June 11, 2023

Sunday, June 11, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Joe is always busy.

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NYS AG Letitia James sues abortion harassment group, Red Rose Rescue.

Attorney General James Sues Militant Anti-Abortion Group for Invading Clinics and Blocking Access to Reproductive Health Care.

NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James today filed a lawsuit against members of Red Rose Rescue, an anti-abortion extremist group, for invading reproductive health care clinics, threatening staff and clinicians, and terrorizing patients. Red Rose Rescue and its members — including Christopher “Fidelis” Moscinski, Matthew Connolly, William Goodman, Laura Gies, and John Hinshaw — have repeatedly trespassed at abortion clinics and physically blocked access to reproductive health care services in an effort to stop clinics from operating. Red Rose Rescue members have interfered with clinics in Nassau and Westchester Counties by lying to clinicians in order to gain access to the facilities under false pretenses, physically occupying waiting rooms and refusing to leave, and barricading entrances. At each of the New York clinics, multiple patients’ appointments were delayed or missed due to Red Rose Rescue’s actions.

Obstructing or interfering with access to reproductive health care clinics, including abortion clinics, is illegal under the United States Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) and the New York State Clinic Access Act. In the lawsuit filed today, Attorney General James seeks to prohibit Red Rose Rescue members from coming within 30 feet of any reproductive health care facility in New York state, in addition to civil penalties and damages.

“Red Rose Rescue has made it their mission to terrorize reproductive health care providers and the patients they serve,” said Attorney General James. “Only we have the right to make decisions about our own bodies — not anti-choice legislators, and not bigoted zealots. We will not allow Red Rose Rescue to harass and harangue New Yorkers with their outrageous militant tactics. Make no mistake: abortion is health care, and as New York’s Attorney General, I will continue to protect and defend everyone’s legal right to safely access health care.”

Red Rose Rescue is a radical anti-abortion group whose members seek to prevent abortions by trespassing into private medical facilities and clinics and refusing to leave until they are physically removed by law enforcement. Despite multiple convictions in New York and across the country, Red Rose Rescue continues to repeat their hateful, disruptive, and criminal misconduct, terrorizing reproductive health care providers and patients. In the past two years, Red Rose Rescue has delayed and interfered with the provision of reproductive health care services at three clinics in New York.(AG.NY.AG)

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Unanswered in Indictment’s Details on Trump’s Hoarding of Documents: Why?

For all the detailed evidence laid out in the 38-count indictment accusing former President Donald J. Trump of holding onto hundreds of classified documents and then obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them, one mystery remains: Why did he take them and fight so hard to keep them?

Mr. Trump’s motive for having thousands of presidential records — including more than 300 classified documents — at Mar-a-Lago, his combination residence and members-only club in Palm Beach, Fla., was not addressed directly in the 49-page indictment filed on Thursday in Miami. The charging document did not establish that Mr. Trump had a broader goal beyond simply possessing the material.

While finding a motive could certainly be useful for prosecutors should Mr. Trump end up at trial, it may not be necessary in proving the legal elements of the case against him. Nonetheless, why Mr. Trump held onto an extensive collection of highly confidential documents and then, prosecutors say, schemed to avoid returning them remains an unanswered question — even after nearly 15 months of investigation by the Justice Department.

The indictment did offer some hints.

It described how Mr. Trump, who views most everything in terms of leverage and often focuses on payback against perceived enemies, brandished a classified “plan of attack” against Iran at a meeting in July 2021 at Bedminster, his golf club in New Jersey, as a way to rebut what he perceived to be criticism from Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a recording of the meeting, Mr. Trump can be heard rustling paper and telling those around him that the document in question proved that he was right in his dispute with General Milley.

“This totally wins my case, you know,” he said.

In other instances in the indictment, an aide to Mr. Trump describes the materials he was carting around with him in the boxes as “his papers,” something he did while he was president, suggesting he was not ready to let go of the perks of holding the highest office in the country.

In a similar fashion, the indictment depicts Mr. Trump as trying to stop a lawyer he hired to help him search Mar-a-Lago for any classified material still in his possession from actually going through the records he kept at the property.

“I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes,” Mr. Trump is quoted as saying, expressing a kind of personal ownership over the material. “I really don’t.”

His sense of personal ownership was so pervasive that his aides, in text messages included in the indictment, were plainly anxious about moving them too far away from him.

Several former aides and advisers to Mr. Trump have long made the argument that he simply kept the sensitive records because he saw them as “mine,” and because he likes acquiring trophies that he can show off, whatever form those trophies may take.

When he was a businessman showing off as a playboy in Manhattan, Mr. Trump tried to be seen with attractive women. He bought the Plaza Hotel and called it a “toy” for his wife at the time, Ivana.

He collected high-end trinkets to brandish for visitors to his 26th-floor office, like the basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s giant sneaker, which lay with a pile of other items.

He treated the nation’s secrets similarly while in office. Mr. Trump shared highly classified intelligence during an Oval Office meeting in 2017 with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister. He posted a classified photo on Twitter in 2019 of a failed Iranian rocket launch, telling senior aides who wanted to remove the classification markings that that was the “sexy part.”

