Day: October 30, 2021

City Council President Requests Transparency for Flint’s Legal Fees

The Center Square
Kate Fields of Flint, Michigan, City Council

The president of the Flint City Council is asking a court to help her recoup the legal fees she incurred in a lawsuit she won against the city earlier this week. She is also challenging the city to disclose how much money it will spend defending itself from legal actions she initiated after the council imposed a gag order on her.

The Flint City Council voted 5-2 to censure President Kate Fields on Sept. 28. The resolution banned her from leading council meetings and openly speaking for 30 days, but still allowed her to vote. Fields is campaigning for reelection for Flint’s 4th Ward in next Tuesday’s election.

The resolution stemmed from an incident earlier this year, when Fields ordered the removal of 1st Ward Council member Eric Mays from a virtual meeting for disruptive behavior and denied him an opportunity to appeal her decision. Mays has a reputation for behavior deemed inappropriate, including a March 2020 incident during which he was removed from a City Council meeting in handcuffs and subsequently banned from council meetings for 30 days. 

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Commentary: This Is Obama’s Third Term

Michigan Star Staff

On October 30, 2008, five days before Barack Obama won that year’s presidential election, he promised to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” He nearly lived up to that promise.

Obama doubled the federal debt. He oversaw the worst economic growth of any president since Herbert Hoover. Under Obama, Americans experienced a stagnant median household income, a decline in homeownership, an increase in health insurance rates, and an increase in the number of Americans on food stamps, to mention just a few lowlights.

By every metric that should have mattered to Americans, Obama had failed. But from Obama’s point of view, he had succeeded. American prosperity is anathema to Obama and the modern-day Democratic Party. The Democratic Party’s power doesn’t come from happy, successful, and independent Americans; but rather from miserable, forlorn, desperate, and impoverished Americans who are dependent upon the government for their salvation.

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Big Tech Companies Apple and Amazon Warn of Worsening Supply Chain Crisis

Michigan Star Staff
A ship arriving at the Hamburg harbor.

On Thursday, two of the biggest tech companies in the world posted earnings that fell below market expectations, attributed to the ongoing supply chain crisis that is paralyzing the American economy, according to CNN.

For the third quarter of 2021, Amazon’s net sales amounted to around $110.8 billion, which was a 15 percent increase from the previous year; however, this ultimately fell below market analyst predictions of about $111.6 billion. Amazon’s overall net income for the same period decreased from the same period in 2020 to about $3.2 billion, when predictions estimated around $4.6 billion.

Apple’s sales during the same quarter were $83.4 billion, with iPhone sales at $38.9 billion; both were lower than original projections.

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U.S. Consumer Spending Grew Slowly in September amid High COVID-19 Cases, Supply Chain Problems and Rising Inflation

Michigan Star Staff

U.S. consumer spending growth slowed in September, and income dropped due to high COVID-19 cases, supply shortages, rising inflation, and ending unemployment benefits.

Consumer spending increased 0.6% in September, down from a 1% jump in August, the Commerce Department announced Friday. Personal income fell 1% in September, driven by a 72% drop in unemployment insurance benefits that offset a 0.7% spike in wages and benefits, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Economists polled by Reuters projected a 0.5% in consumer spending. Delta variant cases peaked in the middle of September, and the continued supply chain backups have caused shortages and rising prices, making it harder for consumers to purchase their desired goods, the WSJ reported.

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Illinois GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger Won’t Seek Reelection

Michigan Star Staff
Adam Kinzinger

Illinois GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger announced Friday that he will not be seeking reelection next year.

The congressman will leave Capitol Hill after 12 years in office and a final term that was dominated by his vocal criticism of former President Donald Trump.

In a video announcing the end of his House career, Kinzinger spoke about his first race, in which he unseated the Democratic incumbent in 2010. He was told then by supporters to “be my own man and to never do what they tell you to do,” he recalled.

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State Department Partners with Refugee Coalition Groups Supporting Organizations with Alleged Terror Ties

Michigan Star Staff
Stephen Heintz and George Soros

The U.S. State Department joined an initiative to welcome Afghan refugees into the country that is sponsored by organizations supporting groups with possible ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations, a Daily Caller News Foundation review found.

Welcome.US is part of the Office of American Possibilities initiative, a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, according to its website. The initiative’s main co-chairs include former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, former President George W. Bush, former First Lady Laura Bush, former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The initiative also formed a coalition composed of nonprofit leaders and organizations, former government officials, corporate leaders and public figures. Businesses, including Starbucks, Uber, Facebook, Microsoft, Walmart and Airbnb, also support the effort.

