Conspiracy-mongering Republican seeking John Lewis seat gets social media boost from Trump

ACTUAL HEADLINE, NOT MINE

WHO DOES

THE WOMAN

WHAT WOMAN

THE WOMAN WITH POWER 

WHAT POWER 

THE POWER OF HOODOO

HOODOO

YOU DO

I DO

NO,SHE DOES

WHO DOES

(ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN)

Caitlin Dickson
Reporter,
Yahoo News•August 8, 2020

President Trump sits next to Terrence Williams and Angela Stanton-King during a meeting with African-American leaders at the White House in February. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

On Thursday evening, amid a fairly typical burst of presidential Twitter activity, President Trump retweeted two recent posts from the account of Angela Stanton-King, a Republican congressional candidate who has repeatedly used her social media feeds to promote content related to QAnon and other fringe conspiracy theories, including wildly implausible internet rumors about sex trafficking of children.

Trump has also flirted with QAnon memes on social media, although his retweets of Stanton-King were not related to the loosely knit group whose followers have been described by the FBI as “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists.”

In the first tweet, which was originally posted last week, Stanton-King describes herself as “a proud Black woman who supports @realDonaldTrump” and is “done with the Democrat Party lying to my community.” Stanton-King is running in the Georgia congressional district that was represented by the late John Lewis.

Trump also passed along her tweet citing recently reported police data showing that Chicago experienced a 139 percent increase in murders this July compared to the same month last year. “Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and every single NBA player are silent,” Stanton-King charged in the second tweet. “They don’t care about black lives. They care about capitalizing on black lives!”


Stanton-King, who served over two years in prison following a 2004 conviction on federal conspiracy charges related to her role in a vehicle theft ring, was pardoned by Trump earlier this year and has since appeared at the White House along with a handful of other Black Trump supporters.

“I have never run for office, and I don’t have political experience,” Stanton-King told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Back in March. “But I do have life experiences.”

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Stanton-King, 43, is a native of Buffalo, N.Y., and the goddaughter of former Georgia state Rep. Alveda King, a niece of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and an antiabortion advocate. She said she would fight against what she calls “a Democratic war in support of abortion,” and that criminal justice reform would be a big part of her agenda, noting that during her time in prison she gave birth to a daughter and lost both her mother and grandmother.

Like the president, Stanton-King — who also dabbled in reality TV before pursuing a career in politics — is prolific on social media. Besides parroting many of Trump’s favorite talking points, she has frequently repeated ideas related to QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory centered on the belief that Trump is secretly working to dismantle an international child sex trafficking ring run by a cabal of “deep state” actors and global elites.
Screenshot: Angela Stanton-King via Instagram.

The FBI has warned that QAnon’s growing network of believers poses a potential domestic terrorism threat. In an intelligence bulletin first reported by Yahoo News last year, the bureau warned that the threat of conspiracy-theory-driven violence would likely increase leading up to the 2020 election, noting that “the advent of the Internet and social media has enabled promoters of conspiracy theories to produce and share greater volumes of material via online platforms that larger audiences of consumers can quickly and easily access.”

In June, Stanton-King ran unopposed in the Republican primary for Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District, which had long been represented by the late Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who died on July 17. Georgia State Sen. Nikema Williams has since been selected by the state Democratic Party to replace Lewis on the ballot in November and is favored to beat Stanton-King in the heavily Democratic district, which includes most of Atlanta.

Still, while her chances of getting elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November may be small, Stanton-King is among a growing list of QAnon-linked congressional candidates who’ve managed to secure a spot on the general election ballot this year. According to federal election records, Stanton-King’s campaign has received $2,200.00 from the Republican National Committee and $2,800 from the Georgia Republican Party. 


THEY ARE TOUCHING THE CHOSEN ONE

African-American supporters with President Trump at the White House on February. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

On Twitter and Instagram, Stanton-King has posted QAnon-related videos as well as the movement’s well-known hashtags and slogans, such as “Trust the Plan” and “Where We Go One We Go All,” or #WWG1WGA. In a statement to the Associated Press last month, Stanton-King disputed the notion that such posts are evidence that she is an adherent of the movement, suggesting instead that she’s used the QAnon hashtags “to extend her reach” on social media.

Nonetheless, Stanton-King has continued to promote the core beliefs and language used by QAnon followers, tweeting on July 11, for example, about “Globbal [sic] elite pedophiles trafficking children.” On Thursday evening, after Trump’s back-to-back retweets had already brought Stanton-King to the attention of his 84.8 million followers, she tweeted in all caps, “THE STORM IS HERE,” a popular QAnon rallying cry. In Q parlance, “the storm” refers to the highly anticipated moment when former presidents and other members of the “deep state” and global elite are rounded up for their alleged involvement in pedophilia and child sex trafficking rings.

In an emailed response to questions from Yahoo News Friday, Stanton-King again denied having any association with QAnon, writing, “I am familiar with the name only. I am not familiar with the group, movement or any of its core principles or beliefs.

“I have an obligation to listen to my constituents,” Stanton-King continued in her statement to Yahoo News. “It is their right to express their concerns and my job [to] look into them.”



