WASHINGTON: A group of lawyers with deep ties to the Republican Party scrambled over the weekend to rescue an effort to get independent presidential candidate Cornel West on the Arizona ballot, offering one of the clearest examples yet of the GOP’s extensive involvement in furthering the left-wing academic’s long-shot bid.
As a deadline loomed to submit the needed paperwork, two well-known Republican lawyers in the state and a GOP attorney working to get West on the ballot elsewhere learned that two of their would-be electors — Jerry Judie and Denisha Mitchell — were not interested in fulfilling the role. The electors’ decisions led to a barrage of text messages and phone calls looking to keep the operation alive. When those efforts failed, two Republican lawyers visited Judie’s and Mitchell’s homes, seemingly seeking to persuade them to reconsider.
The Arizona Secretary of State’s office said Monday that West did not file the paperwork needed to get on the ballot before Saturday’s deadline.
In a brief interview, West expressed ambivalence about Republican efforts to help him, which Democrats fear could benefit Donald Trump by siphoning away left-leaning voters who would probably support the Democratic nominee otherwise.
“So much of American politics is highly gangster-like activity,” West told The Associated Press on Monday. “I have no knowledge of who they are or anything — none whatsoever. We just want to get on that ballot. And that’s the difficult thing.”
The work by the GOP attorneys appears to be part of a broader effort by conservative activists and Republican-aligned operatives across the country to push West’s candidacy and subvert the integrity of the ballot in the months leading up to November’s presidential election.
“I am officially no longer interested in being elector,” Judie, a 62-year-old retired park ranger for the city of Phoenix, said when an operative working to get West on the ballot texted him and asked if he could meet at a local hotel to sign another document.
Judie told the AP he had been a fan of West since his 20s, drawn to his ideas and passion. He was excited earlier this year when he learned that West was running for president and pursued a chance to be an elector to the progressive’s campaign. Judie began to sour on that idea, however, when President Joe Biden ended his campaign last month, making way for Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee.
“When she was in the driver’s seat, that changed the game,” he said. “That changed everything for me, my family, and the people that I know. It was like magic.”
To qualify for the ballot, Arizona law requires independent presidential candidates to put forward a slate of electors who would cast Electoral College votes for them. After Judie informed the operative that he was no longer interested in representing West’s campaign, he received a series of phone calls, according to call records provided to the AP, from people working on the effort, along with a visit to his house by two Republican lawyers hoping to get West on the ballot.
“I am sorry ... we have been calling the crap out of you,” Paul Hamrick, an attorney who has been involved in getting West on the ballot in other states, said in a voicemail to Judie obtained by the AP. “The reason we have been trying to get in touch with you is we found out in the last 24 hours we have got to have everybody sign a letter that Dr. West has also signed.”
Hamrick then relayed that he knew Judie no longer wanted to be an elector. “Is there anything you can tell me about that or has anyone encouraged you not to be?” Hamrick asked.
Judie said two people came to his door looking to speak with him after he received the voicemail. He didn’t answer or talk to them — assuming they were looking to speak about West — but someone Judie knows spoke with them and they identified themselves as Amanda Reeve and Brett Johnson, two well-known lawyers from the law firm Snell & Wilmer.
Reeve is a former Republican state representative and Johnson is a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association. Reeve and Johnson’s firm has done extensive work for the Republican National Committee, GOP candidates and conservative groups, according to campaign finance disclosures.
Republicans and their allies have worked to get West on the ballot in Arizona, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Maine, all in the hope that West will help boost former President Donald Trump’s chances of winning later this year by pulling support from Harris. West does not need to win a state to serve as a spoiler candidate — a few thousand votes in battleground states could be decisive.
Reeve also called Mitchell after the AP reported Friday that she has signed an affidavit stating that she did not agree to be a West elector and never signed her name to a filing, alleging that the document that was filed in her name was forged.
“We need to get this information in as soon as possible,” Reeve said to Mitchell in a Friday voicemail in which she said her firm represented “the Cornel West campaign.”
“It’s due tomorrow morning,” Reeve stressed.
On Saturday, two people — one resembling Johnson and another Reeve — visited Mitchell’s home, according to footage from her doorbell camera obtained by the AP. The two rang the doorbell and left, not speaking with anyone in the home.
Neither Johnson nor Reeve responded to calls or emails requesting comment for this story.
Mitchell said after the AP story was published Friday — in which said she “didn’t even know what an elector was” and that the paperwork was “forged” and riddled with errors — she received a call from someone who had been handling the West petition work. She missed the call, but when she called back, she was connected to Hamrick.
Hamrick, an Alabama-based attorney, said the allegations against him were “false” when reached Sunday night, but declined to comment further.
