Former Governor Snyder and 65 other officials have had their cell phones and hard drives seized in an investigation of the Flint Water Crisis.

June 4, 2019
By Jessica Corbert

Activists reiterated demands for "accountability and justice" for the people of Flint, Michigan following reports Monday that the authorities investigating the city's water crisis executed search warrants for the state-owned cell phones of former Gov. Rick Snyder and 65 other current and former officials.

"The people of Flint deserve answers," Mary Grant, public water for all director at Food & Water Watch, said in a statement. "Hopefully this investigation will yield them. And there needs to be accountability for those involved in creating this crisis, including former Governor Snyder."

The Associated Press reported Monday on search warrants (pdf) the outlet obtained through public records requests....

Snyder and his attorney are rebutting the reporting of seizing. They stated they have cooperated the entire time. That isn't the point. The point is NONE of this evidence was ever seized or provided voluntarily before. THAT IS THE POINT.

June 4, 2019

By Kate Sullivan and Caroline Kelly

...Snyder and more than 65 other current or former officials (click here) have had their cellphones or other information seized in connection with the investigation into the crisis in Flint, Michigan, where cost-cutting measures led to tainted drinking water that contained lead and other toxins.

The Associated Press first reported the contents of the search warrants.

Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud said in a statement to CNN, "The prosecution is aware of substantial potential evidence that was not provided to the original prosecution team from the onset of the investigation. The team is currently in the process of obtaining this evidence through a variety of means, including search warrants."...

June 7, 2019
By Ron Fonger

Flint - Former U.S. Department (click here) of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro will apparently be the first 2020 presidential candidate to set foot in Flint, saying in a Twitter message that he will visit this weekend.

Castro, a Democrat and former mayor of San Antonio, was in Flint in March 2016, when he met with Mayor Karen Weaver and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint.

Weaver and Kildee are scheduled to join him again Saturday, June 8, after he tours the Flint Farmers’ Market at 9 a.m.

The Castro campaign said the candidate will visit First Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, 1226 Beach St., at 11 a.m. Saturday and Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, 2316 W. Coldwater Road, at 2 p.m. Saturday.

On Thursday, June 6, Castro tweeted he’s looking forward to returning to Flint “to meet with residents about the progress still to come.”...

June 7, 2019
By Zahra Ahmad

Flint - Jaden Smith has donated another Water Box to Flint, (click here) this time in Ellen DeGeneres’ name.

The American rapper surprised the famous talk show host with the donation on Thursday, June 6. The Water Box is a sustainable alternative to supply clean drinking water that uses a portable filtration system to generate five to 10 gallons of water.

“We’ve kind of been tracking the progress in Flint since the beginning and supplying Flint with clean water,” Smith said on the talk show. “Bottles of water aren’t always the most efficient thing. With this system people can come with five or 10 gallon drums and just fill up for free in 60 seconds.”...

This is what the Hyde Amendment started.

It began the idea that people of faith were in a superior class of American than the rest of all other Americans. The florist, the cake baker are all people where LGBTQI Americans live. The LGBTQI community have finally achieved the right to marry and be treated equally with other Americans. Since winning civil rights, the Christian right wing in the USA has carried out assaults against those rights because it would taint their souls to take their money for services affiliated with marriage.

This action allowed by the Supreme Court is Un-American. Do the Christians involved in this extremist find their souls tainted by liars? Do they find their souls tainted by criminals? No. They are only tainted by those that are not heterosexual.

This extremism is known as a farce and the extremist Robert's Court which allows such insults to the civil rights of a CHOSEN group of Americans allows such nonsense in the communities of the USA.

You know, my family is Catholic. A big Irish Catholic family. We love nearly everything Kosher. I am glad we are still allowed to purchase those special items in major corporate grocery stores, as well as small family, owned businesses.

The Robert's Court allows too much indulgence to this extremism. This is the USA where anyone can have any belief and be an American. The Robert's Court, especially Sam Alito, needs to get over themselves.

June 6, 2019
By Kevin Daley

A florist (click here) who refused to create floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after a Washington state court ruled Thursday that she violated the state’s civil rights law.

The case presents the high court with an opportunity to decide whether conservative religious believers can use the First Amendment as a defense against laws requiring accommodation of LGBT people, a question the justices ducked in the 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling....

Ginny Thomas, the wife of a Supreme Court Associate Justice, is looking for Dark Money.

Wow, she sold her soul along time ago. She seems to believe in conspiracies by calling the media in lock step with the far Left. White Supremacy. Anti-Muslim. She keeps absolutely the worst company of any Supreme Court spouse. That is a shame.