THE STORM IS HERE 🇺🇸

— Angela Stanton King 🇺🇸 (@theangiestanton) August 6, 2020

QAnon isn’t the only fringe conspiracy theory Stanton-King’s social media posts have touched on. Other recent tweets have included references to an older, thoroughly disputed internet rumor known as Pizzagate, which claimed that prominent Democrats including Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were running a child sex ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor. She has also made reference to a current, thoroughly debunked rumor that the online furniture retailer Wayfair is a front for child prostitution.

“Did Ghislane Maxwell tip authorities off about #Wayfair?” Stanton-King tweeted on July 10. Maxwell, a British socialite and longtime companion of the late Jeffrey Epstein, was indicted earlier this year by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for her alleged involvement in Epstein’s recruitment and sex trafficking of underage girls. Trump, who has known both Maxwell and Epstein socially for years, has said of Maxwell, who is in jail awaiting trial, “I wish her well. ... Let them [Department of Justice] prove somebody was guilty.”

With regard to her posts about the Wayfair conspiracy, Stanton-King told Yahoo News, “There are major concerns of pedophilia and child trafficking. For me, if there is an implication of danger towards children anywhere, no matter the source, I’m on the front lines against it.”

According to a report by the Washington Post on the rapid online spread of the baseless Wayfair claims, “An increase in calls prompted by the [Wayfair] conspiracy theory is straining the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which provides emergency help to victims.”

Yahoo News sent requests to spokespeople for both the White House and Trump’s reelection campaign for comment on this story. Neither has responded.

Captain astonished that his ship delivered Beirut explosive
DARIA LITVINOVA, Associated Press•August 6, 2020


Boris Prokoshev, a sea captain poses for a photo after his interview with the Associated Press outside Sochi, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020. When Boris Prokoshev, a sea captain spending his retirement years in a southern Russia village, woke up and found an email saying a ship he once commanded had carried the ammonium nitrate that devastatingly exploded in Beirut, he was astonished. The 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that blew up in Beirut’s port on Tuesday wasn’t supposed to be in Lebanon at all. It was bound from the Black Sea for Mozambique, but made an unscheduled detour to Beirut and never left there. (AP Photo/Kirill Lemekh)More



MOSCOW (AP) — When Boris Prokoshev, a former sea captain spending his retirement years in a Russian village, woke up and found an email saying a ship he once commanded had carried the ammonium nitrate that blew up swathes of Beirut, he was astonished.

“I didn't understand anything,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday from Verkhnee Buu, 1300 kilometers (800 miles) south of Moscow.

The email was from a journalist, he said, and titled with the name of the MV Rhosus, which he had captained on a voyage that he was never paid for.

“I opened my inbox and saw a letter about the Rhosus; I thought maybe they were sending me money, my salary,” he said.


The 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that blew up in Beirut's port on Tuesday — killing 135 people, injuring more than 5,000 and causing widespread destruction — wasn't supposed to have been in Lebanon at all. When the Rhosus set sail from the Georgian Black Sea port of Batumi, it was bound for the Mozambican port of Beira.

But it made an unscheduled detour to Beirut as the Russian shipowner was struggling with debts and hoped to earn some extra cash in Lebanon.

Igor Grechushkin, a Russian businessman residing in Cyprus, bought the cargo ship in 2012 from Cypriot businessman Charalambos Manoli. Grechushkin has been questioned by police on request of Interpol's Lebanon office, said Cypriot police spokesman Christos Andreou, but he has not been detained.

Prokoshev, now 70, said he joined the ship in Turkey in 2013, after the previous crew quit over unpaid wages. Grechushkin, who resides in Cyprus, was paid $1 million to transport the dangerous cargo from Georgia to Mozambique, the former captain said.

The chemicals were to be delivered to Fábrica de Explosivos de Moçambique, a company majority-owned by the Portuguese explosives company Moura Silva e Filhos.

Importing ammonium nitrate is common in Mozambique, either to make fertilizer or for use as explosives in quarries and coal pits.

The ship made a stop in Beirut to try to earn extra money by taking on several pieces of heavy machinery. But that additional cargo proved too heavy for the Rhosus and the crew refused to take it on. The Rhosus was soon impounded by the Lebanese authorities for failing to pay port fees, and never left the port again.

Prokoshev and three other crew members were forced to remain on board because of immigration restrictions. The former captain said they were stuck on the ship for 11 months, with food and other supplies running low. He said Grechushkin abandoned them without paying the wages or the debt he owed to the port.

He said the Beirut port supplied them with food out of pity.

At some point he sold some of the fuel and used the cash to hire lawyers, who got the crew released on compassionate grounds in 2014. The application to the court emphasized “the imminent danger the crew was facing given the ‘dangerous’ nature of the cargo,” the lawyers wrote in a 2015 article published by shiparrested.com, a website providing information on ship arrests and releases.

The cargo was transferred to a port warehouse only after the crew disembarked and headed back to Ukraine in 2014, Prokoshev said. It remained there ever since -- until it detonated on Tuesday.

According to the captain, the ship sank several years after they left. It had a hole in the hull, and the crew, while on it, had to regularly pump water out to keep it afloat. But Charalambos Manoli, the Cypriot businessman who owned the ship before Grechushkin bought it, claims the vessel remained docked in Beirut and was destroyed in the blast on Tuesday; he says he saw the wreckage in the photos of the destroyed port.

