The Alligator News Roundup

Here are the top 5 news items to launch your three-day weekend on the right foot!

Number Five. The Gateway Pundit. Massive 2020 voter fraud uncovered in Michigan.

Muskegon, Michigan, City Clerk Ann Meisch stumbled upon a plot that reads like a sitcom script. Just a month before the 2020 general election, she caught wind of a mystery woman—seriously, her name was top-secret—dropping off a suspiciously hefty load of 10,000 completed voter registration applications at the Clerk’s office.

Which struck Ms. Meisch as unusual enough to alert Muskegon Police.

Along with the FBI and the Michigan Attorney General's Office, an investigative task force was born.

Turns out, the mystery woman was merely engaged in finding unregistered voters and getting them onto the voter train. These would include such unregistered voters as people who did not actually exist; or perhaps who used to exist before they died.

It should come as no shock and no cause for concern whatsoever that the handwriting on the registrations was eerily similar, one envelope to the next, and some addresses led to places that did not exist in Michigan. Or anywhere else.

But I’m sure it’s all just a big misunderstanding. The office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel cleared up all the details with a statement saying — I am not making this up — “A thorough investigation was conducted and no successful fraud was perpetrated upon the state’s election process or qualified voter file.”

(Perhaps if one made the statement read “no unauthorized fraud was perpetrated”, the plot would be a little more clear.)

So there. Nothing to see here. Just ignore those batches of 10,000 identical-looking voter registrations.

It a good thing voter registration forms are so entertaining. Because as a mechanism for honest voting they appear to be coming up short.

Number Four. Blaze Media News. Five U.S. hospitals have brought back mask mandates.

Mask mandates are making an encore appearance in certain U.S. hospitals. Facilities in New York, California, and Massachusetts seem to be having déjà vu, enforcing face-covering mandates reminiscent of 2020.

Auburn Community Hospital in New York must have missed the thrill of mask fashion, promptly reviving its mask mandate a mere month after calling it quits. The culprit this time? The COVID-19 variant Eris. Furthermore, your vaccination card is not a ticket to mask freedom—masks are mandatory for everyone, vaccinated or not.

Meanwhile, Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse is back to serving up masks because of an uptick in staff and patients catching the new version of the virus.

In California, the Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center has seen an increase in positive tests in the past few weeks and is encouraging staff to get the next round of COVID-19 vaccine.

In Massachusetts, UMass Memorial Hospital in Worcester is apparently feeling nostalgic for the early days of the pandemic. A dramatic surge in COVID-19 positive employees led them to bring back masks.

It must be mere coincidence that new COVID variants, by all accounts less severe but more transmissable, are once again appearing a few months before presidential primary season.

Number Three. American Greatness. Denver to Pay $5 million to BLM rioters.

Last week, Denver finalized a settlement in a lawsuit brought by a group of Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists who were involved in the violent riots that occurred during the summer of 2020.

The riots, triggered by the death of George Floyd and involving BLM and Antifa groups, led to substantial property damage and loss of life nationwide. Because nothing says justice like burning, looting and murder.

The lawsuit, filed in November 2021, was initiated by 7 participants who alleged that the city had unlawfully arrested over 300 individuals for violating a curfew imposed amid the unrest. The settlement, reached on August 23, involved the city agreeing to pay $4.7 million to the plaintiffs and committing to refrain from enforcing future curfews against rioters and protesters.

Refrain from enforcing future curfews against rioters… gotta think about that one.

Elizabeth Wang, a lawyer representing the rioters, emphasized that the settlement marked a recognition that the First Amendment safeguards individuals' right to protest, even when authorities disagree with the message.

In this particular case, “the message” with which authorities disagreed was widespread violence, arson and looting. It is unclear whether there was any deeper meaning to “the message”.

Despite the city's stance that the curfew was justified, the settlement was pursued to avoid the financial and logistical challenges of a trial.

So… if it’s not the looting for looting’s sake, maybe its the money for money’s sake. Good to have our priorities in line.

Number Two. Breitbart dot com. Wolves return to southern California after more than a century.

The great outdoors: giant trees, flowers, hills, cute woodland critters, carnivorous predators, no place to hide.

Gray wolves have been observed settling in the Giant Sequoia National Monument in the southern Sierra Nevada range, marking their return to the region after an absence of over a century. The recently identified Tulare wolf pack includes an adult female and her four offspring.

Biologists are cautiously hopeful that the pack, located approximately 130 miles north of Los Angeles, will successfully adapt to their new habitat. However, this development has raised concerns among Central Valley livestock owners and managers of ongoing fire prevention projects in the Sequoia National Forest and Giant Sequoia National Monument areas.

One can only hope that volunteers clearing away brush to reduce forest fire danger can adapt to their new habitat, which now includes gray wolves on the prowl.

The adult female in Tulare County has been confirmed through DNA analysis to be a direct descendant of OR-7, which became the first wild wolf in California in 90 years when it crossed the state line in 2011.

While most gray wolf populations in the contiguous 48 U.S. states are protected under the Endangered Species Act, the return of wolves to California signifies positive impacts of environmental conservation efforts, especially in the face of broader concerns like climate change.

So, according to this article, whatever we are doing is working. We are all about positive impacts. Such as the positive impact of a drooling jaw as it tightens around the throat of a bawling calf.

Number One. Red State dot com. Mayor of Chicago sues automakers for making cars too easy to steal.

You see, I knew it would be somebody’s fault.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, fresh from his 2023 election win over former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, has taken time from his agenda of guaranteed college, bank loans to applicants who cannot pay them back, cash reparations to descendants of slaves freed 160 years ago, increased unionization and universal childcare, to tackle the root cause of carjacking in the Windy City.

In recent times, Chicago has witnessed a surge in auto thefts, transforming these incidents into disturbingly common occurrences, often unfolding in broad daylight and even being live-streamed on social media platforms. Last year, the city reported over 21,000 cases of vehicle theft. Chicago has already recorded over 20,000 vehicle thefts in 2023, with several months still remaining.

The solution: Legal action against automakers Kia and Hyundai, alleging that their vehicles are too susceptible to theft due to the absence of basic anti-theft technology. Mayor Johnson contends that the lack of preventive measures by these manufacturers has led to a widespread crime wave centered around car theft.

Other logical explanations — such as a widespread culture of poverty, absent fathers, unbridled gang recruitment and virtually no legal accountability — are apparently not in view.

The Department of Justice emphasizes that fatherless families are linked to increased rates of violent crime, drug use, school dropout, and juvenile delinquency.

Meanwhile, we will expect Kia and Hyundai to pick up the slack.

There actually does seem to be truth to the claim that they are easy to steal. Chicago thefts of these cars have risen about 10X in the last 24 months, as the manufacturers changed from 2020 models to the 2021 versions.

Thefts of other cars are only up 25% in Chicago over the same time frame. Like that’s supposed to be good news.

And that’s the News Roundup for your Labor Day weekend. Enjoy your day off! Go steal a Hyundai or something! Because it’s easy! And you deserve it!

Curt