The Tarbabys Blog

Eye opening warrant emerges in second arrest in two days of Colorado MAGA official

Walter Einenkel, Daily Kos Staff – February 11, 2022

On Feb. 8, MAGA-supporting Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters was arrested and released after she resisted a court-ordered search of her iPad. Peters is suspected of having illegally recorded the court proceedings of her suspected accomplice, Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley, in a criminal case. Peters and Knisley have been under investigation by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold for their breach of security protocols, compromising the integrity of the Dominion voting machines under their care. Knisley is accused of having illegally accessed Peters computer using Peters’ credentials two days after she was suspended from access to the office for a separate incident.

On Thursday, Peters was forced to turn herself in on a new arrest warrant stemming from an altercation with Grand Junction police officers on Tuesday. Peters was arrested this time and released after posting a $500 bond for “obstructing a peace officer.” Business Insider got its hands on the warrant for this new arrest and, along with the video of the arrest, it sheds light on what went down.

In the video seen below, which began as officers placed their hands on Peters to turn her around and try to handcuff her, Peters is resisting arrest. At one point she says they are hurting her and tries to kick backwards at the two officers. She is subsequently taken outside where we can see her, handcuffed, speaking with authorities and another person.

The affidavit fills out a lot of the details. According to the warrant, the Grand Junction officers were responding to a request for assistance from investigators with the Mesa County District Attorney’s Office, who were at the bagel shop where Peters and her associates were at the time. Those investigators had been serving a warrant for the search of Peters’ iPad after the judge in her accomplice’s criminal case asked that it be retrieved to check for recordings of the proceedings that Peters denied, but numerous witnesses in court said she was making.

The Denver Post received a statement at the time of Peters’ first arrest this week from her legal defense fund spokesperson Rory McShane claiming: “The search warrant presented listed exactly one item, an iPad with a white case. Clerk Peters complied with that, then officers began attempting to take other items of personal property, not listed in the warrant including her car keys, which is illegal.” But according to the affidavit and the video, McShane and Peters seem to be conflating events in order to change the narrative of obstruction Peters seems to be making a career of these days.

From the affidavit:

As I was approaching the front door, I observed DA Investigators Heil, Struwe, and Cannon in a heated discussion with a group of people seated and standing near the front table inside the business. As I stepped inside, I heard DA Investigator Cannon advise he had probable cause to charge a female with whom he was in contact with Tampering With Physical Evidence, a felony.

According to Grand Junction police, the scene they came upon—and the reason the district attorney’s office called for law enforcement’s help—was Peters’ refusal to give up the iPad after being presented with the search warrant. Not only do they allege she refused to give it up, but she then proceeded to keep investigators from getting their hands on the device, while passing it around among her associates at the bagel shop and possibly erasing evidence of her crime.

The affidavit goes on to explain that a male suspect was the main person in-between the district attorney and the table of associates passing around the iPad in question. When the officer told the man to step away, Peters stepped in front of him with her back to the officer, literally obstructing him from approaching the table with the iPad.

I took the female suspect [Peters] by her left bicep and tried to move her to her right where Sgt Church and Officer Tafoya were located so I could access [redacted] The female suspect then began actively resisting and was placed in handcuffs for obstructing officers. As she was being placed in handcuffs, Officer Tafoya repeatedly told her to not resist. As I was attempting to double lock the handcuffs, Officer Tafoya was attempting to get a car key/fob out of the suspect’s right hand. At this point the suspect attempted to kick back with her right leg to strike Officer Tafoya. She missed Officer Tafoya’s body but did contact Officer Tafoya’s Taser and magazine pouch which were located on Officer Tafoya’s belt. I told the suspect “Do not kick! Do you understand!?” Sgt Church also asked the suspect to “please relax” which she yelled “No!”

Remember how Peters and her legal representative tried to characterize what happened as police overreach in asking for more than what was in the original search warrant? Well, as you can watch below, it seems that officers weren’t trying to take her car key fob as part of the search, they were trying to get her hand behind her back as she resisted arrest for obstruction. Considering what we have seen Black folks go through—like the cases where “obstruction” and “resisting” were simply the person asking why they were being arrested—Peters gets a lot of runway. It’s a good thing she wasn’t a Black girl between the ages of 6 and 17 or she may have been treated a lot less civilly. 

Then the conversation that one cannot hear in the video is given by the report. The woman talking to Peters is told by police to step away:

As the female was not stepping away from the suspect, who was not calming down, she was escorted across Main Street to where my patrol car was located. She continued to actively resist and was just going limp and attempted to crumple to the sidewalk. I advised her she was under arrest and she needed to stand up and walk. I placed her in an escort position and continued walking her to my marked patrol car. She continued to yell and scream at officers that we were hurting her. I again told the suspect she needed to stand up and walk. As we got to the patrol car the suspect again yelled to let her go, I again advised her she was under arrest. When she asked why, I advised her she was under arrest for Obstruction.

