Category Archives: Ron Paul

FORT MYERS, Fla. Whenever a popular Twins player from Brad Radke, Joe Nathan, Michael Cuddyer, Torii Hunter, through the M & M boys has a retirement news conference, the organization turns out in force.

The Zoom version of that occurred Thursday when Brian Dozier, 33, announced his retirement after nine seasons, including seven with the Twins. Dozier wore a perpetual grin on his face as Ron Gardenhire, Paul Molitor, Eduardo Escobar, Terry Ryan, Josh Willingham and even clubhouse major-domo Rod McCormick appeared on screen to wish No. 2 a happy retirement.

"You know how much I respect you, man," said Escobar, who got out of a Diamondbacks team meeting to congratulate Dozier. "You [taught] me [how to] play this game the right way, man. That's why I'm still here."

Escobar was the teammate who experienced good times and endured bad times with Dozier's help. Gardenhire was the manager who told Dozier to stop taking ground balls at shortstop after his rookie season when the Twins made him their full-time second baseman. Molitor was the manager who benefited when Dozier unlocked his power, blasting 42 home runs in 2016 the only Twin other than Harmon Killebrew and Nelson Cruz to reach 40 in a season.

"In addition to that performance, it was just how you took care of your teammates and made everybody better," Molitor said. "You were never selfish about anything that you do."

Of the 192 home runs Dozier hit in his career, 167 came as a second baseman for the Twins, a club record. He hit 127 home runs from 2014-17, sixth most in the American League.

Brian Dozier career statistics

He was traded to the Dodgers in July of 2018, playing in 47 games. In 2019, he signed as a free agent with the Nationals, who shook off a terrible start to win the World Series, but he only hit .238 during the season and went 0-for-6 in the postseason. After a brief stint in the Padres organization, Dozier signed with the Mets in July of 2020 but only played in seven games before being released a month later, and he began to realize his time might be up. After thinking about retiring during the offseason, he made it official Thursday.

"I was blessed, so blessed to be able to play for such good managers and general managers throughout my career and some people I respect forever and call them friends forever," Dozier said. "I played for some great organizations and so I appreciate all of you."

Gardenhire, of course, flashed his trademark humor while saluting Dozier.

"One of the nicest people I've ever been around in my life and really just thoroughly enjoyed watching him grow as a player," Gardenhire said, "and of course, after I left, he started hitting bombs all in the seats."

Read more:
Brian Dozier, an All-Star for the Twins, retires at 33 - Minneapolis Star Tribune

At his inauguration, President Joe Biden pledged to restore democracy and declared that the will of the people had been heard. But his detractors are now pointing to an allegedly missing page from the White House website as evidence against these proclamations.

"We the People," an online petitioning system launched by President Barack Obama's administration, is said to have been removed without explanation.

On Tuesday, the Ron Paul Institute, responding to an article published by the anti-imperialist website antiwar.com, decried the Biden administration for allegedly taking down a White House petitioning system that allowed citizens to start campaigns. Once the campaigns reached at least 100,000, the White House was required to respond.

"It appears that the 'We the People' petition system has been taken off the White House website," the Ron Paul Institute posted to its blog. "This is a terrible event, and it must be publicized, and Biden must be made to reverse this decision."

In 2011, the Obama White House debuted a new section of whitehouse.gov where users could create, browse and sign online petitions that, under most circumstances, would require a government response once they reached 100,000 signatures.

Criminal proceedings and many federal processes were exempt from this, and the platform functioned mainly as a public relations tool for citizens to express themselves and communicate their concerns to the White House. Many petitions were created tongue-in-cheek, and some might remember a playful 2012 petition for the federal government to create a Death Star as an economy-driving enterprise.

When President Donald Trump took office in 2017, his administration removed the "We the People" page, sparking outrage and media response. The Washington Post reported that several petitions demanding Trump release his tax returns and resign reached well over 100,000 signatures before the page was removed with a note saying it was undergoing maintenance.

Eventually, the petitioning system returned, but the page disappeared the day of Biden's inauguration. Previous links redirect to the White House homepage.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday regarding the reason for the page's removal or whether the petitioning system would return. Archives of the page from previous administrations still are accessible.

True.

The "We the People" system is nowhere to be found on the White House website. The reason behind its removal has not been released.

Go here to read the rest:
Fact Check: Did the Biden Administration Remove the White House Petitioning System? - Newsweek

Beata Cook| Wicked Local

Hi Folks. Once I get an idea for the week's topic, sometimes the words start to flow effortlessly until I realize I'm running out of space. At other times, I have to push myself to get the column ready to hand over to Avis for typing, proofreading, and small edits before it's sent to the editor of the Banner. That's where I find myself today, Monday, Feb. 8.

First of all, yesterday (the day of the Super Bowl, of all days) got all screwed up, which set me up for a very poor night's sleep, and as a consequence I could easily take a nap right now. But time grows short so I shall force myself to continue to follow my trend of thought wherever it might lead and hope my readers aren't overcome by my lethargy.

Back to the annual Super Bowl played by the champion teams of the NFL football season, which was won for many years by our New England Patriots, led by our quarterback, Tom Brady. Tom, at age 43, is considered kind of long in the tooth for a professional football player, but for some unknown reason he opted to go on playing but with a different team. Happily for me, he picked a team with which I feel a sort of connection, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You see, my younger brother Paul (who died about 16 years ago and to whom I was very devoted) had moved many years ago from Boston with his partner, Ron, to St. Petersburg, Florida. Soon after the move they became fans of the Buccaneers, but Paul's team of choice always remained the Patriots. I still have a stadium blanket which the boys sent me years ago, with the name Buccaneers printed on its pretty orange quilting. I treasure it to this day. My sister Marian, our Aunt Ruth and I spent our yearly winter vacations with Paul and Ron in St. Pete, and therein lies my connection. If Brady felt it necessary to move to another locale with a different team, what better choice than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?

