MICH 2

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promoted to primary on trump recount flint water

AG Dana Nessel? Sec of State Benson?

merri ok

see state gop

see fake electorsDETROIT URBAN AA BLUE ELECTION CHEAT BS

see mich state capitol takeover

see state scotus

see michigan main for older MI tag cronon called union suppression --> vote suppression (then blue wall trump)

BAK 1 24

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snyder termed out (low poll on flint?) back to VC

Whitmer woman beat raga schuette by 10 pts! takes on XL

part of midwest blue wave that took out koch alec alypse eg Walker

dems govs expand medicare

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an 9 26

In early August, GOP voters in Michigan's 8th Congressional District defied President Donald Trump when they nominated retired General Motors engineer **Thomas Smith over the Trump-backed Amir Hassan [XIAN MAGA] . The nomination drew increased scrutiny of Smith's background, and according to CNN's Andrew Kaczynski, the Flint, Michigan-based business owner has a long history of making extreme statements.

Kaczynski, in a KFile report for CNN, explains, "A Republican congressional nominee in a closely divided Michigan district deleted social media accounts containing thousands of posts that include a yearslong pattern of inflammatory and conspiratorial rhetoric — including amplifying a post that appeared to raise the possibility of the death penalty for political opponents of President Donald Trump … A CNN KFile review of some 13,000 archived posts from Smith's now-deleted accounts uncovered a substantially broader pattern of far-right rhetoric than previously reported, including repeated accusations of treason, attacks on Muslim Americans and Islam, birther-style conspiracy theories about Barack Obama, and posts in which Smith said he had been awakened before dawn with a message from God for conservative radio host Dan Bongino."

In the general election, Smith is up against incumbent Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Michigan). The Cook Political Report moved the race in Michigan's 8th Congressional District from "lean Democratic" to "likely Democratic," and according to Kaczynski, Smith's "digital history" could "loom over" the election in a swing district that Trump won by roughly 3 percent in 2024.

"One of the starkest examples came in February 2025," Kaczynski notes. "The account, JarHeadSalsa, named for the Flint salsa business Smith owns with his son, reposted a message addressed to Trump: 'Do whatever it takes to take our country back from those who sought to have it destroyed.' 'There are traitors within who deserve to be put on trial for treason,' the post added. 'What's the punishment for treason again?' A person convicted of treason can be punished by death or be imprisoned for no less than five years … One racist repost that Smith shared urged the deportation of the 'Somali infestation' of America."

Kaczynski notes that the "February 2025 post … was hardly the only time Smith's account amplified accusations that political figures were traitors."

"In July 2024," the CNN reporter notes, "he reposted a message declaring that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer 'is a traitor.' Last November, after several Democratic lawmakers urged service members to refuse illegal orders, Smith's account reposted a message calling Rep. Maggie Goodlander a 'traitor.'

Days later, it amplified another calling for Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, to be stripped of his rank and court-martialed for sedition. He also shared numerous reposts accusing former President Barack Obama of treason, including one labeling him a 'Shadow President.'"

Kaczynski continues, "Another declared that 'treason charges are coming,' tagging Obama and adding 'you are f– –,' while asking whether he ordered Trump to be assassinated. Another repost on Truth Social called former Rep. Eric Swalwell treasonous and for him to be jailed."

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1st amend STUDENT SUPPRESS 6 26

GGL

AI Overview

The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) is actively representing pro-Palestinian student activists at the University of Michigan (U of M). Legal actions include a federal civil rights lawsuit against U of M officials, campus police, and private contractors for the alleged targeting, surveillance, and arrest of student advocates. [1, 2, 3]

Key developments and legal actions concerning CAIR-MI and U of M students:

Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit: CAIR-MI, alongside the Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Josiah Walker, a Black Muslim student advocate, citing unconstitutional punishment, unlawful arrest, and harassment. [1, 2]

DOJ Indictments: Federal prosecutors and the DOJ unsealed indictments against pro-Palestinian activists linked to the University of Michigan following coordinated FBI and state law enforcement raids. [1]

Free Speech Advocacy: CAIR-MI has actively pushed back against disciplinary sanctions on pro-Palestinian student groups—such as the Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE)—arguing that public universities are violating students' First Amendment rights by selectively punishing them for political advocacy. [1, 2]

Review additional information on these cases via the official CAIR Press Releases or read the initial reporting from CBS News Detroit.

MICHIGAN STUDENTS DOJ 6 26 cair-mi-raises-serious-first-amendment-concerns-regarding-university-of-michigan-protest-indictments

The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) today expressed serious concerns regarding the recently unsealed indictments arising from protests at the University of Michigan, warning that while allegations of criminal conduct should be addressed through the judicial process, charging documents should not blur the line between alleged unlawful acts and constitutionally protected political expression, peaceful protest, and advocacy on matters of public concern.

WOW MJR CYA PARa]

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NYT

Eight people who federal prosecutors said had ties to the University of Michigan were accused Wednesday of conspiring to threaten campus leaders and others into severing ties with Israel.

An indictment unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, accused the pro-Palestinian activists of crossing the line from campus protest to crimes that included threats and vandalism. The defendants face varying charges, but the indictment included federal counts of conspiracy to transmit threats, witness intimidation and destruction of property to prevent seizure.

The charges in Michigan, all felonies that carry the possibility of years in prison, appeared to signify an escalation in the federal government’s efforts to crack down on pro-Palestinian activism that roiled American campuses in recent years.

“Their criminal activity included spray-painting threats, breaking windows and throwing glass jars filled with noxious chemicals into family homes,” the indictment said. “They marked their victims with threatening symbols used by Hamas, including red inverted triangles and red handprints. They used the internet and social media to broadcast their message to ensure their threats and commitment to continuing criminal activity were heard by their victims and others who support Israel.”

The Trump administration has taken a hard line against pro-Palestinian protesters, whose activism after the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza led to tumult on campuses. Until now, the administration had mostly targeted universities themselves over their response to protests, although it did move to strip visas and deport some individual students last year.

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:{GUK

A Palestinian middle school student in Michigan who was publicly admonished for refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance as part of a personal protest against the war on Gaza has settled with her school district following a lawsuit around her first amendment free speech rights.

