Jan. 6 panel member: Trump meant to ‘accelerate the violence’ against Pence
Monique Beals – June 19, 2022
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) on Sunday said that former President Trump intended to “accelerate the violence” against his vice president, Mike Pence, during the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
“You know, when he sent out the tweet attacking his vice president, he already knew that the violence was underway,” Lofgren said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” of Trump, who tweeted that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary” just after the attack began.
“The only conclusion you can reach is that he intended to accelerate that violence against the former vice president,” she continued.
Lofgren, who is a member of the House committee investigating the attack, went on to explain the lasting impact of the Jan. 6 attack in terms of lawmakers’ and the general public’s safety.
“We’re in a very rough time in America right now,” she said. “All of us elected officials but also just Americans and their neighbors need to stand up for the rule of law and against political violence. It’s not what America is about.”
Her comments come after Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) last week said Trump was aware of the violence at the Capitol when he tweeted about Pence.
“[Trump] knew that there was violence and he still tweeted the vice president ‘didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary,’” Aguilar said.
During the attack, Pence was overseeing the certification of the election results in the Senate, and some rioters at the scene chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” based on the belief that the vice president was unwilling to overturn Trump’s election defeat.
Pence was later evacuated from the building after the rioters breached the Capitol.
The most recent committee hearing on Thursday focused on the pressure campaign put on Pence by Trump and his allies to reject certifying the 2020 Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, which the vice president determined he did not have the legal authority to do.
79 years after a brutal battle to oust the Japanese, a remote piece of US territory is the center of attention again
Benjamin Brimelow – June 19, 2022
US soldiers and equipment land on the beach at Massacre Bay on Attu Island, May 26, 1943.(AP Photo/US Navy)
In May 1943, US soldiers launched a brutal fight to retake the islands of Attu and Kiska from the Japanese.
The remote islands, part of Alaska’s Aleutian chain, were important for operations in the Pacific.
Now, with the US focusing more on the Pacific and the Arctic, Alaska has renewed military importance.
On May 11, 1943, American soldiers began landing on the island of Attu, which, along with the neighboring island of Kiska, had been seized by Japanese troops a year earlier.
Attu is the westernmost point in Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain, some 1,500 miles from Anchorage. Its occupation by Japan was the first time since the War of 1812 that US territory had been seized by a foreign power.
The Japanese troops who landed on the islands were the northernmost arm of a larger operation that included the forces sent to attack and occupy Midway Island in the Central Pacific. Having turned back the Japanese advance, the US sent a massive force to retake the islands in mid-1943.
Instead of the three days of fighting that the Americans expected, the battle for Attu turned into a three-week slog.
Now, 79 years later, the Aleutian Islands and Alaska have renewed importance for the US, as the increasing accessibility of the Arctic is making the region a venue for competition with Russia and China.
Aleutian Islands campaign
US military bases in the Aleutians as of August 1942.Wikimedia Commons
Japan seized Kiska and Attu in June 1942, exactly six months attacking Pearl Harbor. Their landings were preceded by air raids on nearby Dutch Harbor, which killed 43 US personnel and destroyed 11 planes.
Japan’s goals in the Aleutians were twofold: distract the Americans before the planned invasion of Midway and prevent them from using the sparsely populated islands as forward outposts.
Within months of arriving, the Japanese had deployed thousands of troops to the islands and built fortifications and critical infrastructure, including bunkers and tunnels. Harbor facilities and an airstrip were also built on Kiska.
The US military increased its footprint in Alaska when it realized the importance of the area and its lack of defenses there. When Kiska and Attu were seized, Alaska Defense Command had just 24,000 troops at its disposal. By January 1943, it had 94,000.
By the end of February 1943, US troops had landed on nearby islands and built airfields from which to conduct bombing raids on Attu and Kiska. By mid-March, a US Navy blockade had cut the Japanese garrisons off from resupply and reinforcement.
On April 1, US commanders authorized the invasion of Attu. Dubbed “Operation Landcrab,” the objective was to defeat the smaller Japanese garrison on Attu before turning to Kiska.
‘Attacking a pillbox by way of a tightrope’
US soldiers with guns and grenades close in on Japanese troops in dugouts on Attu Island in June 1943.(AP Photo)
The first landings on May 11, which were preceded by air and naval bombardment, were unopposed, leading many to believe victory was imminent.
In fact, the garrison of more than 2,500 Japanese troops had prepared defenses farther inland and waited for the Americans to advance before ambushing them in small groups — a preview of what American troops would face on Iwo Jima and Okinawa a year later.
Making matters worse, the Americans soon found that they were fighting two enemies, the Japanese and the weather. Attu is covered in fog, rain, or snow for about 250 days of the year, with winds up to 120 mph.
Many US troops were without appropriate winter gear and suffered frostbite, gangrene, and trench foot. “It was rugged,” Lt. Donald E. Dwinnell said. “The whole damned deal was rugged, like attacking a pillbox by way of a tightrope … in winter.”
The Americans pressed on, seizing the high ground and pushing the Japanese into a few areas along the shore.
US Army reinforcements land on a beach in Attu, June 23, 1943.(AP Photo)
On May 29, with defeat looming, the last Japanese troops able to fight conducted a massive banzai charge with the goal of seizing high ground, using captured artillery against American troops, and retreating back to their own fortifications with captured food and supplies.
In what one American soldier described as “a madness of noise and confusion and deadliness,” some 800 Japanese soldiers penetrated the main American line and reached rear areas. The fighting was intense and included hand-to-hand combat, but the Americans rallied and pushed the Japanese back.