The police officer says that they then searched her pockets, which she resisted, and put her into the back of the police vehicle. “Once inside the patrol vehicle and out of view of the multiple people recording this interaction on cell phones, the suspect calmed down immediately. As I was attempting to buckle her, she asked if I knew what I was doing and then she stated I was assisting a Merrick Garland (unk spelling). She continued talking about something pertaining to the election as I closed the patrol car door, but this was indiscernible as she was almost whispering once in the car.”

The district attorney seems to have asked the police not to charge her themselves with duplicate charges of obstruction as the district attorney would be adding that to their list after Tuesday’s events. Then the district attorney came over, at which time Peters said he should be investigating election fraud. (At least she’s a consistent MAGA zealot, right?) The district attorney explained that they would be taking her iPad, which was how this all started in the first place. “Peters denied the iPad being hers.” Ha! The district attorney then asked that Peters be released.

According to the affidavit, the moment she was out of handcuffs she “ignored DA Investigator Struwe and had a female take photos of her wrists as she was complaining that she was injured.” Police offered her an ambulance to check her wrists, which she refused.

Griswold has been successful in having both Peters and Knisley barred from overseeing the Mesa County elections in 2021, and has continued working successfully to have them both barred permanently from those responsibilities.

The Jan. 6 Committee Won’t Be Intimidated

We are focused on facts, not rhetoric, and will present them no matter what our critics say.

By Liz Cheney – February 10, 2022

I keep on my desk a copy of the oath my great-great-grandfather signed when he re-enlisted in the Union Army in 1863. Like the oath given by all those who serve in government and every member of our armed forces, Samuel Fletcher Cheney swore to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.” Generations of Americans have sworn that same oath and given their lives to defend the Constitution and our nation.

Last week, former Vice President Mike Pence spoke about the events of Jan. 6, 2021. President Trump was “wrong,” he said, to insist that Mr. Pence or any vice president could “overturn” the election by refusing to count certified slates of electoral votes. That notion was, as Mr. Pence said, “un-American.” What Mr. Trump had insisted that Mr. Pence do on Jan. 6 was not only un-American, it was unconstitutional and illegal.

Article II and the 12th Amendment govern how the nation selects the president. Congress doesn’t select the president; the states do. Every state in the union now selects a presidential candidate through a popular vote. And every state identifies the manner in which disputes regarding the election are addressed under state law. Those laws set forth a process for challenging an election when concerns arise, including potential recounts or audits and an opportunity to litigate disputed issues in court. When courts have resolved any election challenges, and the election result has been certified by the governor of a state, the election is over. That is the rule of law.

The 12th Amendment also leaves little doubt that Congress must count the certified electoral votes it receives from the states: “The president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for president, shall be the president.” This provision doesn’t say, for example, Congress must count certified electoral votes unless it has concerns about fraud allegations, or unless it disagrees with the outcome of state or federal court litigation. And the vice president, as president of the Senate presiding over the count, can’t simply refuse to count a state’s certified slate of electoral votes—either under the Constitution or under the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

Republicans used to advocate fidelity to the rule of law and the plain text of the Constitution. In 2020, Mr. Trump convinced many to abandon those principles. He falsely claimed that the election was stolen from him because of widespread fraud. While some degree of fraud occurs in every election, there was no evidence of fraud on a scale that could have changed this one. As the Select Committee will demonstrate in hearings later this year, no foreign power corrupted America’s voting machines, and no massive secret fraud changed the election outcome.

Almost all members of Congress know this—although many lack the courage to say it out loud. Mr. Trump knew it too, from his own campaign officials, from his own appointees at the Justice Department, and from the dozens of lawsuits he lost. Yet, Mr. Trump ignored the rulings of the courts and launched a massive campaign to mislead the public. Our hearings will show that these falsehoods provoked the violence on Jan. 6. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have begun to pay the price for spreading these lies. For example, Rudy Giuliani’s license to practice law has been suspended because he “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump, ” in the words of a New York appellate court.

The Jan. 6 investigation isn’t only about the inexcusable violence of that day: It is also about fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law, and whether elected representatives believe in those things or not. One member of the House Freedom Caucus warned the White House in the days before Jan. 6 that the president’s plans would drive “a stake in the heart of the federal republic.” That was exactly right.

Those who do not wish the truth of Jan. 6 to come out have predictably resorted to attacking the process—claiming it is tainted and political. Our hearings will show this charge to be wrong. We are focused on facts, not rhetoric, and we will present those facts without exaggeration, no matter what criticism we face. My friend the late Charles Krauthammer once said: “The lesson of our history is that the task of merely maintaining strong and sturdy the structures of a constitutional order is unending, the continuing and ceaseless work of every generation.” Every generation of Americans has fulfilled its duty to support and defend the Constitution. That responsibility now falls to us.

