TTL News

This is a video for Hometown Takeover filmed in 2020. But it makes a great case for Candor, and why it's such a nice town. Check it out:

After a joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith's appearance, Chris Rock got more than applause at last night's Oscar awards. "Jada I love you, 'G.I. Jane 2,' can't wait to see it," Rock said. Pinkett-Smith's head was shaved, after the actress's diagnosis of alopecia, which has caused her to lose her hair. Will Smith appeared to laugh at the joke at first, while his wife appeared to be less than amused when the camera was on her. As Rock continued, Smith walked up on stage and smacked Rock before returning to his seat. As the entire audience sat stunned, Rock recovered and said, "Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me." From his seat, Smith made his displeasure known even further. The feed was cut off for American audiences, but international viewers got to see the whole thing play out, live and uncensored. See the complete, uncensored video below (NSFW - Language ) A short time later, Smith gave a tearful speech after winning an Oscar for his role in "King Richard": According to LAPD, Chris Rock declined to press charges. Do you think this incident was staged? Do you think what Smith did was wrong? Why or why not?

This morning it was announced that Taylor Hawkins, drummer for rock group the Foo Fighters, was found dead in his hotel room while the band was on tour in Columbia. No cause of death has been released, although some reports indicate Hawkins told hotel staff he was having chest pain. "The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins. His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever," the band said on Twitter. "Our hearts go out to his wife, children and family, and we ask that their privacy be treated with the utmost respect in this unimaginable difficult time." Hawkins was fifty years old.

Beginning yesterday, March 24, the City of Elmira began cleaning and sweeping all city streets with "box brooms" first then Ssweepers after. Officials say box brooms will get the bulk of the thicker curb line debris, then crews will combine 7 sweepers from surrounding municipalities through shared service agreements to sweep every street in the City of Elmira. This is expected to take approximately 6-8 weeks. In order to be efficient and thorough, the city asks residents please park vehicles off the street if able until crews have been down their street. Due to manpower, weather conditions, and unforeseen circumstances, city officials say they cannot guarantee time frames for each street. The city says sweeping is a very slow process but they will get to every street at least once to start the spring season off and then be out as much as time allows thereafter. With the warmer weather also starts the city's hot asphalt patching and road program paving in an effort to maintain our City streets.

