January 28, 2021

Whitmer ignores GOP provocations, stays the course in third State of the State address

(Detroit Free Press) It has been a long year, and a hard one, as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer acknowledged at the start of her third State of the State address, delivered Wednesday night to a state yet facing twin crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, and the damage the virus has wreaked on Michigan's economy.

Throughout this year, unlike any we've ever seen, Whitmer has remained disciplined, focused and on message, despite organized protests of her COVID-19 emergency orders, a murder plot engineered by domestic terrorists and a recalcitrant Legislature.

And in the last statewide poll, taken in December, she continued to score unusually high approval ratings. However many protesters thronged to the state Capitol, a majority of Whitmer's constituents has been willing to believe that she is on the right track. ............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/editorials/2021/01/28/whitmer-state-state-address-covid-19/4286404001/

January 28, 2021

Fired Fox News editor: 'I became a target of murderous rage' from Trump fans after AZ Biden call

Former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt has revealed that he became the target of "murderous rage" from supporters of former President Donald Trump after he correctly called the 2020 presidential election in Arizona for President Joe Biden.

In an editorial published for the Los Angeles Times, Stirewalt decried the way that partisan media had become a tool solely to feed viewers pleasing information while shielding them from inconvenient realities.

"Having been cosseted by self-validating coverage for so long, many Americans now consider any news that might suggest that they are in error or that their side has been defeated as an attack on them personally," wrote Stirewalt, who was fired from Fox News shortly after the end of the 2020 election. "The lie that Trump won the 2020 election wasn't nearly as much aimed at the opposing party as it was at the news outlets that stated the obvious, incontrovertible fact." .................(more)

https://www.rawstory.com/fired-fox-news-editor/?

January 28, 2021

Florida man accused of sex crimes cuts ankle monitor, starts GoFundMe to flee country

CLAY COUNTY, Fla. — A fugitive from northeast Florida is asking for $2,000 to flee the country.

Keith Morris Smith Jr., 29, is wanted in Clay County for violating the conditions of his release. Deputies say Smith bonded out of the Clay County Jail and cut off his ankle monitor.

Smith was initially arrested in December of 2019 on multiple charges, including committing a sex crime on a person aged 12 to 16, deputies say. Now, Smith is asking for help from the public in fleeing from the country.

Smith started a GoFundMe fundraiser entitled "Trying to be free" under the Dreams, Hopes & Wishes category of the website. He set his donation goal at $2,000. ..........(more)

https://mycbs4.com/news/local/florida-man-accused-of-sex-crimes-cuts-ankle-monitor-starts-gofundme-to-flee-country

January 27, 2021

Michigan passes COVID-19 milestone: Vaccinations now exceed coronavirus cases since March

Michigan now has more people at least partially vaccinated against COVID-19 than the number of diagnosed cases since last March.

At least 611,045 Michigan residents have received the first dose of vaccine as of Sunday, Jan. 24, according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard. The real number is likely larger because of reporting lags, especially for the program vaccinating long-term care residents and staff.

By comparison, Michigan has 600,093 coronavirus cases diagnosed since the pandemic began in March. That includes 551,080 cases confirmed by a coronavirus test and another 49,013 probable cases based on symptoms and exposure.

Nationwide, the United States has vaccinated 18.5 million people so far compared to about 25.8 million diagnosed coronavirus cases. ............(more)

https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2021/01/michigan-passes-covid-19-milestone-vaccinations-now-exceed-coronavirus-cases-since-march.html

January 27, 2021

House GOP plan threatens to withhold school funds -- unless Whitmer gives up pandemic power

(Detroit Free Press) Michigan House Republicans unveiled their own COVID-19 recovery plan on Wednesday, using the proposal to blast Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and threaten to withhold billions in federal funds unless the administration gives up pandemic powers.

Specifically, the House wants the governor and state health department to give up the authority to ban in-person school or sports in response to a health emergency, transferring that power to local health departments. Although Whitmer and the state health department issued orders through authority granted to the executive by previous legislatures, lawmakers continue to try and grab that power back from the governor's office.

