May 27, 2021

Michigan militias are a grave threat that must be confronted, Nessel to testify

(Detroit Metro Times) COVID-19 wasn’t the only serious threat to Michigan last year.

Dozens of heavily armed militia members entered the state Capitol in April 2020 to demand an end to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s coronavirus restrictions, frightening lawmakers and state employees.

In Oct. 14, leaders or associates of Wolverine Watchmen, a militia group, were charged with plotting to abduct Whitmer, take lawmakers hostage, and start a civil war.

About three weeks later, the alleged leader of a militant neo-Nazi movement, The Base, was arrested after authorizes say he tried to terrorize a popular podcaster who discusses the threat of white nationalism. The group was planning to create a heavily armed white nationalist compound in the Upper Peninsula to wage a race war.

These incidents underscore the rising threats of domestic terrorism from militias and white supremacists nationwide, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says in written testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform. The committee meets Wednesday to examine the increasing dangers of the militia movement and its ties to white supremacy. ................(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2021/05/26/michigan-militias-are-a-grave-threat-that-must-be-confronted-nessel-to-testify#.YK7xy9C5KfU.link

May 27, 2021

Florida Man Arrested for Attacking Daughter With Pizza After She Didn't Want to Eat With Him

https://www.newsweek.com/florida-man-arrested-attacking-daughter-pizza-after-she-didnt-want-eat-him-1594863


A Florida man has been arrested for allegedly attacking his daughter with pizza after she said that she wanted to be alone. On the afternoon of Sunday, May 23, Tyler Worden, 41, visited the Vero Beach home of his 20-year-old daughter, Kristin Worden. He brought a pizza for them to eat together, but she told him that she wasn't feeling well and asked him to leave, according to an arrest affidavit.

May 27, 2021

Ignore GOP condemnations of Marjorie Taylor Greene -- it's all a part of the troll

Ignore GOP condemnations of Marjorie Taylor Greene — it's all a part of the troll
GOP leaders have a symbiotic relationship with the Republican Troll Queen

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
PUBLISHED MAY 26, 2021 4:57PM


(Salon) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, like a cat peeing on your bed, has found the most surefire way to get that sweet, sweet attention she craves: Holocaust comparisons.

It started last week when the QAnon congresswoman from Georgia made a glib and risible comparison between an ongoing mask mandate in the House of Representatives — necessary only because GOP congressional members refuse to get COVID-19 vaccines (or admit they did, anyway) — to literal genocide.

"[W]e can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany," she told a host on Real America's Voice, whose name makes the "far-right network" descriptor redundant. "And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about."

....(snip)....

Finally, Republican leadership went ahead and condemned her remarks, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy calling them "appalling" and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calling them "outrageous." Notably, however, no one in GOP leadership called for any actual consequences for Greene, even of the most toothless sort, like a congressional censure.

Republican leaders actually benefit from Greene's trollish antics and have no reason to get in her way. They have a symbiotic relationship with Greene. Everyone reaps rewards from this little game, where she acts like a brat and they pretend to disapprove. So there's no reason for anyone in leadership to actually take action to stop her trolling. ...........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/05/26/ignore-gop-condemnations-of-marjorie-taylor-greene--its-all-apart-of-the-troll/

May 26, 2021

Anti-vaccine movements shift their target to the vaccinated

(Salon) Myths around infertility, pregnancy and miscarriages have run rampant in anti-vaccine circles for years — and in the universe of their conspiracy theories, vaccines are often to blame. While variations of such false claims have been part of misinformation campaigns around the COVID-19 vaccines, there has recently been a shift from demonizing the vaccine itself to villainizing those who are vaccinated.

It's a peculiar repositioning for the anti-vaccination conspiracy movement — and as the false claim evolves into more extreme iterations, it has caught the attention of people who study and advocate against vaccine misinformation

"I think it is particularly interesting that people are saying that those who are those who are vaccinated are a risk to those who aren't," said David Broniatowski, who's the associate director for the Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics at George Washington University. "It's like taking the common vaccine conventional wisdom and flipping it on its head where people will say, 'if you have not been vaccinated, you're a risk to those who are more vulnerable and vaccinated.'"

