Housing Affordability Crisis Solved: Sedona To Let Homeless Workers Sleep In Cars
In a move that’s raising eyebrows and rankling residents, the swanky city of Sedona, Arizona is addressing its outrageous housing costs by creating a parking area so homeless workers have a place to sleep in their cars legally.
After an acrimonious debate that spanned almost seven hours, the city council approved the Safe Place to Park program by a 6-1 vote. Under the scheme, 40 parking spaces will be made available in a 6-acre parking lot at the town’s Cultural Park, a 41-acre property that used to be a performance venue. The lot will be outfitted with temporary bathrooms and showers.
A homeless coalition will be charged with overseeing the facility from 10pm to 8am, and all cars have to leave the lot during the day — so much for night-shift workers. To secure a spot in the lot, individuals must be full-time workers in the city. Proponents say the lot will help prevent homeless workers from sleeping in cars parked on Sedona streets or on the national forest land that is one of Sedona’s major tourist draws.
They’ll also have to engage with social workers who will help them strive to find permanent homes. Good luck. With the average house in the isolated town going for $930,000, and rental homes oriented toward big-spending vacationers, the desert paradise is unaffordable for many blue-collar workers.
We are over 440 signatures! Sign now before the next City Council meeting and let them know that sleeping in your car in not a good option. We can do better!
Stop the Homeless Parking Lot at Cultural Park in Sedona – Sign the Petition! https://t.co/DsSKEdRWFK via @Change
City officials reassured residents that the lot will not be visible from any of their homes — so they won’t have to worry about inadvertently casting their gaze on the homeless workers who make their lux lives in Sedona possible.
Residents worry the lot will become a hub of criminality and drug use. One resident who fled homeless-plagued Portland for sanctuary in Sedona is already working on an end-around to kill the program. “If the city does pass this misbegotten zoning ordinance, I’ve already prepared and tomorrow I will file for a ballot referendum so the people of Sedona can correct that mistake,”said Dr. Bill Noonan on the day of the vote.
“I don’t think there’s anybody up here or staff that are extremely proud of this. This is a last-ditch effort,” Mayor Scott Jablow told AZCentral. “No one’s really proud because this isn’t really the answer. It’s one of many answers.”
We’re guessing his other “answers” don’t include ending the Fed.
Default: San Francisco Four Seasons Hotel Investors $3 Million Late On Loan As Foreclosure Looms
Westbrook Partners, which acquired the San Francisco Four Seasons luxury hotel building, has been served a notice of default, as the developer has failed to make its monthly loan payment since December, and is currently behind by more than $3 million, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
Westbrook, which acquired the property at 345 California Center in 2019, has 90 days to bring their account current with its lender or face foreclosure.
As SF Gate notes, downtown San Francisco hotel investors have had a terrible few years – with interest rates higher than their pre-pandemic levels, and local tourism continuing to suffer thanks to the city’s legendary mismanagement that has resulted in overlapping drug, crime, and homelessness crises (which SF Gate characterizes as “a negative media narrative).
Last summer, the owner of San Francisco’s Hilton Union Square and Parc 55 hotels abandoned its loan in the first major default. Industry insiders speculate that loan defaults like this may become more common given the difficult period for investors.
The 155-room Four Seasons San Francisco at Embarcadero currenly occupies the top 11 floors of the iconic skyscrper. After slow renovations, the hotel officially reopened in the summer of 2021.
“Regarding the landscape of the hotel community in San Francisco, the short term is a challenging situation due to high interest rates, fewer guests compared to pre-pandemic and the relatively high costs attached with doing business here,” Alex Bastian, President and CEO of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, told SFGATE.
Heightened Risks
In January, the owner of the Hilton Financial District at 750 Kearny St. – Portsmouth Square’s affiliate Justice Operating Company – defaulted on the property, which had a $97 million loan on the 544-room hotel taken out in 2013. The company says it proposed a loan modification agreement which was under review by the servicer, LNR Partners.
