Day: May 31, 2020

DOJ Backs Michigan Businesses Against Whitmer’s ‘Arbitrary and Irrational’ Restrictions

Michigan Star Staff

The Department of Justice filed a statement of interest Friday challenging Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “arbitrary and irrational” restrictions on her state’s businesses.

The move came as part of Attorney General William Barr’s efforts to ensure that civil liberties are protected during the coronavirus pandemic, the Department of Justice (DOJ) stated in a press release. The statement of interest supports a lawsuit filed by seven Michigan businesses challenging Whitmer’s restrictions.

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Commentary: COVID-19 Has Plagued Religious Freedom

Michigan Star Staff

As the coronavirus crisis unfolds and the 2016 election and post-electoral scandals ooze into the open, God is affronted and false gods disintegrate. The discussion over the opening of churches is generally presented as a public health issue, coupled with a First Amendment freedom of religion argument. But, in many cases, it is an outright assault on the practice of religion generally.

Compared to other advanced Western democracies, the United States is a country that practices religion. But the media, academia, and conventional wisdom embedded in the contemporary ethos of America’s governing elites is, estimating very roughly, one-quarter religious communicants or sympathizers, one-quarter agnostic, one-quarter atheist, and one-quarter anti-theist. All of these groups, of course, are entitled to have and to express their opinions—but they are not entitled to impose their opinions on others. 

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SCOTUS Rejects Request from California Church to Block Worship Restrictions

Michigan Star Staff

The Supreme Court rejected a request from a church to block California’s restrictions on religious services.

South Bay United Pentecostal Church of Chula Vista, California, filed a petition over Memorial Day weekend saying that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s coronavirus restrictions “arbitrarily discriminate against places of worship in violation of their right to the Free Exercise of Religion under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” according to CNN.

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Biden Campaign Cancels Fundraiser with Top Mueller Prosecutor

Michigan Star Staff

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has cancelled a fundraiser with Andrew Weissmann, one of the top prosecutors on the special counsel’s investigation of Trump associates, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Weissmann, an MSNBC analyst, was supposed to headline a virtual fundraiser for the Biden Victory Fund on June 2.

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EPA’s Andrew Wheeler Calls Out Senate Dems for ‘Politicizing’ Agency’s COVID Response

Michigan Star Staff

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler believes Democrats are politicizing the agency’s response to coronavirus and using flawed research to argue regulation rollbacks are disproportionately hurting black people amid a pandemic.

Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts used a politically-motivated research and a study based on 15-year-old data from Europe to suggest that the agency’s regulatory work is increasing the harm of coronavirus on minority groups, Wheeler said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Ads for Children’s Book on 19th Amendment Written by Sen. Blackburn and Her Daughter Banned by Instagram

Jason M. Reynolds

Instagram reportedly believes a children’s book written by U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and her daughter, about the history of the 19th Amendment, may “influence the outcome of an election,” so the tech giant has banned advertising for it.

The Federalist reported on the book’s ban.

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Newly Released Transcripts of Flynn/Kislyak Phone Calls Show Nothing Nefarious

Michigan Star Staff

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe on Friday sent declassified transcripts of former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s phone calls with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to Congress.

The calls, which took place during the presidential transition period from Dec. 22, 2016 through January of 2017, show that Flynn was concerned about an escalation of hostilities between the two countries after the United States expelled 35 Russian diplomats. The two also discussed Middle East policy at length and working together to defeat a common enemy: radical Islamists. There was nothing discussed in the phone calls, according to the summary, that would have given Obama-era government snoops reason to believe Flynn was treacherously “colluding” or “conspiring” with Russia.

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Two Killed During Protests in Oakland, Detroit Over Police Death of George Floyd

Michigan Star Staff

Two people, including a federal security contractor, were killed Friday night during protests over the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who was killed in police custody earlier this week, according to police and the FBI.

The FBI is investigating the fatal shooting of a Federal Protective Services officer outside of the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland on Friday, reported the San Francisco Gate.

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VIDEOS: Businesses Across Twin Cities Burned to the Ground, Residents Work to Clean Up

Anthony Gockowski

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota – More than 200 businesses across the Twin Cities have been vandalized, looted, or burned in response to the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was allegedly murdered Monday night by a Minneapolis police officer.

After setting fire to the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct Thursday night, rioters made their way to the Fifth Precinct Friday, reducing a nearby Wells Fargo and U.S. Post Office to rubble.

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Jail Records Contradict Claims That Most Rioters Are from Out of State

Anthony Gockowski

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, and Gov. Tim Walz all have suggested that many of the rioters wreaking havoc on the Twin Cities are from out of state, but jail records seem to show otherwise.

“We’ve seen long-term, institutional businesses overridden. We’ve seen community institutions set on fire. And I want to be very, very clear, the people that are doing this are not Minneapolis residents. They are coming in largely from outside of the city, from outside of the region, to prey on everything that we have built over the last several decades. The dynamic has changed over the last several days,” Frey said during a joint Saturday press conference.

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Day-Long Protest Turns Violent in Detroit as Police Declare ‘Unlawful Assembly’

Admin

After a relatively peaceful day of protests Saturday, the Detroit Police Department declared an increasingly agitated and violent crowd of roughly 250 people an unlawful assembly when they refused to leave the downtown Detroit area on the second night of unrest following the  controversial death of George Floyd.

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