The blast has raised outrage in Lebanon against authorities who allowed the dangerous substance to be stored for years. Prokoshev sympathizes with them.

“It’s very bad that people died; they had nothing to do with it. And I realized that it’s the government of Lebanon that brought about this situation,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Heintz in Moscow, Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Tom Bowker in Maputo, Mozambique, contributed to this report.

Program allows some Alaska Native Vietnam vets to get land

Alaska Native Vietnam Veterans
This undated photo shows Stewy Carlo during his Army service days during the Vietnam War. Carlo died in a car accident in 1975, but his family will apply for an allotment of 160 acres of government-owned land in Alaska under a new program that will allow Alaska Native Vietnam veterans or their heirs to apply for land that they might have missed out on in earlier programs because of their service. (Photo provided by Seeyaa Charpentier via AP)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Stewy Carlo had a short life, but he lived every moment. While serving in the Army, he bought a 1951 Mercedes and motored around Europe. After his service years, he roamed South America where he developed a love of photography, and then later turned heads while driving an exotic Maserati to a construction job back home in Alaska.

Carlo, a member of the Koyukon Athabascan tribe, was a math whiz from Fairbanks who quit college in 1967 to volunteer for the Army, to serve in Vietnam. There, he was an aircraft controller who “brought a lot of crippled aircraft in,” said his brother, Wally Carlo of Fairbanks.

Stewy would be an Alaska Native leader today if he had hadn’t been killed in a head-on collision while driving the Maserati in 1975, his brother said.

Wally Carlo intends to honor his brother’s legacy by applying for an allotment of 160 acres (65 hectares) of land in Alaska owned by the federal government.

Alaska Natives were allowed to apply for 160 acres (65 hectares) of land under the 1906 Alaska Native Allotment Act. Before a new law went into effect in 1971, there was a big advertising push to urge Alaska Natives to claim title if they hadn’t already done so.

That coincided with the Vietnam War, when many Alaska Natives fighting the war probably didn’t hear the plea. In 1998, another act allowed the veterans to apply for their land, but both Alaska Natives and Congress felt the window was too short to apply and an occupancy requirement wasn’t fair.

Last year, Congress passed the Dingell Act, expanding the window to apply for land and removing the occupancy provision.

“It’s something that’s really near and dear to our hearts to make sure this program’s a success because we know that folks didn’t have that opportunity,” said Chad Padgett, the Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska director.

The BLM and other federal partners have identified about 1,000 Alaska Native service members or their descendants who might be eligible for the program and is in the process of notifying them. The military and Bureau of Indian Affairs are determining eligibility for another 1,200 people.

There could be more since the BLM estimates 40% of the Alaska Native veterans or their surviving family members have moved out of Alaska and may not know the window will reopen to apply. The BLM also estimates about a third or more of the eligible veterans have died, but their heirs might be eligible.

Veterans or family will have five years to select and apply for land. That window will open sometime this fall.

Currently, there are 1.5 million acres (607,028 hectares) of land available for those allotments, located in three parts of Alaska: the Bering Glacier area near Yakutat, the Fortymile area in Alaska’s interior and near Goodnews Bay in western Alaska.

The land will have restricted titles, meaning veterans can’t sell the land without approval from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Those locations and the restriction have led to criticism from some combat veterans, including Chris Kiana, who wonders why the government thinks he would like 160 acres (65 hectares) of inaccessible land, between glaciers near Yakutat, land on the complete opposite side of the state from where he was born.

“We’re treated like Third World people in a First World. Pathetic,” Kiana said.

Kiana was born in northwest Alaska in 1943 and calls himself an urban Eskimo since he now lives in Anchorage.

He joined the Navy and served on a ship that saw heavy fighting in Vietnam. He didn’t know Harold Rudolph at the time, but said his ship likely lobbed shells over Rudolph’s Army unit during battles.

Rudolph, who is part Aleut and part Tlingit, was born in Valdez in 1948. He served in an artillery unit with the 25th Infantry Division near Saigon during his two-year tour.

Both say the land being offered is not in their ancestral areas, it’s off the road system and inaccessible — challenges that are not appealing for men of their age.

“We’re trying to make lands available that are desirable and accessible, and access in Alaska is a lot different than what you might think of down in the Lower 48,” Padgett said.

“And unfortunately, most of the BLM lands is in an area where you’re going to have to get there by boat, snowmobiles, snow machine or plane. It’s just that’s the way the land pattern is at this point, but that we’re trying to make some changes to that,” he said.

The BLM is recommending that an additional 15 million acres (6,070,286 million hectares) become eligible for allotments.

Kiana and Rudolph have another solution.

They would rather be paid cash for their allotments, say $3,000 an acre. Then they could use the $480,000 to buy a home elsewhere.

“Why don’t they allow us a buyout so we can go buy a cabin close by, buy a house close by with a few acres? That’s about what we can do with that amount of money,” Kiana said.

Instead, the government is offering land where “we have a helicopter out to in most cases or parachute into. Does that make sense?”

By statute, the government can’t do that, said Padgett “That’s something that they have to take up with Congress.”

Wally Carlo would like to secure land near the Yukon River bridge on the Dalton Highway, the supply road that runs north of Fairbanks to the oil fields on the North Slope. That’s where other members of the Carlo family previously secured their allotments, but that area isn’t currently being offered.

