CNN reported on Tuesday, June 25 that White House officials are thrashing out the details of a plan to allow military contractors to deploy to Ukraine to help Kyiv’s military to maintain US-provided weapons systems.

While stressing that the proposal had not yet been submitted to or agreed by President Joe Biden, reported that the change would present yet another major change in the US stance towards its support for Ukraine.

An official from within the administration told CNN that: “We have not made any decisions and any discussion of this is premature.” The executive also said that the president remained firmly against any suggestion of sending US troops to Ukraine.

The US withdrew all its military personnel that were involved in training or other support to Ukraine’s forces before Russia’s full-scale February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Since then, Washington has taken great pains to make it clear that the US military and other official representatives have no direct involvement in combat operations.

The State Department has explicitly warned US citizens against traveling to Ukraine since the war began.

The result of US reticence is that if any of the military equipment that it provided sustains damage, it must be transported to Poland, Romania, or another NATO country for repair.

While US troops can help with routine maintenance procedures online that also comes with inherent limitations. The process in both circumstances takes time and resources and keeps vital weapons systems out of service for longer periods than if the work could be done by US experts onsite in Ukraine.

US officials said that positioning US-funded contractors in Ukraine would mean maintenance and repair for high-value equipment would be carried out much faster. The F-16 fighter aircraft, which Ukraine is about to receive will require almost continuous routine work to keep in the air.

According to the CNN report, the catalyst for a change of heart over the last few months has been Russian gains on the battlefield that were partly facilitated by the seven-month block on funding caused by Congress.

The possibility of deploying contracted companies to Ukraine comes after Washington took more recent proactive decisions to support Ukraine. This included Biden’s agreement to allow Kyiv to strike targets inside Russia, close to the border city of Kharkiv – a request the US had turned down in the past. Last week the US seemed to relax the limitations on the use of its weapons further when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that US weapons could be used to hit Moscow’s forces anywhere along the Ukraine-Russia border.

 Officials cited by CNN made it clear that the deployment of US contractors would be limited to essential tasks and only when adequate threat mitigation plans were developed. Ukraine would not see the mass contractor presence that occurred in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“This would be a much more focused and thoughtful effort to support Ukraine in country,” according to Alex Vindman, who was the director for European Affairs on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council.

CNN said Vindman had been pushing the Biden administration to allow contractor deployment for nearly two years and said the White House had been working on the plan since earlier this year.

“Ukraine is an ally,” Vindman told CNN. “The US has keen, critical national security interests in supporting Ukraine, and there are plenty of risk mitigation measures.”

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (KKTV) – Nearly a decade after two people were killed in Cheyenne, an arrest has been made.

The Cheyenne Police Department shared details on the arrest with the public on Tuesday in a news release posted to social media. Police are reporting 68-year-old Douglas Smith was arrested in California, suspected of first-degree murder.

Investigators believe Smith killed 76-year-old George Manley and 67-year-old Dwight Brockman at The Coin Shop in Cheyenne while Cheyenne Frontier Days was in full swing. The violent crime was carried out on July 20, 2015.

“Three years ago, when I was hired as Chief of Police, I became aware of the homicide at The Coin Shop and decided to make this a priority,” said Cheyenne Police Chief Mark Francisco. “Cases like this can be very challenging with many layers of evidence. Our detectives have been diligently working for almost a decade, and, through detailed analysis, have been able to thoughtfully re-examine the evidence in ways that bring those responsible to justice.”

Police are reporting that since 2023, more than 1,500 hours were spent working on the case.

“As a result of their investigation, detectives believe that Douglas Smith, the initial 9-1-1 caller, killed Manley and Brockman on July 20,” police added in the news release. “The case has now been turned over to the Laramie County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.”

Copyright 2024 KKTV. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The following column first appeared on the author’s blog, Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks.

There is a controversy in Oregon over a proposed change in the ethics rule from the Oregon Medical Board. At issue is the use of “microaggressions” to discipline doctors and to make reporting such transgressions mandatory for all doctors. It seems before you can give stitches, you have to join snitches under one of the most ambiguous categories of prescribed speech.

I have been a critic of microaggression rules on college campuses and discuss this trend in my book out this week, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” In past debates over this category of offensive speech, I have objected that it is hopelessly vague and highly controversial.

That ambiguity creates a threat to free speech through a chilling effect on speakers who are unsure of what will be considered microaggressive. Terms ranging from “melting pot” to phrases like “pulling oneself up by your own bootstraps” have been declared racist.  Some of those have been identified by Columbia professor Derald Wing Sue, cited by Oregon’s state government as a “microaggressions expert.”

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The Hippocratic oath is based on the pledge that doctors will ‘first do no harm.’ Unfortunately, that pledge does not appear to apply to free speech in Oregon. 