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Facebook Changes Its Name to ‘Meta’

Michigan Star Staff
Illustration of two people looking out on a design of Meta, Facebook's new name

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday the tech giant was changing its name to “Meta.”

Zuckerberg announced the name change at the Facebook Connect 2021 conference. The new name reflects Zuckerberg’s goal to reorient his social media company to a technology conglomerate with several different products beyond the Facebook social network, focusing on “metaverse” technology. 

The “metaverse” is a virtual environment in which individuals can interact with one another through avatars and across multiple platforms and devices. Facebook called it a “new phase of interconnected virtual experiences using technologies like virtual and augmented reality” in which people interacting online can become much closer to the experience of interacting in person.”

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China’s Hypersonic Weapon Might Be New ‘Sputnik Moment,’ Milley Says

Michigan Star Staff

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said China’s new hypersonic weapon is “very concerning” and comes close to being a “Sputnik moment,” Bloomberg TV reported.

The top military officer of the U.S. confirmed to Bloomberg that China had recently tested an advanced hypersonic weapon. “What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning,” Milley said in an interview for “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.”

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Report: ‘They’re Not Oracles’: U.S. Intelligence Agencies Failed to Predict Fall of Kabul to Taliban

Michigan Star Staff
aerial view of Kabul

U.S. intelligence agencies failed to predict how quickly Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, would fall to the Taliban, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Four agencies tracked the Taliban’s gains around Afghanistan starting in the spring of 2020 up until Taliban insurgents overthrew the U.S.-supported government in the capital city of Kabul, according to classified materials reviewed by the WSJ.

Around two dozen of the reports the WSJ reviewed predicted the Afghan government would collapse after U.S. forces withdrew, though none of them thought the government would fall as quickly as it did or with American troops still deployed in the region.

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Commentary: Americans Sour on Biden, But Like Harris Even Less

Michigan Star Staff

Market Research Foundation recently pointed out President Biden’s polling numbers are in jeopardy, but a new poll shows Americans have huge hesitations about Vice President Kamala Harris taking over as well.

As a refresher, President Biden referred to himself as “a bridge” to “a new generation of leaders” in the Democratic party when campaigning with Harris in 2020, and Harris is next in line if anything should prevent Biden from continuing to serve as president. At the time, it appeared Biden was implying Harris would replace him soon.

Unfortunately for Democrats, while Biden’s polling numbers are in serious jeopardy, Americans do not appear at all confident Harris is qualified to lead the country.

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Report: Biden Considering $450,000 Payments to Illegal Immigrant Families Separated at Border

Michigan Star Staff

The Biden administration is considering paying illegal immigrant families who were separated at the border under former President Donald Trump’s policies up to $450,000 per person, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The illegal immigrants filed a lawsuit claiming the federal government detention resulted in major psychological trauma, according to the WSJ. Most of the families were made up of one parent and child who could receive around $1 million in payouts, though the amount could vary by family depending on the circumstances.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represents some of the families involved in the lawsuit against the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security (DHS) and Health and Human Services, the WSJ reported. Around 940 families filed claims and the number of those who might qualify for the settlement is expected to be lower.

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Narrative of a Perfect 2020 Election Eroding as Wisconsin Becomes Investigative Ground Zero

Michigan Star Staff
People at a voting location, voting early at polls

Cognitively impaired nursing home residents in Wisconsin and Michigan cynically exploited for votes. Election mismanagement in Atlanta. Unlawful election instructions in Wisconsin. And 50,000 questionable ballots in Arizona, plus several criminal cases for illegal ballot harvesting and inmate voting.

Eleven months after Donald Trump was ousted from office, the narrative that the 2020 election was clean and secure has frayed like a well-worn shoelace. The challenges of the COVID pandemic, the aggressive new tactics of voting activists and the desire of Democrats to make the collection and delivery of ballots by third parties legal in states where harvesting is expressly forbidden has muddied the establishment portrait and awakened the nation to the painful reality its election system — particularly in big urban areas — is far from perfection.

Nowhere has that story become more clear than the battleground state of Wisconsin, where a local sheriff on Thursday dramatically held a nationally televised news conference alleging he had found evidence of felony crimes involving ballots sent to nursing home residents.

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New Ad Calls for Action from Whitmer on Benton Harbor Water Crisis

Cooper Moran

The Michigan Freedom Fund, a group that has expressed repeated concerns over Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s actions, launched a new ad on Thursday, calling for action on the growing Benton Harbor Water crisis.

The ad, entitled “Demanding Answers”, requests Whitmer take action and questions when her administration knew about the issue.

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