Even if they can’t get that preferred land, Carlo can’t imagine trying to sell it back for cash to the government.

“We believe that it’s not for just our generation now, but for three or four hundred years,” he said. “Hopefully, it’ll stay in the family, and we’ve set up a trust to make that happen.”

'Slight improvement' in melting glacier threatening Italy resort

IT SNOWED

During a helicopter flypast, an AFP reporter saw a gaping chasm on the lower part of the Planpincieux, from which two cascades of water flowed towards the valley

Andrea BERNARDI, AFP•August 8, 2020



Slight improvement' in melting glacier threatening Italy resort

The threat that a massive chunk of glacier loosened by soaring temperatures could collapse near an alpine resort on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc mountain range has slightly eased, a local mayor said Saturday.

Climate change has been increasingly melting the world's glaciers, creating a new danger for the town of Courmayeur, a resort community in Italy's Aosta Valley region, near the French border.

The town was put on high alert on Wednesday as a block of ice estimated at about 500,000 cubic metres -- the size of the Milan cathedral, one official said -- from the Planpincieux glacier risked falling and threatening homes.

A "red zone" at the base of the slope was also evacuated, with 20 residents and around 55 holidaymakers moved from the area.


But Courmayeur mayor Stefano Miserocchi said Saturday that things were looking up.

"We are in a phase of slight improvement, the situation is a little better," he told AFP.

"However we have not yet returned to the situation before the closure," he added

"The emergency measures remain the same: evacuation of the inhabitants, and the closure of the road to Val Ferret," a small valley normally busy with tourists at this time of year.

Some locals were dismissive of the closure, lamenting that it further affected a tourism season already hit by coronavirus measures.

However Mayor Miserocchi said it was "urgent and vital" to move people directly in the path of a potential ice fall, as more scorching temperatures are forecast over the coming days.

Ludovic Ravanel, a researcher at the University of Savoie Mont Blanc who studies glaciers and rockfalls in the Alps, defended the decision to evacuate the area.

"We cannot leave people under the threat of such an avalanche of ice," he told AFP.


- Global warming link 'obvious' -


Aosta Valley natural risk management director Valerio Segor said the situation was "especially delicate" because the heat "upsets the water level between the ice and the rock, and in turn the stability of the glacier."

He said the problem was "that not enough water can escape, it stays under the glacier like a bubble and risks lifting it up" -- which could tip its most fragile section to tumble into the valley, Segor told AFP earlier in the week.

But Miserocchi said Saturday that "the circulation of water under the glacier has resumed... it was this point that worried us a lot".

During a helicopter flypast, an AFP reporter saw a gaping chasm on the lower part of the Planpincieux, from which two cascades of water flowed towards the valley, as it hung from the mountainside like a gigantic block of grey polystyrene.

Researcher Ravanel said that Planpincieux's "link with global warming is obvious".

"A particularly strong glacial retreat over the past three decades, combined with increasingly frequent heatwaves, explains the current situation," he said.

There are more than 4,000 glaciers -- vast, ancient reserves of ice -- dotted throughout the Alps, providing seasonal water to millions and forming some of Europe's most stunning landscapes. But they are under severe threat from climate change.

hba/glr/dl/bp

Alpine glacier in Italy threatens valley, forces evacuations

Associated Press•August 7, 2020

Italian glacier at high risk for collapse

ROME (AP) — Experts were closely monitoring a Mont Blanc glacier on Friday, a day after they evacuated 75 tourists and residents amid fears the glacier could soon break apart and crash into a popular Italian Alpine valley.

Valerio Segor, a glacier expert in Valle d’Aosta, a region in northwestern Italy, told reporters on Friday that the next 72 hours were critical for the Planpincieux Glacier, which lies under a massif on the Italian side of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps.

Those forced to evacuate came from homes and holiday lodgings in the Ferret Valley in the shadow of the glacier. Tourists on Friday were barred from entering the scenic valley.

The glacier’s size has been likened to that of a soccer field under a 80-meter (265-foot) high mass of ice. Abrupt shifts in temperature from hot to cold to hot again are being blamed for the precarious state of the glacier, which Segor says has a stream of water running beneath it.

The glacier's state has been monitored since 2013. Last year saw similar concerns, but the glacier held on to its grip on the mountain at 2,600-2,800 meters (8,500-9,200 feet) of altitude.

Lately, Planpincieux has been creeping downward at the rate of about 80-100 centimeters (32-40 inches) each day, Segor said.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper quoted glacier expert Fabrizio Troilo as saying there is “the danger it could give way in an instant.”

Corriere said an Alpine refuge was still open for climbers who come from the French side of Mont Blanc, which is known in Italy as Monte Blanco.

___

Follow all AP coverage of climate change issues at https://apnews.com/Climate.
Italian valley still in 'red zone' as Mont Blanc glacier threatens collapse

Anahide MERAYAN, AFP•August 7, 2020

Italian valley still in 'red zone' as Mont Blanc glacier threatens collapse
75 people have been evacuated from the valley below the glacier

An Italian alpine resort remained on high alert Friday over fears a vast chunk of a glacier on the slopes of the Mont Blanc massif could plummet in high temperatures.