Meanwhile last year Park Hotels & Resorts gave up ownership of two properties, Parc 55 and Hilton Union Square – which were transferred to a receiver that assumed management.
In the third quarter of 2023, the most recent data available, the Hilton Financial District reported $11.1 million in revenue, down from $12.3 million from the third quarter of 2022. The hotel had a net operating loss of $1.56 million in the most recent third quarter.
Occupancy fell to 88% with an average daily rate of $218 in the third quarter compared with 94% and $230 in the same period of 2022. –SF Chronicle
According to the Chronicle, San Francisco’s 2024 convention calendar is lighter than it was last year – in part due to key events leaving the city for cheaper, less crime-ridden places like Las Vegas.
New York City has reached an agreement with the Legal Aid Society that will enable the city to limit the duration of stay for adult migrants in shelters amid an ongoing surge in new arrivals, according to the mayor.
The agreement essentially ends the blanket right to shelter for adult migrants after 30 days, allowing only those who meet “extenuating circumstances” to reapply on a case-by-case basis.
“Today’s stipulation acknowledges that reality and grants us additional flexibility during times of crisis, like the national humanitarian crisis we are currently experiencing,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a press release.
Mr. Adams said the city’s shelter system had fewer than 2,500 people in its care when “the Right to Shelter” law was enacted over 40 years ago, compared to the 120,000 people today, 65,000 of which are migrants.
“New York City has led the nation in responding to a national humanitarian crisis, providing shelter and care to approximately 183,000 new arrivals since the spring of 2022, but we have been clear, from day one, that the ‘Right to Shelter’ was never intended to apply to a population larger than most U.S. cities descending on the five boroughs in less than two years,” he added.
The settlement applies only to adults seeking shelter and does not impact families with children. Young adults, under the age of 23, will be granted 60 days of shelter.
Additional time can be granted if there is evidence of “significant efforts to resettle,” which can include making an appointment with an immigration lawyer, applying for a resettlement program, or providing proof that they’re searching for housing.
The agreement also requires that the city eliminates the backlog of new arrivals who have been forced to wait many days for another bed when reapplying for placement.
The city also agreed to eliminate the use of waiting rooms as shelters and provide consistent access to bathrooms, showers, and food, according to a statement by the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless.
“We will very closely monitor the City’s compliance with this settlement and we won’t hesitate to seek judicial intervention should there be noncompliance,” said Legal Aid Society attorney Adriene Holder.
The right to shelter has been in place for more than four decades in New York, after a court in 1981 required the city to provide temporary housing for every homeless person who asks for it. Other big U.S. cities don’t have such a rule.
New York’s shelter system is now filled to record levels. The city says it is currently providing housing for 93,000 people. In recent months it has rented out entire hotels to house the influx of migrants, at great cost. It has also put cots in schools, and temporarily housed people in tents, a cruise ship terminal, and a former police academy building.
Mr. Adams has sought financial help from the state and federal government and has been critical of President Joe Biden’s administration for not providing funding to care for migrants.
“Like impacted cities across the country, we cannot bear the brunt of this crisis alone and continue to seek significant support from our federal partners, including expedited work authorizations, more funding, and a national resettlement strategy,” he said.
The Democrat mayor previously estimated it will cost the city roughly $12 billion over the next three years to handle the ongoing influx of immigrants.
He also issued an executive order to clamp down on charter bus companies transporting illegal immigrants from Texas, stating that such firms must notify the city’s Emergency Management Office at least 32 hours before arriving in the city.
Katabella Roberts and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
SpaceX Reportedly Building Spy Satellite Constellation In Low Earth Orbit
SpaceX’s Starshield program has been building a constellation of spy satellites under a classified contract with the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) since 2021, Reuters reported, citing five people familiar with the program.
The spy satellite network will consist of hundreds of low-Earth orbiting satellites with Earth-imaging capabilities that can operate as a sat-swarm. SpaceX’s contract with the NRO, signed in 2021, totals $1.8 billion.