“I have reviewed the governor’s budget request and it is off the mark by a wide margin,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Thomas Albert, R-Lowell, said in a news release. ...................(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/27/whitmer-school-funds-covid-michigan/4274515001/

January 27, 2021

Tucker Carlson Rails Against White Nationalist Crackdown, Warns Viewers: That's You

(HuffPost) Tucker Carlson was accused of defending white nationalists on his Fox News show Tuesday after he railed against Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) call for a crackdown on domestic white nationalist terrorism like the post-Sept. 11 efforts against international terrorism.

Carlson, who has a long history of using his prime time platform to promote racism, began his screed by disparagingly describing Schiff as “America’s new grand inquisitor.”

He aired footage of Schiff saying lawmakers had been urging the FBI and Department of Homeland Security “for some time” to “raise the priority to domestic terrorism, to white nationalism, as it threatens the country.”

“We’re gonna continue sounding the alarm and make sure that they’re devoting the resources, the time, the attention, just as we did after 9/11 to the threat from international terrorism, we need to give the same priority and urgency to domestic terrorism,” Schiff added. ..........(more)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucker-carlson-white-nationalists_n_60115402c5b61cb9534ffbf1?

January 27, 2021

Rittenhouse, Mother Fixated on Social Media Treatment

Rittenhouse, Mother Fixated on Social Media Treatment


An Illinois teen accused of killing two people during unrest in Wisconsin and the teen's mom were fixated on social media comments about them in the hours after his August arrest, newly released police video shows.

Police in Antioch, Illinois, on Monday released four hours of video taken after Kyle Rittenhouse turned himself in hours after the Aug. 25 protest in Kenosha, the Chicago Tribune reported. The protest was part of a series of chaotic demonstrations that ensued after a white Kenosha officer shot Jacob Blake, who is Black, in the back seven times during a domestic dispute. Rittenhouse is white.

Prosecutors say Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, opened fire during the protest, killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz. Rittenhouse faces multiple charges, including intentional homicide. He has argued he was protecting businesses and fired in self-defense. Conservatives have rallied around him, generating enough money to make his $2 million cash bail.

....(snip)....

Police left him in the interrogation room with his mother, Wendy Rittenhouse, who spent the next several hours scrolling through her phone. At one point she put her head in her hands and lamented about people posting derogatory remarks about both of them on Facebook. ...............(more)

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/rittenhouse-mother-fixated-on-social-media-treatment/2422479/?

January 27, 2021

Re: Justice Breyer, I tend to agree with Brian Tyler Cohen:

https://twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1354208558422781956?s=20

January 26, 2021

Job losses from pandemic 4 times as bad as 2009 financial crisis

GENEVA (AP) — Four times as many jobs were lost last year due to the coronavirus pandemic as during the worst part of the global financial crisis in 2009, a U.N. report said Monday.

The International Labor Organization estimated that the restrictions on businesses and public life destroyed 8.8% of all work hours around the world last year. That is equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs – quadruple the impact of the financial crisis over a decade ago.

"This has been the most severe crisis for the world of work since The Great Depression of the 1930s. Its impact is far greater than that of the global financial crisis of 2009," said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder. The fallout was almost equally split between reduced work hours and "unprecedented" job losses, he said. ........(more)

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/job-losses-from-pandemic-4-times-as-bad-as-2009-financial-crisis

January 26, 2021

Giuliani attacks 'censorship' but made threat to sue paper over unflattering story

Giuliani attacks 'censorship' but made threat to sue paper over unflattering story
Trump ally, who claims lawsuit against him is ‘act of intimidation to censor the exercise of free speech’, threatened New York Post


(Guardian UK) On Monday, Rudy Giuliani called a $1.3bn lawsuit brought against him by Dominion Voting Systems “another act of intimidation by the hate-filled left wing to wipe out and censor the exercise of free speech”. But Giuliani has himself previously threatened to censor the exercise of free speech with legal action.

The former New York mayor turned Trump attorney was invoking current rightwing complaints against so-called “cancel culture”, in which freedom of speech is supposedly curtailed.

But in June 2001, the New York Post ran a story about an extra-marital affair. Giuliani told reporters: “I will consider suing them for libel – defamation. What the New York Post did is scurrilous, I believe it’s malicious and I’m prepared to prove that in court if I have to.”

First amendment protection of freedom of the press makes it difficult for US public officials to mount libel lawsuits, even if reports are proved to be wrong. Giuliani did not take the Post to court. ...........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/26/rudy-giuliani-free-speech-new-york-post