So it was that I and my nieces Sue and Cindy planned a Super Bowl celebration of our own on game day. Cindy, who works at Stop & Shop, ordered freshly fried chicken wings to be picked up at the designated hour. Our neighbor, Mark Bove, contributed homemade pizza. Our plans were to do our weekly grocery shopping, put the stuff away, pick up the chicken wings and sit down to enjoy the game. Alas, that was not to be!

Was it Robert Burns who said, The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry ?

Disappointment #1: When Cindy arrived, she announced that the machine which fries the Stop & Shop chicken wings had burned out and would need repairs. As an alternative, we decided on frozen chicken wings accompanied by potato skins such as we once devoured at the now- defunct Pucci's. After we got the groceries sorted and put where they belong, we were really looking forward to sitting down with a drink and a piece of Mark's pizza as we watched the opening ceremonies of the Super Bowl.

Then came Disappointment #2. It was just about this time that I lost my picture on my Direct TV hookup. Since this has happened in the past during bad weather, I wasn't overly concerned.

Usually when it goes down, the screen delivers a message stating that the satellite dish is not relaying a signal but that they are searching and the connection would be restored shortly. But that's not what happened this time!

Susie got in touch with Direct TV customer service, and though she is much more experienced with technology than I am, after a series of unplug this, plug in that she was still unable to get a picture. Frustrated, Cindy and I had a piece of Mark's pizza but Susie did not. She said she didn't feel well and wasn't hungry. Because Cindy had an early work schedule the next day, Susie put the frozen wings and potato skins in the oven for Cindy to take home for her supper and then continued the hopeless task of getting a picture on the TV. She got so involved she forgot about the food in the oven, and when I reminded her, it was too late. The food was dry and tasteless, but before Cindy left for home she gamely ate hers anyway and said that it wasn't too bad.

What she deemed not too bad was Disappointment #3 for me, as far as I was concerned.

With the game well underway, Susie finally located a radio station on which she could follow the action and scores. Because football is such a visual game and my hearing is so impaired, there really isn't much pleasure in a radio broadcast. But when we turned it on the Buccaneers were in the lead after a couple of touchdowns by Rob Gronkowski, also a former Patriots player.

Finally, even better news arrived when Susie noticed that a light usually showing on the converter box wasn't shining. With that she started fooling around with plugs and outlets once again when, lo and behold, the screen suddenly came to life, informing us that they had almost located the signal on my disc and we should be connected in a few minutes. It was now halftime and I was hungry and tired, but we were able to see the last half of the game as well as the celebration when the Buccaneers handily won the Super Bowl! Brady will get his seventh ring.

It was then that my thoughts turned to my deceased loved ones, Paul, Marian, and friend Ron who have all gone on to another place, but I was able to join them in spirit as I shouted,

YIPPEE!

We won another Super Bowl. Not only did Tom Brady win one for the Buccaneers, but I finished my column with no space to spare!

Original post:
THIS, THAT AND THE OTHER: A Buccaneers connection, and a Super Bowl party that (almost) wasnt - Wicked Local

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

LATE IN RESIDENT EVIL (2002), an amnesiac security officer named Alice (Milla Jovovich) kicks a zombie dog in the face. It is a moment of Proustian self-realization, the undead canine a drooling madeleine that triggers memories of her role in the multinational boogeyman known as the Umbrella Corporation. This emergence of Alice-as-superhero signaled the beginning of an unlikely franchise, and the personal and professional collaboration between Jovovich and director Paul W. S. Anderson, who married in 2009. They have worked closely together on female-fronted action movies of sleek and brutal intelligence, with Anderson building elaborately detailed labyrinths that Jovovich determinedly destroys. Together, they have charted the subterranean postapocalyptic corridors of the Resident Evil franchise; the steampunk Paris of their The Three Musketeers (2011) rethink; and the desert battlegrounds of their latest video game adaptation, Monster Hunter (2020). It is one of the most fruitful collaborations in contemporary action cinema, as inventive as Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise on the Mission: Impossible franchise or Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves on John Wick. Regrettably, Anderson and Jovovich are often overlooked due to the critically reviled nature of video game movies.

Jovovichs Alice was not a part of the Resident Evil video game series, but an Alice in Wonderlandinspired invention that allowed Anderson and his longtime producer Jeremy Bolt to stray from the games convoluted mythology. With no guarantee of a sequel, they couldnt spend much time on world-building. Instead, they churned out a controlled piece of survival horror taking place almost entirely in The Hive, Umbrella Corporations down-the-rabbit-hole underground lab.

Resident Evil was the first screenplay Anderson had written since his debut feature, Shopping (1994), a violent youth-in-revolt dystopia starring a dewy Jude Law and his then-wife Sadie Frost. During one of their joy rides, Frost plays Crazy Cars, a handheld video game. From the start, Anderson demonstrates his interest in how virtual worlds can be more truthful than reality. In his features, surfaces are deceptive: something propped up by a repressive regime like Umbrella, and it is the virtual space, the world within or behind the visible, where societys subjugation is revealed. Anderson grew up in Northeast England, in the crumbling post-industrial town of Newcastle upon Tyne, and his films are usually set in modern structures gone to seed, left to rot by a fascistic authority. Shoppings London is a smoke-belching wasteland; Event Horizon (1997) is set on an abandoned, seemingly decrepit spaceship; and Resident Evil turns a modern glass-testing facility into a bloodbath.

For his next project, Anderson was hired to adapt and direct the feature film of Mortal Kombat, based on the arcade smash he used to play as a college student. He wanted it to be a combination of Bruce Lee and Robert Clouses 1973 Enter the Dragon and Don Chaffeys 1963 Jason and the Argonauts, with its stop-motion six-armed monster. Under the guidance of Hong Kong fight expert Robin Shou, the film hit its throwback mark, becoming a box office hit. Despite fan disappointment that George A. Romero wasnt hired to make Resident Evil (he wrote a script that the studio rejected), Anderson was the logical choice.