The teenager, identified as DK in court documents, said she faced racism from a teacher at the East middle school in Plymouth, Michigan, after she did not participate in the pledge. The teacher reportedly told DK to “go back to her country”, Fox 2 Detroit reported.

In a statement following the settlement, DK called the ordeal “terrifying” and “overwhelming” at times.

“But it taught me the importance of speaking up for what I believe is right,” said DK. “I feel proud of the outcome and of being part of something that reinforces how important free speech is. I’ve learned that even when it feels uncomfortable or risky, speaking out can make a difference, not just for me, but for others as well.”

DK, who is 14, chose not to participate in the pledge on 10 January 2025 given the continuing war on Gaza.

“I decided I wanted to sit down because I didn’t feel comfortable standing because of what’s happening in Palestine,” said DK at a February press conference.

After the pledge, DK said that a teacher told the class that “anyone that was sitting down was being very disrespectful to soldiers, to America”. DK said she tried to explain her view to the instructor but was told that if she did not like the US, she should go back to her own country. DK later left the room in tears.

The Arab American Civil Rights League and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan later filed a lawsuit in June 2025 against the Plymouth-Canton community schools district on behalf of DK.

As a part of the recent settlement, the Plymouth-Canton community schools district has pledged to provide diversity, sensitivity and first amendment training for staff. The district has also agreed not to punish DK, remove any indication from school files that suggest her protest was inappropriate and provide needed counseling.

Jacob Khalaf, DK’s father, applauded his daughter for her bravery in advocating for her freedom of speech.

“My daughter has shown her strong moral fiber throughout all of this,” he said in a statement to Fox 2 Detroit. “She had the courage to resist when a person in authority tried to make her relinquish her right to free speech, and then, with the help of the ACLU and ACRL, brought a lawsuit to make sure her first amendment rights, as well as those of others, were protected.”

A representative of the district could not be reached for comment by the Guardian.

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5 26 26 VID

https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/this-is-how-we-get-corporate-money?publication_id=2686450&post_id=199361832&r=1n6e6&triedRedirect=true

Well, “Mop Up Michigan,” known as Michiganders For Money Out of Politics, is showing the country a way forward.The organization is holding a press conference on Wednesday, revealing their citizen-led ballot initiative that seeks to ban regulated monopolies and big government contractors from buying up local and state politicians.

The organizers need to submit at least 356,000 voter signatures to the Michigan Bureau of Elections to qualify for the November 2026 ballot. Christy McGillivray, who is co-chairing the campaign, tells me they met their mark — and have a lot more signatures.

Like, a lot.

McGillivray joins The Left Hook to explain how Michigan’s initiative can be franchised and replicated by grassroots communities across the nation. She explains how she and other organizers were able to get more than 350,000 bipartisan signatures in Michigan, a Rust Belt battleground state, to join forces against the 1% and the elite.

Give her a listen.

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an 5 26

Over the past year, election-denying allies of President Donald Trump from both inside the government and out have sought voting data from across the country in an effort to “investigate” their assertions of electoral fraud. Now, according to new reporting from Talking Points Memo, “election conspiracy theorists” are attempting to lay the groundwork for a Department of Justice probe into Michigan.

In April, Michigan officials were left in “bewilderment” when DOJ Civil Division chief Harmeet Dhillon demanded public records pertaining to the 2024 election from the Wayne County clerk, asserting that it was part of an investigation into voter fraud. Officials weren’t bewildered because they were surprised at the request — quite the opposite, as the FBI has been scooping up voting data from districts across the country that voted against Trump, from Arizona to Georgia — but because Dhillon had sent it to the wrong office entirely, addressing it to the county clerk, when in Michigan, townships run elections.

According to local officials, her request not only suggests that Trump’s DOJ doesn’t understand the basic facts of electoral processes, but it raises pressing questions about what the president’s allies intend to do with the voting data. Election denying activists in Michigan are not shy about answering that question, asserting that they’re conducting what they call an “audit” of electoral results in an effort to fight a “cabal” of their enemies.

As Talking Points Memo explains, these investigations are “being carried out with the help of various election conspiracy theorists who are now in positions of power in the government. Kurt Olsen, a 2020 election denier, has been working as White House election security czar. Heather Honey, another activist, has an election security role at DOJ. Clay Parikh, another special government employee involved in the Fulton County raid.” While these figures provide federal support, election denying activists on the ground are doing much of the legwork.

According to Talking Points, “voter fraud alarmists” are “using documents obtained last year from a massive FOIA lawsuit that sought copies of Detroit’s 2020 ballots and other records. Yehuda Miller, a New Jersey-based activist who has been involved in election denialism for the last several years, obtained hundreds of thousands of ballot images from the City of Detroit. The question now on the minds of some Michigan elections officials is whether Miller’s ‘audit’ — regardless of how baseless and misleading the results may be — will prompt federal action. And, whether the conclusions that Miller has drawn may have already made their way to the Trump DOJ.”

Chris Thomas, who ran elections for the state of Michigan for nearly 40 years and faced a “mob” trying to stop the count in 2020, says that “those seeking the records have been in communication with a voter fraud alarmism nonprofit called Michigan Fair Elections and with the far-right, conspiracy theorist website Gateway Pundit, and say that they’ve enlisted dozens of volunteers to comb through the ballots.” He says it’s possible that the DOJ already has the FOIA data, and that the “‘audit’ could yield results that, while bogus to anyone familiar with election law, prompt some form of action” from the agency. He has his doubts, however, that the amateur investigation would prove useful in any potential criminal proceedings, saying, “I don’t think that stuff would stand up at all.”

While Talking Points notes that it’s unclear whether Miller is working directly with the DOJ, his activist allies have said they would share their findings with the agency.

“I sure as heck am going to be sharing it with everybody that I know, and I’ve got a lot of contacts up in the DOJ,” said Patrick Colbeck, an election conspiracy theorist and former GOP Michigan state senator. “Everything they share, I will make sure it gets to them,” he asserted, referring to the DOJ.

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AN 11 25

A Trump administration order to keep an aging and unneeded Michigan coal-fired power plant open and online reportedly is costing taxpayers about $615,000 per day, or $113 million to date. Closing the plant would save taxpayers about $640 million by 2040.