Ms. Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, is a U.S. representative and vice chair of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

The Week

Trump reportedly packed White House boxes in secret, took ‘top secret’ documents to Mar-a-Lago

Peter Weber, Senior editor – February 10, 2022

The National Archives found documents clearly marked as classified, including at the “top secret” level, among the 15 boxes of papers and memento former President Donald Trump improperly took home from the White House, The Washington Post reports, citing two people familiar with the matter. Those documents are now being kept in secure storage by the Justice Department while officials determine the next step.

A “top secret” classification, according to the National Archives, applies to documents in which unauthorized disclosure “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” Even if the Justice Department doesn’t launch a criminal investigation into how such materials ended up at Trump’s not-secure club, former federal prosecutor Brandon Van Grack tells the Post, “the FBI would want and need to review the information and conduct an investigation to determine what occurred and whether any sources and methods were compromised.”

One key question for federal or congressional investigators is how highly classified information ended up in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago boxes.

One person familiar with the scramble to pack up Trump’s belongings suggested some of the documents Trump piled up in the White House residence may have inadvertently ended up at Mar-a-Lago. But multiple people close to the former president told the Post that “Trump was very secretive about the packing of boxes that were retrieved from Mar-a-Lago last month, and did not let other aides — including some of his most senior advisers — look at them.”

And “Trump has been loath to return the boxes of documents he took from the White House, despite repeated efforts by the National Archives to obtain them,” starting last summer, when archivists noticed some high-profile records were missing, The New York Times reports. Eventually, “officials at the National Archives threatened to send a letter to Congress or the Department of Justice if he continued to withhold the boxes,” and Trump started going through the files in December.

Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich told the Post that “a normal and routine process is being weaponized by anonymous, politically motivated government sources to peddle Fake News,” and the National Archives could “credibly dispute this false reporting” but isn’t.

The “top secret” document report comes atop other new revelations about Trump’s habitual mishandling of presidential records, including frequently tearing up documents, possibly trying to flush printed paper down the toilet, and using personal cellphones that avoided White House call logs.

HuffPost

Liz Cheney Warns Critics Of Jan. 6 Investigation Exactly What To Expect

Lee Moran – February 11, 2022

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Thursday took a defiant stand against Republican critics of the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot.

“Those who do not wish the truth of Jan. 6 to come out have predictably resorted to attacking the process — claiming it is tainted and political,” Cheney wrote in a scathing Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “The Jan. 6 Committee Won’t Be Intimidated.’”

“Our hearings will show this charge to be wrong,” Cheney said. “We are focused on facts, not rhetoric, and we will present those facts without exaggeration, no matter what criticism we face.”

Read Cheney’s column in the WSJ here.

Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) last week were censured by the Republican National Committee for sitting on the committee. The party sanction, which also declared the Jan. 6 violence “legitimate political discourse,” was even rebuked by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Daily Kos

‘Freedom Convoy’ deploys kids as human shields, and Ontario has finally had enough of this show

Mark Summer, Daily Kos Staff – February 11, 2022

As protests in Canada extend into the third weekend, the situation is becoming ever more serious. Not only are the organizers of the “Freedom Convoy” targeting U.S.-Canadian border crossings and airports to maximize the level of disruption, but they’ve also deployed their own small children as human shields, risking toddlers in an effort to cause more damage and evade punishment.

As BBC News reports, officials in the province of Ontario have had enough. A state of emergency has been declared, making blocking critical infrastructure subject to arrest, a fine of up to $100,000, and the possibility of a year in jail. Trucks used to blockade access to bridges, airports, and border crossings can be seized, held, and sold at auction. 

“There will be consequences, and they will be severe,” said Ontario Premier Doug Ford. “To those who have attempted to disrupt our way of life by targeting our lifeline for food, fuel, and goods across our borders, to those trying to force a political agenda through disruption, intimidation, and chaos, my message to you is this: Your right to make a political statement does not outweigh the right of hundreds of thousands of workers to earn their living.” 

The cost of the blockades so far has been estimated at $300 million a day.

Ford is a member of Canada’s Conservative Party, and has been an opponent of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. However, unlike Republicans in the U.S. and authoritarians overseas, who have been able to promote and fund the chaos from a distance, Ford is seeing the damage caused by the blockade close up. He isn’t finding it funny.

In addition to fines and imprisonment, Ford also intends to push for rules that will give the province authority to seize both personal and commercial driving licenses from truckers involved in the protest. Ford doesn’t mention any punishment for those who positioned their toddlers to block a major highway. Information on the situation has been forwarded to the Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa. This comes after many people have expressed concern about kids being brought along during the protest and living in unsafe conditions for a period extending into weeks.

Both the protesters and U.S. conservatives rushing to pile on are blaming COVID-19 restrictions in Canada on Trudeau. However, almost all of these restrictions exist only at the provincial level, where both Liberal and Conservative leaders, including Ford, had set out rules on masks and vaccines to meet varying levels of community spread. Most of these restrictions have already been lifted—though the “convoy” and their U.S. supporters continue to pretend otherwise.