On Resident Evil, their first film together, Anderson shunts Jovovichs Alice down a corporate rabbit hole to an underground Umbrella facility that produces the T-Virus, an experimental weapon that happens to turn dour government types into drooling zombie brain-eaters. Aided by a brusque security team and an enigmatic artificial intelligence named the Red Queen, Alice tries to lead the ragtag group back to the surface. Operating more like a locked-room thriller than a gruesome zombie splatter fest, Anderson kept costs down, completing the film for a comparatively slight $33 million with the help of the German production company Constantin Film.

Jovovich has been in front of cameras since starting a modeling career at the age of 12 and has a keen knowledge of how to utilize her body as a weapon. Up until the age of five, she lived in the Soviet Union with her mother (actress Galina Loginova) and father (Bogich Jovovich). Her family emigrated to London and ended up in Los Angeles, where her parents cobbled together a living doing housework, including cooking and cleaning for writer-director Brian De Palma. When Bogich was imprisoned for participating in a health insurance scam, mother and daughter had to fend for themselves. Galina, a successful actor in Russia, started coaching Milla for a life in front of the camera. As a teenager, Milla was supporting her family by modeling for fashion photographer Herb Ritts. Jovovich told Purple Magazine that, as a kid, she liked reading Japanese comics and seeing ninjas swooping from tree to tree. I wanted to have that kind of control over my body, the kind dancers and martial artists have. It fascinated me.

Jovovich did not receive an opportunity to explore that physicality on screen until she was cast in Luc Bessons The Fifth Element (1997), which she credits as the turning point in her film career. She had appeared in films before, but only as eye candy, like her shipwrecked teen in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991) or her hippie chick in Dazed and Confused (1993). The Fifth Elements Leeloo was something else: a divine alien naf with martial arts skills. She played her like a baby bird who could lash out if threatened: jittery, wide-eyed, and limber. This ability to seem otherworldly, while being able to handle the athleticism necessary for many of the stunts, made her a natural Alice.

Jovovich took the Resident Evil job on a lark, since her brother was a fan of the games. She was upset after reading revised versions of the script, though, which handed off many of the action scenes to her co-star Michelle Rodriguez, who was fresh off of The Fast and the Furious (2001). Jovovich told The Guardian that she stormed into Andersons hotel room and threatened to leave the project. Instead, they spent four hours going over the script together, line by line, giving her back the scene where she runs up a wall, scissor-kicks the mutant dog, and breaks the neck of the zombie by crushing his head between her thighs. An athletic, commanding presence, Jovovich wanted to take center stage, and Anderson was happy to cede it to her. This impromptu rewrite would become the model for their working relationship.

Anderson obsessively maps underground tunnels and corridors in his films, and Jovovich is his willing avatar, able to conquer these torturous constructions the explorer to his cartographer. Andersons family worked in coal mining. He told The New York Times about the lure of going down there into the dark. Its in my blood. My grandfather, who brought me up, was a coal miner. I visited the mines with him. I remember it vividly. It was horrible. Im glad I didnt go into the family business. He could never get away from the imagery, though, admitting to Cinematical,

I cant remember who it was now, probably some other French filmmaker, said that there are two kinds of filmmakers there were farmers and miners. Farmers every year would grow different crop in their fields, right? One year it would be wheat; the next, it would be corn, so those are the directors that go make a comedy and they go make a drama and they go make a horror movie. And then there are those who are miners, and all theyre interested in is gold. They just dig on one seam, and I guess Im a miner.

As a result, CG schematics are a familiar image in the Resident Evil series, an aid to orient the viewer in the franchises labyrinthine spaces. Anderson wrote and produced all six Resident Evil movies, but only directed four of them: Resident Evil, Afterlife, Retribution, and The Final Chapter. Yet, through each installment of the franchise, Anderson establishes destination as destiny knowing where you are going is the only way to survive.

The series utilizes diverse landscapes to change the direction and texture of each journey. Resident Evil is an underground lair, with Alice surging upward. Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004, directed by Alexander Witt) takes place in the ravaged urban space of Raccoon City, with Alice ranging horizontally out of the locked-down metropolis. Resident Evil: Extinction (2007, directed by Russell Mulcahy) takes place in the desert and she must travel downward, back underground to find another of Umbrellas secret labs. Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) ranges in the sky to the Pacific Northwest and down into the sewers of a Los Angeles prison.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) is an amalgam of the previous four, taking place in a testing facility that simulates T-virus breakouts, infecting replicas of Tokyo, New York City, Moscow, and a suburb of Raccoon City. Alices travels through these simulacra create the illusion of movement when she is the one standing in place as the world dies around her. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter returns to The Hive from the first film and mimics its upward trajectory, but in casting their daughter Ever Anderson as the Red Queen, it turns the films climactic apocalypse sequence into an improbably moving vision. Alice turns out to be a clone of a sick child that the Red Queen was modeled on. As a final gift, the Red Queen gives Alice the childs memories to keep as her own, to fill the gap in time before Alice was created. This is rendered visually in real home videos of Ever growing up, as Jovovichs eyes well up with tears. This bloody zombie franchise all of a sudden becomes a documentary expression of a familys love.