State Senator Tom O’Mara (R,C,I-Big Flats), Ranking Member of the Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee, today renewed his call for the committee to launch a full-fledged investigation of New York’s COVID-19 response in nursing homes. In a letter today (see attached copy) to the chair of the Investigations Committee, Senator James Skoufis (D-HudsonValley), O’Mara wrote, “It is long past time for you and for this Senate Majority to stop turning your backs on your responsibilities to New Yorkers…Over the past two years, and as recently as last November, I have repeatedly called on you to authorize the Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee to undertake a top-to-bottom investigation of the state’s pandemic response in nursing homes. I have called for the issuance of subpoenas to take the testimony of the many upper-level DOH officials who abruptly retired in 2020 during and following the former Cuomo administration’s nursing homes cover-up. You have repeatedly failed to act.” O’Mara noted that today marks two years since the state Department of Health (DOH) under former Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a fateful directive on March 25, 2020 requiring New York State nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients from hospitals into the homes and, additionally, prevented nursing homes from testing incoming residents for COVID-19. The day after that March 25 directive to nursing homes, on March 26, 2020, the prominent, national medical professionals group American Medical Directors Association (AMDA)-The Society for Post-Acute Care and Long-Term Care (PALTC) Medicine warned against it. The group stated the order was “over-reaching, not consistent with science…and beyond all, not in the least consistent with patient safety principles.” Three days later, on March 29, 2020, AMDA-PALTC was joined by the American Health Care Association (AHCA) and the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) in another statement that read, in part, “As organizations dedicated to preserving the safety of patients and residents in post-acute and long-term care settings including assisted living, we strongly object to this policy directive and approach…This is a short-term and short-sighted solution that will only add to the surge in COVID-19 patients…We understand the need for public health and elected officials to weigh the risks and benefits of their decisions…However, a blanket order for every nursing home in the state to accept all admissions from hospitals is not sound policy.” According to numerous investigative reports over the past two years, the March 25, 2020 mandate issued by then-Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, which the Cuomo administration, despite the dire warnings from the medical community, left in place for more than 30 days before rescinding it on May 10, 2020, resulted in more than 9,000 COVID-positive patients being sent into nursing homes from hospitals. Over 6,000 of those were new admissions to nursing homes, not readmissions as the Cuomo administration had tried to lead the public to believe. The overall number was more than 40% higher than what the Cuomo administration had been reporting and contributed significantly to the death toll. O’Mara said that New Yorkers, particularly those whose loved ones died of COVID in a nursing home, deserve answers to many questions including: 1.) Why were COVID-positive patients ordered into the residences of those most at-risk?; and 2.) Why weren’t these COVID-positive hospital patients transferred to the federal field hospitals set up at the Javits Center in New York City and on the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S Comfort? Last Tuesday, March 15, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an audit reiterating that the DOH under Cuomo underreported COVID-19-related deaths by at least 4,100 and by more than 50% at times during the pandemic. O’Mara said, “If former Governor Cuomo and Health Commissioner Zucker had heeded the warnings from the experts on the front lines of nursing home care in America, thousands of nursing home residents would have at least been better protected and many lives could have been saved. The question remains unanswered about why Cuomo and his inner circle ignored the warnings from public health experts that their March 25th mandate to nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients was overreaching, and not consistent with science or patient safety principles. It is just one of many unanswered questions that still demand to be pursued in order to get to the bottom of the Cuomo administration’s nursing homes cover-up.” O’Mara has also raised questions over why the Hochul administration and current Health Commissioner Mary Bassett have shown no interest in reexamining the state’s pandemic response. At her confirmation hearing in January, Bassett, when asked, stated that she had never read the March 25, 2020 DOH order and “wasn’t going to try and unravel what happened in nursing homes under the previous commissioner.” That response, in part, led Senate Republicans to oppose Bassett’s confirmation. Over the past two years, O’Mara has repeatedly called on Skoufis to authorize the Investigations Committee to launch an investigation to examine and determine the full extent of the nursing homes cover-up, including issuing subpoenas to Cuomo’s inner circle, including Zucker and other top state health officials, in order to obtain documents, emails, phone records, and all other information that could shed additional light on the state’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities where more than 15,000 seniors died. Despite a mountain of evidence that Cuomo and his staff engaged in a year-long disinformation campaign to bolster the disgraced governor’s image and profit off the pandemic, all of O’Mara’s motions have been rejected by Skoufis and the Democrat Majority, who even went as far as muting O’Mara’s microphone to cut off further debate during a February 1, 2021 virtual committee meeting. In his letter today to Skoufis, O’Mara wrote, “In light of the comptroller’s latest audit – and given that today marks the two-year anniversary of the fateful March 25, 2020 DOH order to nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients -- I once again call on you to fully utilize your authority to immediately commence a full investigation. This investigation must include the issuance of subpoenas to all appropriate former and current employees of the DOH and the Executive Chamber involved in the March 25th order, the decisions to not utilize the Javits Center or the U.S.N.S. Comfort for COVID-positive hospital patients discharged from hospitals, and the underreporting of COVID nursing home deaths to testify before the Investigations Committee under oath. Additionally, subpoenas must be issued for the production of documents and other records, including but not limited to all correspondence, memos, emails, text messages and phone records, and any information that would provide transparent data on the number of COVID-19 fatalities of nursing home residents, within or outside of all long-term care facilities in New York, regarding the drafting and implementation of the March 25th Order, and why the U.S.N.S. Comfort or Javits Center were not utilized for COVID-positive hospital patients ultimately discharged to nursing homes. New Yorkers deserve accountability and the families who lost loved ones in nursing homes deserve justice. News reports have shown that more than 9,000 COVID-positive hospital patients were discharged from New York hospitals directly into nursing homes, more than 6,000 of whom were new nursing home admissions as opposed to readmissions. Furthermore, we must fully understand how this tragedy unfolded among our most vulnerable population so that we can have the insight and knowledge to try to ensure that it never happens again.” Earlier this week, on Wednesday, O’Mara joined Senate and Assembly colleagues at the Capitol, along with family members who lost loved ones to COVID-19 in nursing homes, for a “We Care Remembrance Day” ceremony honoring the lives of the more than 15,000 seniors who died.

