeles on Saturday demanding an end to attacks by Azerbaijan forces in a disputed border region with Armenia and Artsakh, where an estimated 200 people were killed in the past week.

The demonstration coincided with a surprise weekend visit to Armenia by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and two Armenian American members of Congress, and the introduction of a resolution in Congress by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) demanding a prohibition on U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan.

The U.S. Embassy said the visit will include a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, according to the Associated Press.

Like many others waving Armenian flags at the event organized by the Armenian Youth Federation, Tenny Alahverdian, 20, said she found herself thinking of relatives "suffering on the front lines.”

“We’re hoping that the United States comes down hard on Azerbaijan,” she said. “For President Biden to be calling for peace while funding Azerbaijan’s military is a crazy — and deadly — double standard.”

The demonstration was part of an effort that has spanned decades of advocacy and activism by Armenians around the world. Much of that movement has been centered in Los Angeles County, home to America’s largest Armenian diaspora community.

The movement was launched in the 1980s, when children of survivors of the Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1918 established themselves in the U.S. The genocide claimed the lives of more than 1 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which became the modern republic of Turkey.

Over the years, Armenian Americans grew more politically active, contributing to political campaigns and the successful push last year to have Biden officially recognize the genocide.

Bitter memories of the massacre have profoundly shaped Armenian and Armenian American identity. But U.S. presidents had avoided using the term “genocide” so as not to anger the Turkish government, an important ally that disputes that what took place constituted genocide.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan blame each other for instigating the recent bloody clashes.

But demonstrators outside the Wilshire Boulevard consulate on Saturday say the fighting started in 2020 when Azerbaijan, with the help of Turkey, launched a war to remove Armenians living in the disputed border region of Nagorno-Karabakh, referred to as the Republic of Artsakh.

News of Pelosi’s visit to Armenia, combined with Schiff’s proposed resolution, prompted Raffi Haig Hamparian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, to urge Congress to "stop shipping U.S. tax dollars to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.”

“A halt to U.S. aid to Azerbaijan,” he said, “would also meaningfully challenge our State Department’s deeply flawed policy of answering every act of Azerbaijani aggression with generic calls upon all parties to refrain from violence.”

The Azerbaijani Consulate, however, said in a statement on its website that the ongoing tensions “arose as a result of large-scale provocations by Armenia, and therefore the responsibility completely falls on ... Armenia.”

Alahverdian, the Los Angeles protest attendee, said: “The situation isn’t looking good anyway you look at it. It’s difficult being a member of the diaspora.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Pelosi condemns Azerbaijan over Armenia attack





U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, center left, and Head of Armenian National Assembly Alen Simonyan, center right, attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the monument to the victims of mass killings by Ottoman Turks during the massacre, in Yerevan, Armenia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022. A U.S. congressional delegation headed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has arrived in Armenia. The group landed Saturday amid a cease-fire that has held for three days. Earlier this week, an outburst of fighting with neighboring Azerbaijan killed more than 200 troops from both sides. 

(Hayk Baghdasaryan/Photolure via AP)More


Sun, September 18, 2022 

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said Sunday that the United States deplores recent attacks by Azerbaijan and called for a negotiated solution to the countries' conflict.

Pelsoi's visit to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, with a congressional delegation came just a few days days after two days of shelling by both sides that killed more than 200 troops. It was the largest outbreak of hostilities in more than two years.

The two ex-Soviet countries have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but was long under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories held by Armenian forces. More than 6,700 people died in that fighting.

Armenia and Azerbaijan each blamed the other for starting the shelling attacks last week.

Pelosi on Sunday met with Alen Simonyan, president of Armenia's parliament, and told reporters afterward that “Our meeting again had a particular importance to us because the focus was on security following the illegal and deadly attacks by Azerbaijan on the Armenian territory.

“We strongly condemn those attacks — we in our delegation on behalf of Congress — which threaten prospects for a much-needed peace agreement,” she said. “The United States ... has clearly and has long stated that there can be no military solution to the conflict. We continue to watch the situation closely and we continue supporting a negotiated, comprehensive and sustainable solution to all issues relating to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.”

The Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry sharply criticized her comments.

“Pelosi’s baseless and unfair accusations against Azerbaijan are unacceptable," it said in a statement.

“We emphasize with regret that Pelosi, who speaks of justice, has not purposefully shown any position until today regarding the policy of aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, the occupation of the territory of Azerbaijan for almost 30 years, the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis and other similar grave crimes, for which Armenia is responsible,” the ministry said.