According to Reuters, if Starshield is successful, it would “significantly advance the ability of the US government and military to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere on the globe.”
The contract signals a strengthening relationship between Musk and national security agencies despite radical progressives in the White House who have weaponized federal agencies against SpaceX and other Musk-owned companies.
Reuters noted it “was unable to determine when the new network of satellites would come online and could not establish what other companies are part of the program with their own contracts.”
SpaceX describes Starshield as for “government use” only, while “Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use.” It also explains that Starshield is a “secured satellite network for government entities” that “supports national security efforts.”
Starlink needs to be a civilian network, not a participant to combat.
Starshield will be owned by the US government and controlled by DoD Space Force.
Last fall, SpaceX received a contract for the Starshield network from the US Space Force.
The planned Starshield network is entirely separate from Starlink, which has an expanding commercial broadband constellation of 5,500 satellites in low earth orbit that provides internet to consumers, companies, and government agencies worldwide.
Biden officials must be absolutely furious about Musk’s expanding relationship with the Pentagon to strengthen the nation’s defenses.
Musk is uncancellable – no matter how many federal agencies the Biden administration directs at the billionaire.
The following excerpts are from Tragedy and Hope. They detail the monetary environment from 1914 to the 1930s. When looked at independently the context helps explain the confusion we find across today’s monetary landscape.
These passages help us better understand money and the lack of order that takes hold when international players desire a change to the system. The greatest challenge then and now was the battle between real wealth and claims on wealth.
With the creation of the FED, the intent was to have a system of central control of the money supply, to provide a backstop in times of crisis, and to have a gold-based monetary system.
However, the outcome led to a handful of powerful global bankers rather than a few powerful centralized institutions.
While the mandate of the FED is said to be price stability and maximum employment, its actions arguably have been the opposite. Making it hard to resist the temptation to assume the goal was actually to empower and enrich the pockets of a few global investment bankers.
Shedding light on the inner workings of the FED and BIS exposes a few harsh truths. It reveals a century’s worth of bankers who have chosen personal gain and growth of personal net worth over mandates of stability. These means have filtered down to the everyday politician who trades by day and passes bills to benefit those trades by night.
Unfettered access to the cookie jar gives one the ability to control flows of credit across the globe.
This power is hard to ignore and easily takes precedence over the intent of price stability and employment. Especially, when “no one’s looking”.
In a post-2007 world, we find ourselves sitting with a very similar backdrop to the early 1900s.
Global strife due to inflation and a currency system imbalance.
Unsustainable global debt in the primary global reserve currency.
Increasingly levered institutions and individuals.
An upstart money/currency promising to reinstill a gold standard and promises to balance budgets while restoring exchange rates.
This is Bitcoin in 2024. It Was the U.S. Dollar in 1914.
What Bitcoin does that the dollar or any other fiat can’t do at this point is increase real wealth in the community.
An economist or central banker will tell you this is bad because it leads to deflation.
Yes, in an inflationary system like the one we currently have, that is true. However, in reality rather than in economics, deflation is not a bad thing. It is not bad that your cost of living should decline rather than increase over time. Unfortunately, it takes from the banker and gives to the individual. Therein lies the problem.
Deflation in this sense is good, as it allows prices to fall for those who make sound financial decisions, save, and hold money; sound money. While taking from those who choose to lever up or hold a debt-laden money. Money that pre-spends its future by pulling it forward into today.
This is the flaw of fiat currencies like the dollar.
They are debt based. They pre-spend our future without any intention of thinking about how the piper must be paid.
Gold, and now Bitcoin, play this deflationary role. Gold has for centuries and Bitcoin will in the digital century.
In the early years of the dollar, 1800s and early 1900s, it played a similar role. A rising asset that allowed for more purchasing power (real wealth); until it was commandeered by international bankers in 1913.
That was the moment when devaluation became the method chosen, as there were only three options to solve the economic issues at hand.
