In an effort to broaden the company’s “social interaction” with our clients and FaceBook fans, Daily Trivia Questions are posted on both of our business pages. Here are the weekly standings for this past week, and the winner of the Sunday night Weekly Drawing for an AmEx gift card!
Congratulations – To this past week’s Trivia Contest Winner!! Our latest contest winner for the weekly FaceBook HealthInsurance4Everyone/Health & Life Solutions, LLC Trivia Contest, drawn randomly by computer late Sunday evening, July 30th, 2017 was:
VALERIE KUEHN
Yaphank, NY
Winner Of A $25.00 AmEx Gift Card
Each day, fans who have “liked” either of our company FaceBook pages (HealthInsurance4Everyone or Health & Life Solutions LLC) are able to test their skills with our Daily TRIVIA QUESTION. The first 20 winners who post the correct answer to the TRIVIA QUESTION, will then get entered into the weekly drawing held late on Sunday evenings for a $25.00 Am Ex Gift. Card
Weekly Gift Card winners will be posted in our blog at this site. Remember to become a FaceBook “fan” on either of our company pages to enter and post your answers.
Here are the daily contestants from last week’s Trivia Contest that were entered into the Sunday drawing:
7/24/17
Sheila Carvell
Sarah Bellestri Shih
Anna Nichols
Stephanie Beckwith
Amanda Rosario
Dale Fish
Samantha Brwn
Michelle R. Carlino
Valerie Kuehn
Melissa Barnes Walker
Kathi Taylor
Dustin N Angela Turner
Brittany Marie Thompson
Kayla Clemons
Kimberly Snyder
Teena Sierson
Christina Domingue
Geri Rus
Nai Merri
Mike Adamski
Aaron Chambers
Khadijah Carter
Terri Llexxes
7/25/17
Kelly Jo Francisco
Karen Bondehagen
Sheri Boydston
Heather Marocco
Leslie Wagner Hobson
Joanie Waterman
Kathleen Hickman
Sheila Carvell
Jennifer Kinner
Kimberly Snyder
Sean Stover
Kayla Hernandez
Jennifer Kinner
Allison Frederick
Cheryl Hall
Deborah Farris
Nelle Bailey
Amanda Peters
Carla M. Williams
Maria Bouchard
7/26/17
Valerie Kuehn
Kelly Jo Francisco
Tonya Velazquez
Shelley LaClear
Paula Rousseau
Krissy Brislin
Deborah Farris
Judy Custer
Destiny Landsaw Davis
Steve Hardy
Emily Rice Bowersock
Dawna McKnight
Kimberly Taylor Hall
Dena Baji
Kim Floyd
Kelsey Mcknight
Kathleen Hickman
Ashley Agner
Kayte CookWatts
Jodi Stevens
John McKnignt
Eleazar Ruiz
Darlene Whyte
Kimberly Necolie Garrasi
Michelle Webb
7/27/17
Jessica Davis
Amanda Rosario
Misty Shallcross
Alexis Maureen
Nelle Bailey
Priscilla Shimp
Heather Victoria Graves
Jennifer Downing
Destiny Landsaw Davis
Kimberly Taylor Hall
Joanie Waterman
Nitasha Shank
Cassandra Berholtz
Jennifer Mason
Jakara Jackson
Brooke Scott
Kimberly Snyder
Lori Capobianco
Holly Cajigas
Darbie Brown
7/27/17
Jessica Davis
Amanda Rosario
Misty Shallcross
Alexis Maureen
Nelle Bailey
Priscilla Shimp
Heather Victoria Graves
Jennifer Downing
Destiny Landsaw Davis
Kimberly Taylor Hall
Joanie Waterman
Nitasha Shank
Cassandra Berholtz
Jennifer Mason
Jakara Jackson
Brooke Scott
Kimberly Snyder
Lori Capobianco
Holly Cajigas
Darbie Brown
7/28/17
Christy Hawkes
Jade Good
Bethany Henry
Phylicia Phillips
Pamela White Brearley
Lisa Pucket
Isis Sample
Crystal Young
Michelle Abbott
Kizzy Alvarez DeSantis
Dena Daji
Sheila Carvell
Mikey Mellor
Jennifer Lang
Diane Hamric
Dustin N Angela Turner
Nancy Scharnhorst
Melissa Turner Baker
Dean Bruss
Sara Heller
Amanda Rosario
Tina Mimick
7/29/17
Kimberly Necolie Garrasi
Jennifer Lang
Anggie Marie
Pam Johnson Rowland
Mary Achio
Ashley Stamey Phillips
Geri Rus
Kimberly Snyder
Dean Bruss
