May 24, 2023

Wednesday, May 24, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

To read an article excerpted in this Roundup, click on its blue title. Each “blue” article is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

Please feel free to share.

Invite at least one other person to subscribe today! buttondown.email/AnnettesNewsRoundup

_______________________________

Uvalde, Texas.

Today marks one year since a shooter killed 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school—the deadliest school shooting since the one at Sandy Hook a decade prior.

_______________________________

Joe is always busy.

Biden seals 3 deals in Pacific islands as U.S. competes with China.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken (L) at the signing ceremony with Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape (C) and Defence Minister Win Bakri Daki.

---

A U.S. diplomatic offensive to counter China's growing clout in the Pacific Islands appears to be paying dividends, with three agreements sealed within 48 hours.

The big picture: The Biden administration has focused far more attention on the Pacific islands — new embassies, more aid, several high-level visits — since a security pact between China and the Solomon Islands spooked Washington last year.

• The recent agreements with Papua New Guinea (PNG), Palau and Micronesia underscore that, for now, "it's still a heavily U.S.-leaning region," says Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.

Driving the news: Secretary of State Tony Blinken and PNG Prime Minister James Marape signed a security pact Monday under which the U.S. will provide training and funding to help PNG's military respond to threats like drug trafficking and natural disasters.

• President Biden intended to sign it himself in what would have been the first U.S. presidential visit to a Pacific Islands country, but he flew home from the G7 summit in Japan to deal with the debt ceiling crisis instead.

Between the lines: The U.S.-PNG agreement hasn't been published, but it's expected to give the U.S. military conditional access to bases, ports and airports in the country.

• Ahead of the signing, student protesters and rival politicians in PNG accusedMarape of sacrificing sovereignty and putting the country at the center of U.S.-China rivalry.

• Marape pushed back, arguing that the agreement will strengthen PNG's defenses and won't stop the country from doing business with China, which has developed roads and other infrastructure projects in the country in recent years.

• Beijing's Foreign Ministry didn't directly object to the deal but said Beijing opposes the "introduction of any geopolitical games" in the region.

This is virtually a mirror image from one year ago, when China signed an opaque security pact with the Solomon Islands.

• That agreement "kind of let the genie out of the bottle," says Grossman, with China trying to replicate it elsewhere, so far unsuccessfully, and the U.S. negotiating its own deal with PNG.

• Even if competition with China is driving the U.S. into the region, the Biden administration knows it has to address local concerns — climate change, protecting fisheries, sustainable development — to make real inroads, says Charles Edel, Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

• Countries in the region, meanwhile, face the challenge of capitalizing on competition between the superpowers without being burned by it.

Blinken oversaw another signing ceremony on Monday as Palau extended its Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the U.S. for another 20 years. Micronesia will follow suit tomorrow.

• A third agreement, with the Marshall Islands, is expected later this year, though talks are ongoing about compensation for those affected by U.S. nuclear testing in the islands in the 1940s and 1950s.

• The U.S. covers large chunks of the three countries' budgets, provides for their defense, and allows their citizens to live and work freely in the U.S. In return, the U.S. military gets unfettered access to a swath of the Pacific larger than the continental U.S.

Flashback: In an extraordinary letter last year, then-Micronesia President David Panuelo accused Chinese officials of bribery and intimidation and warned that Beijing wanted to dominate the region. Beijing denied the claims.

• The incident underscored the trust gap Beijing faces in some regional countries, Grossman says, though China has made inroads in Kiribati in addition to the Solomon Islands.

What to watch: The level of attention being paid to Pacific island countries may seem surprising given their tiny populations and economies.

• Many Americans may have only heard of countries like the Solomon Islands because of major battles fought on their territory between the U.S. and Japan. But with fears rising of a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan or in the South China Sea, that history provides some sense of the region's strategic significance.

• "This is all about planning for the future," says Grossman. "If the balloon goes up, who's got friends in the region to allow for military access?" (Axios).

Biden nominates Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh to lead NSA, Cyber Command.

President Joe Biden has nominated U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, the No. 2 at U.S. Cyber Command, to serve as the new head of both U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, according to an Air Force notice sent out on Monday.

The notice, which POLITICO obtained, is titled “General Officer Nomination” and announces that the president has nominated Haugh to the Senate for promotion to four-star general and assignment in the dual-hatted role as NSA director and CyberCom chief.

The decision was confirmed by an Air Force official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the move ahead of a public announcement.

If confirmed, Haugh, who currently serves as the deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, will replace the current NSA chief and U.S. Cyber Command leader Gen. Paul Nakasone, who has served in those roles since 2018. Nakasone is planning to step down sometime this year.

