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Satellite imagery revealed that the United States is constructing a new military facility in the Pacific, possibly preparing an alternative landing site for its airforce should the military bases on Guam become inoperable. Land-clearing activity has been spotted at Tinian International Airport in the Northern Mariana Islands, based on satellite images obtained by The War Zone on June 15. An annotated satellite image showing the full scope of planned construction as part of the Tinian Divert Airfield project. USAF Past satellite imagery from the Planet Lab suggests that construction work at the site started in May. This appears to correspond...

Soros-Backed Mag Pushes For 5 New States To ‘End Whiteness’ Of Government.OpenDemocracy, a left-wing magazine funded by organizations linked to George Soros, called for granting statehood to five U.S. territories in order to “end the whiteness of Congress.”Written by Karl Widerquist, a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University-Qatar, the piece argues that “one of the most transformative things Democrats could do with their narrow majority in Congress would be to grant statehood to all the remaining inhabited US territories”: Washington DC, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Mariana Islands. The article – “The Case For Five...

The legislature in the Mariana Islands moved to impose a $1,000 excise tax on all handguns sold in the U.S. territory on Wednesday. The legislation comes after a federal court struck down its handgun ban late last month. . . . The bill also included a number of other gun control measures including establishing a number of gun free zones, gun storage requirements, and waiting periods

The road to the White House doesn't get much longer than this. On Saturday, some 8,000 miles from the nation's capital, voters in the far-flung U.S. Pacific Ocean territories will get their say in this hotly-contested and often whacky presidential primary season. Republicans in Guam get the contests underway, with the Northern Mariana Islands' Democratic caucuses following a few hours later. GOP conventions in Wyoming and Washington, D.C., come later in the day, making for almost 27 hours of non-stop voting. Want to know more? You should. Where are the Northern Mariana Islands? About 5,800 miles south-southwest from California's Pacific...

The Texas senator is hunting votes in the most far-flung places to meet the requirements of an obscure RNC rule. Ted Cruz has long contended that the GOP nomination fight will be a grueling, drawn-out affair that could stretch all the way to the convention. And he's taking out an insurance policy just in case. Cruz is working the most distant corners of the political map, courting Republicans in the farthest-flung U.S. territories in an attempt to meet the requirements of Republican National Committee rule No. 40 (b), an obscure provision that currently stipulates that in order to receive the...

The second amendment lawsuit against the Government of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands has been amended to include both JAMES C. DELEON GUERRERO, the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, and LARRISA LARSON, Secretary of the Department of Finance of the Commonwealth.  The amendment was required by the U.S. District Court in order to include the customs policies of the Commonwealth as part of the lawsuit.   The amendment was filed on the 22 of April, 2015.    The amended complaint may be viewed at michellawyers.com(pdf). The time that it will take to render a decision on...

The Second Amendment case of the Radich family in the Northern Mariana Islands suffered an unexpected setback earlier this month.  A judge in the U.S. District Court dismissed the case.  From stripes.com: Earlier this month, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed the case because the Department of Public Safety commissioner does not have jurisdiction over importation of handguns into the Northern Marianas. The judge gave the Radiches the option to continue their suit by filing an amended complaint that includes the import ban and names the Customs Service as a defendant. The amended complaint is expected to be filed...

A Navy veteran and his wife are challenging a ban on handguns in Saipan, arguing in federal court that the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands is bound by the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. “I’ve always been a firm believer in our constitutional rights, whether that’s freedom of speech, religion or the right to keep and bear arms or right to privacy, and I’m pretty sure that what I’m doing in this case is in defense of those convictions,” said David J. Radich, 44, a former petty officer third class. His wife, Li-Rong Radich, was severely beaten by an intruder in...

No doubt it was merely a mental slip, but it is hard to make a gun law tougher than an outright ban, which is the current state of the law in the Northern Mariana Islands.   From radionz.co.nz: Lawmakers in the Northern Marianas are looking at enacting legislation that will make it tougher for individuals to own handguns, in the event a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Weapons Control Act prevails. The current law in the Northern Mariana Islands is a complete ban on the ownership of handguns.   The ban is being challenged, in part, because of the...

As WSJ reports, last week's geopolitical chaos and distraction was ideal for a news dump, and the White House didn't disappoint: On no legal basis, all 4.5 million residents of the five U.S. territories were quietly released from ObamaCare. It seems the costs of healthcare soared in these five territories due to uneconomic mandates - which woul dhave been a disaster PR-wise for the administration and so, under cover of catastrophe, WSJ reports all of a sudden last week HHS discovered new powers after "a careful review of this situation and the relevant statutory language," that enabled them to 'selectively...

Imagine if a state didn’t let someone vote in an election because their grandfather wasn’t the correct race. Surely lawyers in Eric Holder’s Justice Department would be typing up a lawsuit as fast as fingers could fly across the keyboard. After all, Obama is the president who boasted he was a champion for voting rights, falsely we’d later learn. Eric Holder compared voter ID to a modern version of Jim Crow. But a recent federal court opinion shows Jim Crow is alive and well, and living in paradise. This week, the United States District Court in the Commonwealth of the...

A U.S. territory in the Pacific is battling to stop Congress from imposing federal guest-worker rules and an "amnesty" for current temporary workers, saying aliens could then use the territory as an entry point to get into other places in the U.S. The government of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) says two bills working their way through Congress to impose federal immigration law on the territory would go back on the 1976 convention with the U.S. and put the islands' economy, already reeling, into a tailspin. "We think we're much better qualified to administer to our own...

Magnitude 6.3 - MARIANA ISLANDS REGION 2007 January 30 21:37:49 UTC Earthquake Details Magnitude 6.3 (Strong) Date-Time Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 21:37:49 (UTC) = Coordinated Universal Time Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at 7:37:49 AM = local time at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time ZonesNorth America: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 06:07:49 PM (NST) - Newfoundland Standard (St. John's) Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 05:37:49 PM (AST) - Atlantic Standard (Halifax, San Juan) Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 04:37:49 PM (EST) - Eastern Standard (New York, Toronto, Jamaica) Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at 03:37:49 PM (CST) - Central...

The Northern Mariana Islands are to become part of a United States military build-up in the Pacific. Saipan is currently home port for two US cargo ships, deployed to carry military equipment, but over the next few months up to eight military freighters will be based in Saipan. They will join a US aircraft carrier battle group that is being shifted to the Pacific, adding to the existing bomber squadrons and submarines based in Guam. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Governor's spokesman, Peter Callaghan, says the cargo ships in Saipan strengthen the US military's rapid-response capabilities. "I...