“You say you are fighting for liberty. Yes you are fighting for liberty: liberty to keep four millions of your fellow-beings in ignorance and degradation;–liberty to separate parents and children, husband and wife, brother and sister;–liberty to steal the products of their labor, exacted with many a cruel lash and bitter tear;–liberty to seduce their wives and daughters, and to sell your own children into bondage;–liberty to kill these children with impunity, when the murder cannot be proven by one of pure white blood. This is the kind of liberty–the liberty to do wrong–which Satan, Chief of the fallen Angels, was contending for when he was cast into Hell.” - Gen. David Hunter, letter to Jefferson Davis, 1863
Portage County Jail staff on Saturday confirmed that Millicent “Millie” Weaver, 29, is being held on charges of robbery, tampering with evidence, obstructing justice and domestic violence. Her boyfriend, 45-year-old Gavin Wince, is also being held on the same charges.
Both are being held until a Monday morning arraignment hearing where a Common Pleas Court judge will set bond.
Calls to the Portage County Sheriff’s Office seeking information about the charges were not returned.
Weaver broadcast a portion of her arrest on social media. A deputy can be heard in the video telling her that a grand jury indicted her as he asked dispatchers to send another car to an address on Yale Road in Diamond, where records show Wince owns a home.
Weaver said in the video that she had no idea why she was being arrested, and that she was “about to break huge breaking news.”
The video has been shared thousands of times and has kicked off a host of conspiracy theories about the reason behind her arrest.
Weaver, who also creates videos under the moniker Millennial Millie, released a trailer last week of a new video that she claims “may be the biggest whistleblowing event to date.” The video appears to include interviews between Weaver and two people who claim to have first-hand knowledge of a clandestine attempt by government officials to use psychological warfare and mind-control tactics to carry out a “coup” against President Donald Trump, an iteration of the often debunked conspiracy theories about a so-called deep state.
InfoWars was founded by Alex Jones, a gravel-voiced ex-radio host who is known for advancing false claims including that the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was a hoax, and that a Washington D.C. pizza restaurant was the headquarters of a massive underground child sex-trafficking ring.
Jones dedicated his Friday show to discussing Weaver’s arrest, claiming, without providing any evidence, that she was arrested for stealing government documents.
Weaver, a former aspiring actress, joined InfoWars in 2012 and has increased her national profile. Her YouTube channel has more than 423,000 subscribers. Her Instagram account includes photographs of her inside the White House earlier this year, claiming that she was invited by “White House Staff” to tour the West Wing. Another photograph shows her sitting alongside Jones, fellow InfoWars correspondent Kaitlyn Bennett, who is known as the “Kent State gun girl,” and political operative Roger Stone at a December 2018 congressional hearing featuring the CEO of Google.
With hundreds of deaths reported each day, students returning to class and football teams charging ahead with plans to play, Texas leaders who grappled with testing shortages for much of the pandemic are now facing the opposite problem: not enough takers.
“We’re not having enough people step forward,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said.
The number of coronavirus tests being done each day in Texas has dropped by the thousands in August, mirroring nationwide trends that has seen daily testing averages in the U.S. fall nearly 9% since the end of July, according to The COVID Tracking Project. The problem is dwindling demand: Testing centers like CentroMed are no longer inundated by long lines that stretch for blocks, or closing hours early because tests run out.
The dropoff comes as the U.S. has surpassed 5 million confirmed coronavirus cases and is closing in on 170,000 deaths. It threatens to put the U.S. even further behind other countries that have better managed the pandemic, in part, through more aggressive testing.
The trend worries health experts who fear that Texas risks flying blind into the fall if it doesn’t increase testing. Texas embarked on one of the fastest reopenings in the U.S. in May but retreated weeks later in the face of massive outbreaks, ultimately leading Abbott to impose a statewide mask order after previously saying he wouldn’t.
At one point, one overwhelmed hospital on the Texas border was airlifting COVID-19 patients hundreds of miles (kilometers) north in search of open beds, and Houston this month began threatening $250 fines for not wearing face coverings in an effort to drive down infection numbers.
In recent weeks, things have improved, including a nearly 40% drop in hospitalizations since July’s peak. But deaths remain high, and doctors in some parts still say they’re still stretched. Texas is averaging more than 210 reported new deaths a day over the past two weeks, according to The COVID Tracking Project. On Saturday, it reported 238 deaths. Overall, the state has recorded more than 9,800 fatalities.
The rolling average of people who test positive for the virus in Texas is stubbornly elevated at 16% — a figure that itself could be a sign of insufficient testing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said a positivity rate under 10% is an indicator that a state has robust testing. Abbott has said that unless Texas gets below that number, bars are likely to stay shut.
Protesters shoved fake ballots in the doors of DeJoy’s apartment building at one point, and chalked messages like “We say no to voter suppression!” and “Vets are missing medications” on the street outside the apartment building.
ShutdownDC said it organized the “early morning noise demonstration to give him a much needed wakeup call.” The protest follows DeJoy’s recent cuts to the Postal Service — including a ban preventing employees from working overtime and making extra trips — that have resulted in delays and backlogs in mail delivery. The Postal Service has also recently decommissioned sorting machines.
DeJoy, a major donor to President Trump and other Republicans, said many of these actions were needed because the service is facing an $11 billion shortfall.
But election officials and lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns that the Trump administration is purposely thwarting attempts by states to widen voting by mail during the pandemic. Trump acknowledged as much on Thursday, saying that the Postal Service would not be able to handle all of the absentee ballots without a large infusion of funds, which he opposes.
Trump said he would not approve the new COVID-19 release package if it included a $25 billion grant for the USPS. The president later walked back that statement this past Thursday.
The Postal Service recently sent letters to 46 states and the District that their mail-in ballots may not arrive in time to be counted for the November election. Maryland and Virginia were among the 40 states warned that the service didn’t have the capacity to meet current deadlines for counting ballots. D.C. was among those warned that a more narrow set of voters could be disenfranchised.
But some local residents have more immediate concerns about the Postal Service. There are fresh complaints on the Original Great Ward 8 Facebook page about inconsistent mail deliveries there. And WJLA reported Friday that people in line at a Southeast Washington post office said they had waited days, weeks and even months for mail deliveries.
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