Broniatowski said he's never seen this before in the history of anti-vaccine rhetoric.

"This is the first time," Broniatowski said. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/05/26/anti-vaccine-movements-shift-their-target-to-the-vaccinated/

May 26, 2021

Biogas plant at Toronto Zoo turning zoo manure and food waste into power

It took 11 years, but a working biogas plant beside the Toronto Zoo is finally running, turning zoo manure and grocery store waste into liquid fertilizer and power.

ZooShare, a community co-operative headed by Torontonian Daniel Bida, pitched its proposal to zoo officials in October 2010.

The concept then had worked in Munich, but had not been tried in North America.

Getting ZooShare’s digester built and a contract to feed Ontario’s electricity grid took longer and was more challenging than Bida realized.

But on May 7, the co-operative told its patient members and investors it had been producing power since April 1, reaching its 500-kilowatt capacity, enough to power 500 homes, on April 12. .........(more)

https://www.toronto.com/news-story/10399207-biogas-plant-at-toronto-zoo-turning-zoo-manure-and-food-waste-into-power/?

May 25, 2021

Southwest Airlines flight attendant loses two teeth after passenger assault......

Southwest Airlines flight attendant loses two teeth after passenger assault; inflight incidents at 'intolerable level,' union says


A Southwest Airlines flight attendant was assaulted by a passenger over the weekend and lost two teeth, according to a letter the flight attendants union sent to the airline's CEO Monday in an appeal for more safeguards as travel rebounds.

"This past weekend, one of our flight attendants was seriously assaulted, resulting in injuries to the face and a loss of two teeth,'' Lyn Montgomery, president of TWU Local 556 said in the letter. "Unfortunately, this is just one of many occurrences. I

write to you today because we cannot tolerate our beloved cohearts (being abused in such a manner, and because I am asking for your help and leadership in ending these travesties.''

The union said there were 477 passenger misconduct incidents on Southwest between April 8 and May 15. ..............(more)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/airline-news/2021/05/25/southwest-airlines-flight-attendant-loses-two-teeth-passenger-assault/7425193002/?

May 25, 2021

In Pursuit of Equality, French Cities Adopt Gendered Budgets

(Bloomberg CityLab) On March 25, the French city of Lyon announced its municipal spending plans for the year ahead, unveiling a policy aimed at improving gender equality. Under the newly elected progressive mayor Grégory Doucet, France’s third-largest city adopted a “budget sensitive to gender”: Going forward, Lyon will scrutinize its 615-million-euro annual budget for signs that public investments are distributed fairly between men and women.

Such gendered budgets have already been adopted by some smaller French municipalities, including Grenoble, Rennes, Bordeaux and Brest; the capital, Paris, is now considering joining them. But Lyon is the first French city of more than 500,000 to pursue the idea, which aims to comb through the city’s spending to address gender biases in what kinds of facilities and programs are getting funded.

City officials see the gendered budget as a potent new weapon to fight the entrenched societal inequalities between men and women, a gap that has become even more extreme during the pandemic. In France, as in many other countries, mothers have been disproportionately burdened by parenting duties and female workers have been over-represented in sectors hit by job losses, among other challenges.

“The pandemic has put these deep inequalities in the spotlight,” says Florence Delaunay, deputy mayor in charge of rights and equality at Lyon City Hall. “It’s accentuated the precarity that already existed. That makes our efforts as important as ever. But this kind of analysis has been needed for a long time.” .............(more)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-24/how-gendered-city-budgets-aim-to-boost-equality?srnd=premium

May 25, 2021

Mother Cow Kills Woman Trying To Put Ear Tag On Calf

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cow-kills-woman-missouri_n_60a9464fe4b031354797924a


HARRIS, Mo. (AP) — A rural north-central Missouri woman has died after being attacked by a mother cow.