As the Associated Press reported on Friday, representatives from President Joe Biden spoke with Trudeau’s government on Thursday and urged federal action to end the truck blockade. Those calls came after several auto plants and other manufacturers in the U.S. were forced to skip shifts or close plants due to a lack of parts coming in from Canadian suppliers. 

Plants from Ford, GM, Stellantis, Honda, and Toyota have all been idled. Not only does this mean hundreds of thousands of workers going without pay due to the action of a small number of people along the border, but it’s also exacerbating a continued shortage of new cars. That shortage, caused by supply chain issues including an international shortage of microcontroller chips, was the single largest factor in inflation for 2021, with increasing vehicle prices alone accounting for 2.1% of rising costs. The additional disruption caused by intentional blocking of border crossing can be expected to make these shortages worse.

With the support of Fox News, including lavish attention from pundit Tucker Carlson, a group of U.S. truckers has announced their (vague) intentions to imitate the Canadian protest, with a cross-country “slow roll” designed to make it to Washington D.C. in time to muck up the State of the Union address. Other groups have promised to recreate the action in Europe, with a series of actions that would center on Paris. That has prompted officials across Europe to pass preemptive bans on road blockades that feature both serious prison sentences and heavy fines. 

In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security has sent out a warning to state law enforcement agencies with reports of the proposed U.S. action and the potential for roads to be blocked in major cities. 

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NEWS PROVIDED BY – International Brotherhood of Teamsters

February 10, 2022

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WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The following is the official statement of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa regarding the ongoing blockade by the Freedom Convoy protest at the United States-Canada border.

“The Teamsters Union denounces the ongoing Freedom Convoy protest at the Canadian border that continues to hurt workers and negatively impact our economy. The livelihood of working Americans and Canadians in the automotive, agricultural, and manufacturing sectors is threatened by this blockade.

“Our economy is growing under the Biden Administration, and this disruption in international trade threatens to derail the gains we have made. Our members are some of the hardest workers in the country and are being prevented from doing their jobs. The Teamsters call on the organizers of this action to end this protest and instead, engage in meaningful political discourse with the Canadian government to find a solution.”

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and “like” us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.

Trump’s mishandling of classified docs just got tougher to defend

Trump can’t claim he didn’t know he was improperly taking classified materials if they were clearly marked as “top secret.”

By Steve Benen – February 11, 2022

As the public learned this week about Donald Trump “improperly removing” White House documents, the former president’s aides characterized the records as largely trivial. The Republican’s team told The Washington Post that the items that found their way to Mar-a-Lago “included correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which Trump once described as ‘love letters,’ as well as a letter left for Trump by President Barack Obama.”

The explanation wasn’t especially credible at the time, and soon after, it started unraveling. For one thing, the controversy wasn’t about a handful of records; it was about 15 boxes filled with documents Trump wasn’t supposed to take. For another, the materials weren’t just harmless keepsakes; they reportedly included sensitive records believed to be classified.

But, the former president’s allies might argue, perhaps Trump didn’t know the documents included classified information. Wouldn’t that make this a bit less controversial? Perhaps, but the latest Washington Post report makes the defense very difficult to believe.

Some of the White House documents that Donald Trump improperly took to his Mar-a-Lago residence were clearly marked as classified, including documents at the “top secret” level, according to two people familiar with the matter. The existence of clearly marked classified documents in the trove — which has not previously been reported — is likely to intensify the legal pressure that Trump or his staffers could face, and raises new questions about why the materials were taken out of the White House.

Though we don’t yet know exactly how many of these documents Trump took with him after leaving office, the reporting added, some of the materials “bore markings that the information was extremely sensitive and would be limited to a small group of officials with authority to view such highly classified information.”

The reporting has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.

As for the “top secret” designation, the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office notes that the classification is applied to information where unauthorized disclosure “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.”

In other words, the former president stands accused of improperly taking highly sensitive secrets — which were clearly marked as classified — to his Florida golf club, indifferent to the national security risks he was creating.

Perhaps, Trump’s allies might claim, this wasn’t too great a risk because Mar-a-Lago is a secure, private venue. That would be a nice try, but it would also be wrong: Politico reported during the first year of Trump’s term, “The president’s semi-public Florida retreat doesn’t follow the same strict background check protocol as the White House, creating an espionage risk.” Two months later, Pro Publica ran a related piece with an ominous headline: “Any Half-Decent Hacker Could Break Into Mar-a-Lago.”

Security questions lingered throughout the Republican’s tenure, a four-year period in which Trump was routinely reckless with our national security secrets.

Is it any wonder why the National Archives has referred all of this to the Justice Department as a possible criminal matter?

By way of a defense, Trump issued a written statement yesterday that seemed to compare his alleged mishandling of White House documents to Hillary Clinton’s emails. Putting aside the weak attempts at whataboutism, the former president may not have thought this through: Is he saying his actions are comparable to those of a woman he believes should be incarcerated?