"No one gets through! No cars, bikes or pedestrians," was the message at a checkpoint where an automatic barrier and two guards blocked the small tarmac road snaking up into a lush valley below the Planpincieux glacier, not far from the town of Courmayeur and the Italian-French border.

But the blockade has largely been greeted with contempt by the locals, one of whom told AFP "it's a joke".

The huge ice block measuring around 500,000 cubic metres -- "the size of Milan cathedral or a football pitch covered in ice 80 metres (260 feet) thick" according to an official -- could yet break free of its perch about 2,600 to 2,800 metres above sea level.


Late Wednesday, authorities ordered the evacuation of a "red zone" at the base of the slope for at least 72 hours, so far moving just 75 people -- around 20 locals and the remainder holidaymakers.

At this time of year, the small Val Ferret valley now blocked off is usually busy with tourists heeding the call of the mountains.

Located in the Aosta Valley region, the spot is not far from where a vital road tunnel pierces the Alps between France and Italy.

But the "red zone" is at least four kilometres from the tunnel entrance, while tourists could still be seen strolling through the streets of Courmayeur.

It was "urgent and vital" to move people directly in the path of a potential ice fall, Courmayeur mayor Stefano Miserocchi said, highlighting an "elevated state of alert" during the 72-hour evacuation.

The coming three days are expected to bring especially high temperatures as much of Europe sizzles under a heatwave.


- 'Delicate situation' -


There are more than 4,000 glaciers -- vast, ancient reserves of ice -- dotted throughout the Alps, providing seasonal water to millions and forming some of Europe's most stunning landscapes. But they are under severe threat from climate change.

A study last year by Swiss scientists found that Alpine glaciers could shrink between 65 and 90 percent this century, depending on how effectively the world can curb greenhouse gas emissions.

At Planpincieux this week, "it's an especially delicate situation because (the temperature) upsets the water level between the ice and the rock, and in turn the stability of the glacier," Aosta Valley natural risk management director Valerio Segor told AFP.

"Our problem now is that not enough water can escape, it stays under the glacier like a bubble and risks lifting it up" -- which could prompt its most fragile section to tumble into the valley, Segor added.

Last autumn, another section of ice from the Planpincieux glacier threatened to collapse, prompting road closures in the area, and heightened surveillance has since been introduced.

In Courmayeur, as in the small neighbouring commune of La Palud, leading to Val Ferret, the evacuation came as an unwelcome surprise, arousing criticism from residents and tourism professionals, worried about the impact on their activity.

In this typically Alpine hamlet, wooden chalets with slate roofs and balconies festooned with pink geraniums and greenery nudge up against hotels and restaurants which advertise their inviting "mountain menu".

"I looked at where the glacier was, where the danger was. It doesn't affect the centre of Courmayeur at all so we continued the visit", says Loic Hamelin, a Parisian tourist who came for the day with his family.


- 'It's a joke' -


The threat does not appear to have put off the walkers for an instant as they bustle through the streets with backpacks and boots to start a trail.

"It's a joke," says Rocco, owner of a hotel in La Palud.

"Every year, they (the local authorities) do the same thing to us. After the COVID-19 epidemic, it's a new disaster for tourism.

"We have been receiving calls from worried customers asking if they should cancel their reservation. But there is absolutely no problem!"

Another hotelier in the area, Ludovico Colombati, was equally dismissive after having to evacuate his house, which is "the closest to the glacier", just under two kilometres away.

"We live in the mountains, so there is always a risk. But in this case, it is very, very, very low," says Colombati, whose family has lived in the valley for four generations.

"With climate change, the hot summer, the glacier moves, blocks are detached, it's normal," he said, criticising the "psychosis" of administrators "who cover themselves for fear of having to assume the slightest responsibility".

"Several times a day, my ears hear the glacier being triggered... That's life in the mountains, especially when you live at the foot of a wall.

"The day after tomorrow, it will be all open," he says.

hba/tgb/ach/bsp/pvh


Mont Blanc: Homes evacuated amid fears glacier might collapse
Vincent Wood, The Independent•August 6, 2020

dozen people have been evacuated in northwestern Italy as a huge chunk of the glacier in the Mont Blanc massif threatens to break off due to high temperatures: AFP via Getty Images

Residents of Italy’s Aosta Valley have been told to evacuate their homes over fears that a portion of a Mont Blanc glacier the size of a football pitch could collapse over the region.

Some 75 people were evacuated from the town of Courmayeur after the Safe Mountains Foundation sounded the alarm over 10,000 cubic metres of ice which could fall from the Planpincieux glacier in the coming days.

The glacier’s degradation has caused disruption and death in the past – killing an elderly couple near Courmayeur in 2018 when their car was swept from the road in an event that prompted a mass evacuation of the surrounding area.

Around 60 tourists and 15 residents are now reported to have been removed to safety, while those in the Val Ferret region have been told to stay only if they have adequate supplies of essentials including food to last three days.


Safe Mountain Foundation glaciologist Fabrizio Troilo told La Stampa there was “a risk of instant collapse”.

The region was also evacuated in 2019 due to the threat posed by the glacier, but experts say the portion now at risk of breaking off is twice the size as last year.

Mr Troilo said there is “now there is an enormous body of ice leaning against the rock”.