(a)to increase the production of real wealth; (b) to decrease the quantity of money; or (c) to devaluate, or make each unit of money equal to a smaller amount of wealth (specifically gold).
… The third method (devaluation) was essentially a recognition and acceptance of the existing situation, and would have left prices at the higher postwar level permanently. This would have involved a permanent reduction in the value of money, and also would have given different parities in foreign exchanges (unless there was international agreement that countries devaluate by the same ratio). But it would have made possible prosperity and a rising standard of living and would have accepted as permanent the redistribution of wealth from creditors to debtors brought about by the wartime.
Today, we battle the problems left by the choice of devaluation.
Sure, it led to a hundred years of the appearance of wealth and the appearance of rising standards of living. However, it shrank the pool of wealth and in a post-2007 world, the piper is here to be paid.
Prices have remained permanently high, forever. The value of money has been reduced forever; by 92-99%. The parity difference between foreign exchange markets was broken by negligence, incompetence, and caused immigration to be the tool of destruction.
These challenges could have been avoided but one must make a tough choice by choosing sound money. Money that builds real wealth and destroys claims on wealth. That is the choice today’s central banker seeks to avoid, again.
Why? Because it requires erasing the appearance of rising living standards. It brings forward truth, and bankers would rather crank up the music instead. They’d rather continue on, pulling chairs away while everyone dances. Because they know most won’t notice, and there isn’t a reliable system of accountability to hold them responsible.
RFK Jr To Name Sergey Brin’s Ex-Wife As Running Mate: Report
After previously thinking NY Jets quarterback Aaron Rogers might be the right person to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is now planning to select 38-year-old Nicole Shanahan, the wealthy ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, as his running mate. This according to a Saturday Mediaitereport that cited “a source close to the campaign.”
Shanahan is a Bay Area lawyer and tech entrepreneur who’s been a Democratic Party benefactor and donated to Biden’s 2020 campaign. In a February Times profile, she described herself as a “progressive through and through.” Aside from opening her wallet, she has no political profile whatsoever, seemingly not even having spoken out or written about issues of the day.
Last week, the New York Times reported that, in addition to the NFL’s Rogers, Kennedy was considering former Minnesota Gov and Predator co-star Jesse Ventura, among others. Mediaite’s source said RFK Jr and Shanahan “align on numerous issues,” including wariness about vaccines.
The source also candidly spotlighted what is likely the principal attraction: “The campaign is also looking for a candidate who can help finance the ballot access initiative.” The campaign says that effort comes with a $15 million price tag. With under eight months to the election, he’s only on four ballots: Hawaii, Nevada, New Hampshire and Utah. Multiple states require the naming of a running mate before giving approval, which is why his decision is coming soon.
This leak doesn’t exactly sound like a coordinated trial balloon, as a source close to the campaign proceeded to throw Shanahan under the bus:
“She might be infusing millions of dollars into the campaign to help fund the ballot initiative, which makes her attractive financially; however, she lacks the qualifications to actually do the job.”
Shanahan helped bankroll Kennedy’s Super Bowl ad, giving $4 million to the American Values 2024 PAC that’s supporting him. That represented a major change of heart: When Kennedy announced last fall that he was bailing on the rigged Democratic nomination process, Shanahan was “incredibly disappointed” and, at the time, decided not to back him, despite having given him a $6,000 maximum contribution in May, while he was trying to dislodge Biden.
RFK Jr. says he has an “extraordinary” VP pick, “but it’s not any of the people they’ve been talking about.”
Mediaite was also first to report Kennedy’s decision to go independent. On Wednesday, the outlet found that Kennedy advisor Link Lipsitz registered the kennedyshanahan.com web domain, and observed that the page was ready to facilitate donations. When ZeroHedge tried accessing it, however, we received a “connection not private” warning for the site.