By May 30, the Island was secure. At least 2,351 Japanese bodies were recovered and buried by the Americans. As on other islands recaptured from the Japanese, many defenders killed themselves rather than accept defeat. Only 28 Japanese soldiers surrendered.
The fighting was so intense that the Japanese secretly withdrew from Kiska under the cover of fog and darkness at the end of July. Despite the Japanese departure, US and Canadian troops still took casualties from booby traps, friendly fire, and the harsh environment when they landed on Kiska in mid-August.
In total, 549 US soldiers were killed and 1,148 wounded during the Aleutian Campaign.
Newfound importance
US Coast Guard cutter Bertholf trailing Chinese navy ships in international waters in the Bering Sea, August 30, 2021.US Coast Guard photo by Ensign Bridget Boyle
Given its proximity to the Soviet Union, Alaska remained important during the Cold War, especially for air and missile defense, but memories of the World War II campaign largely faded over the following decades.
Today, with the US reorienting toward great-power competition, and with the region growing more accessible, Alaska’s significance for military operations is getting renewed attention, which has been reflected in recent activity there.
In 2007, Russia restarted long-range bomber patrols that sometimes enter the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone, which surrounds the state but is not US territorial airspace. In 2020, US officials said intercepts of those flights were at the highest level since the Cold War.
Russian naval activity around Alaska has also increased. A massive drill in 2020 saw 50 Russian warships operating in the US exclusive economic zone, which stretches some 200 miles from the US coast, where they had run-ins with US fishing vessels.
With the Cobra Dane radar in the background, US special-operations troops train with a Stinger missile on Shemya Island, October 2021.US Special Operations Command
The Air Force, which has long had the largest Arctic presence of any US service branch, has added dozens of fifth-generation fighter jets to bases there. The Marine Corps has expressed interest in increasing its training in Alaska, and the Navy is looking to build out its operations there with a new deep-water port in Nome.
One Surprising Theory Why the Philippines Has Very Few Mass Shootings—Despite Easy Access to Lots of Guns
Chad de Guzman / Manila – June 15, 2022
Shop assistants pose with various handgu
Shop assistants pose with various handguns at the Defense and Sporting Arms show at a shopping mall in Manila on July 16, 2009. Credit – TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images
Mass shootings are a result of a confluence of factors, but at the heart of the problem are guns—of which the Philippines has plenty. Firearms are sold openly in malls, and almost anyone can carry them, even priests and accountants.
Fixers can reportedly take care of formalities standing in the way of gun ownership, such as drug and psychological tests, and there are estimated to be some four million firearms in the nation of 110 million people. Hundreds of thousands of weapons are illegally owned. Poverty, corruption, crime, and outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs have left deep social scars.
No consensus has been reached in the Philippines over what sets a mass shooting apart from other gun deaths, but indiscriminate slayings are uncommon. When eight people died and 11 were injured after a drunk gunman began firing wildly in the southern province of Cavite back in 2013, the tragedy was notable for its sheer rarity.
To be clear, homicides involving firearms are a fact of life in the Philippines. Hitmen can be hired for as little as $300. In fact, the Philippines is one of the deadliest places in Asia when it comes to firearm homicides. The country saw over 1,200 intentional killings using firearms in 2019. This meant guns killed one in every 100,000 people in the Southeast Asian country—one of the highest rates in Asia. (In 2020, the comparable figure for the U.S. is four.)
Elections can be particularly bloody times, with lethal attacks on poll officers and political rivals. One of the country’s worst killings, the 2009 Maguindanao massacre of 58 people, took place during a gubernatorial election. But it was a political atrocity. Shootings not related to politics or crime are uncommon—and there has been nothing as extreme as Columbine, Sandy Hook, or Uvalde.
“I think it’s just a matter of time,” says Gerry Caño, Dean of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Cagayan de Oro College. “I think our authorities and the public safety practitioners are just waiting for that time to happen, considering that Philippine culture is greatly influenced by the West, particularly the United States.”
For now, though, powerful social factors continue to have a restraining effect on indiscriminate violence. Philippine academic Raymund Narag, a criminology associate professor at Southern Illinois University and a former prisoner himself, says mass shootings in his native country are in part deterred by hiyâ, a Tagalog word meaning shame or embarrassment. Avoidance of hiyâ, and sparing one’s family and community from it, is often described as a core Philippine value.
“It reflects on you, and reflects on your family,” Narag says. “When I was jailed, our entire clan felt humiliated.”
Visitors view displayed firearms during the Tactical, Survival and Arms Expo in Pasay City, the Philippines, Nov.15, 2019.Rouelle Umali/Xinhua via Getty
Gun culture in the Philippines
While the right to bear arms isn’t enshrined in the nation’s constitution, as it is in the United States, there is no denying the Philippine love of guns.
When the U.S. colonized the Philippines in the early 1900s, private citizens were allowed to own high-powered guns for “lawful purposes” and hunting. After Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, owners were limited to one low-powered rifle and a pistol or revolver—and both had to be licensed. But in 2000, President Joseph Estrada lifted these limits and allowed citizens to possess as many guns as they wanted, of any type and caliber.
A 2013 law set down qualifications for owning guns and carrying them in public. Licensed gun owners had to be 21 years old and take a firearm safety seminar, among other requirements. Depending on their license, most owners could possess up to 15 handguns, rifles and shotguns (collectors are allowed more than 15). Licenses were issued for as long as 10 years.
Before he was president, Estrada was a gun-wielding hero in action movies—a genre beloved of Filipinos for playing up machismo and depicting shootouts as legitimate forms of defense in a crime-riddled country. The action movie craze certainly helped Filipinos embrace gun culture.