Mont Blanc, Europe’s second highest peak, is home to some 4,000 glaciers, of which the Safe Mountains Foundation monitors 184 for signs of glacial melt.

French president Emmanuel Macron has called the melting of glaciers around the mountain range, which straddles Italy, France and Switzerland, “irrefutable proof of global warming and climate change and the toppling of an entire ecosystem”.

Meanwhile scientists at non-profit research institute CREA Mont Blanc have warned that rising temperatures mean that “since 1850, glaciers in the Alps have lost between 30 and 40% of their surface area and half of their volume”.
Read more

Scientists warn of rapid melting of Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday glacier’

France offers aid as Mauritius declares emergency over oil spill from stranded vessel

Reuters•August 8, 2020



France offers aid as Mauritius declares emergency over oil spill from stranded vessel
A satellite image shows MV Wakashio


PORT LOUIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron pledged on Saturday to send teams and equipment to help Mauritius deal with an oil spill that environmentalists fear could be a major ecological disaster.

The bulk carrier MV Wakashio ran aground on July 25 on a reef on the south east coast of the Indian Ocean island.

Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, prime minister of Mauritius, declared a state of environmental emergency and pleaded for international help on Friday.

"The sinking of the #Wakashio represents a danger for Mauritius," Jugnauth said in a tweet.


Macron responded by saying France was deploying teams and equipment from Reunion Island.

"When biodiversity is in danger, there is an urgent need to act. France is there. Alongside the Mauritian people. You can count on our dear support," Macron said in a tweet.

The vessels is leaking diesel and oil into lagoons, threatening the survival of thousands of species which are at "risk of drowning in a sea of pollution," according to Greenpeace.

"The current oil spill on the reef near Pointe d'Esny on the south east coast of the Mauritian island is likely one of the most terrible ecological crises ever seen on the small island country," the environmental group said in a statement.

Satellite images released on Friday showed thick oil slick forming around the area where the ship ran aground.

Mauritius, famous for its pristine beaches, is popular with tourists who last year contributed 63 billion Mauritius rupees ($1.59 billion) to the economy.

($1 = 39.5300 Mauritius rupees)

(Writing by Omar Mohammed; Editing by Mike Harrison)


SEE
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/locals-in-mauritius-are-going-to-great.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/mauritian-prime-minister-seeks.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-oil-spill-at-mauritius-is-disaster.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/update-mauritius-battles-devastating.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/oil-spill-off-mauritius-is-visible-from.html


https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/mauritius-facing-catastrophe-as-oil.html

The Real Reason New York’s Attorney General Went After the NRABarbara McQuade,
The Daily Beast•August 6, 2020

Peter Foley/Bloomberg via Getty Images

New York Attorney General Letitia James may be able to do what no politician before her has been able to accomplish – take down the National Rifle Association.

Her lawsuit alleging self-dealing and misconduct could, if successful, dissolve the entire organization. While the suit is civil in nature, it reads like an old-fashioned corruption indictment.

It alleges that the not-for profit organization violated New York state laws governing charities by diverting tens of millions of dollars away from the organization’s mission for the personal benefit of its leaders, with Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s Executive Vice President for the past 29 years, and three other officers named as defendants along with the organization itself. According to the complaint, LaPierre used NRA funds for eight private plane flights to the Bahamas, where they enjoyed life on the 107-foot yacht of an NRA vendor, as well as for safaris in Africa and elsewhere. The complaint also claims that LaPierre allotted millions of dollars for private security for himself without sufficient oversight (and cited “security” concerns to explain why he didn’t disclose those trips to the NRA’s board), that he spent $1.2 million of the group’s funds on gifts from Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman for favored friends and vendors, and that he negotiated a post-employment contract for himself valued at $17 million without board approval.

‘Fraught With Fraud and Abuse’: NY Attorney General Sues to Dissolve the National Rifle Association

New York, like most states, requires non-profit organizations to file annual financial reports as a condition of its non-profit status, which confers tax benefits for the organization and its donors. The law requires funds to be used to serve the organization’s members and advance its charitable mission. The complaint alleges that the NRA’s leaders “blatantly ignored” those rules by failing to ensure proper internal controls, ignoring whistleblowers and concealing problems from auditors.

Like other cases of corruption, this easily could have been framed as a criminal case. Filing false registration and disclosure documents as part of a scheme to defraud can serve as the basis for federal mail or wire fraud, and often does in public corruption cases. When I served as a federal prosecutor, my former office brought public corruption cases on such theories in similar cases in which officials misused funds for personal benefit. Why then, is it left to James, whose office’s oversight over charities is civil in nature, to bring this action? The silence of the U.S. Department of Justice here is deafening.

But the effect of the state attorney general’s civil case might be even more devastating than a criminal case because one of the remedies of her action is dissolution of the NRA itself. She used the same tactics to dissolve the Trump Foundation in November. There, she reached a settlement with President Donald Trump and family members to pay $2 million to resolve allegations of misuse of charitable funds to influence the 2016 presidential primary election and to further his own personal interests. Among the improper use of funds was doling out $500,000 to potential voters at a 2016 campaign rally in Iowa. As part of that settlement, James required Trump to personally admit to misusing the Foundation’s funds. Sometimes, parties to settlements are permitted to publicly state that a resolution is not an admission of wrongdoing. James would not let them off so easily. Her success in the Trump Foundation case puts teeth into her legal quest to dissolve the NRA as well.