A Kennedy campaign spokesperson declined to confirm the report, merely telling the New York Post, “There has been a lot of speculation in the media about Mr. Kennedy’s pick of vice presidential running mate. The official announcement will be on March 26 in Oakland.”
Last summer, the Wall Street Journal reported that Shanahan’s 2023 divorce from Brin was sparked by a brief affair she had with Elon Musk. In addition to ending the five-year marriage, the Journal said the episode also terminated a long friendship between Musk and Brin. Musk called the report “total bs”:
This is total bs. Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night!
I’ve only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many other people around. Nothing romantic.
President Joe Biden had been talking for about an hour when Steven Nikoui began feeling like he was sitting in the Colosseum in the movie “Gladiator” rather than at a State of the Union address.
“They’re all sitting in the stands and they’re looking at the beast down there and they’re getting amused. And I felt that. I rationalized it like that and I was a little sickened,” Mr. Nikoui said.
“These people … they wouldn’t even have any of this if it wasn’t for someone like my kid or … any of the others.”
He had hoped this would be the day that President Biden would say his son’s name, Kareem.
But when the president said “America is safer today than when I took office,” the Gold Star father reached a breaking point.
Mr. Nikoui likens the moment as “having an out of the body experience.”
The anger and grief that had been stewing inside him for three years let loose.
“Remember Abbey Gate! United States Marines! Kareem Mae’Lee Nikoui!”
He shouted his son’s name, U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, and the name of the airport gate in Kabul where a suicide bomber killed his son and 12 other U.S. Marines on Aug 26, 2021, during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Mr. Nikoui, who had been invited to the State of the Union by Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), a veteran, was escorted out of the House Gallery.
“I did have remorse,” he told The Epoch Times. “I felt ashamed.”
Mr. Nikoui said he was placed in handcuffs and escorted to a police substation at the Capitol. There, his mugshot was taken and he was fingerprinted. He said he waived his Miranda Rights.
The officers who arrested him “were pretty good,” he said, but they gave him an ultimatum: “If you talk to us, you‘ll be out in an hour. If you don’t talk to us, you’ll go to the DC jail and see the judge in the morning.”
He said he was scared to go to jail. He’d never been arrested before.
‘He Would Have Been Proud’
Mr. Nikoui said Kareem, meaning “generous and honorable” in Arabic, is a fitting name for his son.
It’s exactly how his son, a proud American patriot, lived and died, he said. Something, he added, that President Biden has never once acknowledged.
He said Kareem made the ultimate sacrifice for the country he had longed to serve since he was four years old.
As a little boy, Kareem had a collection of “little army guys” he constantly played with, Mr. Nikoui recalled. His son joined Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps as soon as he was old enough and he loved military movies. His favorite was “Band of Brothers,” a TV mini series.
Kareem’s commitment to serve was not a rite of passage as it so often is between father and son, Mr Nikoui said.
“I was against it,” he said. “I knew this would happen. I buried my head in the sand. I didn’t know anything about the military. I told him I don’t want to know anything about this. Just get out. But he didn’t want to get out. He said ‘I’m going all the way.’”
Mr. Nikoui, a born-again Christian, talked to The Epoch Times about his son and his March 7 arrest at the State of the Union.
He also reflected on his relentless blame on President Biden for not following the Doha Agreement established under the Trump Administration. And his ardent belief that his son, who was only 20 when he was killed, would still be alive if former President Donald Trump had been commander-in-chief when his son was deployed in Afghanistan.
“The only reason why I was even all right with my kid joining the military—because, like I told you I was against it—was because Donald Trump was the president,” he said.
The memories flooded back as President Biden touted his tenure.
From the Democrats dressed all in white to signify pro-abortion, to President Biden mispronouncing Laken Riley’s name in response to Rep. Marjorie Greene’s (R-Ga.) demand he say the name of the Georgia student brutally slain by an illegal immigrant, Mr. Nikoui described the many reasons that made him think “harder than ever” about the sacrifice of his son and the other fallen soldiers.
He thought back to the horrifying videos Kareem had sent him during his deployment—of young Afghani children begging the soldiers to take them to America.
“I saw this little girl just screaming, pushing herself up against the fence—screaming, ’they’ll kill me, take me with you, the bad guys are coming,” he recalled. And mothers, “throwing their babies at razor wire. And women running into the razor wire because they don’t want to be raped and killed by the Taliban.”
He said Kareem, also a Christian, often spoke emotionally of how deeply pained he was by what he witnessed.
Mr. Nikoui believes President Biden and his followers lack any understanding of that kind of pain. He said he finds it appalling that anytime someone dies or loses a loved one, the president interminably turns it into his own grief about the loss of his son Beau to cancer.
Putin Wins Fifth Term As Russian President With 87% Of The Vote
Update: It will surprise no one that Vladimir Putin secured another six years as Russia’s president – effectively ensuring that he will surpass Joseph Stalin as Russia’s longest-serving ruler should he successfully complete his latest term when he will be 77-year-old – in a bid to step up his war in Ukraine and challenge the West, with the Kremlin claiming record public support for him in a vote whose outcome was largely pre-determined even without mystery sacks of mail-in ballots arriving at 3am.
Congratulstions to all Russia’s enemies on Vladimir Putin’s brilliant victory in the election of the President of the Russian Federation! And a thank you to friends for the support
Putin won 87%, according to an exit poll broadcast on state television late Sunday, shortly after the end of three days of voting. That exceeded the previous high of 77% support that the incumbent president received in 2018 elections, according to Bloomberg.
Russian State Media is showing Exit Polls from the ongoing Presidential Election, with current President Vladimir Putin receiving upwards of 87% of the Vote likely Securing his Presidency until at least 2030. pic.twitter.com/IrVSwj8HqO
Three other candidates, all from parties loyal to the Kremlin, received no more than 5% support. Nearly 4.5 million people voted online in a system used in 29 of Russia’s regions for the first time in a presidential election, the Interfax news service reported, citing government data.
Preliminary turnout was 74.22% – the largest in over 3 decades – according to Central Election Commission data shown on state TV. That turnout was the highest since Boris Yeltsin became president in 1991 after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and well above the 67.5% turnout recorded in 2018. At least six Russian regions claimed turnout was above 90%.
Of note, according to the CEC, Putin received 94.12% of the votes after processing 100% of the protocols in the presidential elections of the Russian Federation in the Lugansk People’s Republic, which is located in the contest Donetsk region.
Putin is extending his nearly quarter-century rule into a fifth term at a time when his troops are on the offensive in Ukraine. Russia’s pressing its advantage in the third year of the invasion that’s become Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, as Ukraine struggles to supply its forces with munitions amid delays in military aid from its US and European allies.
The election outcome “gives Putin every chance to implement any, even the toughest, scenarios in Ukraine,” said Pavel Danilin, head of the Moscow-based Center for Political Analysis, which advises the Kremlin. The “historically high result is a guarantee that the majority of the population supports Putin,” he said.
Putin’s victory comes as Russia’s economy has fully weathered the shock of international sanctions since it began the February 2022 invasion, thanks to a continuing flow of energy revenue – which the west has been terrified to halt as it would mean a surge in global energy prices and a rout for Biden in the November 2024 elections – and a massive injection of government spending to support the defense industry and shield domestic businesses. Meanwhile, trade with China is booming as Russia reorients its economy away from markets in Europe.
As noted above, Russia organized voting in occupied areas of Ukraine and that claimed turnout far exceeded 80%, even as millions of people have fled the regions since the invasion. The foreign ministry in Kyiv said the “pseudo-elections” were illegal, by which they probably mean they were not predetermined by neocon demi-god Victoria Nuland, or whoever it is that will replace her in the Deep State.
It will be the country’s eighth presidential election and more than 112 million voters will be called to the polls.
While four candidates are in the running, Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that there is almost no doubt among observers that Vladimir Putin will be re-elected for a fifth term in the first round.
The only real unknown is the share of votes he will receive.
During the last presidential election in 2018, this number stood at around 77 percent.
In power for around a quarter of a century – spanning four presidential terms and two terms as prime minister between 1999 and 2000 and between 2008 and 2012 – Putin has spent a total of almost 9,000 days at the helm of the country. If he is re-elected this weekend, the ensuing six-year term of approximately 2,190 days will likely make him Russia’s longest serving leader since the start of the twentieth century. This record is currently held by Joseph Stalin, who led the country between 1924 and 1953 for a total of 10,636 days. Putin became Russia’s second longest-serving leader overtaking Brezhnev in 2017 late into his third term as president.
During Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency from 2008 to 2012, Russian law was amended to extend presidential terms from two terms of four years to two terms of six years.
This change was also designed to reset terms served and therefore enabled Putin to win another two terms.
A decade later, in 2021, Putin signed another law setting the limit at two presidential mandates per person in a lifetime, again paradoxically resetting terms already served and thereby exempting him for a second time.
Molotov Cocktail Attack On Russian Embassy In Moldova On Last Day Of Election
Sunday is the final day of three days of presidential elections in Russia. Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of deceased opposition activist Alexei Navalny, is urging mass protests against President Putin as he stands of the verge of winning another six year term as president, an outcome quite obvious to all observers. She’s calling on Russians to disrupt the final day of voting in what’s been dubbed “noon against Putin”.
While some sporadic minor incidents at polling stations have been reported, there has been a major incident in the small country of Moldova which borders Ukraine. Moldovan police have detained a man who attacked the Russian embassy with two Molotov cocktails as voting was underway there.
“A man threw two containers of flammable substances over the fence of the Russian Embassy in Chisinau,” police said in a statement. A 54-year-old Moldovan who described himself as also having Russian citizenship was immediately detained after after hurling the Molotov cocktails.
There were no reports of injuries or damage to the embassy, and police said an investigation is ongoing. “He justified his action by some dissatisfaction he has with the actions of the Russian authorities,” authorities said.
Moldova has been scene of controversy and friction especially after Russia allowed the opening of several polling stations in breakaway Transnistria, which the Moldovan government has fiercely protested.
Reuters noted days ago that “A senior official in ex-Soviet Moldova said on Wednesday Moscow was breaking laws by printing ballot papers in the separatist region of Transnistria ahead of this week’s Russian presidential election.”
“Moldova’s pro-European authorities have already summoned the Russian ambassador to complain about a decision to open six polling stations in the pro-Russian enclave,” the report continued. “The central government said the move broke an agreement to allow voting only at a single polling station at the Russian embassy in Chisinau.”
The United States recently become more vocal in defending Moldova’s territorial integrity, and has condemned what the Biden administration has called Moscow’s ‘interference’ in the Eastern European nation’s sovereignty.
Last summer, Moldova expelled 45 Russian diplomats and embassy staff members from the country “over numerous unfriendly actions” as tensions reached near breaking point over the war in neighboring Ukraine and the Transnistria issue. As for Russia’s election, Kremlin authorities have said Ukraine is engaged in cross-border attacks on polling stations and in annexed regions of Ukraine.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has signed a bill into law that revives an oversight panel with powers to discipline and remove wayward county prosecutors, and which could potentially target alleged misconduct by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in her case against former President Donald Trump.
Mr. Kemp signed SB 332 into law on March 13, saying at a signing ceremony that the community suffers and property is put at risk when “out-of-touch” public prosecutors put politics ahead of public safety.
“This legislation will help us ensure rogue or incompetent prosecutors are held accountable if they refuse to uphold the law,” Mr. Kemp said.
“As we know all too well, crime has been on the rise across the country, and is especially prevalent in cities where prosecutors are giving criminals a free pass or failing to put them behind bars due to lack of professional conduct,” he added.