The Three Musketeers is the first film Anderson and Jovovich made together outside of the Resident Evil universe, and it is a film of dizzying verticality. From a purely visual standpoint, it is their most beautiful collaboration, as they secured permission to film in Bavarian castles commissioned by King Ludwig II, ornate Neo-Baroque in style, modeled after Versailles. Anderson indulges his inner cartographer by installing a floor map inside Cardinal Richelieus (Christoph Waltz) quarters, on which he deploys world armies like chess pieces. Milady de Winter (Jovovich) is a duplicitous double agent who plays Richelieu against the British Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom). Jovovich again fills out her role to include a few spectacular fight scenes, including a jewel robbery that features sword-fighting, safe-cracking, musketry, and a soupon of base diving. Her big dive sets up an even more death-defying one later, as Da Vincidesigned airships cannonade each other in the clouds. It is a supporting performance, but a bravura one.

Over the years, Anderson has grown as a nimble director of fight sequences, keenly attentive to spatial clarity, but his collaborations with Jovovich are always the most physically dynamic and innovative. Working with Jovovich has expanded the possibilities of violence in his films. Jovovich is a relentless trainer who loves to fight, and she weighs in on the details. The viewer can witness her thinking during each bout, planning every counter, and Anderson ensures each punch lands inside his rigidly defined spaces. This perfectionism is present even in the timbre of her voice she demanded to rerecord all of her lines in Apocalypse to lower the pitch of her voice and give Alice more of a Dirty Harry menace.

According to director of photography Glen MacPherson (Andersons DP since Resident Evil: Afterlife), Jovovich does lots of her own stunts and

does a lot of modeling still, so she knows about light, and if Im in a tricky situation, shell stand there on the mark for 10 minutes just to help me out. [] She trains for weeks before the production, for all those fight scenes. She has to get into harnesses, and they pull her up in ropes and pulleys and things. And working with the fight choreography, I dont know how they remember that stuff. Its like pretty elaborate dance moves, you have to be at the right place at the right time.

Anderson is one of the few Hollywood directors to fully embrace the possibilities of 3D film, so Jovovich must be more precise with her movements. MacPherson said that in 3D, punches must brush their nose with your fist, or else you can see the gap. It is a matter of precision and trust, qualities the duo have built up over their decade of working together.

2020s Monster Hunter gives Anderson and Jovovich an enormous sandbox to play in, a South African desert standing in for an alien landscape populated by massively scaled monsters, taken from the blockbuster Capcom game. Anderson treats the locations as levels for Jovovich to conquer, as her UN military squad travels (with the help of a combative Tony Jaa and a swashbuckling Ron Perlman) from the quicksand of the burrowing horned Diablos; to the cave of the Nerscylla mega-spiders; to, finally, the vaulting mountains, the stage of a climactic boss battle with the dragonlike Rathalos. Video game critics have been impressed by how faithfully the film mimics the games style. But for a viewer who hasnt played it (like myself), the visual scheme feels like a Frank Frazetta painting come to life, with surging peaks bisected by giant flaming swords.

The Nerscylla battle is most emblematic of the Anderson-Jovovich aesthetic, staged in an underground lair from which Jovovich surges upward in the dark, scattering pus-filled spider spores as she scrambles from darkness to light. It represents the elemental pleasures of their cinema, two artists honing what they each do best: constructing a grotesque dystopian world that a hard-bitten female annihilates with desperate fury.

Monster Hunter received a doomed theatrical release at the end of the pandemic-ravaged 2020 and was further set back by an insensitive pun that offended Chinese audiences, requiring it to be briefly pulled from that countrys theaters. As an international co-production partly funded by Chinese money (Tencent Pictures), this was an economic deathblow, and the ending cliffhanger seems unlikely to net a sequel. The only thing certain for their future is that Paul W. S. Anderson will surely build a new world for Milla Jovovich to tear down, another expression of their mutual love of assured destruction.

R. Emmet Sweeney works for Kino Lorber, Inc. producing DVDs and Blu-rays, and has written for Filmmaker Magazine,Film Comment, Turner Classic Movies, and NeoText.

See the rest here:
Labyrinths: The Films of Milla Jovovich and Paul WS Anderson - Los Angeles Review of Books - lareviewofbooks

ABC News/Find a GraveMargaret Rudin/Ron Rudin

Ron Rudin was brutally murdered and his body was not found until years later when a fisherman stumbled across his charred remains. His wife, Margaret Rudin, was convicted of murder and served 20 years in prison. She became known as the Black Widow. His full name was Ronald Julian Rudin.

The couple had been married for seven years when Ron Rudin was shot in the back of the head with his own gun. Both Margaret and Ron had been married four times before their wedding. Margaret went on the run when the murder weapon was found in 1996, and she was indicted in 1997. Authorities also said Margaret Rudin tapped her husbands phone, suspecting he was having an affair.

Margaret Rudin, now 77, maintains her innocence. Rudin spoke out in exclusive interviews featured on ABC 20/20. The new episode, Five Weddings and a Murder, airs at 9 p.m. Eastern time Friday, February 21, 2021.

Heres what you need to know:

Ron Rudins body was found about 45 miles from Las Vegas, near the shoreline of a Colorado River Reservoir. Fisherman stumbled upon his remains, which included a skull and some charred bones. A decorative bracelet, which said RON in jewels, was also found in the area.

Prosecutors said at the Black Widow trial Rudin was shot in the head as he slept. They said his body was taken away in a truck, burned and dumped in the desert, according to the Associated Press.

Police determined Rudin was shot multiple times with a .22-caliber gun with a silencer. It was Rons own gun that was used to kill him. He had reported the gun missing just one year after he and Margaret were married. In addition to burning the body, Las Vegas Police and an autopsy determined he had been decapitated, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

Police believe Rudin was after her husbands property, which had an estimated $11 million worth. Police alleged Rudin shot her husband in their bed. They believe she had an accomplice, who was never identified. That person, they believe, helped her put the body into an antique humpback trunk and discard the body in the desert. The remains were found in 1995 at Nelsons Landing near Lake Mojave and the Colorado River.

Ron Rudin was murdered December 18, 1994 when he was 64 years old. He was buried at Saint Paul Lutheran Cemetery in Dieterich, Illinois, according to Find a Grave.