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New York will no longer require students and educators to wear masks in schools starting Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Sunday, a milestone in the state’s two-year struggle against the coronavirus pandemic and a mostly welcome sign of the virus’s retreat. “My friends, the day has come,” Ms. Hochul said, reiterating that the decision came in consultation with public health and education officials. The state’s decision does not supersede those of individual districts and counties, which can still impose mask mandates and other more restrictive measures. Read the rest here

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Since this June will mark the 50th anniversary of the destruction caused by Hurricane Agnes, it'd be interesting to hear from the news men of the time:

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Appeal in Sarah Palin’s libel loss could set up Supreme Court test of decades-old media freedom rule Sarah Palin speaks to the media. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Bill Kovarik, Radford University To the numerous challenges facing the U.S. media in recent years, add a libel case against The New York Times – lost by Sarah Palin, but now seemingly headed to appeal and perhaps on to the highest court in the land. On Feb. 15, 2022, a jury rejected Palin’s claim. As it happened, its verdict was more or less moot. The presiding judge had already said he would dismiss the case on the grounds that the former Alaska governor’s legal team had failed to reach the bar for proving she had been defamed. A Times editor admitted a mistake in suggesting in a 2017 opinion piece that there was a link between Palin’s rhetoric and a mass shooting. But under the so-called Sullivan standard – a rule in place for nearly 60 years that makes it difficult for public figures to successfully sue for defamation – neither the jury nor the judge considered the error significant enough for Palin to win her case. But in reaching his decision in the Palin case, the federal judge suggested that it was likely not to be the end of the matter – indeed, an appeal is expected. And that has defenders of a free press worried. Legal scholars note that recent opinions by Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch favor overturning the Sullivan standard – a move that would take away a key protection for the press against libel suits by vindictive public officials. As a media historian, I can see the Palin case providing a vehicle to return libel laws back to a time when it was much easier for public figures to sue the press. What is ‘actual malice’? Before 1964’s Sullivan standard, the libel landscape in the U.S. consisted of a patchwork of state laws that made it easy for political figures to selectively persecute newspapers and public speakers who espoused opposing or unpopular views. For example in 1949, John Henry McCray, a Black editor from South Carolina, served two months on a chain gang after being charged with criminal libel for writing a story about a racially charged execution. White publications reporting the same story were not charged. Similarly, in a 1955 libel case, Dr. Von Mizell, a Black surgeon and NAACP official, was ordered to pay a US$15,000 fine for writing in opposition to a Florida state legislator’s idea of abolishing public schools instead of integrating them. Then came the Sullivan case. It centered around several tiny mistakes in a civil rights advertisement carried by The New York Times. L.B. Sullivan, a public official not even named in the advertisement, sued for defamation, and the case went from Alabama to the U.S. Supreme Court. In setting the Sullivan standard in 1964, the Supreme Court said in effect that it ought to be difficult for any official at the federal or the state level to prove that a falsehood was libelous enough – and personally damaging enough – to surmount First Amendment protections. The court said a public official could not win a libel lawsuit by citing minor mistakes, technical inaccuracies or even outright negligence. Instead, under the Sullivan standard, a public official had to prove that there was “actual malice,” which means that a critic knowingly published something false or was in reckless disregard of the truth. The court insisted that “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on public officials.” ‘No relation to the Constitution’ Originalists on the current Supreme Court – that is, those justices who believe that the Constitution should be interpreted as it was by those crafting the original document – seemingly disagree. Justice Thomas, in a 2019 opinion, suggested the Sullivan ruling failed to take into account “the Constitution’s original meaning.” He followed this up in a 2021 opinion that stated the requirement on public figures to establish actual malice bears “no relation to the text, history, or structure of the Constitution.” Some legal scholars have argued that originalism doesn’t cut much ice when it comes to First Amendment protections. After it passed in 1791, the First Amendment was open to so many state interpretations that there is no agreement on what the accepted interpretation of the day was. Nonetheless, should Palin appeal against the latest ruling, it is likely that the case could reach a Supreme Court in which at least two justices seem primed to challenge the decades-old Sullivan rule. Should their views prevail in the highest court of the land, it could chill the freedom of the press for conservative and liberal news organizations alike. Bill Kovarik is Professor of Communication at Radford University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Here's the place for all things Super Bowl related. Who were you rooting for, or did you even care? Were the commercials good? How about the Half Time show?

See the rest here. Some think it's way past time, while others think mask mandates should remain in place a little while longer. What do you think and why?

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According to a Facebook post by 15th District Legislator Rodney J. Strange, Chemung County Legislature meetings will reopen to the public beginning February 7th. Attendees will be required to wear a mask.

Here is the complete Saturday morning cartoon lineup, exactly as it aired on December 24, 1983:

See some more here. Is there a show you'd add to this list?

Read more. Who do you think should be inducted this year? Who, if anyone, do you think is long overdue?