June 9, 2019
By Peter Montgomery

Ginni Thomas, (click here) wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a right-wing political activist, has launched a new set of organizations meant to “protect President Trump” and attack Democrats and left-leaning organizations, according to an article published by The Intercept this week.

The well-connected Thomas, a former Heritage Foundation staffer, presented her plans to build a “robust infrastructure” to a meeting of the secretive Council for National Policy last month. The CNP is a strategy-development-and-sharing network that includes leaders across the U.S. religious and political Right, including people like neo-Confederate Christian Reconstrucionist Michael Peroutka. CNP members pushed Trump to sign an executive order on religious liberty.

Thomas is planning to build a “robust infrastructure” of affiliated organizations. Among her partners in the new project are longtime right-wing operative Richard Viguerie; undercover videographer and political trickster James O’Keefe; Republican campaign lawyer Cleta Mitchell; and Bill Meierling, chief marketing officer for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a matchmaker for corporate lobbyists and conservative legislators willing to do their bidding....

...This January, Thomas organized a White House meeting where she was joined by anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney and others where, among other things, they complained that White House aides were blocking right-wing Trump supporters from getting administration jobs.

Thomas and many of her partners were among conservative activists who mobilized a year ago to try to replace then-House Speaker Paul Ryan with right-wing favorite Rep. Jim Jordan.

Thomas presented United in Purpose “Impact” awards to O’Keefe, Gaffney, and Sean Hannity in 2017. In 2016, TPM reported that Thomas “wanted to ‘target’ the ‘most questionable’ precincts in Virginia with an anti-voter fraud campaign.”...

The near collision with a Russian boat was not a near collision.

It was a cyber mission to access wavelengths the Russians cannot access IN A CLOSED MILITARY NETWORK.

They are looking to find a way into the nuclear missile batteries.

Nothing Russia does is an accident, with the exception of Chernobyl.

The Robert's Court states abortion has to be available, but, it is okay to put as many obstacle in the way as possible.

Anti-abortion is oppression and a violation of a woman's body. The state doesn't belong in this. Abortion clinics are safe and affordable when a pregnancy is unwanted.

For some time now I have believed the Hyde Amendment is the springboard to the religious extremism that began with the presidency of George W. Bush. The Hyde Amendment opened the assault against the Affordable Care Act and the contraception women asked to have to protect from unwanted pregnancy.

The Hyde Amendment empowered financial discrimination and the most impoverished are the minorities in this country. The Hyde Amendment is a form of bigotry. There was no sense to discuss the Hyde Amendment until the country was ready to do so. It is a harbinger of abuse of power, yielding religious preference wrongly over the USA Constitution.

It could be said the Hyde Amendment began the breakdown of the wall that separated church and state. It was passed because of the money the American people would have spent through Medicaid to allow impoverished women their choice in how their bodies were used. In fact, the Hyde Amendment guaranteed poverty and more of a burden to the USA people through their federal treasury.

The Hyde Amendment as it relates to abortion rights of women is completely wrong and I believe it opened the USA Constitution to abuse of religious power in the USA making it weaker and susceptible to attacks by the religious right. If A is constitutional, then B, C and D are constitutional.

The USA Constitution guarantees the free and open practice of religion, regardless, the faith or denomination. It also guarantees the lack of religious practice and the open and free expression of that self-will. In realizing more and more laws were passed by anti-abortion activists throughout the Republican states it is easy to realize how this religious movement took hold in the states. It has to stop.

The reason there are so many anti-abortion laws being passed is to prove to the Supreme Court it is what the country wants. It is not what the country wants, it is the right wing extremists want to ensure their votes to extremist candidates.

January 18, 2019
By Jordan Smith

....On August 7, (click here for video) Danielle boarded a Greyhound bus for the three-hour trip to Jackson. She left the kids with their grandmother, and she packed a duffle bag because she’d be gone at least three days — Mississippi law requires abortion patients to have an initial visit in which they’re counseled on the choice they’re making, and then a second appointment for the abortion itself. In between is a state-mandated 24-hour waiting period, allegedly necessary to allow the patient extra time to wrestle with the gravity of her decision.

This meant that in addition to the bus fare and the $450 she needed to pay for the abortion, she would also have to come up with money for a hotel, meals, and cab rides back and forth to the clinic, all of which posed a significant burden, especially since Danielle was between jobs. By the time she left Jackson three days later, Danielle estimated that she would have less than $30 to cover family expenses for the rest of the month....         

African Union suspends Sudan over violence against protestors (click here for article - thank you)