CLG: Flint water treatment plant foreman found dead; Flint lawsuit filer shot and killed, Thousands of Germans rally against 'trade' deals on eve of Obama's visit, Public support for TTIP in U.S. plunges to 18% - survey

 News Updates from CLG
26 April 2016

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Previous edition: Trump, Clinton cruise to New York wins; Cruz must rely on contested convention

 

Is Rick Snyder killing off witnesses? Part 1: Flint water treatment plant foreman was found dead days before three of his colleagues were charged over the city's contaminated water crisis --Autopsy was conducted but did not determine immediate cause of death | 21 April 2016 | The death of a Water Treatment Plant foreman, who was found dead at his home on April 16 by a friend who went to visit him, comes amid charges against three men involved in the city's water crisis. Flint Mayor Karen Weaver announced the sudden death of foreman, Matthew McFarland on Thursday. A friend discovered the 43-year-old's body when he went to visit him at his Otter Lake home last Saturday, according to MLive. His death comes as Flint's water plant deals with the attorney general's announcement of three men facing criminal charges in connection with the city's water crisis.

 

Part 2: Flint woman suing over poisoned water crisis found shot to death in home | 22 April 2016 | A woman involved in a lawsuit over the lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint, Michigan was reportedly found shot to death in her home along with another individual. On Tuesday, police found the bodies of two women inside of a townhouse, where they also found a one-year-old who was unharmed. Both women were shot, and have been identified as Sasha Bell and Sacorya Reed. Police are treating the deaths as homicides and have a suspect in custody, but no charges have been filed. Notably, the Flint Journal reports that Sasha Bell was one of the first individuals to file a lawsuit over the water crisis in Flint, which saw city water become contaminated with lead after officials chose to switch to the Flint River as its main drinking source.

 

Activists warn against potential outsourcing of Flint water plant | 21 April 2016 | A group of activists and union supporters protested against the outsourcing of the operation of the Flint water treatment plant on Thursday...Protesters held signs and shouted chants against Gov. Rick Snyder. "Today, as the city of Flint hosts a meeting with potential bidders for a study of the water system -- local and national labor and social justice organizations called on the city council and the mayor to reject any deal with a water privatizing company that could use that study as a foot in the door to take over the operating and management of this system," said Flint resident Melissa Mays, founder of Water You Fighting For.

Obama plans 250 more U.S. troops for Syria, boosting force to 300 | 24 April 2016 | President Barack Obama will announce on Monday he plans to send as many as 250 additional U.S. troops to Syria, a sharp increase in the American presence working with local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State militants, U.S. officials said. The deployment will increase U.S. forces in Syria to about 300...Obama will explain his decision in a speech at 11:25 a.m. (0925 GMT) in Hanover, where he discussed the Syria crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday. 

Heads up! Project Mercury: Foreign 'dirty bomb' responders will start training in Nevada | 24 April 2016 | In a few months, the Center for Radiological/Nuclear Training will enter a new, international dimension as police officers from eastern Europe and elsewhere outside the U.S. descend on a one-of-a-kind training facility in Area 1 at the Nevada National Security Site, 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas...The first wave of foreign students is expected to arrive in September for Project Mercury, a $500,000 pilot program that will bring first responders from Interpol, the world's largest international police organization. While the cost of the security site's 'counterterrorism' effort is 22 million funded annually by the Department of Homeland Security, the 500,000 for the inaugural Project Mercury trial course comes from the Department of Defense, a Pentagon official said Friday. The official, a spokesman for the office of the Secretary of Defense, added that future funding avenues exist in "several programs that build partner capacity to deal with the full range of threats associated with" weapons of mass destruction. One, he said, focuses on teaming with other nations to ensure there will be safe and successful responses to nuclear incidents [aka US false flags].

Justice Department won't block CIA torture suit | 21 April 2016 | The Justice Department has signaled that it won't try to block a lawsuit arising from the CIA's harsh interrogation torture techniques, leaving the door open for a court challenge over tactics that have since been discontinued and widely discredited. Lawyers call the government's stance unprecedented, but also a recognition that a once-secret program is now largely out in the open. They say it's the first time the Justice Department has not sought, as its first step, to dismiss a lawsuit over the interrogation program by arguing that its mere existence is too secret to discuss in court...The lawsuit at issue, pending in federal court in Washington state, accuses the two Air Force psychologists who designed the interrogation program of endorsing and teaching torture tactics under the guise of science.

 

'Terrorism investigation' court lets NSA collect telephone records data | 21 April 2016 | In its first ruling regarding phone records since the passage of the USA Freedom Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granted the National Security Agency the powers it requested. Much of the court order was redacted, however. The court order, which was released on Tuesday, does not reveal the identities of any of the telecom providers with which the National Security Agency (NSA) is working nor whom the agency is targeting, according to Reuters.