In some of the country’s poorest communities, guns became a common sight among warring gangs, who sourced low-priced firearms from illegal sellers. Shooting clubs opened for those with more money and an interest in shooting for sport. Many affluent Filipinos took up gun collecting, while the wealthiest citizens began enthusiastically arming their bodyguards.
But despite the glorification of firearms, when gun violence takes place, the victims are rarely random bystanders in movie theaters or shopping malls. Almost a quarter of the Philippine population falls below the poverty line and “the money or the reward seems to be the best motivating factor” in many homicide cases involving firearms, Caño says.
In January, a provincial hitman admitted to committing his crime in exchange for $500 to help his child, who was suffering from meningitis. In April, another gunman confessed to killing a mechanic for $400.
Displaced children playing with wooden toy guns inside a temporary shelter area in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, on August 22, 2018, in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, southern Philippines.Jes Aznar/Getty Images
How hiyâ plays a role in social control
Narag says the strong ties of Philippine kinship mean troubled individuals are more likely to be identified before they become mass shooters. He contrasts that with the situation in the U.S., where he presently lives and teaches.
“Here, if you have problems, you have to go to a health professional,” he tells TIME. “You’ll divulge everything there. You don’t talk to your neighbors—sometimes you don’t talk to your own parents—because [there isn’t] an engaged culture where one’s problem is everyone’s problem.”
Jose Antonio Clemente, a professor of social psychology at the University of the Philippines, says community is everything. “At an early age, we are trained to give importance to our families and our relationships,” he says. “Maybe at some point we’re also taught to value our community, since there are a lot of communities that are very close-knit because of the high population density.”
National police do have mass shooting protocols in place. Authorities have also suggested an increased police presence on college campuses to deter insurgent groups from recruiting students. But it seems that ingrained values in the Philippines are restraining people from using guns indiscriminately.
Whether that is enough is up for debate. For now, however, hiyâ means you cannot “just start shooting people,” Narag says. “Because if that happens, you know the community won’t support you.”
Hellfire: The Uvalde Shooter Owned a Device That Makes AR-15s Even More Deadly
Tim Dickinson – June 15, 2022
US-TEXAS-GUNS-NRA – Credit: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
“Unleashing ‘Hell-Fire.’”
It pictures a gunman, wearing a skull mask with blacked out eyes, who unloads an AR-15 that is sending spent cartridges flying from its ejection port. The ad copy reads: “All you do is squeeze the trigger and shoot at rates up to 900 rpm” — or rounds per minute.
The sales pitch is for a hellfire trigger device, a gun accessory that allows a semi-automatic rifle to fire at rates similar to machine gun. Although the physics behind the device are nearly identical to that of a bump-stock — now illegal under federal law — hellfires remain cheap and easy to acquire. Including, evidently, by a teenager bent on mass murder.
The gunman in the Uvalde massacre had purchased a hellfire device, which was recovered from one of the classrooms where the massacre took place, according to investigative documents reviewed by the New York Times. Federal authorities reportedly don’t believe the device was used in the attack. But had it been deployed, the carnage at Robb Elementary School — where 19 children and two teachers were murdered — might have been, unimaginably, worse.
Even in the trigger-happy US of A, machine guns are supposed to be illegal. A central fixture of federal firearms law since the days of Al Capone’s 1930s is that fully-automatic weapons are too powerful to be in civilian hands. Yes, modern consumers can buy high-powered weapons, like AR-15-style rifles, that are nearly identical to guns used in the U.S. military, but these guns fire only one round with each trigger pull.
But in the poorly regulated market of fire-arms accessories, a small but dedicated band of companies have pushed the legal envelope. They’ve engineered and marketed devices that circumvent the limitations of semi-automatic weapons, turning rifles into bullet hoses that can fire hundreds of rounds per minute.
After a 2017 massacre in Las Vegas, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms — better known as ATF — outlawed one class of these accessories, known as bump stocks, by classifying them as machine guns. But they didn’t touch hellfire triggers.
That differential treatment has no logic, insists Josh Sugarmann, Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center. When it comes to hellfires and similar “trigger activators,” he says, “ATF has been very, very lenient in its interpretation of federal law.”
Screenshot of an ad for a Hellfire style device – Credit: Youtube
Youtube
“Bump firing without the stock”
A hellfire device and a bump-stock both rely on the same physics to mimic fully automatic fire. They absorb the energy from the recoil of a single gunshot, then rebound the weapon slightly forward, activating the trigger against a shooter’s otherwise stationary finger — again and again and again and again and again.
With a bump-stock, this rebound is generated in the butt of the rifle pressed against the shooter’s shoulder. A hellfire device attaches to the pistol grip and rebounds, instead, against the shooter’s palm.
ATF itself recognized the similarity of the devices, explicitly comparing them in 2013 correspondence with a congressman, back when both devices were deemed legal. Gun enthusiasts today praise the hellfire as offering “bump firing without the stock.” (ATF did not answer questions from Rolling Stone about why the devices are treated differently.)
From San Francisco to Waco
Hellfires are not new. In fact, the trigger devices have dark history. In a 1993 mass shooting in a San Francisco high rise, the gunman used hellfire triggers, attached to a pair of assault pistols with 50-round magazines; he killed eight, wounded six, and then took his own life. Hellfire triggers were also believed to have been in use at David Koresh’s militarized Waco, Texas, cult compound.
These days, the trigger devices are cheap, and marketed with disturbing slogans and imagery. It’s not immediately clear what device the Uvalde shooter purchased. But there are many models available online. At one retailer, just $29.95 can get you the “Classic” hellfire “made infamous by David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco,” according to the sales pitch.
The “Gen II” model offers “recoil assist technology” to enable “one handed operation,” and will set you back $59.95. A new “Stealth” model, meanwhile, is for sale at just $39.95, and can be installed “invisibly within your grip on any AR15 style rifle” and be “activated or deactivated in seconds.”
