Category: Opinion

Alec Baldwin and the family of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer slain on the “Rust” set last year, have reached a settlement in regards to the shooting that took place.

Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, released a statement on Wednesday announcing the settlement in the wrongful death case brought against Baldwin and others associated with the movie.

“We have reached a settlement, subject to court approval, for our wrongful death case against the producers of Rust, including Alec Baldwin and Rust Movie Productions, LLC. As part of that settlement, our case will be dismissed. The filming of Rust, which I will now executive produce, will resume with all the original principal players on board in January 2023. I have no interest in engaging in recriminations or attribution of blame (to the producers or Mr. Baldwin). All of us believe Halyna’s death was a terrible accident. I am grateful that the producers and the entertainment community have come together to pay tribute to Halyna’s final work,” Hutchins said.

“Throughout this difficult process, everyone has maintained the specific desire to do what is best for Halyna’s son. We are grateful to everyone who contributed to the resolution of this tragic and painful situation,” Alec Baldwin’s attorney, Luke Nikas of Quinn Emanuel trial lawyers, also said in a statement.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjVZ-9GO0z-/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=2e541928-a2b2-46fb-bceb-0daa716407f2

Baldwin posted an update regarding the settlement on his Instagram account on Wednesday.

“We are pleased to announce today the settlement of the civil case filed on behalf of the family of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins,” he said.

The Instagram statement also stated that “Rust” movie production will restart in January. An executive producer on the movie, Matthew Hutchins will also get a piece of the money.

Rust Movie Productions also released a statement to Deadline regarding the announcement.

“We are pleased the parties came together to resolve this matter, which, subject to court approval, marks an important step forward in celebrating Halyna’s life and honoring her work,” attorney Melina Spadone of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman said.

In an effort to show solidarity with the island in the wake of Hurricane Fiona, President Biden traveled to Puerto Rico on Monday. He stated that he was raised in the Puerto Rican community in Scranton, Pa. After looking up the population, Scranton has about 0% Puerto Rican residents. Just another one of “Sleepy Joe” crazy lies.

Below you can see the look of embarrassment on his wife’s face.

BIDEN SAYS HE WAS RAISED IN THE PUERTO RICAN COMMUNITY ###

FACT CHECK: Scranton, PA is 0.00% Puerto Rican.pic.twitter.com/ySy5V8eRpR

— iBankCoin, A Reliable Source (@iBankCoin4tw) October 4, 2022

Biden visited the storm’s destruction, chatted with authorities, and promised to continue providing $60 million in government funds to the 3.2 million-person U.S. territory.

“We have a very… large Puerto Rican population in Delaware,” he said. “I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically. We came here for a long time as part of both business and pleasure. I’m committed to this island.”

During his rant, he also disclosed many of the past failures by the federal government to support the island following natural disasters.

“You haven’t gotten the help in a timely way,” he said, referring to 2017’s Hurricane Maria. “We came here in person to show that we’re with you. All of America is with you.”

Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said he has requested Biden extend the disaster declaration in Puerto Rico, cover 100% of the cost to move debris, and provide other federal assistance.

“We want to be treated in the same way as our fellow Americans in the states in times of need,” Pierluisi said. “We’re confident that the president will heed our calls for equal treatment.”

Monday at a recent fashion show in Paris, Kanye West and Candace Owens of The Daily Wire made a statement to the world while wearing shirts with the words “White Lives Matter” printed on the backs of their bodies.

 

Alongside models wearing complementary tops, Owens, the rapper, and the fashion designer sported the T-shirts, which also had an image of the Pope’s visage on the front. Although the slogan, which is a twist on the “Black Lives Matter” movement, enraged the radical left trolls on social media, West and Owens were nothing but smiles during the entire performance.

 

“I am Ye, and everyone here knows that I am the leader,” West said at the event, according to Page Six. “You can’t manage me.”

 

Kanye West wearing a White Lives Matter hoodie‼️😳 pic.twitter.com/9Xr7UCQAdF

— RapTV (@Rap) October 3, 2022

 

While advocating for other radical ideals like dismantling the nuclear family, the BLM movement has resisted police enforcement.

 

Candace Owens, widely known as the host of the podcast “Candace Owens,” has been one of the most vocal opponents to the Black Lives Matter movement. She has argued that the organization used the murder of George Floyd for it’s own personal gain and incited the famous riots that ripped throughout the nation in the summer of 2020.

 

Former ESPN personality Jemele Hill blasted the pair over Twitter calling it “a dangerously dumb message to send for someone with [West’s] massive platform.”

 

But neither West nor Owens cares for what the trolls on the internet have to say.

 

West, who in 2018 tweeted, “I love the way Candace Owens thinks,” made headlines in 2013 when several pieces of merchandise from his Yeezus tour included Confederate symbolism.

 

“The Confederate flag represented slavery in a way,” he said at the time. “That’s my abstract take on what I know about it, right? So I wrote the song, ‘New Slaves.’ So I took the Confederate flag and made it my flag. It’s my flag now. Now what you gonna do?”

