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City Commissioner Calls the Old, Sick, and Homeless Drains on Society that Coronavirus Should Kill

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Ken Turnage II, YouTube screenshot

Earlier this month, the five-member City Council of Antioch, California voted to remove Ken Turnage II from his role as chairman of the city planning commission after Turnage published a Facebook post saying, “the elderly, the homeless and people with weak immune systems as a drain on society who should be left to perish as COVID-19 sweeps through Contra Costa County,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

The publication describes Tunage’s Facebook post:

“If we were to live our lives, let nature run its course, yes we will all feel hardship, we will all feel loss,” he wrote on Facebook. But “as a species,” he continued, the deaths would alleviate strain on the country’s healthcare and Social Security systems and free up jobs and housing.

As for “our homeless and other people who just defile themselves by either choice or mental issues,” Turnage wrote, the virus would “fix what is a significant burden on our society.”

Although Turnage said his personal views don’t affect his municipal duties, one constituent asked how he could be expected to responsibly shape his city after describing homeless people as a “significant burden” that a deadly virus could “fix.”

He says he has since received at least 1,500 phone calls, message requests, and calls to his business since publishing his comments. He claims he has also received lots of anonymous hate mail and death threats.

In a video explaining his comments, he said he only intended his post “to start debate and conversation about the epidemic.”

Although he didn’t specifically mention Nazis as a group, he said comparing him to one or to a eugenicist is inaccurate because Nazis actively killed groups of people whereas he simply said to “Let nature take its course.” He added that he didn’t pick the people this epidemic most affects and also said he’s not a Trump supporter.

In his video, he said:

“When I put this out there, that was what my goal was: was to start debate and conversation about the pandemic that’s going on…. I even put at the top, ‘If you can’t handle an alternate opinion, don’t read it.’

Well, I guess some people didn’t understand that and read it anyways and allowed themselves to be offended by what I said. Yes, I do understand some of the analogies I made could’ve been done differently…. And for that, I wish I would have done something different, but I didn’t.

Reality does not fit our moral compass… and sometimes it makes us uncomfortable, even other people’s opinions…. You and I both have the constitutional right to an opinion. Doesn’t matter if people like it…. I really wish people that were sensitive and needed their safe space would have stayed away from my space.”

He added that he had no decision to take legal action against the city and claims that the city of Antioch has been financially mismanaged for many years.

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Josh Duggar to Remain Jailed After Being Indicted on Federal Child Porn Charges: Reports

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Former reality TV star Josh Duggar will remain in jail for now after he was indicted Friday morning in Arkansas on federal child porn charges, according to multiple local reporters, by the U.S. Dept. of Justice.

A statement from the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas says Duggar “allegedly used the Internet to download child sex abuse material. Duggar allegedly possessed this material, some of which depicts the sexual abuse of children under the age of 12, in May 2019.”

“Duggar will remain in custody,” a KNWA report adds, “until a May 5th detention hearing. One stipulation Judge Wiedermann requested is for Duggar to have a third-party custodian should he be released on bond. Also, the residence where he would stay must be devoid of minor children.”

ABC News’ Luke Barr:

KNWA’s Garrett Fergeson:

This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change. 

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‘Caught Red Handed’: Pompeo Thought He Was Acting Tough by Releasing Letter Attacking House Dems – It Hasn’t Gone Well

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“You are co-conspirator & a traitor to the country. You will resign or be impeached within months.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is under fire after responding to a letter from the House Foreign Affairs Committee requesting State Dept. officials sit for depositions as they build an impeachment case against his boss, President Donald Trump.

Pompeo, currently in Italy with former Trump White House official, conspiracy theorist (and alleged neo-Nazi) Sebastian Gorka, working to subvert more than a dozen CIA and FBI investigations into President Trump, decided strong-arm the Democrats. Attorney General Bill Barr was there last week on the same mission, and it was not his first time doing so.

The Secretary, despite having no legal standing or basis to do so, banned his officials from being deposed. And he falsely accused Democrats of trying to “intimidate” and “bully” State Dept. officials.

(It’s important to note that Pompeo was among the Republican Congressmen who forced Hillary Clinton to testify before Congress for over 11 hours for their the conspiracy theory-laden Benghazi investigation.)

As The Washington Post reports Tuesday, Pompeo and Barr “are increasingly implicated in the impeachment inquiry.”

Pompeo tweeted out his two-page letter, and was immediately mocked, ridiculed, and berated.

Among those who decided they were not going to take Pompeo’s smug authoritarianism and bullying lying down were Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), who rightly told the Secretary of State he’s been caught “red handed.”

Others:

 

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GOP Nominee Caught in ‘Creepy as Hell’ Video Says He Doesn’t Remember – Labels It a ‘Poor Attempt’ at Humor

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Michigan’s Attorney General and the Republican nominee to become his state’s governor says he doesn’t remember appearing in a 1989 video clip that resurfaced Thursday. Bill Schuette insists that what is being called “creepy as hell” behavior was just a “poor attempt” at humor.

In the video, which apparently is an outtake from an interview in which a camerawoman or producer asks him to move closer to a lamp, Schuette responded saying, “I will do anything you want. Some things I may not let you run the camera on, but I will certainly happily.”

Schuette was 35 and a U.S. Congressman at the time he made his apparently misogynistic remarks.

“That apparently was my poor attempt to be humorous 30 years ago,” Schuette said in a statement to The Detroit Free Press. “The video, which appears to be edited with only one short portion shown, has been in the public domain for some time. It’s fortunate for me that Cynthia came into my life and let me know that I am not a very funny guy, but this is no less embarrassing to me today and I regret it.”

His regret appears to be insufficient to some.

EARLIER: ‘I THINK I NEED A SHOWER’: INTERNET TOTALLY GROSSED OUT OVER THIS ‘CREEPY’ VIDEO OF GOP ATTORNEY GENERAL

“A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood’s political action committee said the remarks, directed at a female TV camerawoman, are an example of the ‘creepy behavior’ working women have to put up with all the time,” the Detroit Free Press added.

Lori Carpentier, of the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan PAC, issued a statement Thursday that said: “Every day, women go to work and try to do their jobs while dealing with creepy behavior like this. It wasn’t funny then. It’s not funny now.”

Former Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, Schuette’s Democratic opponent, said she imagines “everyone who’s watched it had the same uncomfortable look on our faces.” She said it’s more troubling that Schuette has spent his political career “attacking the rights of women and working to take away our access to contraception and health care.”

Not only has Schuette been attacking the rights of women, he has been at the center of attempts to quash marriage equality for years.

As NCRM reported Thursday, this past July Schuette, in his official capacity as Attorney General, claimed Michigan’s civil rights laws do not ban anti-LGBT discrimination.

In 2015 Schuette had to be ordered by a federal court to legally recognize the marriages of more than 300 same-sex couples which had been legally performed in the state, after having claimed they “never existed.” He previously had announced their marital rights were “suspended.”

And maybe even worse, one year earlier, Attorney General Schuette in a case against same-sex marriage put on the stand a witness who told the court gay people are going to hell.

RELATED STORIES:

GUESS HOW MUCH FIGHTING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE JUST COST THE STATE OF MICHIGAN?

MICHIGAN CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS DO NOT BAN ANTI-LGBT DISCRIMINATION SAYS ATTORNEY GENERAL SEEKING HIGHER OFFICE

MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL ASKS STATE SUPREME COURT TO BLOCK RECOUNT TO PROTECT VOTERS’ ‘VOICE’

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