reACTIONary
reACTIONary's JournalUnite the Right marcher captured in viral photo dies by suicide before trial
Source: Washington Post (No Paywall)
A man wielding a tiki torch with neo-Nazis and white supremacists in a photo that became one of the most haunting images of the deadly Unite the Right rally in 2017 killed himself on the same day that his trial for a federal drug trafficking charge was set to begin.
Teddy Joseph Von Nukem, 35, died on Jan. 30 at his home in southwest Missouri when he was supposed to go to trial in Arizona on charges of trafficking fentanyl across the Mexico border. He was arrested in March 2021 for allegedly having more than 33 pounds of fentanyl pills in his vehicle, according to court records.
Read more: https://wapo.st/3Xugdhz
Live Updates: Multiple Injuries Reported After Shots Fired at Michigan State University
Source: New York Times, No Paywall
Multiple people were reported injured in an active shooting at multiple locations on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich. on Monday night, and the shooter was still at large, the university police said.
Several law enforcement agencies, including the F.B.I., responded late Monday to reports of shots fired.
Around 8:30 p.m. local time on Monday, the university’s Police Department sent an alert urging people on campus to “secure in place immediately.” The school police said shots were fired near Berkey Hall, home to the school’s college of arts and sciences, and the shooter was still believed to be on foot as of 10 p.m. local time.
School police said there was another reported shooting at IM East, a campus gym, around 9:30 p.m., and that “it appears there is only one suspect at this time.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/02/13/us/michigan-state-shooting?unlocked_article_code=MpUZeJDsE8pJ1A3kuCWroJUyifygx2lUBBu-Zd0hgKF9961hab3giSbQZBF-2jEmN66l4pubKOD3NkLwLlcT-o-Gdl9takvoIzb7kPR2V2WPt39y4iTnfSNbS1lLd1cBs4vUG7es1VYigUCIJ9xi63ttqD89zZ1uc
Arizona city cuts off a neighborhood's water supply amid drought
Source: Washington Post (No Paywall)
Historic shortages of Colorado River water and a bitter political feud have conspired to leave a Scottsdale, Ariz., neighborhood in a desperate scramble to find enough water to sustain themselves.
This grim forecast prompted Scottsdale to warn Rio Verde Foothills more than a year ago that their water supply would be cut off. City officials stressed their priority was to their own residents and cast Rio Verde Foothills as a boomtown of irresponsible development, fed by noisy water trucks rumbling over city streets. “The city cannot be responsible for the water needs of a separate community especially given its unlimited and unregulated growth,” the city manager’s office wrote in December.
Read more: https://wapo.st/3Xw6EPI
Santos's Lies Were Known to Some Well-Connected Republicans
Source: New York Times (No Paywall)
George Santos inspired no shortage of suspicion during his 2022 campaign, including in the upper echelons of his own party, yet many Republicans looked the other way.
Some of Mr. Santos’s own vendors were so alarmed after seeing the study in late November 2021 that they urged him to drop out of the race, and warned that he could risk public humiliation by continuing. When Mr. Santos disputed key findings and vowed to continue running, members of the campaign team quit, according to three of the four people The New York Times spoke to with knowledge of the study.
The episode, which has not been previously reported, is the most explicit evidence to date that a small circle of well-connected Republican campaign professionals had indications far earlier than the public that Mr. Santos was spinning an elaborate web of deceits, and that the candidate himself had been warned about just how vulnerable those lies were to unraveling.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/13/nyregion/george-santos-republicans-lies.html?unlocked_article_code=GTdewFz2g4ypaAHi7CQ4ysrjEBsqY9iV2G-mirmHXyXzMkOCUPRTnS4QgZRGj9eWx_-R_SGaArUrzBzaMe2_G88qXRrcVzBezWeQpAjQeFZQDRGyF2hUf3ITHgqE1EHVbY3xCXR01X4LXbLYamN0
Justice Department clears Postal Service to carry abortion drugs into red states
Source: Politico
The Justice Department has cleared the U.S. Postal Service to deliver abortion drugs to states that have strict limits on terminating pregnancy, and has offered limited assurances that a federal law addressing the issue won’t be used to prosecute people criminally over such mailings.
A legal opinion, from Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, concludes that a nearly 150-year-old statute aimed at fighting “vice” through the mail is not enforceable against mailings of abortion drugs as long as the sender does not know that the drugs will be used illegally.
“We conclude that [the statute] does not prohibit the mailing, or the delivery or receipt by mail, of mifepristone or misoprostol where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully,” OLC chief Christopher Schroeder wrote in the 21-page opinion posted online Tuesday.
“There are manifold ways in which recipients in every state may use these drugs, including to produce an abortion, without violating state law,” Schroeder added. “Therefore, the mere mailing of such drugs to a particular jurisdiction is an insufficient basis for concluding that the sender intends them to be used unlawfully.”
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/03/justice-department-postal-abortion-drugs-00076274
2 Charged in Attacks on Substations in Washington State
Source: New York Times, No Paywall
One man told law enforcement officials that he and another person had planned to disrupt power in the area to commit a burglary, according to court documents. The attacks left thousands without power.