Banning Bump-Stocks
It was the Trump administration, surprisingly, that banned bump-stocks — after they were used to catastrophic effect in a 2017 Las Vegas shooting. In that attack, a gunman fired bump-stock-equipped AR-15s from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. The spray of more than 1,000 rounds killed 60 people and wounded more than 400 at a concert festival below.
Without the need of new legislation, the ATF issued a rule in 2019 outlawing bump stocks. The devices, the regulation states, “convert an otherwise semiautomatic firearm into a machinegun” by harnessing “the recoil energy… [to] continue firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter.” (The regulation has, at least so far, held up in court)
Despite operating on the same principle, hellfire triggers remain street legal — putting machine gun firepower in the hands of untrained amateurs. The rate of fire enabled by these devices is so high, in fact, that the more expensive hellfire models actually offer features to slow down the firing cycle “to save ammo!”
Hellfire triggers can be finicky to master — which may be why the young Uvalde shooter ultimately didn’t deploy his. And it’s impossible to know whether automatic fire would have led to even more devastation at Robb Elementary School. (The shooter was left unimpeded for more than an hour by dithering local police; the gunman was not pressed for time.)
Marketing Lethality
The “most important” takeaway from the hellfire purchase is what it reflects about “the mindset of the shooter,” argues Sugarmann. “He had done everything he could, in his mind, to find the most lethal combination of weaponry and accessories when he planned the attack.”
Such lethality is — not coincidentally — the top selling point of a the modern firearms industry, which pitches its customers on military-grade precision and firepower. That includes the maker the Uvalde shooter’s rifle, Daniel Defense, whose Georgia headquarters are located at “101 Warfighter Way.”
The Uvalde shooter simply found, in the hellfire, a low-cost accessory that promised to unlock his weapon’s full military pedigree, by mimicking the automatic fire reserved for soldiers.
Sugarmann insists the ATF has the authority to send a warning to the industry by targeting hellfire makers, who are small operators and operate at the margins of the industry. “They’re the bottom feeders,” he says. “If you took action against one of them, it would send a message throughout the industry that ATF has regulatory role that it can use to the to protect public safety.”
The Violence Policy Center founder insists that the agency “could move against them, the way that they moved against bump-stocks.” But at least so far, Sugarmann laments, “the agency has chosen not to.”
Indeed, the text of ATF’s own bump-stock regulation notes that public commenters argued the broad language could be read to encompass “Hellfire trigger mechanisms” and similar devices. The agency’s response? Simply that it “disagrees that other firearms or devices… will be reclassified as machineguns under this rule.”
The Russian invasion of Ukraine accounts for more than a third of U.S. inflation, forecaster says
Steve Goldstein – June 13, 2022
A soldier maneuvers his tank on June 08, 2022 near Sloviansk, Ukraine. In recent weeks, Russia has concentrated its firepower on Ukraine’s Donbas region, where it has long backed two separatist regions at war with the Ukrainian government since 2014. SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions that it triggered is behind more than a third of the 40-year high inflation of 8.6%, according to analysis from a leading forecaster.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says after decomposing the numbers, the Russian invasion represented 3.5% year-over-year growth, mostly through the direct of higher commodity prices. But, he added on a podcast by the firm that higher diesel prices causes food prices to be higher, and it’s also bleeding into things like airfares.
The COVID-19 pandemic, he said, represented 2% year-over-year growth, mostly through supply chains.
“The bulk of the supply chain constraint component on CPI is new and used vehicles, but it also includes bedding, furniture, children’s apparel, things that are really affected by the supply chains,” added Ryan Sweet, senior director at Moody’s Analytics.
The lack of affordable housing is further responsible for 0.6% year-over-year price growth, according to Moody’s calculations.
He said the American Rescue Plan, the stimulus plan that President Biden signed into law, had a negligible impact.
In all, Zandi says the typical American household is paying $460 per month more to buy the same goods and services that they would have at the same time last year.
Cris DeRitis, deputy chief economist, said the inflation readings may not have peaked. “But as we get past the summer, past the summer driving season, I think then you might to see some of that moderation,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
Members of white nationalist group charged with planning riot at Idaho pride event
Joseph Ax – June 11, 2022
Group of men arrested after they were found in the rear of a U Haul van in Coeur d’Alene
(Reuters) – Police in northwest Idaho arrested more than two dozen members of a white nationalist group on Saturday and charged them with planning to stage a riot near a LGBTQ pride event, authorities said.
Lee White, police chief in the city of Coeur D’Alene, told reporters 31 members of Patriot Front face misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot and additional charges could come later.
A local resident spotted the men, wearing white masks and carrying shields, getting into a U-Haul truck and called police, telling the emergency dispatcher it “looked like a little army,” according to White. Police pulled the truck over about 10 minutes after the call.
Video taken at the scene of the arrest and posted online showed about 20 men kneeling next to the truck with their hands bound, wearing similar khaki pants, blue shirts, white masks and baseball caps.
Police recovered at least one smoke grenade and documents that included an “operations plan” from the truck, as well as shields and shin guards, all of which made their intentions clear, White said.
“They came to riot downtown,” he said.
The men come from at least 11 states, White said, including Texas, Colorado and Virginia.
Patriot Front formed in the aftermath of the 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when it broke off from another extremist organization, Vanguard America, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
Russian military moves in the Arctic worry the U.S. and NATO
Melissa Rossi, Contributor – June 10, 2022
In late May, Russian ambassador at large Nikolai Korchunov informed state media that the situation in the Arctic was becoming perilous. He wasn’t referring to melting polar ice due to climate change. Instead, he warned of “a very disturbing trend that is turning the Arctic into an international arena of military operations,” and blamed NATO for expanding its footprint in the region.
