AG Barr Visits Alaska, Calls Dire Lawless Situation An ‘Emergency’

Attorney General Bill Barr vowed to solve the “emergency” situation in western Alaska after traveling throughout the state and talking to locals about the high rates of crime, sexual violence, and the shortage of police. Barr visited the Alaskan town of Napaskiak with Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski where he listened to pleas from villagers over the drastic situation their town faces. Napaskiak leaders pleaded with Barr for more federal help in combatting domestic violence, suicides, alcohol-related deaths and more. “We need help. We may be the poorest people and the neediest people, but we matter,” said village tribal chief Stephen Maxie Jr., according to Anchorage Daily News. “I understand when you say enough is enough,” Barr told the gathered 75 residents Friday as he promised to do everything in his power to help them. “These problems have been known for a long time. Now we have to try and deliver some solutions.” While in Alaska, Barr spoke at one of his “fire-side chats” saying he is unconcerned about his reputation in politics.

The attorney general said that he chose Alaska as the first state to visit since he began his new role because he recognized the significance of Alaska’s needs. “It would be hard for me to imagine a more vulnerable population,” Barr told reporters, according to Anchorage Daily News. An investigation conducted by Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica revealed that one-in-three out of about 70 Alaskan communities did not have police protection at some point during the past year. These communities exist in regions with some of the highest rates of poverty, suicide, and sexual assault in the United States, the publication reports.

The investigation found that not only leaders say they lack jail space and police stations, but many villages also cannot afford to pay policemen more than $10 an hour, and thus suffer from constant turnover. The investigation also found that those hired as policemen often have criminal records themselves. These communities often have no police and suffer from nearly four times as many sex offenders as other communities in U.S., the Anchorage Daily News reported.

Barr met with the two local Napaskiak officers who were only equipped with handcuffs to deal with local crime, according to the Anchorage Daily News. The officers were 19- and 20-years-old and largely untrained. The attorney general was also shown the village’s wooden jail and told that a fire in the neighboring village had killed inmates who were unable to escape the same type of wooden prison. Barr visited the Anchorage state crime lab Thursday where he was told about the large amounts of “unprocessed rape kits, textbook-sized collections of notes and DNA samples from victims of sexual assaults for use as evidence in criminal cases,” according to the Anchorage Daily News.

“I’ve heard a number of specific proposals that aren’t necessarily resource intensive. But obviously money is an important part of the solution,” Barr told the Daily News after his tour of the crime lab. “The important thing is to figure out where we are headed, where those resources are going to be spent and what kind of system they are going to support.” Barr also visited one of only two women’s shelters in the region where he was briefed on the shortage of funds, housing, and staffing. Women in the shelter are often not able to return to their homes due to lack of funding and thus return to their abusers.

Though Barr did not declare a state of emergency for the Bethel region, as the Napaskiak tribal chief Maxie urged him to do, he did say that the situation is an “emergency” and promised to dedicate his help. “One thing that impressed me the most is the commitment of the people,” Barr told reporters. “They’re not looking for handouts. They’re looking for their due.”

https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/06/03/bill-barr-alaska/

Lawless: One in three Alaska villages have no local police

Special report: A first-of-its-kind investigation by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica found more than 70 Alaska communities — places with some of the highest rates of sexual assault in the U.S. — have no local police protection.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/lawless/2019/05/16/lawless-one-in-three-alaska-villages-have-no-local-police/

New York Times Highlights Sec Elaine Chao’s Connections To China. Chao’s Sister Appears To Find It Racist

The New York Times published a story Sunday evening suggesting Transportation Department Sec. Elaine Chao “boosted the profile of her family’s shipping company” through her position. Chao, the daughter of Chinese immigrants who founded shipping giant Foremost Group, has not had a “formal role” at Foremost since the 1970s, reported The NYT. The news outlet also pointed out that Chao’s sister Angela Chao is CEO of Foremost and has ties to the Chinese state, including her membership of the board of the Bank of China. “We are an international shipping company, and I’m an American,” Angela Chao told The New York Times Friday, adding, “I don’t think that, if I didn’t have a Chinese face, there would be any of this focus on China.”

The NYT piece connected Chao’s family ties to Foremost with cost-cutting proposals for the Maritime Administration that she oversees, like refurbishing used ships instead of buying new ones. But Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who leads a group with oversight of the Department of Transportation (DOT) budget, said that the push for budget cuts came from the White House and not Chao, according to The NYT. Collins called Chao a “strong advocate” for maritime prioritization.

DOT provided the following statement from Chao for The NYT story: My parents and I came to America armed only with deep faith in the basic kindness and goodness of this country and the opportunities it offers. My family are patriotic Americans who have led purpose-driven lives and contributed much to this country. They embody the American dream, and my parents inspired all their daughters to give back to this country we love.

“This article demonstrates deep misunderstanding of the work of Department of Transportation and the U. S. maritime industry. Important context is intentionally missing and it implies conflicts of interest where none exist. The Secretary has been one of this country’s greatest advocates for the U.S. flag ship industry and today, the Maritime Administration has the largest operating budget in its history in no small part due to her advocacy,” a DOT spokesperson told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an email. The Chao family is respected in Beijing — for example, a state-run publisher printed biographies of Chao’s parents and released the copies at “ceremonies attended by high-ranking members of the Communist Party,” reported The NYT. She has visited China many times. In addition, The NYT called attention to a trip to China being planned in 2017 that Chao cancelled after ethical concerns were brought to State Department and DOT officials. Chao asked “federal officials to help coordinate travel arrangements for at least one family member and include relatives in meetings with government officials.” It would have been her first trip to China as DOT secretary.

Foremost is based in Midtown Manhattan but has “almost no footprint” in the U.S. since its ships are registered in Liberia and Hong Kong and owned through companies in the Marshall Islands, according to The NYT. Media attention on Chao and Foremost is not new. Her appearances with her father James Chao, including video interviews, have raised “ethical concerns” according to experts cited by Politico in 2018. Another 2018 story by The Intercept implied that the Chaos made use of offshore tax havens when funding their family foundation.

The NYT story also incorporated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Chao’s husband of nearly 30 years. Thirteen members of the Chao clan have donated “more than $1 million to Mr. McConnell’s campaigns and to political action committees tied to him” since 1989, reported The NYT. “I’m proud to have had the support of my family over the years,” McConnell told TheDNCF in a statement Monday. Chao became DOT secretary in January 2017 days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. She had already served in another Republican president’s cabinet. Chao became the first Chinese-American cabinet secretary when she served as Labor secretary under former president George W. Bush for eight years. The NYT’s Sunday story on Chao comes about a week after The Wall Street Journal published a piece based on federal disclosure forms showing Chao retained stock in a construction materials company despite signing an ethics agreement agreeing to a cash payout from the company.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/06/03/elaine-chao-family-business/

A ‘Bridge’ to China, and Her Family’s Business, in the Trump Cabinet

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/us/politics/elaine-chao-china.html

Transportation Sec Elaine Chao Under Fire For Reportedly Failing To Cut Ties With Construction Materials Company

https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/28/elaine-chao-transportation/