Two GTA men arrested on fear they will commit terrorism | 21 April 2016 | The RCMP is seeking to restrict the movements of two [Greater Toronto Area] GTA men they fear will commit acts of terrorism. Samuel Augustin Aviles of Whitby, and Kadir Abdul of Toronto appeared in a Brampton court Thursday morning after being arrested on peace bonds. According to court documents, the RCMP fears Abdulmay participate in an activity of a terrorist group, travel to participate in an activity of a terrorist group, or facilitate terrorist activity. They fear Aviles may travel to participate in an activity of a terrorist group. The RCMP is seeking to restrict their movements for one year because of these fears. #PreCrimeUnit

Police charge Australian teenager with planning ANZAC terror attack | 24 April 2106 | Australian police have arrested and charged a teenager with a terrorism offense related to planning an attack at Monday's commemorations of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli during World War One. The 16-year-old boy was arrested near his Sydney home on Sunday and will appear before a children's court on Monday, police said. The offense carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. ANZAC Day, April 25, is a major annual holiday in Australia and New Zealand marking the date of the first Gallipoli landings in 1915, in which large numbers of Australian and New Zealand troops fought and died.

Connecticut man made threat on Twitter to bomb Trump rally | 24 April 2016 | A 20-year-old Connecticut man was arrested after being accused of sending threats on Twitter to bomb a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, authorities said on Sunday. Sean Morkys of Waterbury, Connecticut, was charged with threatening, inciting injury and breach of peace. The U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible for the safety of presidential candidates, alerted the Connecticut State Police's counterterrorism office on Saturday afternoon that a Twitter user had posted, "Is someone going to bomb the trump rally or am I going to have to?" A second post warned a friend to tell relatives to leave the rally in Waterbury to avoid being harmed, state police said.

Man arrested for allegedly threatening to bomb Trump rally in Connecticut | 24 April 2016 | A man is under arrest after he allegedly threatened to bomb Donald Trump's campaign rally in Connecticut Saturday. The Connecticut State Police arrested 20-year-old Sean Morkys in Waterbury. They say he posted on Twitter that he was going to detonate a bomb at Trump's Waterbury rally. Authorities tracked the tweets to a Waterbury home, where they found Morkys. After determining he didn't pose an immediate threat, he was taken into custody and released on 25,000 bond.

Man who landed gyrocopter at U.S. Capitol gets 120 days in prison | 21 April 2016 | A former Florida mail carrier who flew a gyrocopter onto the U.S. Capitol grounds to publicize the need for campaign finance reform was sentenced to 120 days in jail on Thursday, a spokesman for prosecutors said. Douglas Hughes, 62, of Ruskin, Florida, also was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to a year of supervised release after he gets out of prison, the spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Hughes pleaded guilty in November to a felony charge of flying an aircraft without a license in the April 2015 stunt.

Solar-powered plane lands at Moffett Field | 24 April 2016 | (Mountain View, CA) After a 56-hour flight from Hawaii, his every word webcast live from the skies, the pilot of a solar-powered plane on an around-the-world journey reached the San Francisco Bay late Saturday afternoon, enthralled and inspired by the stunning scene below. "Right now, I am crossing the coastline of California entering into the continent, and exactly in front of me is the Golden Gate," pilot Bertrand Piccard told colleagues tracking his travels on the Internet. Over "the centuries, all these ships were coming like this" through the Golden Gate, "and now it's a solar-powered airplane." Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View at 11:45 p.m.

8 shot dead in Ohio 'execution-style killings,' shooter or shooters may still be at large | 22 April 2016 | One or more shooters could still be on the loose as Ohio officials confirm seven adults and one male juvenile, all members of the same family, were killed at four different Pike County residences Friday. An initial statement from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said they were "execution-style killings." The attorney general stated that authorities believe the individual or individuals responsible for the killings are still at large and should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. The Chillicothe Gazette reported there were multiple crime scenes, citing deputies on the scene.

 

Thousands of Germans rally against 'trade' deals on eve of Obama's visit --A mock coffin lay on the ground emblazoned with the words 'Democracy killed by money' and 'Here lies democracy'. | 23 April 2016 | Thousands of opponents of a proposed transatlantic trade corporate takeover deal poured onto German streets today on the eve of a visit by US President Barack Obama. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has run into major opposition, not least in Europe's top economy Germany, where its foes have raised the spectre of eroding ecological and labour market standards and condemned secrecy shrouding the talks. A loose coalition of trade unions, environmentalists and consumer protection groups gathered a crowd of about 16,000 in front of Hanover's opera house ahead of a march through the city centre expected to draw around 50,000.

 

Public support for TTIP in U.S. plunges to 18% - survey | 21 April 2016 | Support for the transatlantic trade deal known as TTIP has fallen sharply in Germany and the United States, a survey showed on Thursday, days before Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama meet to try to breathe new life into the pact. The survey, conducted by YouGov for the Bertelsmann Foundation, showed that only 17 percent of Germans believe the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a good thing, down from 55 percent two years ago. In the United States, only 18 percent support the deal compared to 53 percent in 2014.

 

Republicans Cruz, Kasich conspire to reach 'stop-Trump' deal | 24 April 2016 | Republican White House rivals Ted Cruz [Zodiac Ted] and John Kasich announced a deal on Sunday to stay out of each other's way in some upcoming state primaries in hopes of blocking front-runner Donald Trump from winning the party's presidential nomination. Cruz's campaign said in a statement he would focus on the Indiana and give Kasich a clearer shot in Oregon and New Mexico, states where the Ohio governor expects to do well. Kasich, in turn, agreed to shift resources west and away from Indiana...Dan Scavino, Trump's social media director tweeted: "Two losing candidates joining in an attempt to stop @realdonaldtrump. Americans are so tired of you POLITICIANS!!!"