Mitchell’s and Judie’s cases are the latest examples of the dubious tactics used to get West on ballots nationwide.
Mitchell, who had been drawn to West’s progressive message before she learned Republican-aligned operatives were working to get him on the ballot, told the AP on Friday that she was unaware who filled out the paperwork in her name, calling it “forged.” She and her husband previously worked for a signature-gathering contractor called Wells Marketing, collecting signatures to get an initiative on the ballot that would raise the wages of tipped workers in Arizona.
Wells Marketing, a mysterious Missouri limited liability company, was also leading the effort to gather the signatures needed to get West on the ballot in Arizona.
Judie, reflecting on his chaotic last three days, said he was left with an uneasy feeling, especially because he still respects West.
“They had only one reason they were doing it,” Judie said. “Just to get him on the ballot so some votes would go to him and not go to other people.”
Republicans scrambled to get Cornel West on the Arizona ballot. The left-wing academic is OK with it
https://arab.news/8fan9
Republicans scrambled to get Cornel West on the Arizona ballot. The left-wing academic is OK with it
- West expressed ambivalence about Republican efforts to help him, which Democrats fear could siphon away left-leaning voters
- “I have no knowledge of who they are or anything — none whatsoever. We just want to get on that ballot," West tells AP
‘Existential hour’ for Palestine at 30-country conference in Colombia
- UN special rapporteur: ‘The time has come to act in pursuit of justice and peace’
- Participants will lay groundwork for implementing UNGA motion calling for end to occupation
LONDON: A 30-country conference aimed at ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine is one of the most significant political developments of the past 20 months, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has said.
The two-day event starts on Tuesday in the Colombian capital Bogota, and will be attended by representatives from countries including China, Spain and Qatar.
Albanese will announce that the conference comes at “an existential hour,” The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Participating countries will use the event to lay the groundwork for implementing a UN General Assembly motion calling on member states to pressure Israel into ending its illegal occupation of Palestine.
The motion included a deadline of September for putting into action the International Court of Justice’s 2024 opinion that found Israel’s occupation of Palestine to be unlawful.
The court’s advisory opinion last July called on Israel to end its occupation “as rapidly as possible.”
UN member states also have an obligation “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory,” it found.
Conference host Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s president, said the meeting will demonstrate a global will to move from condemnation to collective action against Israel.
In an article for The Guardian last week, he said: “We can either stand firm in defense of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict, or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics.”
The Hague Group behind the conference was initially established by Colombia and South Africa, but now includes Spain, Qatar, Indonesia, Algeria and Brazil.
The group met in January at a nine-country conference and agreed to implement the ICJ’s provisional measures.
Albanese will tell the Bogota meeting: “For too long, international law has been treated as optional — applied selectively to those perceived as weak, ignored by those acting as the powerful. This double standard has eroded the very foundations of the legal order. That era must end.
“The world will remember what we, states and individuals, did in this moment — whether we recoiled in fear or rose in defense of human dignity.
“Here in Bogota, a growing number of states have the opportunity to break the silence and revert to a path of legality by finally saying: enough. Enough impunity. Enough empty rhetoric. Enough exceptionalism. Enough complicity.
“The time has come to act in pursuit of justice and peace — grounded in rights and freedoms for all, and not mere privileges for some, at the expense of the annihilation of others.”
Some airlines checking Boeing fuel switches after Air India crash
- Precautionary moves by India, South Korea and some airlines in other countries
- Some airlines around the world said they had been checking relevant switches since 2018
NEW DELHI: India on Monday ordered its airlines to examine fuel switches on several Boeing models, while South Korea said it would order a similar measure, as scrutiny intensified of fuel switch locks at the center of an investigation into a deadly Air India crash.
The precautionary moves by India, South Korea and some airlines in other countries came despite the planemaker and the US Federal Aviation Administration telling airlines and regulators in recent days that the fuel switch locks on Boeing jets are safe.
The locks have come under scrutiny following last month’s crash of an Air India jet, which killed 260 people.
A preliminary report found that the switches had almost simultaneously flipped from run position to cutoff shortly after takeoff. One pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report said.
The report noted a 2018 advisory from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which recommended, but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models including the 787 to inspect the locking feature of fuel cutoff switches to ensure they could not be moved accidentally.
India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said it had issued an order to investigate locks on several Boeing models including 787s and 737s, after several Indian and international airlines began making their own inspections of fuel switches.
The regulator oversees the world’s third-largest and fastest-growing aviation market. Boeing planes are used by three of the country’s four largest airlines.