Has Trump been reduced to effectively saying, “Clinton was a criminal, and what I did is analogous to what she did?”Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics.”

MSNBC

Canada’s ‘nationwide insurrection’ is bringing together an unlikely and alarming alliance

Around the world, far right activists are watching what’s happening in Canada with fantasies of similar resistance in their own countries.

Cynthia Miller – Idriss, MSNBC Opinion Columnist – February 9, 2022

People gather in protest against Covid mandates and restrictions taking place in Ottawa, in Edmonton, Alberta, Feb. 5.Jason Franson / The Canadian Press via AP

The mayor of Ottawa, Ontario, declared a state of emergency this week, describing the spiraling chaos of protests by the so-called Freedom Convoy truckers against a vaccine mandate as “completely out of control.” The 12-day siege has overwhelmed police and frustrated city residents, with dozens of big-rig trucks blocking roads and honking horns and thousands of other protesters blaring air sirens, setting off fireworks and harassing mask-wearing pedestrians. The Ottawa police described it as a “nationwide insurrection.

About 90 percent of Canadian truckers are already vaccinated, which means these protests are less about vaccinations than the concept of mandates themselves.

We should expect more of this in the years to come — in North America and across the world, where the protests have already galvanized the far right.

It has been nearly two weeks since the truckers descended on the Ottawa neighborhood surrounding the Canadian Parliament. But in the days since, the protests themselves have ballooned into broader anti-government opposition, with a reported 5,000 protesters in the streets, including some who allegedly are promoting vaccine disinformation and conspiracy theories and engaging in criminal activity. Some protesters reportedly carried swastika flags, while others wore white supremacist extremist logos. An apparent arson attempt in a nearby apartment building is under investigation. A hotline for hate-motivated crimes has received over 200 calls.

The vast majority — about 90 percent — of Canadian truckers are already vaccinated, which means these protests are less about vaccinations than the concept of mandates themselves. The protests coalesced after the new Canadian policy requiring Canadian truckers crossing the U.S.-Canada border to be vaccinated or quarantine for 14 days took effect Jan. 15. The focus of the protests is on “freedom” and “political overreach,” but the protests have also been used to stoke fear about supply chain disruptions and other shortages. The Canadian Trucking Alliance has disavowed the drivers involved in the protests.

What began as an occupational protest about cross-border vaccine mandates quickly grabbed the attention of the far right globally, becoming a “magnet for far-right grievances” and anti-establishment beliefs that are much broader than the original truckers’ anger. U.S. Republican politicians and conservative political commentators have voiced support for the protests, broadening their reach and amplifying videos of the protests on social media. Facebook and Telegram groups of supporters now boast hundreds of thousands of followers globally.

A hotline for hate-motivated crimes has received over 200 calls.

Global support has been consequential. Canadian officials reported that a “significant” number of protesters are coming from the U.S. and that financial support is coming from across the border. A fundraising campaign raised over $8 million in donations on the crowdsourcing site GoFundMe before the site shut it down due to violations of terms of service after the protests ceased being a “peaceful demonstration,” and the site offered to reimburse donors. A Christian fundraising site immediately took up the cause, raising over $5 million within a few days, at twice the speed of the original fundraiser, as the financial crime analyst Jessica Davis reported.

Above all, the protests show clearly that a single issue — such as anger at vaccine mandates — has the power to rapidly mobilize support across the mainstream as well as from the extremist fringe, in ways that local communities, including key targets like state and national capitals, are not prepared for. The response in Ottawa has reflected this struggle, with the cost of policing the protests alone running $800,000 per day, not including overtime costs. Police have worked to disrupt the supply lines of food and fuel to protesters, promised arrests of anyone offering material support and issued hundreds of tickets for disruptive behavior and criminal violations. After 11 days of noise, a resident won a court injunction that silenced the constant air sirens and honking.

Like the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the trucker protests show how anti-government anger has the power to rapidly draw together individuals and ignite the fringe with the mainstream. What’s happening in Ottawa reflects the same kind of lowest common denominator mobilization that brought groups across the conservative and far-right spectrum together to try to stop the U.S. presidential election vote count. In these situations, groups that are normally not ideologically aligned — conspiracy theorists, unlawful militias, anti-vaccine advocates, white supremacist extremists, anti-government extremists and others — join forces with more ordinary voters and protesters in potentially combustive and dangerous ways.

We should all be ready for similar kinds of protests to coalesce globally. Around the world, far-right activists are watching what’s happening in Canada with fantasies of similar resistance in their own countries. Already, a convoy of truckers in the U.S. has announced plans for a similar convoy to head to Washington, D.C., next month.

Organizers planning peaceful protests should prepare to be co-opted by violent extremists, conspiracy theorists and others who pose a danger to the public. A Facebook group set up to organize the purported convoy to Washington reached 100,000 members before Meta shut it down for repeatedly violating policies related to QAnon — prompting the organizers to deny any affiliation with QAnon.