A diver found the weapon used in Ron Rudins murder at the bottom of Lake Mead in 1996. That sent Margaret Rudin on the run, several weeks before she was indicted on murder charges in 1997. She was arrested in Massachusetts in 1999.

Ron Rudin was a millionaire who earned his wealth as a prominent real estate developer in Las Vegas. Margaret Rudin was an antique shop owner and a socialite. She was arrested in Revere, Massachusetts after a tip was called in following a most wanted TV show. She had been living there for a year with a retired firefighter who she met among a group of retirees in Mexico.

I want to be exonerated, she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She said she wants a passport, to vote and to be able to do all the things that I was able to do before Ron was murdered.

I did not do it, she added.

READ NEXT: Margaret Rudin Today: Where Is the Black Widow Now in 2021?

See the article here:
Ron Rudin's Body Was Found & His Autopsy Revealed Details - Heavy.com

Impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump on February 9, 2021.

WASHINGTON (AP) Prosecutors in Donald Trumps impeachment trial said Wednesday they would prove that Trump was no innocent bystander but the inciter in chief of the deadly attack at the Capitol aimed at overturning his election loss to Joe Biden.

Opening the first full day of arguments, the lead House prosecutor said promised to lay out evidence that shows the president encouraged a rally crowd to head to the Capitol, then did nothing to stem the violence and watched with glee as a mob stormed the iconic building. Five people died.

To us it may have felt like chaos and madness, but there was method to the madness that day, said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

The trial can be viewed live in the C-SPAN/YouTube video player below.

The days proceedings were unfolding after an emotional start to the trial that left the former president fuming Tuesday when his attorneys delivered a meandering defense and failed to halt the trial on constitutional grounds. Some allies called for yet another shakeup to his legal team.

Trump is the first president to face an impeachment trial after leaving office and the first to be twice impeached. The Jan. 6 Capitol riot followed a rally during which Trump urged his supporters to fight like hell, words his lawyers say were simply a figure of speech. He is charged with incitement of insurrection.

Senators, many of whom fled for safety the day of the attack, watched Tuesdays graphic videos of the Trump supporters who battled past police to storm the halls, Trump flags waving. More video is expected Wednesday, including some that hasnt been seen before.

The prosecutors are arguing that Trumps words werent just free speech but part of the big lie his relentless efforts to sow doubts about the election results. Those began long before the votes were tabulated, revving up his followers to stop the steal though there was no evidence of substantial fraud.

Trump knew very well what would happen when he took to the microphone at the outdoor White House rally that day, almost to the hour that Congress gaveled in to certify Bidens win, said Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo.

This was not just a speech, he said.

Trumps supporters were prepped and armed, ready to descend on the Capitol, Neguse said. When they heard his speech, they understood his words.

Security remained extremely tight Wednesday at the Capitol, fenced off with razor wire and patrolled by National Guard troops.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would not be watching the trial.

Joe Biden is the president, hes not a pundit, hes not going to opine on back and forth arguments, she said.

The difficulty facing Trumps defense team became apparent at the start as they leaned on the process of the trial, unlike any other, rather than the substance of the case against the former president.

As the House impeachment managers described police officers maimed in the chaos and rioters parading in the very chamber where the trial was being held, Trumps team countered that the Constitution doesnt allow impeachment at this late date.

Even though the Senate rejected that argument in Tuesdays vote to proceed to the trial, the legal issue could resonate with Senate Republicans eager to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior.

Defense lawyer Bruce Castor said Tuesday he shifted his planned approach after hearing the prosecutors emotional opening and instead spoke conversationally to the senators, saying Trumps team would denounce the repugnant attack and in the strongest possible way denounce the rioters. He encouraged the senators to be cool headed as they assessed the arguments.

Trump attorney Schoen turned the trial toward starkly partisan tones, arguing the Democrats were fueled by a base hatred of the former president.

Full Coverage: Trump impeachment trialA frustrated Trump on Tuesday revived his demands to focus on his unsupported claims of voter fraud, repeatedly telephoning former White House aide Peter Navarro, who told The Associated Press in an interview he agrees. He is calling on Trump to fire his legal team.

If he doesnt make a mid-course correction here, hes going to lose this Super Bowl, Navarro said, a reference to public opinion, not the unlikely possibility of conviction.

Republicans made it clear that they were unhappy with Trumps defense, many of them saying they didnt understand where it was going particularly Castors opening.

While six Republicans joined with Democrats to vote to proceed with the trial, the 56-44 vote was far from the two-thirds threshold of 67 votes that would be needed for conviction.

As the country numbs to the Trump eras shattering of civic norms, the prosecutors sought to remind senators and the nation how extraordinary it was to have a sitting U.S. president working to discredit the election.

In hundreds of tweets, remarks and interviews as far back as spring and summer, Trump was spreading false claims about the election and refusing to commit to the peaceful transfer of power once it was over, they said.

As violence mounted in the states in the weeks and months before Trump supporters marched to the Capitol, he could have told loyalists to stand down. But he didnt.

The mob didnt come out of thin air, said Rep . Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.

The public scenes of attack were distilled in highly personal terms, first when Raskin broke down in tears Tuesday describing his family hiding in the Capitol that day. On Wednesday, Neguse, the son of immigrants, recalled telling his father how proud he was to return to Congress that night to finish the work of certifying the election. Castro said as a Democrat from Texas, he knew how hard it is to lose elections.

They also shared comments of the Capitol Police, including a Black officer who described racial epithets being hurled at him by the rioters.

Thats the question before all of you in this trial, is this America? Raskin told the senators.

It appears unlikely that the House prosecutors will call witnesses, and Trump has declined a request to testify. The trial is expected to continue into the weekend.