During their investigation of the case, prosecutors working for the special counsel Jack Smith took steps that indicated they were hunting for a motive.

For instance, they subpoenaed information about business dealings that Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, had with seven foreign countries from the time his presidency began in 2017, appearing to try to determine whether any of the documents could have been used to aid his ventures abroad. But there was no reference in the indictment to Mr. Trump using the documents for business deals.

Late last year, as public reports made clear that prosecutors believed Mr. Trump still had classified material in his possession, one of Mr. Trump’s friends-turned-adversaries, Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, offered a simple explanation.

“I think it’s much more likely they’re a trophy that he walks around and says, look, I’ve got this,” Mr. Christie, who is now campaigning for president against Mr. Trump in the Republican primary, told ABC News. “I’ve got this classified document or that, because remember something: He can’t believe he’s not president.”

Mr. Christie went on, “He can’t believe he still doesn’t get these documents, and he needs to display to everybody down at Mar-a-Lago or up in Bedminster during the summer he still has some of those trappings.”

He suggested it was why Mr. Trump had a reproduction of the Oval Office Resolute Desk put into his office at Mar-a-Lago.

“All the rest of those things are things that are assuaging, you know, his disappointment and his disbelief that he’s not the president anymore,” he said. (New York Times).

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Tonight. The Tony Awards.

How to Watch the Tony Awards.

When are the Tony Awards? We’re so glad you asked!

The Tony Awards, which each year honor the best plays and musicals staged on Broadway, are Sunday night.

The main event, with lots of song-and-dance numbers between the prizes, is at 8 p.m. Eastern, and will be televised on CBS and streamed on Paramount+. And before that, starting at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, is a preshow at which a number of awards for creative work, such as design, will be handed out. That will stream on Pluto TV.

This year is going to be different from the usual in several ways.

First, the ceremony will take place in a new location: the United Palace, a former movie house in Washington Heights, which is one of Manhattan’s northernmost neighborhoods. The reasons for the move are predominantly financial; the United Palace proved much less expensive to rent than Radio City Music Hall, where the show often takes place.

The 76th Tony Awards

The annual ceremony, honoring Broadway plays and musicals, will take place June 11 at the United Palace in Washington Heights.

• Heading Uptown: The former “Wonder Theater” will provide the backdrop for Broadway’s biggest night. Step inside the majestic venue.

• On Stage: Each year we photograph Tony nominees and talk with them about their craft. This year we focused on actors.

• Broadway Dance: This year’s Tony nominees for best choreographer reflect a variety of theatrical dance styles. Our critics weigh in on what that may mean for the future of theatrical choreography.

• Stage Secrets: A few Tony-nominated shows let us peek behind the metaphorical curtain, exploring how they came up with some of the sensational stagecraft that pulled off this season.

Second, screenwriters are on strike, and that strike initially threatened to disrupt the Tonys as it has disrupted other televised awards shows. In order to secure an agreement from the Writers Guild of America not to picket the telecast, the Tony Awards had to pledge not to use any scripted writing during the awards ceremony. The result is that there will be more singing, and less talking, than in normal years.

Who’s hosting?

The broadcast will be hosted for a second consecutive year by Ariana DeBose, who this year, because of the absence of writers, is expected to dance more and to make fewer jokes. She won an Academy Award last year for her performance in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake, and she was nominated for a Tony Award in 2018 as one of three actresses playing Donna Summer in the jukebox musical “Summer.” This year’s Tonys preshow will be hosted by Julianne Hough (“POTUS”) and Skylar Astin (“Spring Awakening”).

Who’s performing?

Each of the five shows nominated for best musical will do a song — that’s “& Juliet,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “New York, New York,” “Shucked” and “Some Like It Hot.” And all four shows nominated for best musical revival will also perform — that’s “Camelot,” “Into the Woods,” “Parade” and “Sweeney Todd.”

But wait, there’s more! Lea Michele is going to lead a number from the revival of “Funny Girl” that opened a year ago. The cast of “A Beautiful Noise,” a jukebox musical about Neil Diamond, will also perform. And Joaquina Kalukango, one of last year’s Tony winners, will sing a song to accompany the In Memoriam segment.

Why do the Tonys matter?

Broadway is still struggling to recover from the lengthy coronavirus shutdown — attendance remains 17 percent below prepandemic levels — and producers view the Tony Awards as an important way to introduce a large audience to the newest shows.

Also, the Tonys are a way to lift up theater as an art form, often boosting the careers of the artists involved. Wins and nominations help plays get staged at regional theaters and taught in colleges, and telecast performances help musicals sell tickets and tour.

The Tony Awards, named for the actress and philanthropist Antoinette Perry, are presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing. The winners are chosen by voters — there are 769 of them this year — who are mostly industry insiders: producers, investors, actors, writers, directors, designers and many others with theater-connected lives and livelihoods. (New York Times).

This Sunday’s ceremony will be the 76th Tony Awards.

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