FBI arrest 6 men in a militia plot to kidnap Michigan governor who also wanted to kill police officers.

Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
captainmorgan said:
Here's proof that Michigan needs to invest in larger psychiatric wards and bring back nut houses.


https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1388600942199820290
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I'm OK with Republicans line dancing. More dancing, less guns and grimacing would do us all some good. Of course, talent is seriously lacking there but I'm OK with amateur white people line dancing. They have a smile on their face and that fat one could use the exercise.
 
DIY-HP-LED

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
captainmorgan said:
Michigan GQP are trying to pass a bill that would outlaw vaccine passports.
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What do you expect? It's not like they will lose much support?

I think it might be coming down to a another binary choice, either the United States government destroys the Republican party, or the republican party will destroy the United States. If they try to steal elections in 2022 and they will, there is gonna be big fucking trouble. Do you think they will concede the state elections if they lose? The house and senate races? I mean lose by a lot too. If they win by cheating, this might end in civil war.

I don't see the SCOTUS fucking around with HR1 or voting rights and I think both should be strengthened and enhanced. The conservatives on the court are in shock after seeing their political home burned to the ground and the ruins bulldozed. There is no republican wing of the SCOTUS any more, like so many others, the party left them when it walked through the looking glass into wonderland.
 
DIY-HP-LED

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
captainmorgan said:
Fucking GQP.


www.wxyz.com

Proposed bill would set a legal limit for THC in bloodstream for Michigan drivers

www.wxyz.com www.wxyz.com
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In Canada they have an issue with that as there is no scientific proof that a given amount of THC causes impairment in many experienced users, in deed there is evidence to the contrary. The DUI laws have been challenged a million times by rich white middle age drunks and there is a mountain of science on alcohol impairment. Here at least they are reluctant to bring such charges for fear the law will be struck down by the supreme court and if someone wanted to fight it they would have a Helluva case.

Two years after pot legalization, B.C. cops only have 10 roadside detectors | iN420 (infotel.ca)

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Currently, two roadside cannabis detectors have been approved for use in Canada, the Draeger 5000 and the Abbot SoToxa. Public Safety Canada said in May 2019 it would spend $10.1 million over five years in B.C. to purchase roadside cannabis detectors and train more officers in standardized field sobriety testing and drug recognition expert evaluation.

However, prominent Vancouver defence lawyer Kyla Lee said her law firm bought the $10,000 Draeger device and after two days of testing found the machine recorded false positive readings.

"It was really embarrassing for Draeger it showed all these false positives," Lee told iNFOnews.ca.

The RCMP detachments in B.C. which do have detectors are using the Abbot SoToxa, but Lee said the same issues arise and its use is likely to be challenged in court.

As a prominent defence lawyer specializing in impaired driving, Lee said it's incredibly rare to see police lay criminal charges for cannabis-impaired driving, and they mainly issue 24 hour prohibitions to drivers. She's also seen a change since a 90-day prohibition for drug-impaired driving was introduced in July 2019.

"I've seen a huge uptake in people who are getting these 90 days (suspensions) but who aren't being charged criminally," Lee said. "It's cheaper and faster."

But while the lack of roadside cannabis detectors may seem worrying, Lee said cannabis use has been around in B.C. for a long time, so people have been driving around while high and the province wasn't seeing a huge number of accidents involving people who had smoked or used cannabis.

"I think the takeaway should be that cannabis users in B.C. are behaving and driving responsibly and not giving rise to any widespread concern by police," Lee said. "If there was an issue, if there were accidents and injuries and deaths caused by cannabis-impaired drivers, we would see police doing more to enforce it. I'm confident of that."

The pandemic has also made the lack of machines a moot point. Due to COVID-19, the use in the field is currently suspended because it involves obtaining a saliva sample.
 
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hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/14/gretchen-whitmer-enbridge-line-5-pipeline-mackinac-time-bomb/Screen Shot 2021-05-14 at 9.30.52 PM.png
Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, is governor of Michigan.

Oil and water don’t mix — especially when the latter involves the Great Lakes, the repository of more than 20 percent of the world’s fresh water. And yet for nearly 70 years, an oil company has pumped crude oil through the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron connect and where Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas come closest.

The two aging, 4.5-mile sections of underwater pipeline are a ticking time bomb. I’m taking every action I can to shut them down, to protect two Great Lakes and the jobs that depend on them.

Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. owns the pipeline, known as Line 5, which is part of a network that transports crude oil and other petroleum products from Western Canada. In 1953, a forerunner Enbridge company secured an easement from the state of Michigan for $2,450 to run the pipeline through the Straits. It now moves about 540,000 barrels of crude and natural gas liquids through the Great Lakes daily.

For decades, few people even realized that the dual pipelines passed through the Straits. But catastrophic oil spills have since alerted millions of Americans to the enormous potential dangers. In Michigan, the turning point might have been in 2010. In April of that year, the deadly disaster of the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig poured millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico; three months later, an Enbridge pipeline in Michigan, Line 6B, ruptured, sending hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil gushing into a creek feeding the Kalamazoo River, near Marshall, Mich. It was one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history.

After those twin catastrophes, eyes turned to the aging oil pipelines running through the Great Lakes.

While Enbridge says its pipelines pose no threat, the record from just the past few years says otherwise. The Straits of Mackinac is a busy shipping channel, with the dual pipelines lying perpendicular to passing ships. In April 2018, a commercial vessel inadvertently dropped and dragged a massive anchor across the pipelines while passing through the Straits. An “underwater pipeline inspection video shows deep scoring along the lake bottom, then up and over the twin pipelines,” the Detroit Free Press later reported. “Deep marks are etched in both pipelines, and there is evidence of outer protective coating loss.”

It was just a matter of luck that the pipelines did not rupture. Then, in 2020, Enbridge disclosedanother strike on Line 5, one that caused significant damage to a pipeline support, likely by either an anchor or cables from a passing ship. Another catastrophe dodged.

The potential costs of a major oil spill are too great to ignore. The Great Lakes support more than 1.3 million jobs that generate $82 billion in wages annually across the United States. We cannot continue to run the risk of the devastating economic, environmental and public health impacts that would follow a disaster involving Line 5.

That’s why I took action. Last November, I filed a lawsuit and notified Enbridge that the state of Michigan was revoking and terminating the 1953 easement for Enbridge’s dual pipelines in the Straits. The notice gave Enbridge 180 days — until this past Wednesday — to cease pumping oil through the Great Lakes. This week, I notified Enbridge that if it continues to operate past the deadline — which it has done — the state would make every effort to disgorge the company of all profits unjustly earned from Line 5 while trespassing on state land.

Enbridge says it will continue pumping until a court orders it to stop. I’m confident the state will prevail. Even under federal law, states retained the right to prescribe the location of pipelines. The company may end up running a new pipeline elsewhere: Although it would be years away at best, Enbridge is exploring the possibility of digging a tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac. The authority is 49 U.S.C. 60104(e).

But at this moment, the company must stop pumping oil across the bottomlands of the Great Lakes. Enbridge is flat wrong in its absurd argument that Michigan, having said yes in the 1950s, cannot say no today. That’s why 16 other states and D.C. have filed an amicus brief supporting my position: to preserve their sovereign rights over where pipelines are laid.

Shutting down Line 5 will require adjustments, which are already underway. For example, Michigan draws propane from the pipeline. Anticipating the coming changes, the market for Michigan’s wholesale propane supply is diversifying and propane retailers are developing alternative sourcing arrangements. The state is also taking steps to prevent price gouging and exploring opportunities to invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency and electrification to bring down long-term costs.

Running pipelines through the water of the Great Lakes is, and always has been, a dangerous threat. I will not sit idle as this time bomb keeps ticking.
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hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
printer said:
Is that not why the replacement line is put in a tunnel in the rock underneath the water rather than in the water?
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Is it done yet (and done well)?

These oil spills suck too much to give an inch to these companies when it comes to them skimping and pollution.
 
hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-democracy-jocelyn-benson-michigan-presidential-elections-5c3d6ef31272b42360f78949776a6cf7
Screen Shot 2021-05-26 at 3.06.55 PM.png
(AP) — Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson serves as the chief election official in Michigan, working alongside nearly 1,700 local officials who administer elections in the battleground state. In 2020, Benson was at the center of efforts to ensure a safe and secure election amid the COVID-19 outbreak. It also was the first major election in Michigan since voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2018 allowing no-excuse absentee voting. The number of absentee ballots jumped — from 1.2 million during the 2016 presidential election to 3.2 million in November 2020.

The Associated Press interviewed Benson, a Democrat and election law expert, about combatting disinformation surrounding the 2020 election, preparations for the 2024 presidential election and efforts by Republicans in Michigan and elsewhere to enact new limits on voting. Republicans argue new limits are needed, particularly on mail voting, to increase security and confidence in elections, although no widespread fraud was identified last year. Michigan’s governor, a Democrat, is likely to veto any voting restriction passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature, but the state has a unique process that could allow voting bills to become law if enough citizens petition for it and the Legislature passes it.