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Professor Sue considers statements like “Everyone can succeed if they just work hard enough!” as an example of a microaggression. Sue’s work on “microassaults,” “microinsults,” and “microinvalidations” are being effectively adopted by the Board.

Notably, when I have objected to this category, advocates have insisted that they are merely voluntary and instructive, not mandatory. I have long argued that they are used in a mandatory fashion by triggering investigations of professors and would inevitably be made mandatory.

That appears to be happening in Oregon. A couple of conservative sites have covered the controversy.

The incorporation of microaggressions under the new ethics rules is precisely what some of us have been warning about for years. As is often the case, activists begin by insisting that language monitoring is purely instructional and optional before codifying those rules in mandatory terms.

Under the new ethics rule from the Oregon Medical Board, “unprofessional conduct” (over which a doctor can lose his or her license) will include microaggressions:

“In the practice of medicine, podiatry, or acupuncture, discrimination through unfair treatment by implicit and explicit bias, including microaggressions, or indirect or subtle behaviors that reflect negative attitudes or beliefs about a non-majority group.”

The new section “J” ranks microaggressions with fraud, sexual assault, and ordering unnecessary or harmful surgeries.

The Oregon Medical Board states that:

“The proposed rule amendments update the definition of “unprofessional conduct” to include discrimination in the practice of medicine, podiatry, and acupuncture, which would make discrimination a ground for discipline. The proposed rule may favorably impact racial equity by making discrimination a ground for discipline for OMB licensees. It is not known how the other proposed rule amendments will impact racial equity in the state.”

The incorporation of microaggressions under the new ethics rules is precisely what some of us have been warning about for years. As is often the case, activists begin by insisting that language monitoring is purely instructional and optional before codifying those rules in mandatory terms.

We have seen the same trajectory in other areas like land acknowledgments where the line between the optimal and the mandatory is hard to discern. As discussed in my book:

“What began as voluntary statements have become either expressly or implicitly mandatory…George Brown College in Toronto requires faculty and students alike to agree to a land acknowledgment statement to even gain access to virtual classrooms. While such statements are portrayed as optional, they are often enforced as compulsory. The University of Washington encouraged faculty to add a prewritten ‘Indigenous land acknowledgment’ statement to their syllabi. The recommended statement states that ‘The University of Washington acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations.’

Computer science professor Stuart Reges decided to write his own statement. He declared…’I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.’ … He was told that, while the university statement is optional, his statement was unacceptable because it questioned the indigenous land claim of the Coast Salish people. Reges’s dissenting statement was removed, and the university emailed his students offering an apology for their professor’s ‘offensive’ opinion and advising them on ‘three ways students could file complaints against’ him.”

Federal courts have ruled in favor of academics in disputes over microaggression rules, but the movement is expanding beyond campuses, as shown in Oregon.

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I have no objection to the sharing of views of others on how certain phrases are received. I have dropped certain terms or phrases even though I did not see why a term or phrase is insulting. It was enough that others find certain language to be insulting and I do not want to make them feel uncomfortable. Yet, this category of speech was created to encompass a broad, ill-defined range of speech that falls below outright discriminatory or harassing language. That makes for a dangerously vague standard for a mandatory reporting rule.

The free speech concern is how such microaggressive terms can be used to curtail or punish speech, including supporting complaints for formal investigations.  Disciplinary actions often seem based on how language is received rather than intended. Schools need to be clear as to whether microaggressive language can be the basis for bias complaints and actions.

Consider again the language from the Oregon Medical Board. It would encompass any “indirect or subtle behaviors that reflect negative attitudes or beliefs about a non-majority group.” The standard is heavily laden with subjectivity. (Notably, it does not include making such comments about any majority group, presumably whites or males).

The board then amplifies the standard by making it mandatory for other doctors to report colleagues. Under the proposed rule, 

“A licensee must report within 10 business days to the Board any information that appears to show that a licensee is or may be medically incompetent or is or may be guilty of unprofessional or dishonorable conduct or is or may be a licensee with a physical incapacity.”

So, doctors will have to police any “indirect or subtle behaviors” that “reflect negative attitudes or beliefs”… or face discipline themselves.

The Hippocratic oath is based on the pledge that doctors will “first do no harm.” Unfortunately, that pledge does not appear to apply to free speech in Oregon. Rather than merely publish opinions on phrases or practices that can be seen as microaggressive, the Oregon Medical Board is about to impose an ambiguous speech regulation that is likely viewed by some doctors as turning them into social-warrior snitches.

The Oregon Medical Board should remove the microaggressive provision. Sometimes the best treatment is the least intrusive.

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