Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 30, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba KAYE’S AUCTION HOUSE SHERIFF ONLINE AUCTION SALE Online bidding starts Wednesday, July 31, 2024 and closes on Wednesday, August 7, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. Viewing: Thursday, August 1st from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Viewing location: call 204-668-0183 for address GO TO: www.kayesauctions.com TO VIEW & BID ONLINE Having received instructions from the OFFICE OF THE SHERIFF Under Writ of Seizure and Sale, we will sell the following “As Is, Where Is” by online auction: 2002 GMC T7500 diesel truck w/ The Patcher RA-300 pot hole patcher* 2011 Ford Explorer Limited, 3.5L V6, runs good, showing 194,000km* 2013 Ford F-350 Super Duty 4x4 Crew Cab w/Brand FX 7-door service box, showing 245,200 km* 2010 Ford F-250 Lariat Super Duty 4x4 crew cab, showing 376,100 km* 2006 Ford F-450 SD XL diesel 4x4 crew cab, showing 217,900 km* 2009 H&H flat deck trailer tandem dual axle tilt* homemade tandem axle flat deck wood top trailer w/pinto hitch* 1990 Dew? Single axle metal trailer w/ramps & pinto hitch* 2000 International 4900 DT466E std. diesel plow truck w/Hiab 026T & tail gate* 2000 International 4900 DT466E diesel plow truck w/General Service Body w/ Hiab 026T, std. trans, showing 383,400 km* 2000 International diesel truck model 2554 standard plow truck w/dump* 1995 Ford Diesel plow truck type- F80332* 1989 Ford L8000 diesel plow truck w/platform* Terms: Visa, Mastercard, e-transfer or Debit paid in full. Buyer’s Fee. “Subject to Additions & Deletions” All Sales Subject to Sheriff ’s Approval Everything Sold As Is, Where Is With no warranties implied or expressed KAYE’S AUCTIONS 204-668-0183 (Wpg) www.kayesauctions.com TOP NEWS A3 TUESDAY JULY 30, 2024 ● ASSOCIATE EDITOR, NEWS: STACEY THIDRICKSON 204-697-7292 ● CITY.DESK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM U.S. president details plan for term limits, ethics code for justices Biden decries ‘extremism’ on Supreme Court A USTIN, Texas — U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday that “ex- tremism” on the U.S. Supreme Court is undermining public confi- dence in the institution and called on Congress to quickly establish term lim- its and an enforceable ethics code for the court’s nine justices. He also called on lawmakers to ratify a constitution- al amendment limiting presidential immunity. Biden, who has less than six months left in his presidency, detailed the con- tours of his court proposal in an address at the LBJ Presidential Library in Aus- tin, Texas, where he was marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. His calls for dramatic changes in the court have little chance of being approved by a closely divided Congress with 99 days to go before Election Day. Still, Democrats hope it’ll help focus voters as they consider their choices in a tight election. The likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Har- ris, who has sought to frame her race against Republican ex-President Don- ald Trump as “a choice between free- dom and chaos,” quickly endorsed the Biden proposal. “Extremism is undermining the public confidence in the court’s deci- sions,” Biden said. He added, “We can and must prevent abuse of presidential power and restore faith in the Supreme Court.” The White House is looking to tap into the growing outrage among Democrats about the court, which has a 6-3 con- servative majority, issuing opinions that overturned landmark decisions on abortion rights and federal regulatory powers that stood for decades. Liberals also have expressed dismay over revelations about what they say are questionable relationships and de- cisions by some members of the con- servative wing of the court that suggest their impartiality is compromised. Biden pointed to the 2013 high court decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 2022 decision over- turning Roe v. Wade and rolling back abortion rights, and a 2023 decision “eviscerating” affirmative action in college admission programs as three prime examples of what he saw as “out- rageous” decisions that have shaken Americans’ faith in the high court. Harris, in a statement, said the re- forms being proposed are needed be- cause “there is a clear crisis of confi- dence facing the Supreme Court.” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the proposal a “danger- ous gambit” that would be “dead on ar- rival in the House.” Biden in a brief exchange with repor- ters ahead of his address shrugged off Johnson’s pronouncement that the pro- posal is going nowhere. “I think that’s what he is — dead on arrival,” Biden offered. He added that he would “figure out a way” to get it done. Biden is calling for doing away with lifetime appointments to the court. He says Congress should pass legislation to establish a system in which the sitting president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in service on the court. He argues term limits would help ensure that court mem- bership changes with some regularity and “reduce the chance that any single president