Mary Mcmenamy
Amy Marie Wilkinson
Jenny Meyers
Annette Boxton
Kayla Clemons
Deborah Farris
Alysia Jackson
Abby Cox
Cassandra Berholtz
Valerie Kuehn
Jane Peterson
Brandy Williams
Kelly Jo Francisco
7/30/17
Ashley Agner
Jodi Stevens
Jennifer Ramlet
Crystal Young
Deborah Farris
Jennifer Lang
Traci Anderson
Sara Biason
Isis Sample
Jade Good
Michelle R. Carlino
Suzie Mize Lockhart
Laura Moreland
Nitasha Shank
Amanda Rosario
Brittany Marie Thompson
Amanda Peters
Terri Llexxes
Jane Peterson
Alysia Jackson
Dustin N Angela Turner
Pamela Welsh-Sherk
Be sure to watch both of our FaceBook pages for your chance to win and enter again next week, with questions posted daily on HealthInsurance4Everyone or at Health & Life Solutions, LLC!!
Remember that if you try your hand at answering the Trivia Question several days each week, your odds of winning the Sunday weekly drawing are much better. Also note that a number of the posted answers each day are from contestants who have forgotten to “Like” one of our pages, so their names WILL NOT be entered at the end week drawing for the gift card, giving our fans a better chance!
You may also find that if you “Like” BOTH of the business pages, you will receive faster notifications of the other players as they post their answers to compete with you!
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Sixteen service members were killed after a military transport plane that was being used on a training flight crashed in Mississippi, prompting an urgent rescue effort in one of the South’s most rural regions, the authorities said. A Marine Corps spokeswoman at the Pentagon, Capt. Sarah Burns, said that one of the service’s KC-130 aircraft had “experienced a mishap.” The Marines use KC-130s for aerial refueling.
The cause of the crash, in an unincorporated part of Leflore County, was not immediately clear. The plane crashed along County Road 547, a dirt road that connects acres of farmland between Itta Bena and Moorhead. Military aircraft are a common sight in the skies of rural Mississippi. Witnesses described the plane as disintegrating in the air as it neared the ground, leaving a debris field about five miles in diameter. Many speculate that the plane experienced an explosion mid-air because of the large debris field.
The air tanker was based at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York, and was on its way from a Marine installation at Cherry Point, North Carolina, to a naval air field at El Centro, California, when it went down, officials said. The planes final destination was Yuma, AZ. The plane vanished from air traffic control radar somewhere over Mississippi before the crash that killed all fifteen marines and a navy corpsman on board.
Six of the Marines and the sailor were from an elite Marine Raider battalion at Camp Lejeune, N.C.. Nine were based out of Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, N.Y., home of a Marine Aerial Refueling and Transport Squadron. The service members were identified as Cpl. Dan Baldassare, 20; Staff Sgt. Robert Cox; 28, Capt. Sean Elliott; 30, Maj. Caine Goyette; 41, Gunnery Sgt. Mark Hopkins; 34, Sgt. Chad Jenson,; 25, Gunnery Sgt. Brendan Johnson; 46, Sgt. Julian Kevianne; 31, Staff Sgt. William Joseph Kundrat; 33, Sgt. Talon Leach; 27, Sgt. Owen Lennon,; 26, Sgt. Joseph Murray; 26, Cpl. Collin Schaaff; 22, Sgt. Dietrich Schmieman; 26, Staff Sgt. Joshua Snowden; 31 and Navy Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Ryan Lohrey, 30.
