Three Flint residents are challenging the attorney fees. I congratulate them.

April 2, 2021

By Lia Kamana & Caleb Holloway

Flint - In the community - by the community - for the community. (click here)

That is what the McKenzie Patrice Croom Flint Community Lab is all about.

You first heard about the lab right here on Mid-Michigan Now back in 2020.

The community lab, like most things this past year, was impacted by the coronavirus, so they did have to put programming and water testing a bit on hold.

Now they are moving full steam ahead with a brand-new group of high school students in to make it all possible.

“People are happy to see us in the community. Sometimes you get some pushback, they don’t believe this is something that can help them, but primarily, by and large people want to know what is happening in their water so we are going to be providing that, trying to bring that trust back into the community.” - Michael Harris – Partner, Flint Development Center Community Water Lab...

March 30, 2021

By Beth LaBlanc

A Washington D.C.-based law center (click here) representing three Flint residents is challenging the $202 million attorney fee request in the water crisis settlement, arguing the amount should be millions of dollars less.

Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute's Center for Class Action Fairness is challenging pro bono the proposed attorney fees, which would shift about 32% of the $641 million settlement away from Flint residents and to the lawyers who have represented them over the past several years. The residents are claiming damages for lead contamination of the drinking water and Legionnaires' disease cases linked to the water source shift.

The group is asking U.S. District Judge Judith Levy to demand more transparency regarding the attorney costs that merited the 32% request and allow Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to weigh in on the proposed attorney fees....

March 31, 2021

By Beth LaBlanc

About 45,400 people (click here) have registered to participate in a $641 million settlement to compensate individuals affected by the Flint water crisis, but it is not a final tally, according to a court filing released Wednesday.

Thousands of electronic and mailed registration forms are still being reviewed, although some of them appear to be redundant, case special master Deborah Greenspan said in the filing. The claims administrator expects to receive more registrations from Flint's roughly 95,000 residents with postmarks of March 29 or before.

The claims administrator "estimates that it will take at least a week to complete the review and additional time after that to determine the number of duplicative registrations," Greenspan said.

People who have submitted a registration will be contacted by the claims administrator....

Speaker Pelosi is responsible for the US House.

This is the second assault on the US Capitol. Speaker Pelosi needs to gather the information regarding this attack and talk to the American people. I think it unwise to leave the propaganda up to the right-wing media to exploit.

Less than a month ago a warning went out.

March 3, 2021
By Mark Katkov

The House of Representatives (click here) has canceled its Thursday session after the U.S. Capitol Police said it is aware of a threat by an identified militia group to breach the Capitol complex that day.

The Senate plans to remain in session on Thursday to debate amendments to the COVID-19 relief bill.

March 4 is a significant date for far-right conspiracy theorists who believe that former President Donald Trump will return to power on that day. Presidents were inaugurated on March 4 until 1933, after which the 20th Amendment to the Constitution moved the date to Jan. 20....

Just a little over an hour ago this went out. Trump has to answer for this. He broke the law. The Presidential Records Act requires the preservation of all records in the White House by an exiting administration. If the records are gone, then they were destroyed. That is a crime.

The Presidential Records Act (PRA) (click here) of 1978, 44 U.S.C. ß2201-2209, governs the official records of Presidents and Vice Presidents that were created or received after January 20, 1981 (i.e., beginning with the Reagan Administration).

April 2, 2021
By Phil Mattingly

The White House (click here) says it no longer has custody of the documents House Democratic investigators sought to shed light on the inner workings of then President Donald Trump's top aides in the lead up to, and on the day of, the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

"It has been the longstanding practice for all White House records to be transferred to the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of each President's tenure," White House counsel Dana Remus wrote in a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat.

"As a result, NARA is the appropriate entity to address your request, and should have any records responsive to your request; we do not have custody of such records at the White House," Remus wrote.

House Democratic committee chairs, on March 25, sent letters requesting documents and communications from before, during and after the attack on the Capitol, from a wide range of entities, including the White House, federal agencies, local law enforcement and the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms....

Here we go with a ton of misinformation.  One report says officers at the Capitol were rammed with a vehicle and this one said there were gunshots. So, what is the actual report this time?

April 22, 2021
By Michael Balsamo

Police locked down the U.S. Capitol on Friday afternoon (click here) after a report of gunshots in the area.

U.S. Capitol Police say all Capitol buildings were being locked down “due to an external security threat” and staff members were told they could not enter or exit the buildings.

A law enforcement official says officers were responding to a report of a possible shooting on a street near the Capitol complex. It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was injured.

The official could not discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity....

There is no doubt at all that Putin is attempting to end the life of Alexei Navalny.

The symbolism is beyond any doubt. The demand for freedom and an uncorrupt democratic process by a growing number of Russians is literally being starved to death.

Symbolism aside, Alexei needs holistic medical advice. While I understand his pain is great and he is feeling the loss of sensation and strength in his legs it may not be due to additional poisoning this time with arsenic, but, more his lack of sleep. 

Pain in the human central nervous system is resolved by sleep. Pain will build to a frightening crescendo with a lack of profound sleep. Being awaken every hour is torture. There is nothing in his jail sentence that exposes him to such treatment. It is an enormous human rights violation at the very least by Putin to allow such hatred against Navalny by the prison guards. This is a leader of the Russian people and in that, all courtesy should be extended to him in his prison cell.

The suffering Alexei Navalny is being exposed to is more of the oppression of the Russian people to kill their hope. I doubt this round of cruelty by Putin and his minions will result in the death of the demand for freedom and an uncorrupt democratic process.

This lack of pure democratic practices is everywhere Putin places his footprint including Belarus. Putin's ideas of governance is dead. It is dead everywhere he looks and all he can do is attempt to wear a mask of success.

Putin needs to change his ideology ensconced by the communists and return to the man he was in the year 2000. He can no longer pretend to be the voice of "safety" he likes to carry as his mantel. Safety is no longer enough in communist countries. The people are demanding their rights, their human rights including the right to express suffering and oppression.

The unrest will continue and grow and it is all his doing.

Alexei Navalny must be provided enough sleep to combat his obvious pain and provided healthy food to end his hunger strike. He needs his own CHEF to prepare his meals and ensure the fact he will conclude his undeserved prison sentence in good health. This time his stay in prison must be overseen by a secure set of guards that see to his well-being, including food deserving of a leader of the Russian people.

It is over Vladimir. You no longer have friends that admire you for bringing Russia from the dark ages, but, only disillusion your return to oppressive communism brings. Navalny's death will be your noose.

March 31, 2021

Moscow - Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny (click here) declared a hunger strike on Wednesday in an attempt to force the prison holding him outside Moscow to provide him with proper medical care for what he said was acute pain in his back and both legs.

The fate of Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critics, is in focus after he said last week that being woken up by a guard every hour during the night amounted to torture and that his appeals for treatment for acute back and leg pain had been ignored.

In a handwritten letter addressed to the governor of his prison which was posted to social media by his team on Wednesday, Navalny said his daily requests for a doctor of his choice to examine him and for proper medicine for his problems to be provided had been ignored....