Friday, September 09, 2022

September 8, 2022
By Sara Sidner and Meridith Edwards

Jackson, Mississippi, and Flint, Michigan (CNN)Six-year-old Charles Wilson V (click here) is scared to drink out of the water fountain at his school.

"I will die," he says matter-of-factly when asked the reason why.

It's a fear his father agrees with. At home in Jackson, Mississippi, Charles Wilson III -- who lost his first namesake son when he was just a baby -- gets bottled water for his family to drink, and he boils water for everything else.

The water is back on in Jackson after historic flooding took out the water treatment plant where pumps were already failing, but the Wilson family has lost faith....

Those are personal information and pictures. They were presented in a legal case to allow the jury to witness the issues of the children. There is no place for this in a defendant's possession.

Anyone can get transcripts from any trial. There is no reason for this request.

September 8, 2022
By Ron Fonger

Flint - A civil bellwether trial (click here) tied to the Flint water crisis ended in a mistrial last month, but attorneys for an engineering consultant that was sued is remaining active in U.S. District Court.

Attorneys for Veolia North America, one of two consultants sued by four Flint children for professional negligence in the case, has asked Judge Judith E. Levy to require the children’s attorneys to turn over a copy of the PowerPoint slide presentation they showed during their closing argument.

After final arguments from the children, Veolia and a second consultant -- Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, the eight-member jury deadlocked after six days of deliberation before a mistrial was declared. Jurors reported in a note that they had become deadlocked and that continuing the trial would affect their “physical and emotional health.”

The new motion by Veolia says it wants the slide show, which included pictures of the four children and clips of videotaped testimony, in order to supplement the trial record in the case....

April 13, 2022
By Ron Fonger

...Attorneys for the children told Levy (click here) on Wednesday that they’ve already been forced to rearrange witnesses as they make their case against Veolia and LAN and suggested that the 5th Amendment appeals are harming their ability to present a coherent case to the jury.

Levy said attorneys may have to play videotaped depositions from witnesses and reserve in-person questions -- if allowed by the Appeals Court -- at a later time....

September 6, 2022
By Ron Fonger

Flint - The Michigan Supreme Court (click here) won’t alter a requirement that Flint water prosecutors use a taint team in their prosection of government officials, including former Gov. Rick Snyder, a decision that could delay the criminal cases for years.

In a two-paragraph order on Tuesday, Sept. 6, the Supreme Court said justices were “not persuaded that the question presented should be reviewed by this Court.”...

"The Daily Show" and Jeffery Toobin on "Taint Team."

It is about physical health of people. Climate Crisis temperatures are very dangerous.

August 13, 2022
By Rachel Ramirez

People cool off at a fountain in Piazza del Popolo in Rome in early August.

It is important to keep the head cool. He is doing the absolutely best thing by cooling his head. Think of neck veins and the blood flowing through them. Personal cooling appliances around the neck work, right? There is a reason for that. Cooler neck veins, cool the blood and that blood goes up to the circle of Willis and down to the heart to distribute it around the body. So cooling the head is also cooling the body.

Extreme heat is on the rise around the world, (click here) and a new study shows it is taking a significant toll not just on our physical health but also our sense of well-being.

A new analysis by Gallup in collaboration with Citi, shared first with CNN, found that people who experienced extreme heat -- days that were significantly hotter than normal -- also reported a decrease in their sense of well-being around the same time. On average, the global population experienced three times as many extreme heat days in 2020 than it did in 2008, Gallup reported, and well-being decreased globally by 6.5% in that time as well.

Researchers also found that because the climate crisis is pushing temperatures even hotter, global well-being could decrease by another 17% by the end of this decade....

The climate crisis is very hard on Americans. Very hard.

January 5, 2022
By Sarah Kaplan
 and 
Andrew Ba Tran

Alzile Marie Hand, 66, right, is comforted by her son Thomas James Hand, 19, outside their damaged house after Hurricane Ida passed through in Houma, La., on Aug. 30. 

2021 ended as it began: (click here) with disaster. Twelve months after an atmospheric river deluged California, triggering mudslides in burned landscapes and leaving a half-million people without power, a late-season wildfire destroyed hundreds of homes in the suburbs of Denver. In between, Americans suffered blistering heat waves, merciless droughts and monstrous hurricanes. People collapsed in farm fields and drowned in basement apartments; entire communities were obliterated by surging seas and encroaching flames.

More than 4 in 10 Americans live in a county that was struck by climate-related extreme weather last year, according to a new Washington Post analysis of federal disaster declarations, and more than 80 percent experienced a heat wave. In the country that has generated more greenhouse gases than any other nation in history, global warming is expanding its reach and exacting an escalating toll....

This is not the way Americans treat elections. It is however the way Russia does it.

September 8, 2022
By Bob Ortega, Audrey Ash, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Drew Griffin

The evening before Michigan's state primary, (click here) Wayne County GOP leaders held a Zoom training session for poll workers and partisan observers -- warning them about "bad stuff happening" during the election and encouraging them to ignore local election rules barring cell phones and pens from polling places and vote-counting centers.

"None of the constraints that they're putting on this are legal," former state senator Patrick Colbeck told trainees on the August 1 call.

As far as cell phones, "I would say maybe just hide it or something, and maybe hide a small pad and a small pen or something like that because you need to take accurate notes," Cheryl Costantino, the GOP county chairwoman and host of the call, told participants.

Some participants raised concerns about being tossed out if they broke the rules. "That's why you got to do it secretly," Costantino replied....

Wayne County, Michigan Republican Officials need a perp walk. Voters should know who they are dealing with.


Wanted for law violation and election fixing:


Chairman, Doug Deeken


Deputy Chairman, Charlie Hardman


Secretary, Christine Kobak


Treasurer, Dave Tschanz

Shame on you all!

His Majesty, if following in his father and mother's steps, should be a generous and concerned sovereign.

September 9, 2022
By Alex Barker

At the moment of the Queen’s passing (click here) on Thursday, her eldest son acceded to the throne as King Charles III, head of state of the UK and 14 other Commonwealth countries.

The King, aged 73, is the oldest monarch to take the crown, as well as the longest-serving heir apparent in British history. Unlike his late mother, who became queen at just 25, King Charles’s life has been one of extended preparation for this moment.

The historic transition from one royal generation to another will be marked by a period of national mourning and what is expected to be a relatively low-key coronation, which will set the tone for King Charles’s reign.

Alongside the ceremonial formalities of succession, the moment of the King’s elevation will also be one of personal loss and grief; he has been beside the deathbed of both his parents in the past 18 months.

“The death of my beloved Mother, Her Majesty The Queen, is a moment of the greatest sadness for me and all members of my family,” he said in a statement on Thursday evening. “We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished sovereign and a much-loved mother.”...

I wish he and the people of the UK the very best through a time of transition and reflection.

Allies

Trump has exposed the military defense of our allies. He has compromised the national security of the USA. It is time for the USA to empower our allies, with the exception of the likes of Orban, to overcome the knowledge our enemies have. It is the best we can do now.

Trump should be arrested and jailed until his trial.