“The Trump administration in May ordered utility giant Consumers Energy to keep the 63-year-old JH Campbell coal plant in western Michigan, about 100 miles north-east of Chicago, online just as it was being retired,” according to The Guardian.

“The costs of unnecessarily running this jalopy coal plant just continue to mount,” Michael Lenoff, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is suing over the order, told The Guardian.v

President Donald Trump signed a national energy emergency order on his first day in office this year, rolling back regulations.

In court documents, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said that the administration’s latest order is “arbitrary and illegal.”

Consumers Energy, the operator of the plant, did not ask the Trump administration for the order to keep the coal plant running, and the Trump administration did not consult local regulators, a spokesperson for the Michigan public service commission (MPSC), told the Guardian in May.

“The unnecessary recent order … will increase the cost of power for homes and businesses in Michigan and across the midwest,” the chair of the MPSC, Dan Scripps, said in a statement at the time.

Reporting on what it called Trump’s “pro-fossil fuel agenda,” The Guardian in January quoted the president:

“We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have, the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it – let me use it,” Trump said in his inaugural address. “We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”

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AN 9 25

Tariffs 'exacerbate the problem': Whitmer rips Trump for damage to Michigan economy

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an 5 25

the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a lawsuit filed by nearly a dozen Michigan Republican lawmakers seeking to roll back voting rights measures passed by voters in 2018 and 2022.

The suit, filed in 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, argued that because the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution, found in Article I, Section 4, provides for state legislatures to regulate the times, places, and manner of holding federal elections, measures passed by citizen-led petition initiatives are unconstitutional as they infringed on the state Legislature’s role within state election law.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to take the case was the third, and now final, rejection after the lawsuit was initially dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Jane Beckering, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, in April 2024 for a lack of standing, a decision which was then affirmed by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2024.

The lawsuit was sponsored by Michigan Fair Elections and the Great Lakes Justice Center and named Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Michigan Director of Elections Jonathan Brater as defendants.

Benson hailed the decision not to take up the case as a “victory for the people of Michigan,” saying the U.S. Supreme Court had correctly upheld the right of Michigan voters to amend the state constitution.

IFrame Content

“In recent years, voters in Michigan have overwhelmingly supported ballot initiatives to create a citizen-led independent redistricting process, to guarantee at least nine days of early voting for every statewide election, and to make voting more accessible for every eligible citizen. Today’s action ensures that the will of the voters will stand on these and other issues important to the people of our state,” Benson said.

Proposal 3 of 2018 and Proposal 2 of 2022 both passed with at least 60% of the vote and guaranteed the rights to same-day voter registration, nine days of early voting, absentee voting, among other rights. After voters approved the constitutional amendments, the Legislature passed legislation implementing the measures.

The suit sought not only to halt the changes brought on by the voter-passed initiatives, but also prohibit the future use altogether of citizen-led petition initiatives when they pertain to state election law.

“We also have procedures in place at the state level to amend election law,” state Sen. Jonathan Lindsey (R-Coldwater), one of the 11 lawmakers who filed the suit, said at the time. “However, these processes were violated in 2018 and 2022 when an alternative amendment process was used without regard to federal constitutional requirements. This lawsuit challenges recent attempts to subvert our constitutional process and will protect against such actions in the future.”

The legal argument behind the lawsuit, known as the independent state legislature theory, was mostly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2023 when it ruled in Moore v Harper.

In that case’s 6-3 majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that there were limits to state legislative power in such matters, effectively repudiating the claim that only state legislatures had the power to make election rules, thus providing state and federal courts, and by extension, state constitutions, a role in that process.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.

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an 5 25

Michigan House Democrats on Tuesday came out in support of a resolution put forth by state Rep. Sharon MacDonell (D-Troy) aiming to censure Rep. Josh Schriver (R-Oxford) for “racist statements” made on the House Floor earlier this month.

Schriver, who wasstripped of his staff, funds and committee assignment by former House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) last year for promoting the racist Great Replacement Theory on social media, spoke out on a set of policies intended to crack down on sanctuary cities and counties during the chamber’s May 1 session.

In his testimony, Schriver quoted former Presidential Advisor Patrick Buchanan’s book, “The Death of the West”, telling fellow lawmakers “The chasm in our country is not one of income, ideology or faith, but of ethnicity and loyalty.”

“Illegal aliens undermine our national sovereignty. The largest population transfer in history is coming from all the races in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and they are not acclimating, they are not melting and they are not reforming to the American way of life,” Schriver said. “This is something that needs to be addressed.”

MacDonell told reporters on Tuesday that while it’s not surprising to hear Schriver oppose sanctuary cities, his testimony had focused on criticizing people rather than policy.

IFrame Content

“Schriver blamed naturalized citizens and their descendants for America’s ills…I think any rational person can agree that it’s one thing to have strong opinions on immigration policy in Michigan. It’s fully another thing to claim that all immigrants, including naturalized citizens, are bad people. Even worse to claim that all people of certain ethnicity that he doesn’t like, or a certain national origin that Schriver doesn’t like, are bad people,” MacDonell said.

House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton), whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from India, called Schriver’s comments “deliberate, disgusting, dangerous and disgraceful.”

“They were an attack on families like mine, and an attack on the very spirit of inclusion and the progress that our state is making. His remarks were rooted in ignorance and prejudice and they do not reflect the values of House Democrats or the values of the Michigan people,” Puri said.

“Rep. Schriver also specifically singled out countries whose people are overwhelmingly Black, brown and non-white, not once mentioning European nations or white immigrants. That’s not a coincidence. That’s racism, plain and simple. He didn’t just invoke racist tropes, he leaned into the dangerous Great Replacement Theory suggesting that immigrants of color are here to erase American identity. That’s not policy, that’s paranoia rooted in white supremacy,” Puri said.

During a May 13, 2025 press conference, House Democrats gather in support of Rep. Sharon MacDonnell’s (D-Troy) resolution to censure Rep. Josh Schriver (R-Oxford) for “racist statements” made on the House floor. | Screenshot

He also raised concerns that members of the Republican Caucus hadn’t spoken out against Schriver’s remarks, calling on House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) and other Republicans to denounce Schriver’s “hateful rhetoric.”

“When white supremacy echoes in the chambers and you say nothing, you’re not neutral, you are complicit,” Puri said.

When asked about Schriver’s remarks at a press conference earlier on Tuesday, Hall said he hadn’t seen Schriver’s comments, before noting that Schriver had been reelected by his constituents.

Video of House Session shows Hall on the House floor as Schriver requests permission to testify on the bills, though he is not visible on video when Schriver’s speech concludes.

“What I really appreciate about representative Shriver is that he’s, you see a difference, I think, between him last year and this year and, you know, we gave him his staff back… what I’m doing is I’ve got him as a member of our caucus, and you know what I’ve tried to do is put him in positions to succeed, and he’s on some of these oversight subcommittees. I think he’s doing a very good job there. And you see him really voting with our caucus on a lot of issues,” Hall said.

“I appreciate how he’s working with our members as a team, and even though we might have differences at times in how we talk and how we communicate, and I’ve expressed some of those in the past where him and I disagreed,” Hall said, with the Speaker previously stating that Schriver’s resolution calling on the United States Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell V. Hodges, which requires all states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, would not move forward.

When asked if Schriver’s far-right views were shaping legislation coming from the House Republican Caucus, Hall pointed to Schriver’s vote in support of bipartisan policies like legislation to create a Public Safety Trust Fund to support local law enforcement and community violence intervention initiatives.

Schriver’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the proposed resolution.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

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PFAW 11 24

11 24

Angela Alsobrooks is the first Black person elected to the U.S. Senate from Maryland.
Joe Sheehan is a former school superintendent who flipped his Wisconsin State House seat to blue by 800 votes.
Mo Green defeated an opponent backed by Moms for Liberty and flipped North Carolina’s superintendent seat blue.
Kimberly Thomas expanded the Democrat’s majority on Michigan’s Supreme Court 5-2.
Sean Teare is a progressive prosecutor who won a tight race for District Attorney in Harris County, Texas – the state’s most populous county.

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an 10 24

Union petitions in Michigan have more than doubled since 2021, labor board says

Jon King, Michigan Advance

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an 10 24

A complaint was filed Sunday against Michigan US congressional candidate Tom Barrett, a Republican, over a full-page campaign ad that appeared to suppress voter turnout, The Washington Post reports.

Per the report, over what Barrett spokesman Jason Roe claims to be "a proofing error," the GOP candidate is now "facing calls for an investigation" after the ad incorrectly listed Election Day as November 6 in the Michigan Bulletin — one of the Great Lake State's Black-owned newspapers earlier this month.

Election Day is November 5.

Roe told the Post "'this was nothing but a proofing error' that is inconsistent with the campaign’s other advertisements aimed at Black voters — including mailers that were sent on Oct. 2 and Oct. 9 that include the correct date for the election."

He then added, "The goal is to earn more support from Black voters."

The Post reports that the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus — the coalition that filed the complaint — remains unconvinced by Roe's claim, calling it an "insidious campaign tactic [that] unfortunately appears to be part of a national trend' of election disinformation targeting Black voters."

The group emphasized that "it strains credulity that this was a simple mistake. Tom Barrett and his Campaign placed two nearly identical ads in two different newspapers within a week of each other. The ad placed in the newspaper read predominantly by Black voters has the wrong election date; while the ad placed in the newspaper not read predominantly by Black voters has the correct election date."

"At best, Tom Barrett and his Campaign have committed a shocking oversight which will undoubtedly lead to confusion by Black voters in Lansing," the group added. "And, at worst, this ad could be part of an intentional strategy to ‘deter’ Black voters by deceiving them into showing up to vote on the day after the 2024 election.”

*The Washington Post's full report is available at this link (subscription required).

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time mag ~ gutfeld bs

...## THE FIVE STEPS TO VICTORY

In Podhorzer’s presentations, winning the vote was only the first step to winning the election. After that came winning the count, winning the certification, winning the Electoral College and winning the transition–steps that are normally formalities but that he knew Trump would see as opportunities for disruption. Nowhere would that be more evident than in Michigan, where Trump’s pressure on local Republicans came perilously close to working–and where liberal and conservative pro-democracy forces joined to counter it.

It was around 10 p.m. on election night in Detroit when a flurry of texts lit up the phone of Art Reyes III. A busload of Republican election observers had arrived at the TCF Center, where votes were being tallied. They were crowding the vote-counting tables, refusing to wear masks, heckling the mostly Black workers. Reyes, a Flint native who leads We the People Michigan, was expecting this. For months, conservative groups had been sowing suspicion about urban vote fraud. “The language was, ‘They’re going to steal the election; there will be fraud in Detroit,’ long before any vote was cast,” Reyes says.

Trump supporters seek to disrupt the vote count at Detroit’s TCF Center on Nov. 4Elaine Cromie—Getty Images

He made his way to the arena and sent word to his network. Within 45 minutes, dozens of reinforcements had arrived. As they entered the arena to provide a counterweight to the GOP observers inside, Reyes took down their cell-phone numbers and added them to a massive text chain. Racial-justice activists from Detroit Will Breathe worked alongside suburban women from Fems for Dems and local elected officials. Reyes left at 3 a.m., handing the text chain over to a disability activist.

As they mapped out the steps in the election-certification process, activists settled on a strategy of foregrounding the people’s right to decide, demanding their voices be heard and calling attention to the racial implications of disenfranchising Black Detroiters. They flooded the Wayne County canvassing board’s Nov. 17 certification meeting with on-message testimony; despite a Trump tweet, the Republican board members certified Detroit’s votes.

Election boards were one pressure point; another was GOP-controlled legislatures, who Trump believed could declare the election void and appoint their own electors. And so the President invited the GOP leaders of the Michigan legislature, House Speaker Lee Chatfield and Senate majority leader Mike Shirkey, to Washington on Nov. 20.

It was a perilous moment. If Chatfield and Shirkey agreed to do Trump’s bidding, Republicans in other states might be similarly bullied. “I was concerned things were going to get weird,” says Jeff Timmer, a former Michigan GOP executive director turned anti-Trump activist. Norm Eisen describes it as “the scariest moment” of the entire election.

The democracy defenders launched a full-court press. Protect Democracy’s local contacts researched the lawmakers’ personal and political motives. Issue One ran television ads in Lansing. The Chamber’s Bradley kept close tabs on the process. Wamp, the former Republican Congressman, called his former colleague Mike Rogers, who wrote an op-ed for the Detroit newspapers urging officials to honor the will of the voters. Three former Michigan governors–Republicans John Engler and Rick Snyder and Democrat Jennifer Granholm–jointly called for Michigan’s electoral votes to be cast free of pressure from the White House. Engler, a former head of the Business Roundtable, made phone calls to influential donors and fellow GOP elder statesmen who could press the lawmakers privately.

The pro-democracy forces were up against a Trumpified Michigan GOP controlled by allies of Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, and Betsy DeVos, the former Education Secretary and a member of a billionaire family of GOP donors. On a call with his team on Nov. 18, Bassin vented that his side’s pressure was no match for what Trump could offer. “Of course he’s going to try to offer them something,” Bassin recalls thinking. “Head of the Space Force! Ambassador to wherever! We can’t compete with that by offering carrots. We need a stick.”

If Trump were to offer something in exchange for a personal favor, that would likely constitute bribery, Bassin reasoned. He phoned Richard Primus, a law professor at the University of Michigan, to see if Primus agreed and would make the argument publicly. Primus said he thought the meeting itself was inappropriate, and got to work on an op-ed for Politico warning that the state attorney general–a Democrat–would have no choice but to investigate. When the piece posted on Nov. 19, the attorney general’s communications director tweeted it. Protect Democracy soon got word that the lawmakers planned to bring lawyers to the meeting with Trump the next day.

Reyes’ activists scanned flight schedules and flocked to the airports on both ends of Shirkey’s journey to D.C., to underscore that the lawmakers were being scrutinized. After the meeting, the pair announced they’d pressed the President to deliver COVID relief for their constituents and informed him they saw no role in the election process. Then they went for a drink at the Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. A street artist projected their images onto the outside of the building along with the words THE WORLD IS WATCHING.

That left one last step: the state canvassing board, made up of two Democrats and two Republicans. One Republican, a Trumper employed by the DeVos family’s political nonprofit, was not expected to vote for certification. The other Republican on the board was a little-known lawyer named Aaron Van Langevelde. He sent no signals about what he planned to do, leaving everyone on edge.

When the meeting began, Reyes’s activists flooded the livestream and filled Twitter with their hashtag, #alleyesonmi. A board accustomed to attendance in the single digits suddenly faced an audience of thousands. In hours of testimony, the activists emphasized their message of respecting voters’ wishes and affirming democracy rather than scolding the officials. Van Langevelde quickly signaled he would follow precedent. The vote was 3-0 to certify; the other Republican abstained.

After that, the dominoes fell. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and the rest of the states certified their electors. Republican officials in Arizona and Georgia stood up to Trump’s bullying. And the Electoral College voted on schedule on Dec. 14.

HOW CLOSE WE CAME...

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an 10 24

On Wednesday, October 2, Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed a 165-page legal brief in which special counsel Jack Smith makes a detailed, comprehensive case for moving forward with his election interference indictment against former President Donald Trump.

The document is mindful of the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial 6-3 immunity ruling in Trump v. the United States, which declared that a president enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution for "official" acts committed as part of "core" duties but not for "unofficial" acts. And Smith, in the court filing, zeros in on acts he considers "unofficial" and therefore, subject to criminal prosecution.

In a listicle published by Politico, reporters Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein lay out 11 of the "most significant and striking details in Smith's brief."

"Much of Smith's brief focused on Trump's state of mind in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021," Cheney and Gerstein explain. "Smith described a slew of conversations suggesting that the then-president knew his claims of election fraud were spurious. And Smith laid out evidence that Trump's sole objective was to stay in power — not, as he and his lawyers have claimed, to exercise legitimate authority over election integrity."

The details that Cheney and Gerstein highlight are: (1) Trump "alone with his phone," (2) "Trump asked, 'So what'?," (3) Trump "disregarding the" election "results," (4) "inventing statistics," (5) "broken promises of evidence," (6) "mocking Sidney Powell," (7) "Trump's January 5 call to Steve Bannon," (8) "a view of forensic evidence," (9) "make them riot," (10) former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's "rise," and (11) "Rudy's follies."

Powell, like Giuliani, was among the Trump attorneys who promoted the debunked conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him. And according to Smith's filing, Cheney and Gerstein note, the special counsel cites examples of Trump calling Powell "unhinged" and "crazy."

The Politico reporters point out that "well before" January 6, 2021, an "unidentified Trump campaign employee" described in Smith's brief "enthusiastically spoke of the potential for a riot in Michigan."

"The employee, whom prosecutors described as a co-conspirator, allegedly sought to 'create chaos' at a polling center in Detroit when it became clear a batch of election returns favorable to (Joe) Biden was legitimate," Cheney and Gerstein note. "'Find a reason it isn't,' the alleged co-conspirator said to a colleague, prosecutors wrote. When the colleague said an outbreak of violence appeared imminent, the campaign employee replied: 'Make them riot' and 'Do it!!!'"

the full Politico article at this link.

special counsel Jack Smith won’t get a chance to bring his best criminal case against Donald Trump to trial before the 2024 election — and if Trump wins, Smith probably will never get that chance. But on Wednesday, the public got its most complete look at the evidence Smith has amassed to try to prove that the former president orchestrated criminal conspiracies as he sought to overturn his loss four years ago.

In a 165-page legal brief unsealed by a federal judge (albeit with some redactions), the special counsel fleshed out detailed evidence he would use against Trump at trial, if the case ever makes it that far. Smith also presented his arguments for why Trump is not immune from the charges, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling over the summer that granted presidents broad immunity for official acts.

Much of Smith’s brief focused on Trump’s state of mind in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Smith described a slew of conversations suggesting that the then-president knew his claims of election fraud were spurious. And Smith laid out evidence that Trump’s sole objective was to stay in power — not, as he and his lawyers have claimed, to exercise legitimate authority over election integrity.

Here’s POLITICO’s look at the most significant and striking details in Smith’s brief.