Trump to NRA Bigwigs: Get Better Lawyers

Since 1871, the NRA has been the nation’s largest gun advocacy group. Founded to improve marksmanship following the Civil War, the organization has lately become a powerful lobbying organization and campaign funder that can make or break candidates for political office depending on their stance on firearms regulations. As its website boasts, the NRA is “widely recognized today as a major political force.” Following mass shootings in America, Democratic candidates for office have blamed the NRA for the inability to pass gun reform legislation, and have demanded campaign finance reform to expose and limit the organization’s influence on elections.

No doubt, there will be Second Amendment advocates who claim that the New York lawsuit is politically motivated effort to strike a blow against gun ownership. Indeed, if the allegations are true that the NRA engaged in cartoonishly corrupt self-dealing and misconduct, then the dissolution of the NRA would end its 139-year run as the nation’s strongest advocate for gun rights.

The law may be the only weapon that can take down the NRA. And if James can prove her case, then the demise of the NRA will be a self-inflicted wound. 

Lawsuit: The NRA’s ‘School Safety Initiative’ Was a Front to Increase Fundraising

‘FUNNY MONEY’

The gun group launched the School Shield program after Sandy Hook. But it doled out a measly number of grants before new leadership demanded it get real.
Julia Arciga Reporter Updated Dec. 05, 2019

Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast/Photos Getty


In the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in December 2012, the National Rifle Association launched a grant program that it said would be instrumental in protecting students from gun violence.

The School Shield Emergency Response Program was touted as a way to help provide schools with everything from “armed security to building design and access control to information technology to student and teacher training.” And in the subsequent years, the gun lobby continued to push the idea as school shootings became more frequent.

“When People Cried, ‘Someone Do Something!’ We Did,” The NRA declared on its website. School Shield, it added, was “A Program Whose Time Has Come.”

But as the gun group promoted School Shield, questions mounted about how far-reaching the program actually was. And now, one of the NRA’s longtime vendors is claiming that the gun-rights group artificially boosted their fundraising numbers by raising money for its School Shield program while paying out only a small number of actual grants.

In an amended counterclaim filed in Texas federal court in November, the NRA’s former ad agency—Ackerman McQueen—says that the gun lobby used School Shield as a “shell” program that it did not intend to meaningfully execute.

The longtime NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, the counterclaim alleges, “boosted NRA revenue through the creation of shell programs” like School Shield, “that the NRA never had any intention or meaningful ability to execute (or execute competently).”


All told, Ackerman McQueen claimed the NRA only gave a “paltry” five grants to schools between 2012 and 2014. That revelation matches reporting from Mother Jones, which revealed that the NRA’s tax returns from 2013 to 2016 showed only three grants given to schools on behalf of the School Shield program—totaling up to $200,000.

The lack of grants were, apparently, a subject of concern internally. When Oliver North became the NRA’s president in May 2018, the counterclaim alleged he “demanded” that the NRA “make [the program] real.” The gun group announced later that year that it had given 54 grants totaling over $600,000 to public and private schools in 23 states. The program is still active, recently giving a $21,000 grant to a Missouri school.

School Shield isn’t the only program that Ackerman McQueen says was used as a shell for the NRA to raise more money. According to its counterclaim, the NRA also used its Carry Guard insurance program as a vehicle to bring in more cash without providing much benefit for its members. The program was unveiled in 2017, and offered members insurance-backed criminal and civil liability protection. It also offered three levels of concealed carry gun training before shutting down earlier this year.

The counterclaim alleged that Josh Powell, the senior NRA official responsible for Carry Guard’s development, “seemed generally dismissive of the training component of the program and kept referring to Carry Guard as nothing but an ‘insurance scheme.’” The ad firm said it resisted promoting the program until the NRA could deliver on their promises to members, and expressed that it wanted nothing to do with the so-called “scheme.”

“By appealing to members’ hearts or promising benefits that were never delivered, the NRA raised millions of dollars of ‘funny money’—LaPierre’s affectionate term for brand sponsorship funds,” the counterclaim reads.

LaPierre Promised Job Security, Then Ousted an NRA Top Gun
BEWILDERING
Betsy Swan


The counterclaim makes additional claims about Youth for Tomorrow (YFT)—a Christian organization where LaPierre’s wife, Susan, was president. The gun group has been scrutinized for its lack of transparency in donations to YFT before, with a report from The New Yorker and The Trace revealing that over $180,000 in NRA contributions to YFT went unreported in their tax filings. According to Ackerman McQueen, the NRA also hid donations to YFT by using another entity, stating that it used a “third-party charity”, which would then give the NRA’s money to YFT. The counterclaim did not name the alleged “third-party charity” used by the NRA.

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The ad firm said this arrangement was part of “‘back-scratching’ relationships” LaPierre structured to “siphon money to pet projects that the NRA would otherwise be prohibited from contributing to.”

Ackerman McQueen’s counterclaim comes as the ad agency and the NRA are currently locked in a bitter legal battle. The gun group first sued Ackerman McQueen, claiming it was unable to provide adequate documentation for its bills to the group. The ad firm sued back, and said it complied with the gun group’s records requests. The firm also claimed that the NRA was attempting to terminate the contract between them. Both entities are seeking tens of millions from each other.