“That’s a typical Russian play,” retired Finnish Maj. Gen. Pekka Toveri told Yahoo News. “Western activities in the Arctic have been very mild.” In March, however, NATO held “Exercise Cold Response” in Norway. With 35,000 fighters from 28 countries, it wasNATO’s biggest Arctic exercise in 30 years. Yet the alliance, unlike Russia, has no new plans for permanent forces or military bases in the region, Toveri said, while acknowledging that “more patrolling and more exercises have given Russia reason to point the finger and claim the West is the problem.”
The Arktichesky Trilistnik [Arctic Trefoil] military base on Alexandra Land Island in Arkhangelsk Region, Russia. (Russian Defence Ministry Press Office/TASS via ZUMA Press)
Western experts say that Russia, the largest of the eight countries surrounding the Arctic, is behind the militarization in the mineral-rich region, which supplies 20% of Russia’s GDP. For the past decade, the Kremlin has been revamping shuttered Soviet bases, forming a necklace of dozens of defensive outposts (by some counts upwards of 50) from the Barents Sea to territories near Alaska, and building new facilities like the ultra-modern Trefoil, its northernmost base that became fully operational last year. The U.S. and NATO have looked on in consternation as Russia has established a new “Arctic command” and four new Arctic brigades, refurbished airfields and deep-water ports, and keeps launching mock military attacks on Nordic countries in between jamming GPS and radar during NATO exercises. It has also, according to the U.S. State Department, been trying out “novel weapon systems” in the Arctic.
“We’ve seen increased Russian military activity in the Arctic for some time,” a senior State Department official told Yahoo News. However, the situation is ratcheting up, and not just because Russia keeps testing new hypersonic weapons in the Arctic, launching a hypersonic missile there just days after Korchunov made his remarks. Before the year’s end, the State Department official added, Russia plans to launch 19 more tests, including of new weapons. “Seeing Russia’s aggressive and unpredictable behavior, particularly since the Ukraine invasion, has really heightened concerns about Russian activity” in the high north, the official said.
With relations between Moscow and Western governments the iciest in decades due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, analysts wonder if the Arctic will become the next powder keg. Russia’s expansion of bases, weapons testing and boosted manpower in the Arctic comes as Finland and Sweden have applied for NATO membership. If accepted, that would further isolate Russia in the Arctic, making it the only non-NATO country in the region, further boosting the chances of unintended incidents, analysts say.
Author of the recently released report “The Militarization of Russian Polar Politics,” Mathieu Boulègue, a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, told Yahoo News that his biggest fear is a nuclear mishap in the region.
“If you look at the long list of nuclear assets — whether it is icebreakers, strategic submarines, floating nuclear power plants or spent fuel — there is a lot of risk of nuclear incidents,” he said. “Incidents like this are mitigated in peacetime, when you’re talking to the different stakeholders. But the problem is that we don’t really talk [with] Russia very well these days. So this further increases the risk of miscalculation and errors.”
The Kola Peninsula, for instance, a Kentucky-sized thumb of Russian land abutting Finland, is the most nuclearized place on the planet. The headquarters for Russia’s Northern Fleet, which accounts for two-thirds of Russia’s second-strike maritime nuclear capabilities, the Kola Peninsula marks the entry to the Russian part of the Arctic and holds three military bases and repositories for nuclear arms.
A new hypersonic cruise missile is launched by a frigate of the Russian Navy from the Barents Sea. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Another third of Russia’s nukes on the sea, however, are located at the far Eastern end of the Arctic, Boulègue added — with Russia’s Pacific Fleet, headquartered in Vladivostok, but some vessels are based in Kamchatka, just across from Alaska. Those facilities could pose future problems for the U.S., Boulègue said, by creating “a flashpoint of tension, should Russia decide to contest American access to the Arctic.”
Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also points to Wrangel Island — 300 miles from Alaska — where Russia has installed a new air search radar system and may be renovating an airfield, as well as bases in eastern Siberia. “They’ve got plenty of places to put stuff if they want to threaten Alaska,” he noted.
The growing uneasiness about Russian activities in the Arctic, where it is pursuing a new Northern Sea Route made possible by melting ice due to climate change, has motivated the U.S. armed forces to rethink their Arctic strategies. Last year, the Army published “Regaining Arctic Dominance,” its first strategic plan for the far north. This week the Army announced it is activating a new 12,000-troop-strong Arctic airborne division — the first time it has created a new division in 70 years. Troops are training in Alaska, learning to fight in the brutal polar climes — where temperatures can drop to negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
The U.S. Navy is conducting Arctic maneuvers with ships and submarines and more — and the Air Force is sending the bulk of its F-35s to Alaska, saying the state “will be home to more advanced fighters than any other location in the world.” Congress approved funding for six new “ice breakers,” ships that can plow through frozen waters. And new satellites meant to enhance polar communications and offer fresh “eyes” on Russia are being launched, along with new radar systems being constructed from Alaska to Denmark.
An Icebreaker cuts a path for a cargo ship near Nagurskoye, Russia. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
All of these moves are welcomed by Toveri, who believes that the West cannot appease Putin and expect “to have the peace dividend from the Cold War times.” He added that after the Soviet Union fell, many Nordic countries, including Sweden, shrunk their militaries and slashed spending, while countries such as Denmark, shut down their missile defense radar systems, which they are again rebuilding.