Alone with his phone

At 2:24 p.m. on Jan. 6, as Trump supporters were attacking the Capitol, Trump took to Twitter to condemn Vice President Mike Pence, saying Pence lacked “courage” because Pence had resisted Trump’s pressure to intervene in the Electoral College certification.

According to Smith’s prosecutors, Trump was alone in the White House dining room when he sent that tweet. Trump’s aides had left him there after failing to persuade him to call on his supporters to leave the Capitol.

“The defendant personally posted the tweet … at a point when he already understood the Capitol had been breached,” prosecutors wrote.

Trump asked: ‘So what?’

The tweet criticizing Pence coincided with one of the most perilous moments of the riot: the precise minute Pence was being evacuated from his Senate office to a loading dock below the Capitol. Rioters had come within 40 feet of where he was sheltering just before this moment.

When Trump was told by an aide of Pence’s evacuation, prosecutors say Trump responded: “So what?”

Trump’s first call for calm — which advisers viewed as insufficient — came 14 minutes later: “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

Disregarding the results

According to prosecutors, at one point during Trump’s bid to overturn the results, a Trump White House aide overheard Trump tell his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.” The comment was allegedly made on Marine One.

Inventing statistics

Prosecutors said they would prove at trial that Trump and his allies often made up statistics about voter fraud “from whole cloth.” For example, Trump and allies alleged that 36,000 noncitizens had cast ballots in Arizona, changing the figure to “a few hundred thousand” five days later, eventually revising it back to “bare minimum … 40 or 50,000,” then to 32,000 and back up to the original number of 36,000.

Broken promises of evidence

One week after Election Day in 2020, Trump told then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R-Ariz.) that he was “packaging up” fraud evidence to share with him, prosecutors wrote. But Trump never provided it. Ducey told Trump that Arizona was all but lost, comparing it to being in “the ninth inning, two outs, and [the defendant] was several runs down,” Smith’s brief recounted.

Mocking Sidney Powell

After a Fox News host called out Trump-aligned lawyer Sidney Powell for making bizarre claims about Dominion Voting machines, Trump called her on speakerphone. On the Nov. 20, 2020 call, Trump muted his line and mocked her to two aides, calling her claims about the election “crazy” and making a reference to Star Trek, prosecutors contend. On another occasion, he called Powell “unhinged.”

Though it’s not referenced in Smith’s new filing or his indictment, Trump later considered naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate election fraud, and he considered a proposal she crafted to seize voting machines from swing states for a forensic inspection.

Trump’s Jan. 5 call to Steve Bannon

Prosecutors, who had more access to telephone records and emails than the congressional committee that investigated Jan. 6, allege that Trump spoke to ally Steve Bannon by phone on Jan. 5 less than two hours before Bannon issued a prescient and provocative prediction on his War Room podcast that “all hell is going to break loose” on Jan. 6.

A preview of forensic evidence

Prosecutors plan to have an FBI computer forensic examiner testify about Trump’s phone use on Jan. 6. They say it will show which news and social media apps he had on his phone and will reveal that Trump was on Twitter for much of the day. Prosecutors also plan to show at trial what Fox News was broadcasting at specific times during the day, since Trump had it on in the dining room and was watching coverage of the riot.

‘Make them riot’

Well before Jan. 6, an unidentified Trump campaign employee enthusiastically spoke of the potential for a riot in Michigan. The employee, whom prosecutors described as a co-conspirator, allegedly sought to “create chaos” at a polling center in Detroit when it became clear a batch of election returns favorable to Biden was legitimate. “Find a reason it isn’t,” the alleged co-conspirator said to a colleague, prosecutors wrote. When the colleague said an outbreak of violence appeared imminent, the campaign employee replied: “Make them riot” and “Do it!!!” person 15?

Rudy’s rise

Trump sidelined his campaign lawyers on Nov. 13, 2020, with Bannon informing another Trump campaign adviser — and alleged co-conspirator — that Trump had replaced them in the pecking order with Rudy Giuliani. Bannon said he told Trump that without Giuliani in charge, “this thing is over.” “Trump is in to the end,” Bannon added, according to prosecutors.

Rudy’s follies

Counting on Giuliani didn’t turn out so well. Smith’s brief includes yet another instance of Giuliani’s prolific record of butt-dialing and clumsy cell phone use. Prosecutors say he attempted to send a proposed resolution to Michigan lawmakers declaring the election to be in dispute — but sent it to the wrong number.

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The so-called "fake electors" plot didn't succeed after the 2020 election. And according to Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith's recently unsealed dossier, one reason may have been the incompetence of former President Donald Trump's then-personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

Following his loss in the 2020 election, Trump put Giuliani in charge of his campaign's legal team. The former New York City mayor and ex-U.S. attorney then sought to have Republican officials in swing states Trump narrowly lost to President Joe Biden submit alternate slates of presidential electors in an effort to overturn election results. This included the states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In a Thursday article on Smith's dossier, the Guardian reported that Giuliani's plot to subvert election results was complicated by him apparently texting the details of the plot to the wrong number. While the identity of the intended recipient is unknown, Giuliani appeared to have intended to send instructions to a Republican lawmaker in Michigan on how to disrupt the awarding of the Mitten State's Electoral College votes to Biden.

“So I need you to pass a joint resolution from the legislature that states the election is in dispute, there’s an ongoing investigation by the legislature, and the Electors sent by Governor Whitmer are not the official electors of the state of Michigan and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline under Michigan law,” Giuliani texted.

In his recounting of the event, Smith's team of prosecutors wrote in the 165-page dossier that Giuliani ultimately never got in touch with the presumed Michigan lawmaker because "he put the wrong number into his phone." While the former New York mayor's name is redacted in the dossier, context from the document reveals that the person Smith identified as "CC1" [co-conspirator one] is Giuliani. Earlier this year, Michigan investigators confirmed that Trump, Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were all "unindicted co-conspirators" in the fake elector probe.

Giuliani's role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election resulted in him being disbarred both in New York and more recently in Washington, D.C. While his D.C. bar status had been at least temporarily revoked since 2021, the 2001 TIME Person of the Year officially lost his law license after losing his final appeal in September. The D.C. bar specifically mentioned his work attempting to overturn the election — which resulted in felony charges in Arizona — as a primary reason to strip him of the ability to practice law.