Haugh had been generally expected to get the nod. (Politico).

_______________________________

Just because you should know.

_______________________________

Paid leave in Minnesota.

_______________________________

Lawsuits in Florida.

Florida sued over law banning minors from drag performances.

The restaurant chain Hamburger Mary’s is suing Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida over its recently enacted ban on minors attending drag performances, claiming that the state is depriving it of its First Amendment right of free expression.

The suit, filed in federal court in central Florida, alleges that the law the governor signed into law Wednesday is so broad that it has “a chilling effect on protected speech.”

At issue is a measure the Republican-led Legislature approved in April that bars minors from attending drag shows with “lewd” performances. The governor has personally called for tighter restrictions around such shows, which he says “sexualize” children.

Hamburger Mary’s also asked a judge to grant a temporary restraining order to halt the state from implementing the law.

The DeSantis administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Politico).

Chinese citizens sue Florida over law barring them from owning houses.

A group of Chinese citizens who live and work in Florida are suing the state over a new property law that threatens to restrict some people from China and a handful of other countries from purchasing homes and land in the state.

The plaintiffs allege that the law, SB 264, is discriminatory and that it stokes racial biases against Chinese Americans and undermines their financial freedom. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law and it is set to go into effect on July 1.

DeSantis, who is expected to announce a bid for president soon, has said the law will protect Florida from China’s Communist Party, a common target for Republicans.

It bars Chinese citizens who are not United States citizens from purchasing homes in Florida, with few exceptions. It imposes similar but less stringent restrictions on citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia and North Korea.

“Asian immigrants are part of Florida’s fabric. For hundreds of years, they have contributed to our communities and have made this state their home,” said Daniel Tilley, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which is representing the plaintiffs.

“The discriminatory policies pushed by the DeSantis administration will not go unchecked,” he said.

DeSantis, who is expected to announce a bid for president soon, has said the law will protect Florida from China’s Communist Party, a common target for Republicans.

The ACLU, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and a Florida law firm, which are all representing the plaintiffs, say that the law would cast “an undue burden of suspicion” on anyone trying to buy a house as long as their “name sounds remotely Asian.”

“This misguided rationale unfairly equates Chinese people with the actions of their government, and there is no evidence of national security harm resulting from real estate ownership by Chinese people in Florida,” the ACLU said in a news release.

State governments have introduced more than a dozen similar pieces of legislation in recent months. Florida’s would be the first to be enacted into law. (Politico).

___

Another Travel Advisory for Florida. More banned books too.

Largest US gay rights group issues Florida travel advisory for anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The largest LGBTQ+ rights organization in the U.S. joined other civil rights organizations Tuesday in issuing a travel advisory for Florida, warning that newly passed laws and policies may pose risks to minorities, immigrants and gay travelers.

The Human Rights Campaign joined the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Florida Immigrant Coalition and Equality Florida in issuing travel or relocation warnings for the Sunshine State, one of the most popular states for tourists to visit in the U.S.

While the LGBTQ+ advocacy group said it wasn’t calling for a boycott or making a blanket recommendation against visiting Florida, it said it wanted to highlight new laws passed by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature that they said are hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, restrict abortion access and allow Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a permit. (Associated Press).

_______________________________

Harlan Crow refuses to cooperate with the Senate Judiciary Committee.

His lawyers deny the Committee’s right to impose ethic rules on the Supreme Court.

Representative Ted Lieu of California wrote this of the Harlan Crow lawyers’ letter - This letter by Harlan Crow’s attorneys is dumb. Congress has the authority to investigate the executive branch. Of course Congress has the authority to investigate the judicial branch.

Personally, I wonder if Justice Thomas assisted this letter writing.

______________________________

Detainees currently held by Russia.

Russian court extends detention of Evan Gershkovich to August.

A Moscow court has extended the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested on espionage charges at the end of March.

During a brief hearing on Tuesday, the court ordered that Gershkovich should remain in jail until 30 August, Russian news agencies reported. His pre-trial detention had initially been scheduled to expire next week. He is being held in the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow, and could face a sentence of up to 20 years if found guilty.

The case is still in the stage of investigation, with no date set for a trial. Tuesday’s hearing was closed to the public.

Gershkovich, 31, is the first American journalist to be detained in Russia on spying charges since the end of the cold war. He was detained in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg while on a reporting trip at the end of March.

Russia’s FSB security service has claimed he was collecting state secrets about the country’s military-industrial complex. Gershkovich and the Wall Street Journal have denied the charges, and the US state department has designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained”.

An open letter to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, signed by more than 300 foreign correspondents who previously worked in Russia, said: “We have no doubt that the only purpose and intention of his work was to inform his readers about the current reality in Russia.”