Anti-government and Covid-related protesters — some of whom are stoked by propaganda, disinformation and conspiracy theories — have seized on every opportunity to disrupt and attack new targets, from school board officials and teachers to health care workers and elected officials. The truckers’ protest in Ottawa is one more sign of the creative — and destructive — turns these movements are taking.

More From MSNBC

State of emergency declared in Ottawa amid anti-vaccine mandate protest

Ottawa police target funding, fuel in bid to end Covid mandate blockade

Yahoo! News

Statewide redistricting battles could give Democrats an edge in House races

Christopher Wilson, Senior Writer – February 10, 2022

The newest round of congressional map-drawing may turn out not to be the doomsday some predicted for Democrats, but the legislators who do end up in Washington this decade could be more partisan than their predecessors.

With Republicans holding on to a number of state governments, some analysts believed the decennial process of creating congressional maps could result in the GOP taking control of the House of Representatives through the process of gerrymandering — the term used to define partisan redistricting — alone. The centuries-old process of drawing maps that either contained or split apart certain groups of voters was employed in many states by Republicans after their success in the 2010 midterms.

With Republican control over the redistricting process in a number of key states, the sense was the maps might get even more tilted.

That hasn’t turned out to be the case. While a number of court battles are still pending, some projections have shown that Democrats may end up with a narrow advantage in likely House seats when all the maps are final.

The potential shift comes from a number of factors, including Republican strategies in map drawing, court decisions, maps drawn by nonpartisan commissions, Democrats becoming more aggressive in larger states where they have control and the GOP already maximizing its advantages in some areas.

Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, told Yahoo News that one of the key factors was Republicans choosing to play defense with established districts.

In Texas, for example, the old map had 11 districts that Donald Trump won by 15 or more points. The new map has 24 such districts out of 27 total seats projected to go Republican, in many instances combining suburban areas with nearby rural areas that are more conservative. In exchange, some Democrats who were in swing seats now find themselves representing districts that Joe Biden won comfortably.

“Republicans, by and large, have chosen to shore up existing gerrymanders and make districts ultra-safe,” Li said. ”They didn’t go out and target Democrats, they didn’t try to take out Democratic incumbents. They said, ‘We’re going to keep the seats that we have, but we’re going to make them safer.’”

In Michigan, where voters approved an independent redistricting commission via ballot initiative in 2018, the previous gerrymander was unwound under the new process. The Ohio Supreme Court, meanwhile, rejected a GOP-drawn gerrymander, citing the wishes of voters who had also approved changes in the process via ballot initiative.

Courts also intervened in states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where the GOP had less room to add seats due to previous gerrymanders that had already given them advantageous maps. In most states without a nonpartisan redistricting commission, new maps are drawn after the census every 10 years by the state legislature.

“There was such an extreme advantage for Republicans in 2010, which is actually the reason I got interested in redistricting in the first place, learning what an extreme distortion could happen back then,” said Sam Wang, who runs the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and predicted last May that Democrats would likely fare well in the redistricting process.

“Just statistically, it couldn’t be as bad as [2010], because that was such an extreme.”

Attempting to go through the judicial system has not been a complete success for those seeking less partisan line-drawing. Earlier this week, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a ruling that would have forced Alabama Republicans to draw a second majority Black district in the state.

The court’s new 6-3 conservative makeup makes it likely similar protections could be eliminated there, even with Chief Justice John Roberts — who was among the majority that ruled to begin gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013 — siding with the three remaining liberals on the Alabama case. The other five conservative justices, however, all sided against forcing the state to draw a second Black-majority district.

Another major reason for the swing toward Democrats is their aggressive gerrymandering in the two largest states where the party controls the process: New York and Illinois. (California, with its 52 seats, Is among the states where redistricting is conducted by an independent commission.) Unlike a decade ago, New York Democrats have unified control of the state legislature in Albany, leading to a map that gives them an edge in 22 of the state’s 26 districts, versus 19 of 27 under the old map after the state lost a seat in the census. The map is currently being challenged in court.

Although the GOP is usually much more in favor of partisan gerrymandering over independent commissions, former President Trump decried the Democrats’ New York map.

“Republicans are getting absolutely creamed with the phony redistricting going on all over the Country,” Trump said in a statement last week. “Even the Fake New York Times is having a hard time believing how ridiculous things have gotten. We were expecting to do well in New York and now, we’ll lose 4 seats and the Old Broken-Down Crow, Mitch McConnell, sits back and does nothing to help the Party.”

Despite Trump’s statement, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has no formal role in determining how state-level congressional districts are drawn, although he could in theory push for legislation that would ban partisan gerrymandering. The new maps do not affect U.S. Senate seats.

While Republicans have vented their frustrations about the New York map, they have not worked with Democrats on federal legislation that would prevent such practices.

“All the Republicans complaining about these maps in Congress, they voted against the Freedom to Vote: John Lewis Act which would have banned partisan gerrymandering and struck down the New York map almost instantly,” Li said.