Such moves, however, rankle the Kremlin, which sees them as provocative. Earlier this year, Russian spy planes violated Sweden and Danish airspace. In March 2018 and February 2019, Russian bomber jets targeted Norway’s Globus radar system in mock air attacks, barreling towards the domed structures before abruptly turning back. Russia’s problems with Norway extend far beyond its snooping abilities, however.
The Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, which lies midway between Russia and Greenland, is a case in point. Beyond Russia’s historical territorial claims to the area, the archipelago is also home to a radar and satellite system capable of tracking ballistic missile paths that is seen as key to NATO communications. Russian politicians occasionally threaten to just snatch the archipelago, like they did with Crimea.
“If there’s going to be a dispute in the Arctic, it will probably be here,” said Williams of CSIS, and the U.S. State Department official underscored that concern.
Telecommunication domes of the Kongsberg Satellite Services in Svalbard Archipelago, Norway. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images)
Timo Koivurova, research professor of the Arctic Centre at Finland’s Lapland University, told Yahoo News he laments that “relations between Russia and the Western states have deteriorated and Cold War thinking has started to prevail.” He wonders if concerns are being overblown, however. “If you are talking with a security-oriented scholar, he might argue that the third world war is coming out of the Arctic. But it’s very difficult for me to imagine that because if you think about Russia’s military objectives in the region, there are not many military drivers for Russia, other than this kind of balancing with NATO.”
Williams likewise sees many parts of the Arctic picture as undecided, including the U.S. military commitment to the region, which is a pricy undertaking.
“Keeping an F-35 operating in the Arctic is a lot more expensive than keeping it operating in Hawaii,” he said. He notes that the U.S. is concerned about Russia’s strong-arming control of the Northern Sea Route, an act that the U.S. believes would violate international maritime law. “The big question is, would we extend ourselves out into that area? Right now, it’s an open question.”
“The last thing Russia needs is a hot war in the Arctic,” Nima Khorrami, research associate at the Arctic Institute, told Yahoo News. “Because if that happened, no one would come in to invest.” And right now Putin, who has stamped the idea of Russia’s Arctic identity into the national psyche, wants Asian investments in the region, he said. Any kind of military showdown, added Khorrami, “and the grand strategy of turning the Northern Sea Route into a new Suez Canal is gone.”
The gunman in that case, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts, opened fire in the crowded shopping mall using a Stag Arms AR-15 rifle he had stolen from an acquaintance. In addition to Forsyth, Cindy Ann Yuille was killed in the incident and 15-year-old Kristina Shevchenko was injured. The gunman died by suicide at the scene.
PHOTO: Police and medics work the scene of a multiple shooting at Clackamas Town Center Mall in Portland, Ore., Dec. 11, 2012. A gunman is dead after opening fire in the shopping mall, killing two people and wounding another, sheriff’s deputies said. (Greg Wahl Stephens/AP, FILE)
The parade of mass shootings since that fateful day in 2012 have stirred up a tide of emotions within Kemp, he said, including the recent massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. And Kemp said his resolve to get measures enacted to keep guns, especially high-powered AR-15-style rifles, out of the hands of those he says shouldn’t possess them, becomes stronger with each nightmarish mass shooting.
PHOTO: People embrace outside the scene of a mass shooting at a Tops supermarket a day earlier, in Buffalo, N.Y., May 15, 2022. (Matt Rourke/AP, FILE)
Kemp is one of several longtime gun owners ABC News spoke with who say they want gun control laws and reform. Gun rights extremists, with, they say, the NRA as their bullhorn — no longer represent the majority of gun owners in the U.S.
But proponents of the guns say that they are essentially no different than other hunting rifles, are used responsibly for sport and are not the weapons of war that opponents make them out to be.
PHOTO: Flowers, toys, and other objects are seen at a memorial for the victims of the deadliest mass shooting in nearly a decade resulting in the death of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, May 29, 2022. (Veronica Cardenas/Reuters)
Defining ‘AR-15’
An AR-15 is a type of semi-automatic rifle, firing one bullet with each pull of the trigger — a contrast with illegal automatic rifles, which fire continuously as long as the trigger is depressed.
“AR-15 style rifles can be made for a variety of bullet calibers and to accept a variety of different capacity ammunition magazines,” said Jake Charles, lecturing fellow and executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law.
The guns, which have skyrocketed in popularity, are often referred to as “assault rifles,” but whether that is an apt description depends on who you ask.
“Assault weapon” is a legal term of art. Under the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, it was defined as “Semiautomatic rifles having the ability to accept a detachable ammunition magazine and at least two of the following traits” — including a bayonet mount or grenade launcher.
Video: Man says he refused to sell AR-15 style rifle to Nikolas Cruz in 2018
0:32 1:16 Gun shop owner says he turned away Florida shooting suspect from buying AR-15 And I said, well, I don’t sell any farms to
“It’s not a simple yes or no,” as to whether an AR-15-style gun is an assault rifle, Charles told ABC News.
“Often an assault rifle refers to an automatic rifle, like the military’s M4 or M16. In that sense, the AR-15 is not one because it’s not an automatic weapon,” Charles said. “But sometimes an assault rifle is the description for a rifle that is classified as an ‘assault weapon’ under federal or state laws restricting those weapons. For example, under the 1994 federal assault weapons ban, Colt’s AR-15 was specifically listed as a prohibited assault weapon.”
According to Erik Longnecker, the deputy chief of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ office of public and governmental affairs, public affairs division, “assault rifle” and “assault weapon” are not defined under current federal firearms law.
“Assault rifle and assault weapon are both political terms that are not defined in the Gun Control Act or the National Firearms Act,” he said.
The ATF also does not have a definition for AR-15. “That is a specific model of rifle originally manufactured by Colt who also holds the trademark to that term,” according Longnecker.