Trumps second impeachment trial is expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated affair of a year ago. In that case, Trump was charged with having privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, then a Democratic rival for the presidency. It could be over in half the time.

The Democratic-led House impeached the president swiftly, one week after the attack. A Capitol police officer was among those who died.

See the rest here:
WATCH: Senators hear opening arguments on day two of impeachment trial - WBRZ

Impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump on February 9, 2021.

WASHINGTON (AP) Prosecutors in Donald Trumps impeachment trial said Wednesday they would prove that Trump was no innocent bystander but the inciter in chief of the deadly attack at the Capitol aimed at overturning his election loss to Joe Biden.

Opening the first full day of arguments, the lead House prosecutor said promised to lay out evidence that shows the president encouraged a rally crowd to head to the Capitol, then did nothing to stem the violence and watched with glee as a mob stormed the iconic building. Five people died.

To us it may have felt like chaos and madness, but there was method to the madness that day, said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

The trial can be viewed live in the C-SPAN/YouTube video player below.

The days proceedings were unfolding after an emotional start to the trial that left the former president fuming Tuesday when his attorneys delivered a meandering defense and failed to halt the trial on constitutional grounds. Some allies called for yet another shakeup to his legal team.

Trump is the first president to face an impeachment trial after leaving office and the first to be twice impeached. The Jan. 6 Capitol riot followed a rally during which Trump urged his supporters to fight like hell, words his lawyers say were simply a figure of speech. He is charged with incitement of insurrection.

Senators, many of whom fled for safety the day of the attack, watched Tuesdays graphic videos of the Trump supporters who battled past police to storm the halls, Trump flags waving. More video is expected Wednesday, including some that hasnt been seen before.

The prosecutors are arguing that Trumps words werent just free speech but part of the big lie his relentless efforts to sow doubts about the election results. Those began long before the votes were tabulated, revving up his followers to stop the steal though there was no evidence of substantial fraud.

Trump knew very well what would happen when he took to the microphone at the outdoor White House rally that day, almost to the hour that Congress gaveled in to certify Bidens win, said Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo.

This was not just a speech, he said.

Trumps supporters were prepped and armed, ready to descend on the Capitol, Neguse said. When they heard his speech, they understood his words.

Security remained extremely tight Wednesday at the Capitol, fenced off with razor wire and patrolled by National Guard troops.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would not be watching the trial.

Joe Biden is the president, hes not a pundit, hes not going to opine on back and forth arguments, she said.

The difficulty facing Trumps defense team became apparent at the start as they leaned on the process of the trial, unlike any other, rather than the substance of the case against the former president.

As the House impeachment managers described police officers maimed in the chaos and rioters parading in the very chamber where the trial was being held, Trumps team countered that the Constitution doesnt allow impeachment at this late date.

Even though the Senate rejected that argument in Tuesdays vote to proceed to the trial, the legal issue could resonate with Senate Republicans eager to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior.

Defense lawyer Bruce Castor said Tuesday he shifted his planned approach after hearing the prosecutors emotional opening and instead spoke conversationally to the senators, saying Trumps team would denounce the repugnant attack and in the strongest possible way denounce the rioters. He encouraged the senators to be cool headed as they assessed the arguments.

Trump attorney Schoen turned the trial toward starkly partisan tones, arguing the Democrats were fueled by a base hatred of the former president.

Full Coverage: Trump impeachment trialA frustrated Trump on Tuesday revived his demands to focus on his unsupported claims of voter fraud, repeatedly telephoning former White House aide Peter Navarro, who told The Associated Press in an interview he agrees. He is calling on Trump to fire his legal team.

If he doesnt make a mid-course correction here, hes going to lose this Super Bowl, Navarro said, a reference to public opinion, not the unlikely possibility of conviction.

Republicans made it clear that they were unhappy with Trumps defense, many of them saying they didnt understand where it was going particularly Castors opening.

While six Republicans joined with Democrats to vote to proceed with the trial, the 56-44 vote was far from the two-thirds threshold of 67 votes that would be needed for conviction.

As the country numbs to the Trump eras shattering of civic norms, the prosecutors sought to remind senators and the nation how extraordinary it was to have a sitting U.S. president working to discredit the election.

In hundreds of tweets, remarks and interviews as far back as spring and summer, Trump was spreading false claims about the election and refusing to commit to the peaceful transfer of power once it was over, they said.

As violence mounted in the states in the weeks and months before Trump supporters marched to the Capitol, he could have told loyalists to stand down. But he didnt.

The mob didnt come out of thin air, said Rep . Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.

The public scenes of attack were distilled in highly personal terms, first when Raskin broke down in tears Tuesday describing his family hiding in the Capitol that day. On Wednesday, Neguse, the son of immigrants, recalled telling his father how proud he was to return to Congress that night to finish the work of certifying the election. Castro said as a Democrat from Texas, he knew how hard it is to lose elections.

They also shared comments of the Capitol Police, including a Black officer who described racial epithets being hurled at him by the rioters.

Thats the question before all of you in this trial, is this America? Raskin told the senators.

It appears unlikely that the House prosecutors will call witnesses, and Trump has declined a request to testify. The trial is expected to continue into the weekend.

Trumps second impeachment trial is expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated affair of a year ago. In that case, Trump was charged with having privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, then a Democratic rival for the presidency. It could be over in half the time.

The Democratic-led House impeached the president swiftly, one week after the attack. A Capitol police officer was among those who died.

Read the original:
Senators hear opening arguments on day two of impeachment trial - WBRZ

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) Republican Rep. Ron Wright of Texas, who had lung cancer and was hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19 last month, has died, his office said Monday. He was 67.

Wright died Sunday, spokesman Matt Langston said. He said he didnt know the cause of death, but the two-term congressman and his wife, Susan, had been admitted to a Dallas hospital in the previous two weeks after contracting COVID-19.