 

“It’s colorless also,” West added. “It’s super-‘hood and super-white-boy-approved at the same time.”

After her most recent critique of President Joe Biden (D), Hillary Clinton, a twice failed candidate for the presidency, may be planning to make another attempt in 2024, claims a longtime Clinton advisor.

According to the New York Post, political consultant Dick Morris made the comments in an interview with John Catsimatidis on his WABC 770 AM radio show that aired on Sunday.

“I see more and more signs that Hillary’s going to run,” Morris said, noting that Clinton has been echoing what many Americans believe, that they do not support “open borders.”

The remarks come at a time when the Biden administration’s policies on the southern border have resulted in a national security and humanitarian catastrophe. Since Biden was sworn in, there have been more than 4 million illegal border crossings, an all-time high of more than 2.3 million in the last 11 months.

“These are all signals that she is going to be the moderate candidate for president,” Morris said. “She’s going to say after the election, ‘See, the left cost us the House and the Senate. If we stay with a left-wing candidate in 2024, we’re going to lose the White House. I’m the only one who will tack to the center and give us a chance at victory.’”

Morris claimed to have created this campaign strategy for her husband, Bill Clinton (D), and claimed that Bill followed it to the tee when he campaigned for office during his first term.

“Hillary is just dusting off Bill’s playbook that I wrote for him and applying it herself this year,” Morris said.

“Once Biden pulls out, the polling will show that the Democrats are leaning toward some crazy radical like Gavin Newson, Bernie Sanders. Maybe even AOC herself,” Morris said. “That’s going to drive the Democratic Party leaders to go to Hillary and say, ‘Hey look. Please run again. We need you to save us from the crazy left.’”

 

“Otherwise we’ll have Sanders as our candidate. We’ll lose Congress by a ton,” he predicted. “And we’ll get wiped out in the presidential race.’”

A Missouri man, who was a middle-school teacher, accused of grooming and raping students was found dead in his jail cell last week under peculiar circumstances.

“A thorough investigation is in order,” Holbrook’s lawyer, Scott Rosenblum, told the Riverfront Times. “There’s no indication that this young man was suicidal. In fact, given the circumstances he was upbeat.”

Brandon Holbrook, 30, a substitute teacher, was discovered unconscious on Monday. He was being jailed in the St. Louis County Jail on charges of repeatedly raping a 14-year-old girl. An hour later, he was declared dead at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Authorities said that there was no evidence of trauma.

 

30-year-old Brandon Holbrook was found dead inside a St. Louis County Justice Center cell Monday afternoon, with his initial cause of death unknown. https://t.co/13ofsgGFM5

— WBRC 6 News (@WBRCnews) October 1, 2022

 

According to the authorities, Holbrook initially spoke with the 14-year-old girl at Bernard Middle School in Mehlville. Police said that he used social media to groom the accused victim, exchanging messages and images in May. He reportedly sexually assaulted the girl three times at her house then threatened her to keep quiet about it.

Six counts of statutory sodomy and three counts of statutory rape were brought against Holbrook. Police said that after Holbrook’s arrest, two other middle school students have come forward with accusations against the vile man.

If you ask me, he didn’t get what he deserved for the damage that he caused in the lives of these young girls.

Category 4 Hurricane Ian, which first hit the Gulf Coast on Wednesday, pummeled large stretches of Florida’s western coastline, including the Fort Myers region, as ocean seas pounded the shoreline and the storm dumped copious amounts of rain, flooding interior regions. The current death toll from the storm has passed over 70 at this time with first responders still searching through remains.

“Ian could financially ruin thousands of families in Florida. There’s no better way to say it,” Mark Friedlander of the Insurance Information Institute told Politico. In particular, if they lacked flood insurance, he continued, people may be “devastated” by the storm’s effects.

Only 29% of people in the nine counties where a disaster designation has been authorized by the White House have flood insurance, according to E&E News. Around 2.8 million people live in the counties of Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Hardee, Hillsborough, Lee, Manatee, Pinellas, and Sarasota.

Only 100 of the 8,000 or so families in Hardee County have federal flood insurance. As a result, if Ian causes the houses of thousands of inhabitants to be destroyed, they may be in big danger.

“There are going to be a lot of folks without flood coverage,” said Carolyn Kousky, an expert on floods. “If you don’t have insurance, economic recovery from these events is really hard.”

According to one estimate, the storm could cost between $55-65 billion in damage to infrastructure, homes, and farms in the Sunshine State. Florida’s citrus industry is expected to take an especially hard hit because of the storm.

“Florida is already having a problem with [insurance] availability. It’s having a problem with affordability. And it’s having a problem with reliability when insurance companies are going insolvent,” said Nancy Watkins, a principal with an actuarial consulting group. “All three of the pillars of a sustainable market are under threat.”

A Texas doctor is in jail after he poisoned IV bags, causing the death of a colleague and cardiac emergencies in 11 other patients at a Dallas surgical center following a medical misconduct investigation, federal court papers allege.

Anesthesiologist Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz Jr., 59, was arrested on Sept. 15 after a string of healthy patients suffered from unexplained life-threatening complications during routine surgeries between May and August.

Shocking footage from Aug. 4 shows Ortiz emerging from a room at 12:35 p.m. at Baylor Scott & White Surgicare holding an IV bag as he walks down an empty hall toward an IV warmer.

He passes the warmer, then turns around then puts an IV bag inside.

A nurse retrieved the bag at 12:11 p.m., which was administered to a 56-year-old woman undergoing cosmetic surgery, according to a federal criminal complaint.

She suffered serious cardiac complications and was rushed to a nearby hospital.

Another clip from Aug. 19 shows Ortiz at around 10:24 a.m. with a saline bag tucked under a paper folder. He switches the IV bag with one in the warmer.

The contaminated solution was given to a 54-year-old woman undergoing abdominal surgery who also suffered a cardiac emergency during surgery, the criminal complaint says.

The video clips were played at a court hearing last week, where federal prosecutors described Ortiz as a “medical terrorist” who used heart-stopping drugs to turn IV bags into “poison bombs that exploded on unsuspecting patients.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge David Horan denied bond saying that if Ortiz was released, he could engage in “violent retaliatory behavior against those who are involved in this investigation.”

Incidents began at the facility after administrators launched an investigation into Ortiz after one of the doctor’s anesthesia patients stopped breathing during a routine procedure on May 19, 2022.

Two days after he was notified about the investigation, patients began suffering unexplained heart anomalies during surgery.

The most serious outcome occurred after anesthesiologist Melanie Kasper, 55, took a contaminated IV bag home on June 21 to rehydrate due to an illness — and suffered a fatal heart attack.

An autopsy later determined that she was poisoned by bupivacaine — a nerve-blocking numbing agent that is used for surgery and not administered intravenously.

On Aug. 24, an 18-year-old man was given saline for a low-risk ENT (ear, nose, throat) surgery when his “heart started beating out of control and his blood pressure spiked,” according to the complaint.

Federal agents obtained four IV bags — two used in the 18-year-old’s Aug. 24 surgery and two retrieved from the warmer, all of which had “small puncture holes.”

The bags tested positive for bupivacaine, epinephrine (a stimulant), and lidocaine.

If convicted, Ortiz faces up to life in prison or even the death penalty.

A California judge issued a warrant for “Big Brother” winner Mike “Boogie” Malin after he failed to show up to a court date, and now his probation is revoked.

Sources say a judge issued a bench warrant for Mike after he failed to show up to a Wednesday court hearing related to his felony stalking case… the judge set his bail at $20k and revoked his probation.

This was Mike’s second chance too… he was due in court two weeks ago for a “proof of live-in program” hearing but he failed to show up. His public defender took the blame for his absence and the judge moved the court date to Wednesday … but Mike was a no-show again.

Mike’s probation officer said Malin assured him on Tuesday that he would be in court Wednesday … but after an hour of waiting for him at the courthouse, the judge called the case and issued the bench warrant.

Mike pled no contest to felony stalking last year in a case involving his former ‘BB’ buddy Dr. Will Kirby, and Malin was sentenced to 2 years probation and ordered to pay Will more than $44k.

Mike’s latest public defender told the judge his client doesn’t have the money to pay the restitution.

An 11-year-old girl from Illinois was discovered to be carrying a loaded gun on a school bus, Ohio police said.

A Youngstown bus driver was transporting students home from St. Joseph the Provider School on Monday afternoon when the alarming discovery was made, according to the Youngstown Police Department.

A student told the driver that the girl had a gun in her bag.

The bus driver confronted the 11-year-old girl – who admitted to having the gun – then took the weapon, and called the police.

The girl told police she had the gun because she was tired of “being picked on all the time.”

The 9mm semiautomatic handgun was loaded with four bullets, none in the chamber.

Police suspect the gun belonged to the girl’s mother.

The girl was arrested on charges of carrying a concealed weapon and illegally carrying a deadly weapon in a school safety zone. She was arraigned Tuesday, Sept. 27. She denied the charges.

The child will remain in custody until her next hearing and will undergo a mental health examination.

Whoever said “necessity is the mother of invention” probably didn’t expect TV reporters to be putting condoms up to their mouths in the middle of live hurricane coverage but, that’s exactly what happened!

Kyla Galer is practicing safe reporting while in Florida covering Hurricane Ian – proudly promoting latex protection for microphones while out in the field.

As Kyla points out to curious viewers … “It is what you think it is. It’s a condom. We can’t get these mics wet … so, we gotta do what we gotta do.”

Kyla is taking a pounding down in the Naples area, just south of where Ian’s eye came onshore Wednesday.

Condoms….protection you can count on.