The office of Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) officially served Giuliani with a felony indictment while he was celebrating his 80th birthday party. According to the New York Post, "partygoers started screaming" when one of the guests — who was revealed to be a process server who had tracked down Giuliani in Palm Beach, Florida — handed the former New York City mayor the indictment paperwork shortly after guests sang "happy birthday" to him.

Giuliani — along with more than a dozen other defendants — was charged with conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices and fraudulent schemes and practices. Each charge is a felony. Defendants were also charged with felony forgery for their alleged submission of fake elector paperwork. A trial date has not yet been scheduled for the Arizona case.

The details of Giuliani's involvement in the plot were revealed to the public after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed Smith's dossier on Wednesday night. Smith submitted the document in order to justify his continued prosecution of Trump despite the Supreme Court's Trump v. United States ruling in July. In that decision, the six conservative justices on the Court agreed that presidents have absolute broad immunity from criminal prosecution for "official acts."

However, the Court left it up to lower court judges like Chutkan to determine what actually constitutes an "official act." Smith is arguing that Trump acted in his personal capacity as a candidate — and not as the president — in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Click here to read the Guardian's report in full.

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michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's (D) office has charged former state representative Lee Chatfield (R) — who was speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives in 2019 and 2020 — with 13 felonies after a lengthy investigation.

Local news site MLive reported that Chatfield and his wife, Stephanie, have both been charged with embezzlement, conducting a criminal enterprise and various other financial crimes. Nessel said the charges were filed as the result of a years-long investigation that began in 2021.

"Our investigation has uncovered evidence that Lee Chatfield used various different schemes to embezzle, steal and convert both private and public monies to fund a lavish lifestyle that a state salary could not possibly afford," Nessel said during a press conference.

Nessel's office uncovered the alleged crimes while probing both Chatfield's campaign accounts as well as a nonprofit "dark money" organization called the Peninsula Fund. Both Chatfield and his wife allegedly used Peninsula's account to pay for opulent vacations and excursions, including a $32,000 trip to the Bahamas, a family vacation to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida and purchases of luxury items.

"The evidence shows that Stephanie Chatfield made payments to Lee Chatfield’s personal credit cards directly from Peninsula Fund accounts," Nessel said.

According to CBS News, the charge of conducting a criminal enterprise carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The four counts of embezzlement of funds from a nonprofit organization (between $1,000 and $20,000) each come with a maximum prison sentence of up to 10 years and/or a $15,000 fine. The three charges of embezzlement by a public officer of more than $50 each carry a potential prison sentence of up to 10 years along with a $10,000 fine.

Chatfield is also facing one charge of conspiracy to commit embezzlement from a nonprofit organization — punishable by up to 10 years in prison — three counts of embezzlement and one felony count of violating the Charitable Trust Act. The latter two alleged crimes are each punishable by up to five years in prison.

READ MORE:[Debt-ridden Michigan GOP seeks to sell headquarters to pay $500K loan currently in default

In addition to Chatfield and his wife, Nessel also charged Anné and Rob Minard in the investigation, who worked as Chatfield's political director and chief of staff, respectively. Both are charged with more than a dozen counts of embezzlement for allegedly raiding those same accounts to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson lamented Michigan's outdated laws governing campaign finance and nonprofit financial disclosure. MLive reported that she called for the passage of the BRITE Act, which would strengthen nonprofit disclosure laws.

"That the egregious, and blatant embezzlement of taxpayer dollars and nonprofit funds for personal enrichment were able to go undetected for so long underscores a failure of our current laws to prohibit corruption in state government,” Benson told reporters. “This culture of corruption must end. Our citizens deserve better than this.”

Nessel's investigation into Chatfield began after his sister-in-law accused him of repeated sexual assaults for roughly a decade, though Chatfield denied those allegations and described it as a consensual affair. Nessel credited her for being the catalyst of the investigation, but said the investigation into those allegations had been closed, saying "we cannot reach the appropriate proofs required as it relates to the allegations of sexual assault."

READ MORE:[GOP lawmaker who promised to 'continue his research' on 'blatantly racist' theory stripped of committees*

:===

Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra works for anti-Muslim institute that warned of “Great White Death” from Muslim immigrants

04/16/24

RSS

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n attorney known for pushing ex-President Donald Trump's 2020 election Big Lie was arrested in Washington, DC Monday following a bench warrant after she failed to appear "for a hearing related to four felony charges she's facing in Michigan," according to The Detroit News.

However, Michigan lawyer Stephanie Lambert she was in the nation's capital for a different reason.

CNN reporter Marshall Cohen reported via X/Twitter Monday, "NEW: Questions swirl about whether pro-Trump lawyer Stefanie Lambert was arrested today after a DC hearing about her leaking Dominion docs. There was an existing arrest warrant in Michigan & she wasn't seen exiting the courtroom after US marshals went in."

Cohen added, "She was indicted last year on MI state charges stemming from an alleged conspiracy to seize voting machines. She recently started representing ex-Overstock CEO Byrne in his Dominion defamation case — that’s how she got the internal Dominion files that she leaked to a MI sheriff."

Lambert was in DC representing Byrne.

Less than an hour after CNN published Cohen's report, The Detroit News confirmed that Lambert was arrested Monday "according to a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service."

Per The Detroit News, "The arrest ended an 11-day saga of uncertainty that played out after Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Jeffery Matis issued a warrant because Lambert failed to appear for a hearing related to four felony charges she's facing in Michigan."

Per CNN's report, trouble ensued when "Lambert provided the confidential Dominion documents to Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who has embraced conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and has used his office to hunt for fraud. He has since posted more than 2,000 internal Dominion documents on his social media account."

The Detroit News reports,

*In August, Special Prosecutor D.J. Hilson revealed four felony charges against her, including undue possession of a voting machine. Lambert and others who were spreading theories of fraud about the 2020 election allegedly conspired to obtain and analyze five tabulators that were used in Michigan.

*Lambert has resisted getting fingerprinted by authorities as her criminal case is ongoing. In a court filing on March 8, Lambert contended that Hilson wants to use her fingerprints to compare with evidence on the tabulators.