Wright announced shortly after being sworn in for a new term that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. He was also hospitalized last year over treatment for lung cancer complications.

Despite years of painful, sometimes debilitating treatment for cancer, Ron never lacked the desire to get up and go to work, to motivate those around him, or to offer fatherly advice, his office said in a statement.

Wright is the first sitting member of Congress to die after contracting COVID-19. In December, an incoming Republican member of the U.S. House, Luke Letlow of Louisiana, died of complications related to the virus only days before the 41-year-old would have been sworn into office.

Wright had said he tested positive for COVID-19 after coming into contact with an infected person, and he described his early symptoms as minor and said he would quarantine.

Langston said Wright never received a vaccination and was believed to have contracted the virus in Washington after he returned in early January for the swearing-in ceremony. Another Texas member of Congress, Republican U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, also announced that she had tested positive around that time.

Langston said Susan Wright was discharged from the hospital before her husbands death.

He emulated the very best of America, and we were fortunate to have had the opportunity to call him a colleague and a friend, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said.

President Joe Biden called Wright a fighter who battled bravely against both cancer and COVID-19, diseases that our nation will continue working tirelessly every day to defeat in the memory of all those we have lost. Similar tributes rolled in, including from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who mentioned the broader toll of the pandemic.

As we grieve Congressman Wrights passing, Members of Congress are united in sorrow and pray for the families and loved ones of the over 460,000 Americans who have been killed by the vicious coronavirus. Each death is a tragedy that breaks our hearts and demands strong, urgent action, Pelosi said in a statement.

Wright was among the 147 Republicans in Congress who voted to reject President Joe Bidens electoral victory. He was a longtime city councilman in Arlington, Texas, and won reelection to his House seat by 9 percentage points last year.

Wright had represented the 6th Congressional District in the Dallas-Fort Worth area since 2018. A special election will be called to fill his seat.

See the rest here:
Texas GOP Rep. Wright, who battled health issues, dies at 67 - The Associated Press

ENCINITAS Edgar Engert, known locally as Mr. Encinitas, passed away on Jan. 10 due to complications related to COVID-19. He was 84 years old.

The longtime philanthropist will be remembered for his many contributions to the city that aimed to bring everyone together.

Edgar was born on April 15, 1936, in Kreimbach, Germany. Following the difficult aftermath of WWII, his aunt invited him to move to America in 1958. Edgar and his wife Renate, who was pregnant with their first child at the time, jumped at the opportunity.

While leaving his family behind was difficult, Edgar knew that life in the United States would be his best chance at providing for them.

Edgar landed a job working for a flower grower in New York City, where he dedicated every penny earned towards bringing his family over from Germany.

In 1959, exactly one year after he had arrived in America, Edgar reunited with Renate, who arrived hand in hand with their daughter, Liane. His first son, Ron, was born one year later followed by the youngest, Jimmy, four years after that.

The family of five lived happily in New York for about a decade before ultimately packing their car and driving west to California in 1968, Liane explained. Two parents, three kids and a dog. Edgar had bought a three-bedroom home in Cardiff, just one mile from the beach.

At the time, Encinitas and Cardiff were tiny beach towns, a small strip of road lined with a handful of shops, but he knew this is where he wanted to settle down, Liane said.

When they moved to California, they knew they would never move back to Germany, she explained. They were so happy they moved here.

Edgar was a family man, always considering the needs of his wife and kids before his own. A close second to the family were his neighbors. He cared about how the people in the community were doing, and as the town grew, as it inevitably would, he tried to retain the hometown vibe, his son Ron told The Coast News.

He was proud of where he lived, he wanted to do better for the community, he said. Thats just how he was, Ron said.

Two of his biggest contributions to the city came in the form of festivities. Edgar brought Oktoberfest to Encinitas to share a portion of his German heritage and he started the citys Holiday Parade, which takes place every December, to bring the people together.

The joy that brought to the community brought him joy, Ron said. He loved bringing the community together.

Edgar was involved in a number of local organizations throughout the city, including the Encinitas Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club of Encinitas, Del Mar Fair Flower and Garden Show, San Diego Botanic Gardens, San Dieguito Heritage Museum and California State Florist Association.

After 40 years of dedicated service, Edgar became the longest-standing member on the board of the Magdalena Ecke Family YMCA. During his time as both YMCA staff and leadership, Edgar also served on committees for the Poinsettia Ball and Roof Raisers Golf Tournament. Edgar served in many capacities for the local organization, including florist, tour guide and volunteer docent at Ecke Ranch.

Paul Ecke III, who operated his familys 100-year-old poinsettia farming business for 20 years, said Edgar was a tireless worker.

Im very sad hes gone but Im also surprised because Edgar never seemed to stop, Ecke III told The Coast News. He never seemed to sleep, he was always working, spending time with his family and helping with charities. I guess Im still a bit in shock, I cant believe hes gone.

In 2006, Edgar received the YMCA of San Diego Countys Golden Triangle of Distinguished Service Award, honoring individuals each year for outstanding service.

According to Ecke III, Edgar was working as a grower in Long Island when he approached his father, Paul Ecke Jr., about working for the Ecke family business. There was no job available at the time but several months later, Edgar showed up on his fathers doorstep in Southern California with his family in the car and told him he was ready to work.

My dad had no choice but to hire him and he turned out to be a great employee, Ecke III said. Edgar never took no for an answer. He always made things happen. Edgar managed to get 26 hours in every day.

Through all of these endeavors, family and friends recall Edgar was always trying to give back to people in his community.

There wasnt anyone he ever met that wasnt a friend, Liane said.

Edgar often reflected upon his life. In his younger years, Edgar never thought he would be so fortunate to spend 63 years married to the love of his life, raising three children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren along the way.

Edgar and Renate loved taking vacations and did their best to bring the whole family along.