KTVO-TV reports that 76-year-old Jane Heisey died about 8 a.m. Thursday on a farm near the Sullivan County town of Harris.

Sullivan County Coroner Bob Wyant said Heisey and her husband, Glenn, were in a lot near their house trying to put an ear tag on a newborn calf. The mother cow knocked Heisey to the ground and stepped on her head. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

May 25, 2021

How so-called libertarian Charles Koch drove a national wave of anti-protest laws

(Salon) In 1995, when the Koch Petroleum Group was indicted by a federal grand jury on 97 felony charges for alleged environmental crimes at one of its Texas oil refineries, Charles and David Koch, the famous billionaire investors and political donors, had a seeming crisis of conscience. "It was a really, really torturous experience," explained Mark Holden, Koch's chief counsel, years later. "We learned first-hand what happens when anyone gets into the criminal justice system." After enduring that "torturous" experience, Holden said, Charles Koch grew very worried about "how the little guy, who doesn't have Koch's resources, deals with prosecutions like that."

As far-fetched as this may seem, Charles Koch has been driven by that concern ever since — at least to some degree. (His younger brother David, who was less engaged with these issues, died in 2019.) Along with supporting typical conservative or libertarian causes like lower taxes and deregulation, Koch has also fought for reform in both civil asset forfeiture and mandatory minimum sentencing. He has supported prison programming and expanded visitation. More recently, the Koch lobby has pushed for marijuana legalization, partnering with numerous civil liberties organizations normally identified with the left, like Drug Policy Alliance and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, to decriminalize nonviolent drug offenses.

In keeping with his broader libertarian agenda of promoting individual freedom and limiting state power, Charles Koch has a demonstrable record of fighting to keep people out of prison. Except, that is, in one particular area. When it comes to nonviolent protests against Koch-affiliated businesses — especially when valuable private property, aka "critical infrastructure," might be at risk — he's far less interested in limiting the reach of law enforcement or the carceral authority of the state, and has supported a nationwide wave of legislation aimed at criminalizing the Koch companies' fiercest critics.

According to an extensive Greenpeace report published in May, Koch Industries ranks among the largest donors to elected officials who sponsored anti-protest bills between last June and this March. Koch's donations — totaling at least $151,050 — haven't gone just to politicians who have sponsored measures to criminalize protests that supposedly threaten "critical infrastructure." The money has also flowed to those who have backed bills seeking to suppress all kinds of protest, even when defined in broad and sweeping terms, with significant criminal penalties attached. ..........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/05/25/how-so-called-libertarian-charles-koch-drove-a-national-wave-of-anti-protest-laws/

May 25, 2021

Alabama Capitol riot suspect Lonnie Coffman drove by Ted Cruz's home, court records say

A north Alabama man facing multiple charges in connection with the January riots at the U.S. Capitol must remain in jail until trial a federal judge ruled, citing in part new revelations that he drove to the home of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and he seemed “unbalanced” in a call to the senator’s office.

Lonnie Coffman, a 70-year-old Falkville resident up until his arrest, was arrested by federal authorities just hours after the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Since then, he has been indicted on 17 charges following the seizure of nearly a dozen Molotov cocktail explosive devices from his pickup truck, as well as a number of guns, ammo and concerning handwritten notes. A federal judge on Monday denied Coffman’s request that authorities reconsider a previous decision to keep him behind bars.

Coffman’s truck was parked just a few blocks from the Capitol on the day of the Jan. 6 breach. Authorities noted he had apparently been living in the truck in the D.C. area for a week prior to the breach. Surveillance footage showed he parked the truck near the Republican National Club, a few blocks from the Democratic National Committee Headquarters, both targeted for reports of explosive devices, about 9:20 a.m. that Wednesday. .............(more)

https://www.al.com/news/2021/05/alabama-capitol-riot-suspect-lonnie-coffman-drove-by-ted-cruzs-home-court-records-say.html