“Colt began manufacturing these types of rifles in the 1960s; other manufacturers began producing AR-type variants in the 1970s,” Longnecker added.
PHOTO: In this Aug. 15, 2012 file photo three variations of the AR-15 assault rifle are displayed at the California Department of Justice in Sacramento, Calif. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP, FILE)
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm industry trade association: “The ‘AR’ in ‘AR-15’ rifle stands for ArmaLite rifle, after the company that developed it in the 1950s. ‘AR’ does NOT stand for ‘assault rifle’ or ‘automatic rifle.’ AR-15-style rifles are NOT ‘assault weapons’ or ‘assault rifles.'”
NSSF says that there are millions of such guns in circulation.
Gun owners weigh in
Still, some of the gun owners who spoke with ABC News questioned the need to possess the powerful weapons.
Kemp says the ultimate purpose of an AR-15-style rifle, the gun that was used to killed his brother-in-law, is they are designed to do “a lot of damage.”
And they have.
Although handguns are involved in most shooting deaths, the use of semi-automatic rifles is climbing, said Louis Klarevas, a research professor at Teachers College, Columbia University who specializes in gun violence and safety. In the 1980s, less than 20% of gun massacres involved semi-automatic rifles according to a report he issued as an expert witness in a California court case over banning assault weapons.
In a recent TikTok video that went viral, Benjamin Beers, who said he is a former Marine who served in Kuwait, and was stationed in Camp Pendleton, California, declared he was handing over his AR-15 and 9mm gun to authorities to have them destroyed.
Beers told ABC News the decision was sparked in part by the Uvalde shooting. He also said he wants weapons like the AR-15 banned.
“I would love to see semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 banned, if not banned, some major laws changed. It’s the single most effective method used [for killing] … to committing such heinous acts of violence. And we’ve seen it for decades,” he said.
Steve Labbé is also a legal gun owner. He says he is for an outright ban on assault rifles, but thinks such legislation would be tricky to enact.
“The ban of assault weapons is a tricky play on words. I say this because assault weapons can and do use the same ammunition as hunting rifles, and that is where the people who overstate the Second Amendment rights find the gray area.”
“We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21, strengthen background checks, enact safe storage laws and red flag laws. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability, address the mental health crisis,” Biden said.
Congress has remained in a stalemate with Democrats wanting to push gun control legislation, and most Republicans rejecting those proposals. This week, however, the House passed the “Protect Our Kids Act” which has sweeping gun reform measures including raising the age limit to purchase semi-automatic weapons and banning high-capacity magazines.
Gun rights advocates often tout the AR-15-style rifle as a hunting tool but the gun owners who spoke with ABC News, most of whom hunt, refute that for most hunting scenarios.
“Hunting and self-preservation have no need for high-capacity cartridges, no need for semi-automatic and automatic phases of fire,” Labbé said. “That way, someone who takes offense to their specific type of ammunition being called out because an AR-15 uses the same ammunition (the typical, ‘I hunt rats with an AR-15’) can feel safe in the knowledge that their hunting gun isn’t affected by this ban. We should also acknowledge that hunting guns can be converted to assault weapons as well,” he said.
Kemp also said he wouldn’t use an assault rifle to hunt because of what it does to flesh.
“The way an AR-15 round enters the body … it’s designed to tumble and create a lot of tissue damage,” he said.
In a statement to ABC News, an NRA spokesperson said: “The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. Tens of millions of Americans legally own AR-15s for a variety of lawful purposes, including self-defense.”
The gun rights group also stated: “There’s been a growing trend in the number of hunters who choose to hunt with an AR-15” and that “the focus and burden of our laws ought to be on prosecuting violent criminals and in ensuring those with dangerous behavioral issues don’t have access to any firearm.”
PHOTO: Christine Barnes hunts for deer, Oct. 27, 2018 in Acton, Maine. (Portland Press Herald via Getty Images, FILE )
In the case of the shooter who killed his brother-in-law, Kemp said, “The young man who was the shooter … there were no mental health issues. That’s just a bogus argument.”
‘God-given right’ argument and proposed solutions
“There needs to be drastic changes taken with this weapon,” Beers said. He said the guns can be custom-built and easily ordered online with a 30-round magazine.
“And it’s always just stuck with me, this isn’t right. This is the same weapon I got issued in the Marines.” he said.
Kemp said that when his family found out that the active shooter who killed his brother-in-law stole the AR-15 which was in a home unsecured, “my first question to the officer …[was] doesn’t Oregon have a safe storage gun law? He said, no. The guy that left the gun on locked and loaded … zero consequences.”
Kemp says he is not for an all-out ban of AR-15-type rifles, but said the weapon should fall under the National Firearms Act, which places limits on ownership of “shotguns and rifles having barrels less than 18 inches in length, certain firearms described as ‘any other weapons,’ machine guns, and firearm mufflers and silencers.”
Having AR-15-style weapons covered under the NFA, would provide “an incredibly detailed, thorough background check at a higher cost,” Kemp said. “You never hear machine guns being used in shootings, rarely, nor silencers,” he added.
He also said the country should put back in place the Federal Assault Weapons Ban enacted in 1994 and lasted 10 years, which covered the AR-15.
“We know the ban worked because we saw less shootings involving those types of weapons,” he said of that period.
Kemp expressed his frustration at what he called, “gun advocate extremists.” “They don’t like having to do the background check. They don’t like not being able to carry weapons wherever they want. They don’t like the process of having to get a concealed carry permit,” he said.
“[They] don’t believe there should be any restrictions on the types of ammunition you can buy, or … armor piercing … [they] feel like there shouldn’t be any restrictions since the Second Amendment is how we founded the country. It’s my God-given right. Well, God didn’t write the Constitution, nor amendments,” he added.