While Democrats’ baseline of seats may be higher than anticipated, their potential for growth is limited in many areas. Li noted that Democrats are essentially locked into 37 percent of the seats in Texas, up from just 36 percent in the last map. This is despite President Biden winning 46 percent of Texas voters in 2020 and Democrat Beto O’Rourke winning 48 percent in his 2018 Senate campaign.

Li added that some of the districts drawn by Democrats where Biden won by six or seven points are reliant on the current coalition of voters staying together. In other words, Republicans have a shot at these seats if they earn back suburban votes or make strides with minority communities, especially in a “wave year” in which the GOP racks up wins outside traditionally red areas like in 2010.

“There are a bunch of Biden districts in Virginia that Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin won in 2021,” Li said.

“If every election in the future plays out like Trump-Biden 2020, this is not so bad for Democrats, but Democrats are playing a big bet that there won’t be changes in the electorate. … They may be right, but as we saw from Virginia that coalition may not hang together.”

Kyle Kondik, managing editor for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball and author of The Long Red Thread, agreed that Democrats have perhaps spread themselves too thin for some states in 2022, pointing to Nevada as a key state to watch.

“The thing about the maps this year is that in all likelihood because of the challenging political environment for Democrats and the history for the president’s party in midterms the democratic maps are going to be stress-tested right away, whereas Republican maps are going to be stress-tested later in the decade if they have a challenging political environment,” Kondik said.

Regardless of who ends up controlling Congress in the terms to come, the likelihood of representatives holding more radical views is rising as general elections become safer and safer. When many districts are drawn so incumbents of both parties can expect to win by big margins, and partisan primaries are the only truly competitive contests, candidates tend to be less moderate because they’re looking to win over more extreme voters.

“Sometimes people tend to think about gerrymanders as being, ‘Oh, we’re dating a bunch of seats,’ which certainly does happen,” Li said. “But another form of gerrymandering is just taking competition off the table. You have these really wild suburban rural districts, which could very well produce a more extreme Republican caucus.”

Kondik noted that seats that might not be competitive in 2022 could move into that category later in the decade.

“There have always been a lot of pretty uncompetitive seats, and certainly we’ve seen some big swings in the House in recent years. I don’t think these maps are going to preclude those sorts of big swings when you have a political environment that is changing and can be pretty strongly in favor of one side or the other in a given election year,” Kondik said.

Americans seeking reform that could lead to a more representative Congress are more likely to see success come at the state level. While extending the Voting Rights Act used to be a perfunctory bipartisan tradition, that has faded in recent years amid Republican opposition.

Last year, centrist Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., failed almost immediately in his attempt for a new voting rights bill that could earn 10 Republican votes. The problem is further exacerbated by the current conservative composition of the Supreme Court, which in 2019 ruled that partisan gerrymandering was beyond the court’s purview.

“For all the talk from people like Joe Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., about wanting to compromise, that will be increasingly hard in the House,” Li said. “I don’t think this is going to be a House eager to find common ground.”

Ballot initiatives approved by voters like the ones in Colorado and Michigan can lead to fairer lines being drawn in other states, creating more competitive districts. Some states are also experimenting with ranked-choice voting, in which voters list their candidates in order of preference, a process meant to encourage candidates to try to win over more moderates.

Maine and New York City have used the system in recent races, and this year Alaska will employ a version of it for the first time, potentially altering Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s reelection strategy as she faces a challenge from the right.

“Most questions of reform of democracy, at this point, have been out at the state level because the Supreme Court has basically abdicated its responsibility to level playing fields,” Wang said.

“It’s just basically state-by-state. Anybody who wants to better democracy is gonna have to get down there in the mud and sign their petition and all that stuff. Until we get a different Supreme Court, it’s the only route.”

Air Force Times

More US military jets turn to East Europe as possible Russian invasion of Ukraine looms

Rachel Cohen – February 11, 2022

The U.S. Air Force is building up its strike aircraft presence in Eastern Europe as the NATO alliance tries to prevent a potential Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine this month.

American officials reportedly believe Russia will attack Ukraine within the next two weeks, pinpointing Feb. 16 as the possible start of a physical assault.

About 6,000 troops have deployed from the U.S. to Europe, nearly all of whom are soldiers with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. They’re backed by a growing array of military aircraft and rapid-response airmen who can quickly make airfield space to launch combat operations from anywhere.

US Air Force ramps up intel flights, weapons shipments to Ukraine

American fighter jets stationed elsewhere on the continent have moved farther east, including squadrons from Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany and RAF Lakenheath in England. B-52 bombers also arrived at England’s RAF Fairford on Thursday for a previously planned European rotation, as airlifters continue to jump around the region.

“Collectively, this force is trained and equipped for a variety of missions to deter aggression and to reassure and defend European allies/partners,” U.S. European Command said Thursday. “To maintain a heightened state of readiness, the Department of Defense has also repositioned Europe-based units further east and forward-deployed additional U.S.-based units to Europe.”