I just want to make memories, Edgar told Liane. This is what lifes about making memories and being together.

Link:
Remembering the life of 'Mr. Encinitas' - Coast News

Dustin Diamond, who spent 13 seasons as the goofy nerd Screech on the Saturday morning sitcom Saved by the Bell and its various iterations before his life and career took a turn for the worse, died Monday. He was 44.

The cause of death was carcinoma, his rep, Roger Paul, told The Hollywood Reporter. The actorwas diagnosed with stage 4 cancer three weeks ago and was receiving treatments at a Florida hospital.

"In that time, it managed to spread rapidly throughout his system; the only mercy it exhibited was its sharp and swift execution," Paul said in a statement. "Dustin did not suffer. He did not have to lie submerged in pain. For that, we are grateful."

When he was 11 and in the fifth grade, Diamond beat out 5,000 other hopefuls in 1988 to land the role of Samuel "Screech" Powers on the Disney Channel comedy Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the forerunner to Saved by the Bell.

Viewers watched Diamond grow up before their eyes as he continued as the chess-loving Screech on Saved by the Bell, which lasted four seasons (1989-93), Saved by the Bell: The College Years (one primetime season, 1993-94) and Saved by the Bell: The New Class (seven seasons, 1994-2000), all on NBC. When the last episode aired, Diamond was 23.

"The hardest thing about being a child star is giving up your childhood. You don't get a childhood, really," he said in a Where Are They Now? interview for OWN in 2013. "You're a performer, you have to know your lines and rehearse and practice, making sure you are the funniest and the best you can be. Because if you weren't funny, you could be replaced."

In the ensuing years, Diamond began a new career as a stand-up comic (he said he had been favorably compared to George Carlin); beat up a much older Ron Palillo (Arnold Horshack of Welcome Back, Kotter) on Celebrity Boxing 2; shed some pounds on Celebrity Fit Club; entered the ring with Dennis Rodman and Frank Stallone on Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling; and appeared on World's Dumbest and Celebrity Big Brother.

In 2006, Diamond was behind Screeched Saved by the Smell, a 52-minute sex tape that involved him and two women. Later, he said that a "stunt person" stood in for him, with his face added during editing.

"It's the thing I'm most embarrassed about," he said. "The rumor that I think had been put on TV was that Paris Hilton had made $14 million off [her] sex tape. My buddy said, 'Fourteen million? Holy smokes! Where's the Screech sex tape? You've got to be worth at least a million.' I thought, 'Yeah, maybe.' I got some money off of it, but it wasn't worth the fallout."

Three years later, Diamond shared salacious behind-the-scenes tales about his TV show in the book Behind the Bell. After it came out, he said it was ghostwritten and he wasn't given a chance to remove some of the stories that were created from some "offhand" comments that he had made to the real author.

In 2015, Diamond was convicted of disorderly conduct after he stabbed another bar patron in the armpit with a switchblade on Christmas Day 2014 in an incident involving his then-fiancee. He served three months in jail before being released in April 2016.

When the Peacock streaming service unveiled a follow-up Saved by the Bell series in November, original stars including Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Elizabeth Berkley, Mario Lopez and Tiffani Thiessen were back, but Diamond was not. Screech, it was explained, was living on the International Space Station with Kevin, the robot pal that he built.

"We are aware that Dustin is not considered reputable by most. He's had a history of mishaps, of unfortunate events," Paul said. "We want the public to understand that he was not intentionally malevolent. He much like the rest of those who act out and behave poorly had undergone a great deal of turmoil and heartache. His actions, though rebukable, stemmed from loss and the lack of knowledge on how to process that pain properly. In actuality, Dustin was a humorous and high-spirited individual whose greatest passion was to make others laugh. He was able to sense and feel other peoples' emotions to such a length that he was able to feel them too a strength and a flaw, all in one."

Born on Jan. 7, 1977, in San Jose, California, Dustin Neil Diamond attended Zion Lutheran School in Anaheim. His folks worked in the computer industry.

After Gosselaar was hired to star as Zack Morris on Good Morning, Miss Bliss, he pushed for the blue-eyed Diamond to get the part of his best friend in junior high, Screech. (Diamond had appeared in 1987 on the syndicated TV comedy It's a Living and in 1988 in the film Big Top Pee-wee.)

"The thing is, I was 11 when we started, and [his castmates] were 14, 15 years old," he said. "I was kind of like the tag-along brother; when they were going into college, I was just going into high school. And at that age, it's a huge difference. I was wacky and I was wild and real hyper."

As he longed for Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies) and shared his first onscreen kiss with Violet Bickerstaff (Tori Spelling), Screech remained at the center of Saved by the Bell and its offshoots as the franchise moved to the fictional schools of Bayside High and California University and then back to Bayside, where Screech was now the assistant to bumbling Principal Belding (Dennis Haskins).

In 2006, it was reported that Diamond was selling T-shirts at $15 a pop in an attempt to stave off a foreclosure of his home in Port Washington, Wisconsin. He said he had filed for bankruptcy protection in California in 2001 and had gotten into a financial hole because his parents had spent money he had earned fromSaved by the Bell.

Diamond also showed up on the big screen in Made (2001), Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003), Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003), Tetherball: The Movie (2010), All Wifed Out (2012) and College Fright Night(2014) and executive produced a 2014 Lifetime telefilm, The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story.

"I'm proud of the work that I've done when I've done it. It's just, how to you come off such a phenom role of this Screech character and break out of that mold and do something different?" he asked Lopez in a 2016 interview on Extra. "I'd audition, and every single time they'd say, 'Hey, we loved it, but we saw too much Screech in it.' Well, I can't change my bone structure, what do you want me to do?"

Continued here:
Dustin Diamond, Screech on 'Saved by the Bell,' Dies at 44 - Hollywood Reporter