“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that Ackerman’s response to the agency’s legal issues is to attack a service program supported by many members of law enforcement and school officials across the country,” Andrew Arulanandam, the managing director of NRA Public Affairs, said in a statement. “We take great pride in NRA School Shield—and thank our many loyal members who join us in the effort to keep our children safe.”

The gun group's lawyers also said the counterclaim represented “another desperate chapter in the agency’s smear campaign” against them.

A representative for North declined to comment, and Ackerman McQueen’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

NRA Officials Found NRATV ‘Distasteful and Racist’: Suit
YA THINK?
Andrew Kirell


Ackerman McQueen’s counterclaim was filed after the NRA launched a lawsuit against the ad firm in U.S. District Court in Texas. The two parties are also involved in a lawsuit in Virginia. The filing—which accuses the NRA of libel and LaPierre of libel and fraud—also includes previously reported claims of LaPierre hiding his personal expenses within the ad firm. In the NRA’s initial complaint, the gun group accused Ackerman McQueen of fraud, conspiracy, breaches of fiduciary duties, and others.
TO SEE PDF OF LAW SUIT GO TO 
https://www.thedailybeast.com/nras-school-safety-initiative-was-a-farce-meant-to-juice-fundraising-lawsuit?via=rss&source=articles_fancylink

THE ORIGIN OF THE LAWS AGAINST CONVICT LABOR

Some ethical phases of the labor question
by Wright, Carroll Davidson, 1840-1909
https://archive.org/details/someethicalphas00wriggoog/page/n10/mode/2up
Publication date 1902
Topics Labor and laboring classes, Christian sociology, Factories, Convict labor
Publisher Boston, American Unitarian association

Religion in relation to sociology.--The relation of political economy to the labor question.--The factory as an element in civilization.--The ethics of prison labor

War of the classes
by London, Jack, 1876-1916
https://archive.org/details/warclasses04londgoog/page/n20/mode/2up
Publication date 1905
Topics Social problems, Socialism, Labor and laboring classes
Publisher New York, The Macmillan company; London, Macmillan & co. ltd.

 

 The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs. 
Foner, Philip S., (ed).
Monad Press: London, 1969.
https://archive.org/details/foner_haymarket/page/n3/mode/2up

A SELECTION OF PHOTOS FROM 

Historic Engravings of Scenes Related to the Haymarket Martyrs (1886-87)

https://archive.org/details/Haymarket-Historic-Images

This is a collection of digital copies of engraved illustrations of scenes related to the Haymarket bombing, trial, executions and legacy from 1886-87. Individual jpegs have title and author information embedded in the files, while file names carry the date and publication where the illustration was originally published.

These digital files originally appeared on the web site of the Chicago History Museum here: http://www.chicagohs.org/hadc/hadctoc.htm

 Historic photographs related to Haymarket were also published online here: http://www.chicagohs.org/80/hadc/visuals/phototoc.htm

 Both web pages may be found by entering these web addresses into the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

An Interview With Lucy Parsons on the Prospects for Anarchism in America

by Parsons, Lucy (1853-1942)

https://ia801904.us.archive.org/15/items/861021AnInterviewWithLucyParsons/861021-AnInterviewWithLucyParsons.pdf

Originally published as "A Female Anarchist: Mrs. Lucy Parsons on the Prospect of Anarchy in America," an interview conducted in New York City and sent by telegram to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for publication in that paper.

Published in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, vol. 37, no. 95 (Oct. 21, 1886), pg. 4.

Interviewer's name unspecified in original publication. Published in the USA prior to 1923, text public domain. Edited by Tim Davenport for republication by 1000 Flowers Publishing, October 2016. Non-commercial reproduction permitted.

Systemic Change

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/07/this-is-eight-ways-black-lives-matter.html

Anarchists reject focusing on petitioning for top-down reforms in favor of seeking solutions that attack social problems at their roots. Reforms can be a step towards fundamental change, but anarchists argue that we should begin from an analysis of the root causes of social ills and a holistic understanding of the systems that both ensure disparities and benefit from them.

So far, none of the reforms that politicians propose, such as civilian review boards or body cameras, have served to diminish police violence on a nationwide level. Neither have legal responses, such as bringing lawsuits or charges against officers, nor electoral solutions like lobbying or voting in new politicians. Despite reform efforts following the rebellion in Ferguson in 2014, the number of police killings annually in the US actually increased between 2015 and 2019.

Today, for the first time, mainstream discourse is acknowledging the possibility of defunding police departments or abolishing them altogether. Anarchists join Black feminists and prison abolitionists in insisting that cosmetic reforms will not solve the underlying issues of power, racism, and exploitation that drive state violence. Anarchists have been targets of police and state violence for over a century, from the Haymarket martyrs to the Anarchist Exclusion Act, the Palmer Raids, and the J20 case. These experiences inform the anarchist vision of a world entirely free of police and the exploitation they perpetuate.

“The unjust institutions which work so much misery and suffering to the masses have their root in governments, and owe their whole existence to the power derived from government, we cannot help but believe that were every law, every title deed, every court, and every police officer or soldier abolished tomorrow with one sweep, we would be better off than now.”

-Lucy Parsons, The Principles of Anarchism

Lucy Parsons