Witnesses reported hearing a loud bloom around 4pm and then the plane began spinning down to the ground. Eyewitnesses recall hearing ammunition exploding after the crash. The Marine Corps acknowledged that ammunition was on board the flight without specifying what kind. Due to the presence of the ammunition, restrictions were placed on who could initially approach the scene of the crash, officials said.
The force of the crash nearly flattened the plane and witnesses said there were bodies across a highway, more than a mile from the crash site. Firefighters tried to put out the fire but withdrew after an explosion forced them back. The fierce blaze produced black smoke visible for miles across the flat region and continued to burn after dusk, more than four hours later. The fire department used about 9,000 gallons of foam to extinguish the blaze.
Marine Corps officials are being aided in their investigation by a number of different agencies, including the Mississippi Management Association, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
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The bodies of four young Pennsylvania men who went missing last week have been found. Hours after finding a fourth body buried in a farm here, authorities charged two men with multiple counts of homicide in what authorities said were marijuana deals that turned murderous. Cosmo Dinardo and his cousin Sean Kratz, both 20, were denied bail in preliminary arraignments. Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub announced that the bodies of the young men who went missing last week had been found buried on a farm owned by Dinardo’s parents in Solebury Township.
The victims were identified as 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro, Mark Sturgis, 22, Tom Meo, 21, who disappeared together and Jimi Tar Patrick, 19. The defense attorney for Cosmo NiNardo, 20, said his client admitted to killing the four in three separate shootings, and told authorities the location of the bodies. DiNardo is ready to plead guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in order to take the death penalty off the table.
Jimi Patrick was the first to go missing and days later- the three other men disappeared. Investigators had focused their search on a property a few miles from the Delaware River, a farm owned by the parents of Cosmo Dinardo, the man who has been identified as a “person of interest” in the case.
Dinardo was initially charged with trying to sell Meo’s car, a 1996 Nissan Maxima and was being held in jail on $5 million cash bail after being deemed a flight risk. Dinardo confessed his involvement in the disappearances, implicated Kratz, and gave information about the location of the fourth victim, police say. Dinardo has a history of unspecified mental illness, and he was previously involuntarily committed to a mental health institution after firing a shotgun, authorities said.
In the arrest affidavit Dinardo told police that on July 5 he agreed to sell four pounds of marijuana for $8,000 to Jimi Patrick. Dinardo picked Patrick up at his home and drove him to the farm but Patrick only had $800, the affidavit states. Dinardo then offered to sell Patrick a shotgun for that amount. Dinardo took Patrick to a remote part of the property and gave him a shotgun. Dinardo then shot and killed Patrick with a .22 caliber rifle and buried his body six feet deep using a backhoe.
Two days later, Dinardo said he and Kratz, decided to rob Dean Finocchiaro during a drug deal. Dinardo told police he gave Kratz his mother’s Smith and Wesson .357 handgun for the robbery. They met at Finocchiaro’s home and went to the farm. Dinardo told police, Kratz shot Finocchiaro near a barn and the put his remains in a metal tank. Kratz’s account of the killing describes Dinardo as the shooter.
Dinardo had a deal in place that same night to sell marijuana to Thomas Meo. Dinardo met Meo and his friend Mark Sturgis and the two followed him to his farm where Kratz was waiting. Dinardo and Kratz described Dinardo shooting Meo in the back and shooting at Sturgis as he tried to flee. According to the police affidavit, Dinardo said after he ran out of ammunition, he drove a backhoe over Meo’s body. Afterwards, they put the bodies in the metal tank, poured gasoline inside and set it on fire. They returned the next day to bury the tank 12 feet deep using a backhoe.