ABC News’ Emily Shapiro, Libby Cathey and Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
House Republican leaders told their members to vote against 8 gun-safety bills, citing opposition from the NRA and Gun Owners of America
Bryan Metzger – June 8, 2022
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other GOP members at a press conference on Capitol Hill on March 1, 2022.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images House Republican leaders told their members to vote against 8 gun-safety bills, citing opposition from the NRA and Gun Owners of America
The House is set to vote Wednesday on a package of gun-related bills dubbed the “Protect Our Kids Act.”
GOP leaders told members to vote against the package, calling it the “Unconstitutional Gun Restrictions Act.”
The notice sent to GOP offices included links to talking points from the NRA and Gun Owners of America.
House Republicans are poised to vote against eight bills aimed at preventing gun violence on Tuesday, in part due to opposition from powerful pro-gun groups on the right.
House Democratic leaders have scheduled votes for Wednesday evening on the “Protecting Our Kids Act” — a package of seven gun violence-related measures that includes raising the age for legal purchase of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns to 21, closing the “bump stock” loophole, and other measures aimed at preventing the illegal trafficking of guns.
The House will also vote on the “Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act,” a federal “red flag” bill that would allow family members and law enforcement officials to temporarily block firearm access to those who a court determines pose a danger to themselves or others.
In a “whip notice” sent to rank-and-file members on Tuesday afternoon, House GOP leadership urged a “no” vote on all eight bills, referring to the seven-bill package as the “Unconstitutional Gun Restrictions Act.” They wrote that House Democrats had “thrown together this reactionary package comprised of legislation that egregiously violates law-abiding citizens’ 2nd Amendment rights and hinders Americans’ ability to defend and protect themselves and their families.”
The email also noted the opposition of the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America, including links to talking points from the NRA about both the gun package and the red flag law. Leaders also noted the opposition of Heritage Action for America, an advocacy group tied to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“Due to the importance of this issue, votes on this legislation will be considered in future candidate ratings and endorsements by the NRA Political Victory Fund,” declares one of the memos shared by party leaders.
Screenshot of the end of the June 7th whip notice, including links to talking points from the NRA and Heritage Action for America.House Republican Whip Steve Scalise
It’s not uncommon for party leaders to note the opposition of outside groups to major pieces of legislation. For example, in a February whip notice urging Republicans to vote against a major piece of legislation aimed at boosting the US semiconductor industry, GOP leaders noted the opposition of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, National Taxpayers Union, and Americans for Prosperity.
But the two gun groups’ inclusion — and the NRA’s threat to downgrade candidate ratings or withhold endorsements should any Republicans back the measures — underscores the enduring influence of pro-second amendment groups on the right, despite the NRA’s recent financial troubles and shrinking membership.
NRA talking points distributed by House GOP leadership, including a warning that candidate ratings and endorsements are at stake.National Rifle Association
Meanwhile, Democrats are planning to stage a striking visual contrast to Republicans — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked her caucus members on Tuesday to be present on the House floor for debate on the gun measures on Wednesday, when the floor would otherwise be empty.
“On behalf of the survivors of gun violence, and out of respect for those who lost their lives, I am asking all Members of our Caucus to be present on the Floor of the House for the two hours of debate, which should begin at approximately 2:30 p.m. following the vote on the Rule,” she said.
Home affordability has ‘collapsed’ in 2022. What to expect next, according to B of A
Is a housing crash brewing? Not likely, says B of A
Joy Wiltermuth – June 7, 2022
U.S. new home sales plunged 16.6% in April, even as prices continued to climb, according to government data released on May 24. AFP/GETTY IMAGES
B of A Global sees annual home-price growth as near a peak, not home prices overall. Also, low affordability likely hurts demand, not supply.
The double whammy of surging mortgage rates and skyrocketing home prices has led to “collapsed” housing affordability in America, according to Chris Flanagan’s team at B of A Global Research.
The situation has gotten so bad that it now compares to the “historically low affordability readings” in the fourth quarter of 1987 and the first quarter of 2005, according to the B of A team.
Existing home sales tumbled 33% in the wake of the 1987 crash and 45% in the aftermath of the subprime mortgage debacle. “In this cycle, we think a 35% peak-to-trough existing-home-sales decline is plausible,” Flanagan’s team wrote, in a weekly client note.
The cost of a 30-year fixed mortgage nearly doubled to about 5.25% in May from 2.75% last winter. The move higher came as the Federal Reserve began fleshing out plans to raise interest rates and trim its nearly $9 trillion balance sheet in a bid to tackle inflation that recently hit a near 40-year high.
While home prices have continued to climb this year, household wealth tied up in stocks and bonds has suffered, with the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.95% off 14% from its Jan. 3 closing high through Monday and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.94% nearly 24% below its peak, according to FactSet data.
However, even in a somewhat “draconian” scenario, where the demand “side for housing is meaningfully altered by reduced affordability, the supply side remains exceptionally supportive” for home price appreciation, Flanagan’s team wrote.
Why? Blame the subprime mortgage mess and decades of underbuilding. Those catalysts led to record low supply of existing homes (see chart), which will take time to “normalize.
Housing crunch likely persists, even if demand dwindles. B OF A GLOBAL
Home supply was tight before the pandemic made it worse, as many families looked for bigger houses outside of big cities to adapt to remote work. That remains a key factor in B of A’s forecast for home prices to climb 15% for 2022 and 5% for 2023.
“Shelter is still scarce and residential real estate is still a good inflation hedge: To the extent there is any distress in housing, and forced sellers emerge, we think owner-occupied or non-owner-occupied buyers will be there to at least partially absorb the sales,” they said.