Last month the US president, Joe Biden, praised the “absolute courage” of Gershkovich and said he was “working like hell” to secure his release.

It has been widely speculated that Russia arrested Gershkovich with the hope of trading him for Russian intelligence officers or other people of interest to Moscow arrested in western countries, but so far there appears to have been little progress in discussions over a possible exchange.

Last month, media were briefly allowed into court before a hearing in which Gershkovich appeared standing in a glass enclosure typical of Russian courtrooms. Marks, apparently from handcuffs, were visible on his wrists.

His parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, who fled the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and settled in the US, were reportedly in Moscow on Tuesday for the court hearing.

“I want to say that I am not losing hope,” Gershkovich wrote in a letter to his parents from jail last month. “I read. I exercise. And I am trying to write.” (The Guardian).

Paul Whelan, wrongfully detained in Russia, says he thinks "the wheels are turning" toward release.

Washington — Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen who is wrongfully detained in Russia, is worried he could be left behind again, but said he's confident "the wheels are turning" toward his release. 

"I remain positive and confident on a daily basis that the wheels are turning. I just wish they would turn a little bit more quickly," Whelan told CNN in a phone interview on Sunday. 

Whelan is imprisoned in Mordovia and serving a 16-year sentence on espionage charges, which the U.S. denies. He's been detained in Russia since December 2018 and has watched as the U.S. made two prisoner swaps for the release of professional basketball star Brittney Griner and Marine veteran Trevor Reed, who were both wrongfully detained in Russia after Whelan's arrest.

Russia has since detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who the U.S. has determined is also wrongfully detained, on espionage charges. 

The Whelan family has expressed concern that the White House and State Department are diverting resources away from his case, and fear that he could be left behind again as the U.S. seeks the release of Gershkovich. 

"That's an extreme worry for me and my family," Whelan told CNN. 

But Whelan said he now has more confidence in the efforts to get him home than he did months ago. 

"I have been told that I won't be left behind, and I have been told that although Evan's case is a priority, mine is also a priority, and people are cognizant of the fact that this is having an extremely negative impact on me and my family," Whelan said. "And I'm told that the government is working tirelessly to get me out of here and to get me home so they can then focus effort on Evan and his case." 

"I feel that my life shouldn't be considered less valuable or important than others who have been previously traded," he added. "And I think there are people in D.C. that feel the same way, and they're moving towards a compromise and resolution to this as quickly as they can.

Whelan's seemed more optimistic in his comments to CNN than when his family shared an update on his well-being after Gershkovich was detained. His family said in April that Whelan's "resilience is shaken" and he "seems rattled like never before" as he feared a deal would be made for Gershkovich's release that did not include him.  

He partly attributed his renewed confidence to  President Biden's speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last month, in which Mr. Biden said he was working to secure the release of wrongfully detained Americans, including Whelan. He said he was also able to watch his sister, Elizabeth, attend the United Nations Security Council meeting chaired Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last month. 

"The public displays and events such as the press corps dinner and the UN visit demonstrate to not just me, privately, but to the world that our leaders are impacted by this, and they do want me back, and they are working to try to get me home," Whelan said. 

After the U.S. ambassador to Russia recently visited Whelan in prison, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said his release "remains an absolute priority" and the U.S. government "will continue to engage Russian authorities on his case."

The State Department reiterated that Whelan is a high priority in a briefing with reporters on Monday. 

"I can assure him and I can assure his family members that we have no higher priority than returning him safely home to the United States," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. 

Miller declined to say whether Russia has engaged on the "serious proposal" Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered to secure his release. Blinken said in March that the U.S. had made an offer and urged Moscow to accept it. 

"We oftentimes have found that it is not conducive to our efforts — to return wrongful detainees home — to speak about the details of those efforts," Miller said. (CBS News).

_______________________________

Pardon my French but I feel this way too, almost every day. Sorry.

This was trending big time on Twitter.

_______________________________

One more thing. The Judge in the New York Trump Fraud case based on the coverup of the payoffs to Stormy Daniels set the start date of the criminal trial for March 25, 2024. He also warned Trump that he could be found in contempt if he shared evidence provided to his lawyers in this criminal case.

After the hearing, on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote that his First Amendment rights were violated by Judge Merchan and accused the judge of engaging in election interference by setting the trial schedule mid-primary season.

(Washington Post).

_____

And yes, late last night, this happened. Trump’s lawyers approached Attorney General Merrick Garland, seeking a meeting about Jack Smith’s case, on Trump’s possession of classified documents.

Here is their letter.

Trump’s legal peril moves forward.
_______________________________