The interview, held May 20, has been condensed.

AP: How do you combat the disinformation still surrounding the 2020 election?

BENSON: We have to recognize that we’ve got to work from the same set of facts. And those facts have to be based in evidence and truth, not in political agendas and in partisan efforts. Everyone who sees and knows the truth needs to call on every leader to tell the truth and to continue to remind people what the evidence and the truth is. Secondly, those who refuse to tell the truth … those leaders in particular who continue to propagate the ‘big lie’ and even codify legislation in furtherance of it, there needs to be accountability. And particularly, there needs to be accountability for the tragedy that we saw in our Capitol on Jan. 6.

AP: Across the country, we are seeing several GOP-controlled legislatures seeking to exert more control over election officials. How concerned are you that we could end up seeing more of these outside ballot reviews like in Arizona or even takeovers of local election offices?

BENSON: I’m deeply concerned about the future of our democracy and about all of the things that we’re seeing and have seen on a near weekly basis emerge throughout our country, but particularly in states that were high profile in 2020 -- Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada -- to consistently propagate the ‘big lie,’ propagate this idea, this falsehood that the election was anything but safe and secure, to codify legislation in furtherance of that and really undo a lot of the policies that led to such enormous turnout and security in 2020. … I feel very strongly that the battles that we saw around 2020's election ... was just the beginning of what is clearly turning out to be a multi-year, strategic, nationally coordinated, partisan assault on the vote in our country and on our democracy. And we will see another battle in the 2022 elections around that truth and around the security of the vote, around access to the vote. But it's also all going to culminate, I believe, in an effort to try again in 2024 what those democracy deniers attempted to do in 2020 but failed. And in 2024, the bad actors, I believe, will be more coordinated, more strategic, better funded and will have the benefit of doing this work for a number of years. I’m deeply concerned about the future health of our democracy.

AP: We had a historic turnout last year and now we’re seeing Republican lawmakers in several states, including Michigan, pushing new voting limits. What is behind this and what are the biggest dangers if these bills become law?

BENSON: It’s a reaction that’s being framed as ‘we’re reacting and trying to address voter fraud,’ but the policies actually aren’t doing that. They’re actually reacting to the historic level of voter turnout that we saw across the board, across the aisle, not just in Michigan, but across the country. And I know that simply just by looking at the data and the impact of these bills — not just in Michigan but in Georgia and Texas, in Florida, in Iowa, in Wyoming, in Montana, in Arizona — all of which have the net impact of making it harder for people to get ballots, making it harder for people to return their ballots and making it harder for election administrators to do their jobs and secure the process and ensure that every valid vote is counted.

AP: Michigan is unique in that it has a citizen process that could see these voting bills become law despite opposition from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. How concerned are you about that and what plans do you have to push back against this effort?

BENSON: I find it very alarming that any lawmaker would use such an undemocratic way of enacting rules over democracy as to what has been contemplated very publicly by a major political party in our state. … Any short-term gains that may be won by a very anti-democratic process, where 4% of the voting-age population can determine the rules of democracy for the other 96%, won't last. … In this immediate moment, my focus is on making sure people are educated on the impact of these policies and what they would actually do.

AP: As someone who focused on domestic extremism while working earlier in your career with the Southern Poverty Law Center, what went through your mind on Jan. 6 and what can be done to prepare for the 2024 election?

BENSON: Initially, what went through my mind, was I think was what went through almost everyone's mind, which was just devastation and deep sadness and, of course, fear of what could happen. … This is what happens when you allow the ‘big lie’ to get out of control. And these people are acting on a lie and they’re acting on and responding to a lie that they’ve been told by elected officials who they trust. And it has to stop. We have to just start telling the truth. … The immediate next steps really just involve truth and accountability, in my view. And ultimately, then reconciliation once we can get through those first two steps. And what worries me is that we’re not talking about any of those things.
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hanimmal

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
Weird question, but anyone in Michigan hear any Cicada yet? We had that late snow here and I haven't heard any yet this year.
 
S

schuylaar

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
I'm OK with Republicans line dancing. More dancing, less guns and grimacing would do us all some good. Of course, talent is seriously lacking there but I'm OK with amateur white people line dancing. They have a smile on their face and that fat one could use the exercise.
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what's wrong with you? you KNOW we can't dance.

white girl dancing.gif
 
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