 

Trump relentlessly mocks Kasich: 'I have never seen a human being eat in such a disgusting fashion' | 25 April 2016 | Donald Trump relentlessly mocked Ohio Gov. John Kasich's campaign-trail eating habits on Monday. During a rally in Rhode Island, the Republican presidential front-runner said that the Ohio governor should learn from Trump's children, whom Trump has urged to eat modest portions of food. "Did you see him? He has a news conference all the time when he's eating. I have never seen a human being eat in such a disgusting fashion," Trump said of Kasich. He continued: "I'd say, 'Children, small, little bites.' This guy takes a pancake and he's shoving it in his mouth. It's disgusting. Do you want this guy for your president?" [LOL! See also: Donald Trump Explains How John Kasich Eats Pancakes [Hilarious] (Video) 25 April 2016.]

 

Trump tells Connecticut voters he's 'not toning it down' | 23 April 2016 | A confident Donald Trump told supporters on Saturday that he’s not changing his pitch to voters, a day after his chief adviser assured Republican officials their party’s front-runner would show more restraint while campaigning. "You know, being presidential's easy -- much easier than what I have to do," he told thousands at a rally in Bridgeport, Conn. "Here, I have to rant and rave. I have to keep you people going. Otherwise you’re going to fall asleep on me, right?" Trump declared to the crowd that he has no intention of reversing any of his provocative policy plans, including building a wall along the length of the southern border. 

 

Board of Elections: Chief Clerk Suspended After Brooklyn Voter Purge | 21 April 2016 | A New York City Board of Elections official was suspended without pay after more than 125,000 people werepurged from the voter rolls in Brooklyn, according to the agency. Chief Clerk Diane Haslett-Rudianoaccidentally kicked active voters off the list after doing a routine update to eliminate people who have died or moved, the New York Daily News first reported...The New York State Attorney General's Office is also investigating the Board of Elections after it received more than 1,000 complaints during primary day.

 

Eric Garner's Daughter, 126,000 Others, Could Not Vote in NYC | 20 April 2016 | Eric Garner's daughter, a Bernie Sanders campaign advocate, did not vote in the New York primaries, along with 126,000 other independent voters, including Donald Trump's children. New York has a closed primary system, meaning that only voters registered with a party can vote, and the deadline to register with a party was back in October, 2015. This makes New York the hardest state in which to vote for unaffiliated voters, who are expected to prepare 193 days before voting begins.

 

Charles Koch: 'Possible' Clinton could be better than GOP nominee | 24 April 2016 | Oil tycoon and conservative mega-donor Charles Koch had kind words for both Bill and Hillary Clinton in an interview Sunday, saying there was an outside chance he could support her in November. "We would have to believe her actions would be quite different than her rhetoric. Let me put it that way," he said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "But on some of the Republican candidates we would -- before we could support them, we'd have to believe their actions will be quite different than the rhetoric we've heard so far."

 

Hillary Clinton's Campaign, Cautious but Confident, Begins Considering Running Mates | 23 April 2016 | Hillary Clinton's advisers and allies have begun extensive discussions about who should be her running mate, seeking to compile a list of 15 to 20 potential picks for her team to start vetting by late spring...Among the names under discussion by Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Clinton and campaign advisers: Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, former governors from the key state of Virginia; Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who represents both a more liberal wing of the party and a swing state; former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, a prominent African-American Democrat; and Thomas E. Perez, President Obama's labor secretary and a Hispanic civil rights lawyer. But Mrs. Clinton is also open to a woman, campaign advisers said.

 

Federal judge upholds North Carolina voter ID law said to be discriminatory | 25 April 2016 | Lawsuits challenging changes to North Carolina’s election law failed to show it hampered the ability of minority voters to exercise political power, a federal judge ruled Monday in dismissing the cases. US district judge Thomas Schroeder ruled against the US Justice Department, the North Carolina NAACP chapter and named voters, who claimed the law was passed to discriminate against poor and minority voters in violation of the Constitution and Voting Rights Act. While North Carolina had a sordid history of freezing black voters out of the political process, Schroeder said, the plaintiffs did not show that the law hampered the ability of minority voters to exercise electoral politics.

 

Cleveland agrees to pay Tamir Rice family $6m over police shooting | 25 April 1206 | The city of Cleveland, Ohio, has agreed to pay 6m to the family of Tamir Rice to settle a lawsuit over the 12-year-old's fatal shooting by a police officer. The payment will avert a federal civil rights case brought against city authorities by Tamir’s relatives over the death of "a young boy with his entire life ahead of him, full of potential and promise", their attorneys said on Monday. The details of the settlement were contained in a filing by judge Solomon Oliver to federal court in Cleveland on Monday morning.

 

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CLG Editor-in-Chief: Lori Price. Copyright © 2016, Citizens for Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved.