February 8, 2022

Michigan GOP want to ban social media companies from removing politicians' accounts

(Detroit Free Press) A handful of Michigan Republican lawmakers support creating new regulations that would ban large, private social media platforms from removing the accounts of political candidates that violate their terms of service.

The measure comes about one year after Facebook and Twitter banned former President Donald Trump, suggesting some of his posts after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol could incite further violence.

It's unclear that the proposal is enforceable and it may be unconstitutional: a federal judge in Florida blocked the implementation of a similar bill in that state, saying it likely violated free speech protections enshrined in the First Amendment among other issues.

The Michigan bill would also establish new government restrictions on businesses, something conservatives frequently oppose. ..............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2022/02/08/michigan-deplatforming-trump-twitter/6696100001/

February 8, 2022

Bridge to Canada in Detroit closes as Canadian protesters block the trade route

Does anyone else smell maple syrup-scented astroturf?


(Detroit Free Press) An ongoing protest in Canada over COVID-19 vaccine mandates spilled over into Detroit Monday evening via the Ambassador Bridge.

The protesters blocked traffic on the largest international suspension bridge and prevented motorists from passing, with signs calling for an end to the mandates.

The bridge to Canada in Detroit has been closed, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation, and motorists should use the tunnel rather than the bridge, or head to the Blue Water Bridge that goes from Port Huron to Sarnia, Ontario. ............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2022/02/07/protesters-canada-block-ambassador-bridge/6699215001/

February 8, 2022

Governor Glenn Youngkin accused of 'toxic culture' after aides attack teen on Twitter

The Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, was accused of creating “a culture of toxicity” in his first months in office, after campaign aides attacked a high-school student, naming and picturing the boy, for sharing a news story about the Republican official.

On Saturday, Ethan Lynne, 17 and according to his Twitter biography a Democrat, posted an article which suggested Youngkin could be trying to stop work to highlight the history of enslaved people at the Virginia executive mansion.

In response, Youngkin’s campaign account posted a picture of Lynne with the former governor Ralph Northam, next to a picture from Northam’s medical school yearbook of two men in racist costumes: one in Blackface and one in a Ku Klux Klan costume.

“Here’s a picture of Ethan with a man that had a Blackface/KKK photo in his yearbook,” Team Youngkin tweeted. ...............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/07/virginia-governor-glenn-youngkin-aides-attack-teen-on-twitter

February 7, 2022

Mike Pence finally speaks up -- too late! Trump's takeover of GOP is virtually complete

Mike Pence finally speaks up — too late! Trump's takeover of GOP is virtually complete
Pence's performance may reassure the media — but RNC pronounces Jan. 6 riot "legitimate political discourse"

By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 7, 2022 9:43AM


(Salon) Last Friday, appearing before the Federalist Society in Florida, former Vice President Mike Pence said the words that dare not be uttered in the Republican Party: "President Trump was wrong." He was referring to Trump's recent assertion that Pence had the right to "overturn" the election. While Trump's original statement and Pence's mild rebuke both sent shock waves through the media, they really shouldn't have. Of course Trump thinks Pence had the right to overturn the election. He couldn't have been any clearer in the 5,789 times he's mentioned it.

No one should be surprised that Pence came out and said Trump was wrong, either. He has stayed pretty quiet about the whole thing, but the fact that Pence didn't actually try to throw out electoral votes, under tremendous pressure, proved long ago that he thought it was impossible and unjustified. He just didn't have the guts to come out and say it directly until now, which is typical.

I doubt Pence's comments would have caused the stir they did if it weren't for the fact that earlier in the day the Republican National Committee had voted to censure Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., at the RNC's winter meeting in Utah. The committee statement said, among other things, that the party would "immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behavior which has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic, and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference," and described Cheney and Kinzinger's roles on the House Jan. 6 committee as helping the "Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."

Once it was pointed out that the Republican Party's governing body appeared to be saying were saying that the Capitol rioters were "engaged in legitimate political discourse" the statement was rapidly amended to read "legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol." RNC leaders claimed they meant to refer to people like those fraudulent "electors" from various states, whom they characterized as being just regular folks. (One of them has close ties to RNC chair Ronna McDaniel.) According to the New York Times, however, the language of the resolution had been carefully negotiated over several days, and was voted on first by the executive committee and later by the full conference. So unless the Republican leadership has reading comprehension problems (which they might!) if they hadn't mean to embrace the insurrectionists surely someone would have raised an objection before the whole thing went public. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2022/02/07/mike-pence-finally-speaks-up--too-late-takeover-of-is-virtually-complete/

February 5, 2022

Conspiracy-driven Macomb County GOP slams state Republicans for alienating Trump-endorsed candidates

(Detroit Metro Times) The head of the Macomb County Republican Party blasted the state GOP in a rambling, conspiracy-laden tirade, accusing party leaders of scheming against Trump-endorsed candidates and ignoring what he falsely called a “coup” in the 2020 election.

The rift is significant because Macomb is now the largest Republican-dominated county in the state and is credited with delivering Trump his victory in Michigan in 2016.

In a “message to my fellow patriots” posted on Rumble, a video platform popular with right-wing figures, Macomb County GOP Chairman Mark Forton said the state party is recruiting candidates to run against loyal supporters of former President Donald Trump. He singled out Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock, saying she told him that Trump-endorsed candidates can’t win elections.

“Trump is the leader of our party, but it goes to show that in Washington ... our Republicans wanted him out just as bad as the Democrats did,” Forton said. “He upset the apple cart of all these people who worked together with their buddies. They’re all colleagues against the people of Michigan and America.” .............(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/conspiracy-driven-macomb-county-gop-slams-state-republicans-for-alienating-trump-endorsed-candidates/Content?oid=29257128#.Yf6YzGs8-0I.link

February 5, 2022

RNC censure of Cheney, Kinzinger 'shameful whitewashing,' Rep. Meijer says

(Detroit News) West Michigan Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer tweeted Friday that a censure resolution by the Republican National Committee against two House colleagues probing the Jan. 6 insurrection was a "shameful whitewashing."

Republican officials voted earlier Friday to censure Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the two GOP members of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack. For months, the panel has been examining former President Donald Trump's efforts to hold on to power after losing the November 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.

Cheney and Kinzinger had participated "in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse," the Republican Party resolution said.

On Friday afternoon, Meijer, a first-term representative from Grand Rapids Township, retweeted a New York Times report about the vote. It said, "The Republican Party has officially declared the Jan. 6 attack 'legitimate political discourse.'"

"Violence must be a bright line dividing acceptable/unacceptable," Meijer wrote. "This shameful whitewashing gives comfort to extremists seeking power by force when they are incapable of persuasion. .............(more)

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2022/02/04/rnc-censure-cheney-kinzinger-shameful-whitewashing-meijer-says/6668084001/

February 5, 2022

Delta Air Lines wants unruly passengers put on federal 'no fly' list

Delta Air Lines asked the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday to add unruly passengers to the national "no fly" list, saying there needs to be "zero tolerance for any behavior that interferes with flight safety."

In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, company CEO Ed Bastian said "the rate of incidents with unruly passengers on Delta has increased nearly 100 percent since 2019" and such federal action is greatly needed.

Bastian wants "any person convicted of an on-board disruption on a national, comprehensive, unruly passenger 'no-fly' list that would bar that person from traveling on any commercial air carrier."

"This action will help prevent future incidents and serve as a strong symbol of the consequences of not complying with crew member instructions on commercial aircraft," the airline chief added. .................(more)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/delta-airlines-wants-unruly-passengers-put-federal-no-fly-list-rcna14947

February 4, 2022

Passenger pulled from plane at Logan Airport in Boston for refusing to wear mask

February 4, 2022

Daily Maskhole Update

Flight from Boston’s Logan Airport delayed two hours after man refused to wear mask


A flight from Logan International Airport in Boston to Salt Lake City International Airport was delayed by two hours Wednesday because a man refused to wear a mask on board.

He was removed by Massachusetts State Police troopers, who were informed about an issue between two passengers on a Delta Air Lines Flight 670 around 7 p.m., according to WCVB.

Face masks are required in airports and on airplanes until at least March 18 regardless of vaccination status, via the Transportation Security Administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recently said it does not have current plans to impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on domestic flights.

A passenger told WCVB that the man was told to put it on about four or five times, but would remove it and laugh as soon as flight attendants turned around. The incident forced the pilot to return the plane to the gate where several state troopers removed the man.

He was escorted off around 7:15 p.m. and the flight took off from Boston around 7:45 p.m., according to WCVB. It was originally scheduled to leave at 5:45 p.m. ............(more)

https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus/2022/02/flight-from-bostons-logan-airport-delayed-two-hours-after-man-refused-to-wear-mask.html

February 4, 2022

Paris's First Gondola Finally Gets a Green Light

(Bloomberg CityLab) By 2025, commuters near the Paris suburb of Creteil should have a new way to get to work: the French capital’s first-ever public transit gondola.

The new aerial tramway, which cleared its pre-construction feasibility studies this week, will be called Cable A, and will link several outlying but populous neighborhoods in Paris’ southeastern suburbs to the terminus of Metro line 8. Traveling a distance of 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) with five stations along its length, Cable A promises to speed trips from the district into the city center, easing connections between the network of schools, universities, hospitals and public offices scattered across the area.

First proposed in 2008, the gondola line is needed, its promoters say, because adding conventional public transit links to this region would be complicated and expensive: Not only is the area somewhat hilly, it is also bisected by several highways, a TGV high-speed rail line and tracks leading to a large rail freight depot. Laying a tram line would require extensive engineering in the form of bridges and tunnels.

The gondola, by contrast, can sail above these obstacles, and its land needs are minimal: Beyond station sites, an aerial tramway just requires space for the pillars supporting the cables. That should keep the project’s cost at 132 million euros ($149 million). The electricity-powered mode also won’t add the the area’s air pollution or climate emissions, and while ridership estimates have not yet been released, backers say that, by making it easier for commuters to central Paris to access the metro system, it can help with removing cars from the road. ...............(more)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-04/by-2025-parisians-could-commute-by-gondola?srnd=premium