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A Tennessee man accused of planning to attack a Muslim community in New York has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Chattanooga’s U.S. District Court convicted Christian minister Robert Doggart, a 65-year-old former engineer at the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The FBI began investigating Doggart in February 2015, when agents became aware of a threatening Facebook post by Doggart in which he wrote that Islamberg needed to be “utterly destroyed.” After an investigation that included wiretaps Doggart was arrested on April 10 by federal marshals and charged with solicitation, intentionally defacing, damaging or destroying religious property and interstate communication of threats, court documents show.
FBI agents discovered Doggart was stockpiling weapons and plotting to travel to upstate New York to kill Muslims using explosives, an M-4 assault rifle and a machete. According to a federal investigation, Doggart saw himself as a religious “warrior” and wanted to kill Muslims to show his commitment to his Christian god.
The investigation showed that he spoke with numerous individuals across the country to plan an attack. Doggart also traveled to South Carolina, where he met with individuals from an unidentified militia group.
Prosecutors said Doggart made threats against Islamberg near Hancock, N.Y., in phone conversations with supporters in South Carolina and Texas. Jurors listened to many phone calls in which Doggart talked about burning down Islamberg’s mosque with explosives and shooting anyone who opposed his team with assault rifles.
Defense attorneys countered that Doggart exaggerated a number of facts, never had a consistent plan in place, was goaded by a confidential informant into carrying out the attack and only wanted to conduct peaceful recon on Islamberg. Defense attorney Jonathan Turner told jurors in his closing arguments that Doggart was convinced Islamberg’s residents wanted to carry out a terror attack on New York City, in part because of Fox News broadcasts.
Since his arrest in April 2015, Doggart has spent most of the time out on bond until his recent conviction. After that verdict, Doggart’s defense attorneys had asked Judge Collier to let him stay on house arrest before his May 31 sentencing hearing, citing medical problems. Collier denied the request saying Doggart appeared obsessed with the community of Islamberg and should stay in custody until sentencing.
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Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is taking an indefinite leave of absence amid a scandal over sexual harassment. Billionaire David Bonderman also resigned from Uber’s board, after making disparaging comments about women at a board meeting intended to address sexual harassment in the workplace. Uber has fired more than 20 employees as part of its own internal probe into what multiple sources have described as a culture of sexism.
The fallout continues four months after former Uber engineer Susan Fowler came forward with allegations that Uber’s human-resources team systematically ignored her reports of sexual harassment during the year she worked for the company. Fowler detailed her year working for Uber in a February 2017 blog post which went viral and kicked off an internal investigation into her claims of sexual harassment.
Fowler claimed that just days after completing her training, she was clearly propositioned for sex by her new manager over a string of messages over company chat. She immediately took screenshots of the messages and sent them to Human Resources. She was told by the HR Team that the manager in question would receive only a verbal reprimand since it was his first offense. She was then given the option of leaving the team which would give her no contact with the manager in question or stay on the team knowing that he could give her a poor performance review. She was told a negative review would not be considered retaliation because she had the option to leave.
Fowler left the team and while working with other female engineers within the company, learned that the manager had been reported for inappropriate behavior by multiple women prior to her interaction with him. She claims that despite having a perfect performance score, a request for transfer was blocked and the reasoning was “undocumented performance problems”. Her blog post also revealed instances of blatant sexism, the dwindling number of female engineers still with the company and chaotic political games within upper management as well.
CEO Travis Kalanick sent a company-wide email the day after the blog post which addressed the allegations published the day before. The company launched two internal investigations, hiring the law firm Perkins Coie to investigate Fowler’s claims – which resulted in the firing of 20 people after investigating 215 reported claims of discrimination and harassment, among other issues. The company then brought on former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Tammy Albarran, both partners at law firm Covington & Burling, to conduct a separate investigation into Uber’s overall culture.
At the end of May, Uber received Eric Holder’s recommendations for change. The board met for more than six hours Holder presented the findings of his firm’s report. A representative for Uber’s board said it voted unanimously in favor of adopting all of Holder’s recommendations.
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The gunman who killed three men at a UPS facility in San Francisco and then killed himself has been identified as 38-year-old Jimmy Lam. The victims were Wayne Chan, 56, and Benson Louie, 50, both of San Francisco; and 46-year-old Michael Lefiti of Hercules, California. Two others were shot but survived the Wednesday morning shooting at the UPS San Francisco Customer Center.
Officers responded to a report of an active shooter about 8:55 a.m. local time at the UPS package sorting and delivery facility. When officers entered the building, they found the suspect armed with an assault pistol. The suspect immediately killed himself and no officers fired their weapons during the incident.
Lam, had worked as a driver for the Potrero Hill facility which employs 350 people. He was wearing his uniform during the shooting spree and opened fire on coworkers during a morning meeting for UPS drivers. Joseph Cilia, with a local Teamsters union that represents UPS workers in San Francisco has stated that Lam filed an internal grievance in March saying he was working excessive overtime. Cilia told the Associated Press that Lam did not seem angry when he filed the grievance.
A police official said it appears that Lam felt disrespected by co-workers, but it’s not clear if that was the motivation for the bloodshed. Lam appears to have targeted the three drivers he fatally shot. Shaun Vu, a senior UPS driver, has said Lam also struggled with personal issues and was depressed a few years ago. Vu said that Lam had shown improvement but seemed troubled a few weeks ago-which was around the time he filed the grievance.
Another UPS driver Leopold Parker, who witnessed the shooting, said that he was standing a few feet behind Benson Louie during the morning meeting when Lam walked up and shot Louie in the head. Lam then glanced at Parker but walked the other way so Parker jumped into the cab of his truck and later ran to the roof of the building.
Parker said drivers at the warehouse generally got along and didn’t mind working there. If they did have a problem with colleagues, they would talk to them or ignore them. He also stressed that drivers spent much of their time alone in their trucks, so they had limited interaction with their colleagues. He recalls that Lam sometimes complained about the workload but he never suspected that he would turn violent.
Other witnesses said that Mike “Big Mike” Lefiti was fleeing from the building as Lam followed him into the street and shot him. Mike McDonald, an area resident was walking home from work when he found Lefiti face down, bleeding profusely from the back. McDonald stayed with him and tried to comfort him until help arrived. McDonald said that in his final moments, Lefiti spoke lovingly about his three children. “He said he loves his family, he loves his children and that he didn’t do anything to this man.”
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Two men died and a third is recovering after being stabbed on an Oregon train while defending two teenage girls from harassment. Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, has been charged with two counts of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, first-degree assault, three counts of unlawful use of a weapon and two counts of intimidation.
According to witness accounts and the arrest affidavit, Christian boarded a MAX light rail train on Friday, May 26, at 4:19 p.m. at the Rose Quarter stop. He then went on an anti-Islam tirade directed at two African-American teenagers on board — one who was wearing a traditional Muslim hijab. Christian shouted for the teens to get out of his country and to go home.
After making several threatening comments about “decapitating heads,” several men stepped in to diffuse the situation. Frightened, the two teens moved to the back of the train while other passengers told him he couldn’t treat people that way.
Videos from the train camera and a passenger’s phone showed Christian “making a sudden move” toward one of the victims, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, of Portland. Namkai-Meche responded by standing up as Christian shouted into his face “Do something!” Another passenger, 21-year-old Portland State University student, Micah Fletcher stood up as well and Christian shouted “Do something!” as he shoved Fletcher in the chest.
This is when Christian appears to pull a folded knife from his pocket that he concealed in his hand, the affidavit said. Fletcher shoved Christian so hard the suspect lost his balance. Fletcher told Christian to get off the train and Christian shouted “hit me again”.
Video shows Christian swinging his arm and stabbing Fletcher in the neck. He then stabbed Namkai-Meche twice in the neck. Ricky John Best, 53, of Happy Valley moved forward to intervene and was stabbed in the neck. Namkai-Meche had sat down to try to stop the bleeding from his wound when Christian pushed Best into him and stabbed both men again.
When the train came to a stop Fletcher who was clutching his neck, exited the train as passengers on the platform tried to help him. He was treated for his injuries and released by the hospital. Fletcher said in an interview that his injuries missed being fatal by one millimeter.
Ricky Best fell to the floor and two men rushed over to start CPR but the veteran and father of four, died at the scene. Namkai-Meche lay on the floor as passengers-including one of the teens he defended-reassured him and tried to stop the bleeding. He later died at the hospital.
The train video showed Christian grabbing his belongings and a bag dropped by the Muslim teenager and leaving the train while waving his knife as he got off the train. He threatened several people on the platform with his knife and tossed the teen’s bag onto the freeway as he exited. Several witnesses followed Christian and directed responding police officers to his whereabouts.
After his arrest, Christian admitted to drinking Sangria before and while on the train. He has what appears to be an extremist ideology with an affinity for Nazis and political violence, according to his social media postings.
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To the surprise of other world leaders, President Trump announced that the US will pull out of the Paris global climate pact. Abandoning the pact would isolate the US from international allies that spent years negotiating the 2015 agreement to fight global warming and pollution by reducing carbon emissions in nearly 200 nations.
The decision means the US will join only Nicaragua and Syria as UN-member countries that aren’t aboard. The US emits more carbon into the atmosphere than any country except China. Abandoning the pact was one of Trump’s principal campaign pledges and the decision reverses one of the Obama administration’s signature achievements. Still, America’s allies have expressed alarm about the likely consequences.
“The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction in terms that are fair to the United States and its workers. So we’re getting out. We’ll see if we can make a deal. If we can’t, that’s fine,” Trump said to cheers during a ceremony in the Rose Garden.
A White House spokesperson said “The accord was negotiated poorly by the Obama Administration and signed out of desperation. The US is already leading the world in energy production and doesn’t need a bad deal that will harm American workers.”
The Paris climate agreement sets a goal for its signatories to keep warming below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), compared with preindustrial times, by 2100, with a goal of keeping global warming to a mere 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Each country sets its own voluntary goals for emissions cuts, pledging to become stricter as time goes by and there are no binding rules about how the countries should meet those goals.
When the agreement was signed, the US agreed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to between 26-28% of 2005 levels by 2025. The agreement does not officially go into effect until 2020, but meeting those goals would require all countries to take steps preemptive steps before 2020- like setting standards for vehicle emissions, appliances and power plants.
Critics of the decision to abandon the Paris agreement believe the likelihood of international cooperation on carbon-cutting goals past 2025 is on far shakier ground, and that the US will be forfeiting a seat at the table to shape the climate future.
They also feel it does enormous damage to our international credibility as withdrawal from international negotiations is becoming a pattern. The United States withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal under Trump’s first executive order. Trump is also hostile to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in which members pledge military cooperation with one another. Many feel it will be harder to negotiate other international issues without trust from other nations.
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In Montana, tech millionaire Greg Gianforte won a special election for the state’s sole congressional seat just one day after he was charged with assaulting a reporter. Gianforte body-slammed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs to the floor and repeatedly punched him, after Jacobs tried to ask about the Congressional Budget Office’s scoring of the House health care bill.
More than $6 million was spent by outside groups in Montana’s special election with 90% of the money favoring Gianforte. He won just over 50 percent of the vote, defeating Democratic challenger Rob Quist, who received 44 percent. Gianforte addressed the incident during his victory speech “Last night, I made a mistake, and I took an action that I can’t take back. And I’m not proud of what happened. I should not have responded in the way that I did. And for that, I’m sorry.”
Immediately after the violent altercation, the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs, quickly relayed the incident on social media. “Greg Gianforte just body slammed me and broke my glasses,” Jacobs tweeted. Jacobs went to a local hospital for an X-ray on his elbow and Gianforte left the event.
Jacobs’ account of the incident was corroborated by Fox News Alicia Acuna, who was in the room to interview Gianforte at the time of the violent attack. Acuna stated that after Jacobs asked Gianforte a question, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck and slammed him to the ground before punching him repeatedly. “To be clear, at no point did any of us who witnessed this assault see Jacobs show any form of physical aggression toward Gianforte, who left the area after giving statements to local sheriff’s deputies,” Acuna wrote in her account of the attack.
The sheriff’s office released a statement saying it was investigating allegations of assault involving Greg Gianforte but held press conference hours later as news of the assault spread. Gianforte spokesperson Shane Scanlon released a statement that conflicted with witness accounts “Tonight, as Greg was giving a separate interview in a private office,” Scanlon said in the statement, “the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs entered the office without permission, aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg’s face, and began asking badgering questions. Jacobs was asked to leave. After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg’s wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. It’s unfortunate that aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ.”
In audio released of the incident, Jacobs asks Gianforte a question about the latest CBO scoring of the Affordable Health Care Act. “I’m sick and tired of you guys,” Gianforte said. A struggle can be heard on the recording as Gianforte continues “ The last guy who came here did the same thing. Get the hell out of here. Get the hell out of here. The last guy did the same thing. Are you with the Guardian?” “Yes! You just broke my glasses, you just body slammed me and broke my glasses,” Jacobs can be heard saying as Gianforte repeatedly yells at him to “Get the hell out of here.”
Earlier on the day of the assault, Jacobs had published a story in the Guardian about financial ties between Gianforte and Russian companies under U.S. sanctions. There is no word on whether his report in the Guardian was a motive in the assault.
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The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to reinstate President Trump’s second attempt at a travel ban on all refugees and citizens of six majority-Muslim nations from entering the United States. The Justice Department has vowed to challenge the appeals court ruling and take it to the Supreme Court.
The court ruled 10-3 to uphold a ruling from a district court judge in Maryland that blocked a portion of the order that temporarily banned travel to the United States by nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. In the majority decision, Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote that Trump’s executive order uses “vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.”
Judge Gregory listed televised interviews and numerous statements made at political rallies that, in the court’s view, indicated the true intentions of the order. He cited a rally statement in which Trump called the second order a “watered down version” of the first order as well as a televised interview with Rudy Giuliani who said that Trump had asked him to devise an immigration ban within the bounds of legality.
The judge wrote that a reasonable observer would likely conclude the order’s “primary purpose is to exclude persons from the United States on the basis of their religious beliefs”. The government argued that Trump’s comments on the campaign trail should not be taken into account since they occurred before he took office on Jan 20. The appeals court rejected that view, saying they provide a window into the motivations for Trump’s action in government.
The appeals court questioned a government argument that the president has wide authority to halt the entry of people to the United States. They were reviewing a March ruling by Maryland-based federal judge Theodore Chuang that blocked part of Trump’s March 6 executive order barring people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days while the government put in place stricter visa screening. A similar ruling against Trump’s policy from a Hawaii-based federal judge is still in place. The Hawaii judge’s ruling also blocked a section of the travel ban that also suspended refugee admissions for four months. The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is still reviewing that decision.
The Trump administration has argued that the temporary travel ban is a national security measure aimed at preventing Islamist militant attacks. “That’s why it’s not a Muslim ban”. The countries were not chosen because they are predominantly Muslim but because they present terrorism risks, the administration has said.
After the 4th Circuit Court ruling, Attorney-general Jeff Sessions said in a statement that the government would seek a review of the case at the Supreme Court. White House spokesperson Michael Short said “These clearly are very dangerous times and we need every available tool at our disposal to prevent terrorists from entering the United States and committing acts of bloodshed and violence,” adding that the White House was confident the order would ultimately be upheld by the judiciary.
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