Precautionary checks
Some airlines around the world said they had been checking relevant switches since 2018 in accordance with the FAA advisory, including Australia’s Qantas Airways and Japan’s ANA.
Others said they had been making additional or new checks since the release of the preliminary report into the Air India crash.
Singapore Airlines said on Tuesday that precautionary checks on the fuel switches of its 787 fleet, including planes used by its low-cost subsidiary Scoot, confirmed all were functioning properly.
A spokesperson for the South Korean transport ministry said checks there would be in line with the 2018 advisory from the FAA, but did not give a timeline for them.
Flag carrier Korean Air Lines said on Tuesday it had proactively begun inspecting fuel control switches and would implement any additional requirements the transport ministry may have.
Japan Airlines said it was conducting inspections in accordance with the 2018 advisory.
Boeing referred Reuters’ questions to the FAA, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Over the weekend, Air India Group started checking the locking mechanism on the fuel switches of its 787 and 737 fleets and has discovered no problems yet, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.
About half the group’s 787s have been inspected and nearly all its 737s, the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity. Inspections were set to be completed in the next day or two.
The Air India crash preliminary report said the airline had not carried out the FAA’s suggested inspections as the FAA’s 2018 advisory was not a mandate.
But it also said maintenance records showed that the throttle control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the crash.
In an internal memo on Monday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance faults and that all required maintenance had been carried out.
Indonesia rescues 11 who swam for hours to survive boat capsize
- Two boats and dozens of rescuers hunted for those missing after the boat with 18 aboard overturned off the Mentawai Islands in the province of West Sumatra
JAKARTA: Indonesian rescuers found alive on Tuesday 11 people missing at sea who had survived a boat capsize in bad weather by swimming for at least six hours to the nearest island, officials said.
Two boats and dozens of rescuers hunted for those missing after the boat with 18 aboard overturned off the Mentawai Islands in the province of West Sumatra at about 11 a.m. on Monday, regional officials said.
“It was raining hard when the incident happened,” island official Rinto Wardana said. “Some of the passengers managed to swim and reach the nearest island.”
Seven had been rescued earlier, Wardana added. Ten of those on board were local government officials on a business trip to the town of Tuapejat, the boat’s destination when it left Sikakap, another small town in the Mentawai Islands.
The Mentawai Islands consist of four main islands and many smaller ones.
Boats and ferries are a regular mode of transport in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where accidents are caused by bad weather and lax safety standards that often allow vessels to be overloaded.
When a ferry sank this month near the tourist resort island of Bali with 65 aboard, 30 passengers survived, while 18 died and 17 went missing.
Bangladesh struggles to contain the fallout of an uprising that toppled its leader last year
- One year after Hasina’s ouster, interim government faces growing unrest, delayed reforms, political fragmentation
- Rights concerns remain a major issue, conservative religious factions gain ground and Yunus resists calls for early elections
DHAKA: Bangladesh was on the cusp of charting a new beginning last year after its former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was removed from power in a student-led uprising, ending her 15-year rule and forcing her to flee to India.
As the head of a new interim government, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus promised to hold a credible election to return to democracy, initiate electoral and constitutional reforms and restore peace on the streets after hundreds were killed in weeks of violence that began on July 15, 2024.
A year later, the Yunus-led administration has struggled to contain the fallout of the uprising. Bangladesh finds itself mired in a growing political uncertainty, religious polarization and a challenging law-and-order situation.
Here’s what to know about Bangladesh a year after the protests that toppled Hasina.
Chaotic political landscape
Uncertainty about the future of democracy looms large in Bangladesh.
The student protesters who toppled Hasina formed a new political party, promising to break the overwhelming influence of two major dynastic political parties — the Bangladesh Nationalists Party, or BNP, and Hasina’s Awami League.
But the party’s opponents have accused it of being close to the Yunus-led administration and creating chaos for political mileage by using state institutions.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s political landscape has further fragmented after the country’s largest Islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, returned to politics more than a decade after it was suppressed by Hasina’s government.
Aligned with the student-led party, it’s trying to fill the vacuum left by the Awami League, which was banned in May. Its leader, Hasina, is facing trial for crimes against humanity. The strength of Jamaat-e-Islami, which opposed Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, is unknown.
Both BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami party are now at loggerheads over establishing supremacy within the administration and judiciary, and even university campuses.
They are also differing over the timing of a new parliamentary election. Yunus has announced that the polls would be held in April next year, but poor law and order situation and a lack of clear-cut political consensus over it have created confusion. The chief of Bangladesh’s military also wanted an election in December this year — a stance Yunus didn’t like.