F-16 Fighting Falcons headed to Romania on Friday “to reinforce regional security during the current tensions caused by Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine,” EUCOM said in a release the same day.

Air Force fighters will practice air-to-air combat maneuvers with other NATO member nations, the command said, looking to improve their ability to work together and communicate well in multinational air operations.

“The additional aircraft and crews will work closely with allies in the Black Sea region,” the command said. “U.S. fighter units will also support NATO’s enhanced air policing mission, working closely with the Italian Typhoons who have been safeguarding the skies since December 2021.”

NATO has sought to bolster stability and security in Europe through air policing and other measures after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.

The allied air policing initiative “demonstrates NATO’s solidarity, collective resolve and its ability to adapt and scale its defensive missions and deterrence posture” as military tensions grow in the region, EUCOM said.

3,000 more paratroopers head to Europe amid White House warnings of Ukraine invasion

American F-15 Eagles arrived at Poland’s Łask Air Base one day earlier with much the same mission.

Together with Polish and Danish F-16s, the jets from the 48th Fighter Wing in England will patrol the skies over the Baltics. Like the F-16s going to Romania, the Eagles will also train on air-to-air and air-to-ground combat tactics.

“U.S. fighters will work closely with Combined Air Operations Centre Uedem based in Germany,” EUCOM said on Thursday. “The CAOC is responsible for directing, tasking and coordinating air operations of allocated assets across northern Europe in peace, crisis and conflict.”

U.S. Air Forces in Europe previously noted that F-16s landed at Łask on Jan. 4 for air policing on NATO’s eastern flank as well.

Earlier this month, airmen with the 435th Contingency Response Group relocated from Germany’s Ramstein Air Base to Poland to prepare for a potential influx of Ukrainian evacuees if Russia invades. A photo posted to the Pentagon’s online image repository Feb. 4 showed C-130J Super Hercules aircraft getting ready to leave.

The group is the only American quick-deploying force in Europe that can build a makeshift airbase from which to launch operations anywhere on the continent.

“Approximately 150 personnel from the 435th Air Ground Operations Wing deployed to support NATO allies and partners, specializing in combat communications, air traffic control, cargo transportation and airfield management,” the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein said in a photo caption Tuesday.

Other air units are coming from farther afield.

B-52 Stratofortresses from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB, North Dakota, turned up in England on Thursday as another sign of solidarity. While they’ve arrived for a recurring deployment meant to fend off foreign aggressors — namely Russia — the bombers become part of a growing show of force in the area.

“With an ever-changing global security environment, it’s critical that our efforts with our allies and partners are unified,” said Gen. Jeff Harrigian, who oversees U.S. Air Force operations in Europe and Africa. “We’re in Europe training and collaborating together, because consistent integration is how we strengthen our collective airpower.”

Massive C-17 Globemaster III transport planes left the U.S. for Ukraine earlier in February, including from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington — one of four Air Force installations whose units were placed on alert last month for a possible deployment to eastern Europe.

Another of the four — Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio — hasn’t said whether its Reserve C-17 wing has deployed as well.

US military won’t rescue Americans caught in Russia-Ukraine war, White House warns

A third base on standby, Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, is home to the E-8C JSTARS aircraft tracking ground targets over Europe. Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, the fourth base, referred questions on whether its EC-130H Compass Call electronic attack planes and others are assisting in Ukraine to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.

Recent aircraft movements signal a departure from the Air Force’s earlier posture, which centered on reconnaissance missions monitoring the buildup of Russian troops along Ukraine’s borders.

On Wednesday, military plane-spotting hobbyist Amelia Smith pointed to U.S. Air Force RC-135V/W Rivet Joint planes, used for electronic eavesdropping, as well as a JSTARS jet among nearly two dozen military surveillance aircraft collecting intel over Europe. RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-9 Reaper drones have also been spotted on flight radars while gathering information over the region.

Continued, intense maritime surveillance of the Norwegian Sea by U.S. and Royal Air Force P-8A Poseidon jets, plus Canadian CP-140 Auroras, “suggests something of particular interest could be making its way down towards the North Sea,” Smith said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Dover AFB in Delaware has continued packing Javelin anti-tank missiles and other materiel onto aircraft bound for Ukraine.

Ukrainian defense attaché Maj. Gen. Borys Kremenetskyi and Oksana Markarova, the country’s ambassador to the U.S., watched the cargo file onto planes during a visit to Dover on Thursday. The U.S. has promised more than $5.4 billion in military and other aid to Ukraine since 2014.

“The cargo is part of the total $200 million aid agreed upon by U.S. President Joe Biden in connection with Russia’s growing threat,” the Ukrainian Embassy in the U.S. added on Facebook on Thursday.

“We express our gratitude to the United States for the unwavering support of Ukraine and strengthening the defense capacity of the Ukrainian army.”