imposes undue influence for generations to come.” He also wants Congress to pass legis- lation establishing a court code of eth- ics that would require justices to dis- close gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of in- terest. Biden also is calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment re- versing the Supreme Court’s recent landmark immunity ruling that deter- mined former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. That decision extended the delay in the Washington criminal case against Trump on charges he plotted to over- turn his 2020 presidential election loss and all but ended prospects the former president could be tried before the Nov- ember election. “This nation was founded on the prin- ciple there are no kings in America,” Biden said. “Each of us are equal before the law. No one is above the law. For all practical purposes, the court’s decision almost certainly means the president can violate their oath, flout our laws and face no consequences.” Most Americans supported some form of age limit for Supreme Court justices in an AP-NORC poll from Au- gust 2023. Two-thirds wanted Supreme Court justices to be required to retire by a certain age. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to favour a mandatory retirement age, 77 per cent to 61 per cent. Americans across age groups tend to agree on the desire for age limits — those age 60 and over were as likely as any other age group to be in favour of this limit for Supreme Court justices. The first three justices who would potentially be affected by term lim- its are on the right. Justice Clarence Thomas has been on the court for near- ly 33 years. Chief Justice John Roberts has served for 19 years and Justice Samuel Alito has served for 18. Supreme Court justices served an average of about 17 years from the founding until 1970, said Gabe Roth, executive director of the group Fix the Court. Since 1970, the average has been about 28 years. Both conservative and liberal politicians alike have espoused term limits. An enforcement mechanism for the high court’s code of ethics, meanwhile, could bring the Supreme Court justices more in line with other federal judges, who are subject to a disciplinary system in which anyone can file a complaint and have it reviewed. An investigation can result in censure and reprimand. Last week, Justice Elena Kagan called publicly for creating a way to enforce the new ethics code, becoming the first justice to do so. The last time Congress ratified an amendment to the Constitution was 32 years ago. The 27th Amendment, rati- fied in 1992, states that Congress can pass a bill changing the pay for mem- bers of the House and the Senate, but such a change can’t take effect until after the next November elections are held for the House. Trump has decried court reform as a desperate attempt by Democrats to “Play the Ref.” “The Democrats are attempting to interfere in the Presidential Election and destroy our Justice System, by at- tacking their Political Opponent, ME, and our Honorable Supreme Court. We have to fight for our Fair and Independ- ent Courts and protect our Country,” Trump posted on his Truth Social site this month. There have been increasing questions surrounding the ethics of the court af- ter revelations about some of the jus- tices, including that Thomas accepted luxury trips from a GOP megadonor. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed during the Obama adminis- tration, has faced scrutiny after it sur- faced her staff often prodded public in- stitutions that hosted her to buy copies of her memoir or children’s books. Alito rejected calls to step aside from Supreme Court cases involving Trump and Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection defend- ants despite a flap over provocative flags displayed at his homes that some believe suggested sympathy to people facing charges over storming the U.S. Capitol to keep Trump in power. Alito says the flags were displayed by his wife. “These scandals involving the jus- tices have caused public opinion to question the court’s fairness and in- dependence that are essential to basic- ally carrying its mission of equal jus- tice under the law,” Biden said. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell pushed back that Biden’s proposal amounted to taking a “torch” to the “crown jewel of our system of government.” “President Biden and his leftist allies don’t like the current composition of the court so they want to shred the Con- stitution to change it,” McConnell said. — The Associated Press AAMER MADHANI AND COLLEEN LONG MANUEL BALCE CENETA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. President Joe Biden waves as he walks to board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Monday on his way to Austin, Texas. Trump agrees to interview as part of probe into assassination attempt, FBI says WASHINGTON — Former president Donald Trump has agreed to be inter- viewed by the FBI as part of an investi- gation into his attempted assassination in Pennsylvania earlier this month, a special agent said on Monday in dis- closing how the gunman prior to the shooting had researched mass attacks and explosive devices. The expected interview with the 2024 Republican presidential nominee is part of the FBI’s standard protocol to speak with victims during the course of its criminal investigations. The FBI said on Friday that Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet or a fragment of one during the July 13 assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “We want to get his perspective on what he observed,” said Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office. “It is a standard victim interview like we would do for any other victim of crime, under any other circumstance.” Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired Monday night that he ex- pected the FBI interview to take place Thursday. Through more than 450 interviews, the FBI has fleshed out a portrait of the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, that reveals him to be a “highly intelli- gent” but reclusive 20-year-old whose primary social circle was his family and who maintained few friends and acquaintances throughout his life, Ro- jek said. Even in online gaming plat- forms that Crooks visited, his inter- actions with peers appeared to have been minimal, the FBI said. His parents have been “extremely co-operative,” with the investigation, Rojek said. They have said they had no advance knowledge of the shooting. The FBI has not uncovered a motive as to why he chose to target Trump, but investigators believe the shooting was the result of extensive planning, in- cluding the purchase under an alias in recent months of chemical precursors that investigators believe were used to create the explosive devices found in his car and his home and the deploy- ment of a drone about 200 yards (180 meters) from the rally site in the hours before the event. The day before the shooting, the FBI says, Crooks visited a local shooting range and practised with the gun that would be used in the attack. After the shooting, authorities found two explosive devices in Crooks’ car and a third in his room at home. The devices recovered from the car, con- sisting of ammunition boxes filled with explosive material with wires, receiv- ers and ignition devices, were capable of exploding but did not because the re- ceivers were in the “off” position, Ro- jek said. How much damage they could have done is unclear. The FBI has said that Crooks in the lead-up to the shooting had shown an online interest in prominent public fig- ures, searching online for information about individuals including President Joe Biden. In addition, Rojek said, Crooks looked up information about mass shootings, improvised explo- sive devices, power plants and the at- tempted assassination in May of Slo- vakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico. FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress last week that on July 6, the day Crooks registered to attend the Trump rally, he googled: “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?” That’s a reference to Lee Harvey Os- wald, the shooter who killed president John F. Kennedy from a sniper’s perch in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. New details, meanwhile, were emer- ging about law enforcement security lapses and missed communications that preceded the shooting. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Repub- lican on the Senate Judiciary Commit- tee, released text messages from mem- bers of the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit that showed how local officers had communicated with each other about a suspicious-behaving man who turned out to be Crooks lurking around more than an hour before the shooting. One text just before 4:30 p.m. de- scribes a man “sitting to the direct right on a picnic table about 50 yards from the exit.” In another text at 5:38 p.m., an offi- cer tells other counter-snipers: “Kid learning around building we are in. AGR I believe it is. I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.” Photo- graphs of Crooks circulated among the group. AGR is a reference to a complex of buildings that form AGR International Inc, a supplier of automation equip- ment for the glass and plastic pack- aging industry. Crooks scaled the roof of one of the buildings of the compound and is believed to have fired eight shots at the rally stage with an AR-style rifle that was purchased legally by his fath- er years earlier. The shots were fired at 6:12 p.m., according to a Beaver County af- ter-action report. Trump said he was “shot with a bul- let that pierced the upper part of my right ear,” and he appeared in the days later with a bandage on the ear. One rallygoer, Corey Comperatore, was killed and two others were injured. Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Ser- vice counter-sniper. In an interview with ABC News, a Beaver County officer who sounded the alarm said that after sending a text alerting others to Crooks, “I assumed that there would be somebody coming out to speak with this individual or find out what’s going on.” — The Associated Press ERIC TUCKER ReDiscover used, vintage and unique furniture. ;