Mr. Kemp initially signed related legislation in May 2023, which established the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission (PACQ), with the governor saying at the time that the panel would discipline “far-left” prosecutors who make communities less safe by being soft on crime.
However, the panel was unable to start operating after the state Supreme Court in November 2023 declined to approve rules for its governance, with justices saying in their ruling that they had “grave doubts” whether adopting the standards and rules was within their constitutional powers.
So the Georgia General Assembly passed HB 881 in January 2024, which revived the oversight panel while removing the requirement for Supreme Court approval. The bill then was referred to the state Senate, where it became SB 332.
Focus on Willis
While the bill mirrored efforts in other states to hold “rogue” prosecutors accountable for refusing to prosecute certain crimes, Democrats opposed to its passage said it could be used to target prosecutors involved in the case against President Trump, including Ms. Willis.
“The commission will be able to unilaterally proceed and have the ability to interfere and undermine an ongoing investigation against Donald J. Trump,” state House Minority Whip Sam Park, a Democrat, told The Associated Press when the House version of the measure passed.
“You are taking action to protect former President Trump from an ongoing criminal prosecution,” he alleged.
Ms. Willis has been accused of an “improper” relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the election interference case against the former president and over a dozen co-defendants. She also faced conflict-of-interest allegations that she benefited from the relationship financially.
While defendants in the case moved to have both prosecutors disqualified, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled on Friday that either Mr. Wade or Ms. Willis must remove themselves from the case.
Mr. Wade said Friday that he would resign, leaving Ms. Willis—who faces a separate campaign finance ethics probe and possible contempt of Congress proceedings—at the helm of the case, which President Trump has denounced as a politically-driven “witch hunt.”
The prosecutor oversight panel that Mr. Kemp’s signature has established provides an additional tool that could target Ms. Willis as she faces continued scrutiny.
Ms. Willis’ office did not respond to a request for comment on the bill.
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican, told The Associated Press that the measure isn’t directly focused on Ms. Willis or any one individual.
“For us in the House our focus is not on any one person, not on any one situation,” Mr. Burns told reporters after Mr. Kemp signed the bill into law. “It’s about asking the folks that are elected, just like me, to do their jobs and protect the citizens of this state.”
Fight Against ‘Rogue’ Prosecutors
Georgia law mandates that a prosecutor must consider every case for which probable cause exists and can’t exclude categories of cases—such as marijuana possession or abortion-related offenses—from prosecution.
HB 881 and its Senate version SB 332 lay out grounds for discipline, removal, or “involuntary retirement” of wayward prosecutors, including for engaging in “willful misconduct” or for being convicted of a “crime involving moral turpitude” or persistently failing to carry out their duties.
Besides removing the need for Supreme Court oversight, the law adjusts the standard for mental or physical incapacity, allows appeals to a local superior court judge, and permits appeals to any county where the prosecutor has worked.
The establishment of the new commission comes as Republicans fight against what they describe as leftist “rogue” district attorneys who refuse to prosecute certain crimes.
“The inability to ensure public safety and protect communities is occurring at every level of state government,” U.S. Reps. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) wrote in an op-ed in 2022.
“By cracking down on rogue prosecutors who favor criminals over victims, we can ensure that no one else is put in harm’s way as a result of Democrats’ negligence,” they wrote.
In much the same vein, President Trump has vowed to target prosecutors who are lax on crime if he wins the 2024 presidential race.
“Soros prosecutors appear to be engaging in selective enforcement based on illegal racial discrimination” in places such as Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, President Trump said in a video posted to his YouTube channel in April 2023.
He was referring to left-wing billionaire financier George Soros, who has provided millions of dollars in campaign contributions to progressives Democrat district attorneys.
“They are Marxist in many cases,” President Trump said, while pledging to appoint about 100 U.S. attorneys who are the “polar opposite” of the “Soros district attorneys and others being appointed around the United States.”
President Trump said that those officials will be the “most ferocious legal warriors” who will target the worst “communist corruption” the country has ever seen.