Two men were charged on Tuesday in connection with attacks on four power substations in Washington State on Dec. 25 that left thousands without power, a crime that the authorities said had been intended as a ruse so that the men could burglarize a local business.
The men, Matthew Greenwood, 32, and Jeremy Crahan, 40, of Puyallup, Wash., were arrested on Dec. 31 after an investigation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Both were charged on Tuesday with conspiracy to damage energy facilities and possession of an unregistered firearm, the Justice Department said.
After he was arrested, Mr. Greenwood told law enforcement officials that he and Mr. Crahan had been planning to disrupt power in the area to commit a burglary, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Washington. Mr. Greenwood said that he and Mr. Crahan broke into the four substations by using bolt cutters. The men caused the outages using various methods, including manipulating breakers and tampering with switches, according to court documents.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/us/power-substation-attacks-arrest-washington.html?unlocked_article_code=fKiDoTbOBuDY4AOuz-of84sriEYnWnlky1iHYo2iVkPuDFLiY5axxfpUJ2B255_ErVEqXIrVl6fTvFfLRfaAE2YNwDesPoEGO3dS_IbtL_M9-d8_gmSoRhVv-rPQbnAZAXmVdHJOE7JClmuEEqgaMwDU7wKROBmy_iZQCBZJhhdOyD0xX9VtsA14ME2t3WYM73dJ1CPGgqHg_Jdn4R8_Z40FSzZrU8UVLjui1abxokUeWm9OlWLwbY3mRI6vmr9oeUjWfqFu3W-QIbPS_Ea5tT0LCjOqkFg9-561azfPN-HR1QBM03CocGAb11hRD8FpaXmvFGMFojmv1-m6sWuB67JZp5NIMZ-vVXqrTmUVZg&smid=share-url
A tiny paper broke the George Santos scandal, but no one paid attention
https://wapo.st/3CcFuVJMonths before the New York Times published a December article suggesting Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) had fabricated much of his résumé and biography, a tiny publication on Long Island was ringing alarm bells about its local candidate.
The North Shore Leader wrote in September, when few others were covering Santos, about his “inexplicable rise” in reported net worth — from essentially nothing in 2020 to as much as $11 million two years later.
The story noted other oddities about the self-described gay Trump supporter with Jewish heritage, who would go on to flip New York’s 3rd Congressional District from blue to red, and is now under investigation by authorities for misrepresenting his background to voters.
“Interestingly, Santos shows no U.S. real property in his financial disclosure, although he has repeatedly claimed to own ‘a mansion in Oyster Bay Cove’ on Tiffany Road; and ‘a mansion in the Hamptons’ on Dune Road,” managing editor Maureen Daly wrote in the Leader. “For a man of such alleged wealth, campaign records show that Santos and his husband live in a rented apartment, in an attached rowhouse in Queens.”
https://wapo.st/3CcFuVJ
Defenestration Update...
Pavel Antov, a Russian lawmaker and businessman who made his fortune in the sausage industry, died after falling from the third floor of his hotel room while on vacation in India — the latest Russian businessman to die under mysterious circumstances this year.
https://wapo.st/3YWBmTQ
Moorish Americans take over a rural gun range, sparking a strange showdown
.... after county officials took action, deeming the site an unlawful firing range and filing an injunction to stop it from operating in September, that events took several unexpected turns. That was when a group calling itself Moorish Americans — an offshoot of the extremist “sovereign citizen” movement whose members believe they are immune from dealings with U.S. legal and financial systems — essentially took over the range, declaring it “protected under the consular jurisdiction of Morocco.”
There followed arrests, flurries of spurious legal documents and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, all to the accompaniment of what neighbors describe as an ongoing din of gunfire on weekends. Things escalated last week when sheriff’s deputies raided the property, seizing what Bell said were about a dozen firearms.
The saga in Welcome, an agglomeration of tumbledown farmhouses and newly built homes roped together by winding country roads, highlights several enduring American loves: Guns, conspiracy theories, property rights and fruitless litigation.
https://wapo.st/3vjUbTm
Former Anti-Abortion Leader Alleges Another Supreme Court Breach
Source: New York Times, No Paywall
Both court decisions were triumphs for conservatives and the religious right. Both majority opinions were written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. But the leak of the draft opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion was disclosed in the news media by Politico, setting off a national uproar. With Hobby Lobby, according to Mr. Schenck, the outcome was shared with only a handful of advocates.
........
Mr. Schenck recruited wealthy donors like Mrs. Wright and her husband, Donald, encouraging them to invite some of the justices to meals, to their vacation homes or to private clubs. He advised allies to contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society and then mingle with justices at its functions. He ingratiated himself with court officials who could help give him access, records show.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/us/supreme-court-leak-abortion-roe-wade.html?unlocked_article_code=rPLXnkL-A_KhgGTpQt-kGSTyOTnwhaX9xT5EmtOEhuybSkCYR1txiOgiKtJWJfbByQgyeJNMZs_tFirkFLFQ38oc1Wk2Hl-P0BrpWZvJqioLH8k1gF2GiW_2Hoe8SGo5d4SpWaHumms0bc-OzIal
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