“Post-revolution honeymoons often don’t last long, and Bangladesh is no exception,” says Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based South Asia analyst and senior fellow of Asia Pacific Foundation. “The interim government faced massive expectations to restore democracy and prosperity. But this is especially difficult to do as an unelected government without a public mandate.”
Yunus wants reforms before election
Yunus has delayed an election because he wants reforms — from changes to the constitution and elections to the judiciary and police. Discussions with political parties, except Hasina’s Awami League, are ongoing.
Some of the reforms include putting a limit on how many times a person can become the prime minister, introduction of a two-tier parliament, and appointment of a chief justice.
There appears to be little consensus over some basic reforms. While both the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami parties have agreed to some of them with conditions, other proposals for basic constitutional reforms have become a sticking point.
The Jamaat-e-Islami also wants to give the interim government more time to complete reforms before heading into polls, while BNP has been calling for an early election. The student-led party mostly follows the pattern of the Jamaat-e-Islami party.
Kugelman says the issue of reforms was meant to unite the country, but has instead become a flashpoint.
“There’s a divide between those that want to see through reforms and give them more time, and those that feel it’s time to wrap things up and focus on elections,” he says.
Human rights and the rise of Islamists
Human rights in Bangladesh have remained a serious concern under Yunus.
Minority groups, especially Hindus, have blamed his administration for failing to protect them adequately. The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council says minority Hindus and others have been targeted in hundreds of attacks over the last year. Hasina’s party has also blamed the interim government for arresting tens of thousands of its supporters.
The Yunus-led administration denies these allegations.
Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, says while the interim government has stopped enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions that had occurred under the Hasina government, “there has been little progress on lasting security sector reforms or to deliver on the pledge to create robust, independent institutions.”
Meanwhile, Islamist factions — some of whom have proposed changes to women’s rights and demanded introduction of Sharia law — are vying for power. Many of them are planning to build alliances with bigger parties like the BNP or the Jamaat-e-Islami.
Such factions have historically struggled to gain significant electoral support despite Bangladesh being a Muslim majority, and their rise is expected to further fragment the country’s political landscape.
Diplomatic pivot and balancing with global powers
During Hasina’s 15-year rule, Bangladesh was India’s closest partner in South Asia. After her ouster, the Yunus-led administration has moved closer to China, which is India’s main rival in the region.
Yunus’ first state visit was to China in March, a trip that saw him secure investments, loans and grants. On the other hand, India is angered by the ousting of its old ally Hasina and hasn’t responded to Dhaka’s requests to extradite her. India stopped issuing visas to Bangladeshis following Hasina’s fall.
Globally, Yunus seems to have strong backing from the West and the United Nations, and it appears Bangladesh will continue its foreign policy, which has long tried to find a balance between multiple foreign powers.
But Kugelman says the country’s biggest challenge may be the “Trump factor.”
In January, the Trump administration suspended USAID funds to Bangladesh, which had sought significant levels of US support during a critical rebuild period post Hasina’s ouster.
“Dhaka must now reframe its relations with an unconventional US administration that will largely view Bangladesh through a commercial lens,” Kugelman says.
Russia says it destroys 55 Ukrainian drones overnight, several people injured
- Several apartments in multi-story buildings in the city of Voronezh that is the administrative center of the broader Voronezh region were damaged
- Additionally, several commercial facilities throughout the region were damaged by falling drone debris
Several people were injured and houses and non-residential buildings were damaged as a result of Ukraine’s overnight drone attack on the neighboring Russia’s southwestern regions of Lipetsk and Voronezh, regional governors said on Tuesday.
Russia’s air defense units destroyed 12 drones over the Voronezh region that borders Ukraine, Governor Alexander Gusev said on the Telegram messaging app.
“Unfortunately, there were injuries,” Gusev said. “In central Voronezh, several people sustained minor injuries due to debris from a downed UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles).”
Several apartments in multi-story buildings in the city of Voronezh that is the administrative center of the broader Voronezh region were damaged, as well as houses in the suburbs, Gusev said.
Additionally, several commercial facilities throughout the region were damaged by falling drone debris, he said, without providing further details.
In the city of Yelets in the Lipetsk region a drone crashed in an industrial zone, regional governor Igor Artamonov said on Telegram.
“One person was injured and is receiving all necessary medical assistance,” Artamonov said.
The Russian defense ministry said on Telegram that its units destroyed 55 Ukrainian drones overnight over five Russian regions and the Black Sea, including three over the Lipetsk region.
The full extent of damage from the attacks was not immediately known. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine about the attack.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes during the war that Russia launched against Ukraine more than three years ago. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
Ukraine has launched multiple air strikes on Lipetsk, a strategically important region with an air base that is the chief training center for the Russian Aerospace Forces.