During Monday's hearing, according to CNN, "Lambert admitted that she gave the materials to Leaf, though she said she was allowed to because she was reporting a crime to 'law enforcement.' She also called on Congress to investigate her claim that 'foreign nationals' interfered with the 2020 election, which the US Intelligence Community has said was the most secure ever."

The Detroit News' full report can be read here. CNN's report is available[at this link

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https://www.alternet.org/michigan-gop-chair-removes-leader/

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Prosecution in Michigan fake elector case points to nationwide effort to keep Trump in office

Anna Liz Nichols, Michigan Advance

February 15, 2024

James Renner testified Wednesday that he never believed he and 15 other individuals who signed documents claiming to be Michigan’s state electors with fake electoral votes in 2020 engaged in any illegal activity.

Renner, 77, was charged alongside 15 others by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office with several felonies, accused of fraudulently submitting fake electoral votes for former President Donald Trump to the U.S. Senate and National Archives. However, Renner had his charges dropped in October as part of a cooperation agreement with the Attorney General’s Office, for which he offered testimony in a Lansing court Wednesday.

“The individuals … were all conscientious individuals,” Renner said, clarifying that he never intended any illegal action saying, “We were told this was an appropriate process.”

The 15 individuals facing charges are split into two groups for court proceedings, the Wednesday group includes two high-profile leaders in the Republican Party: Michigan GOP National Committeewoman Kathleen Berden and former Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock. Other defendants in this group are Mari-Ann Henry, John Haggard, Amy Facchinello and Michele Lundgren.

Renner didn’t clarify who told the group that they were engaging in normal lawful behavior at the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting where the individuals charged met up at the Michigan Republican Party headquarters in Lansing. At this meeting, they signed documents saying they, as the rightful electors of Michigan cast the state’s electoral votes for former President Donald Trump. However, lawyers for the defense have argued that potentially individuals didn’t know what they were signing, defeating the intent to commit fraud.

Because President Joe Biden had won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, the Democratic panel of electors were the rightful group to submit the state’s electoral votes. But conspiracies over election fraud, spearheaded by Trump, led many in the state of Michigan to question and deny the integrity of the 2020 election.

Renner testified that he was told that should the election be overturned and Trump be determined to have won the 2020 presidential election, the paperwork he signed would ensure that the appropriate partisan electors would be counted and Michigan could submit its votes for Trump.

There was zero talk, to his knowledge, on Dec. 14, 2020, at the meeting where the documents were signed that the group was attempting anything illegal or attempting to defraud peoples’ votes, Renner said. If there was, he would have left due to his beliefs as a retired member of law enforcement.

Renner said seven years in law enforcement, including time with the Michigan State Police providing security for the Michigan State Capitol, instilled him with a respect for the law.

“It’s the foundation of this country,” Renner said.

Maddock’s lawyer, Nicholas Somberg, referenced a group photo members of the group took on the same day in Lansing asking Renner if in his experience in enforcement if individuals engaging in criminal activity typically take group photos as crimes are being committed, to the laughter of defendants and the judge. The photo was taken the day Renner and others in a group approached the Michigan State Capitol building to submit false electoral votes while the building was closed due to threats of violence.

Renner said the group had been told that if they presented their documents as the Republican electors, lawmakers had the ability to accept their slate.

Garett Koger, a lawyer on Berden’s defense, said the state’s case will ultimately fail to show any criminal action by members of the charged group, adding that the documents were part of a “larger plan that originated” with Kenneth Chesebro.

Chesebro, former attorney for Trump, pleaded guilty in Fulton County, Ga., Superior Court in October to a felony charge after he admitted to orchestrating a multi-state fake elector plot to present fake elector documents in favor of a Trump presidency.

Although Chesebro pleaded guilty to a crime for his role in the plot, Koger said Chesebro’s testimony in Michigan later in the preliminary exam will show Chesebro had an understanding of a 1960 case out of Hawaii where there was a recount in the presidential election and both party’s electors submitted electoral votes pending the recount which did reverse Hawaii’s pick for president.

For Hawaii, the difference in votes between candidates was around 100 votes, Michigan’s was more than 150,000. The electors in Hawaii acted pending the result of an official statewide recount and there was no official statewide recount in Michigan.

The preliminary exams will continue in the coming weeks as the court schedules with the defense of the various defendants.

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an 1 24 deep debt //

More questions than answers persist as to who is running the Michigan GOP - Alternet.org

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the Michigan Republican Party has convened a special meeting for this Saturday where the fate of chairwoman Kristina Karamo will be decided.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Republicans in the Mitten State are so determined to remove Karamo that they're also considering a change to their own bylaws that lowers the threshold for removing a chairperson from a 75% vote of the state committee to just a two-thirds vote. Karamo — a former community college professor and 2020 election denier who ran a failed campaign for secretary of state in 2022 — has not yet served even just one year as head of the Michigan GOP.

"You were chosen as chairwoman because the majority of the Republican delegates strongly respected your commitment to a new era of transparency, honesty and meaningful involvement on the part of the State Committee," read letter co-signed by eight of the Michigan GOP's 13 district chairs. "Regrettably, these policies no longer seem to be a priority in your administration and the Party’s financial stability is quickly deteriorating."

The New York Times reported last week that under Karamo's leadership, the party has been driven into more than $620,000 of debt heading into the 2024 general election in a state whose electoral votes has played a deciding role in the last two consecutive presidential elections. Karamo has been criticized for her "autocratic" leadership style and lack of transparency, and in November, a Comerica Bank attorney sent the state party a default notice for not paying interest on a loan in excess of $500,000.

"The Michigan Republican Party is on the verge of imploding. I have more money in my campaign account than the state party has in its,” State Representative Mark Tisdel said. “Sooner or later, the creditors are going to come calling.”

At the party's 2023 Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference — which has in the past attracted major GOP power players like former Vice President Mike Pence — the main speakers were far more lackluster. Keynote speaker Jim Caviezel — a QAnon conspiracy theorist who played Jesus in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ — was paid a six-figure sum for a short speech. And aside from entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, none of the current Republican candidates for president attended the conference. British rapper and far-right social media personality Zuby was also a headlining speaker.

Karamo has called the attempt to oust her illegal, telling the Free Press in a statement that the organizers of the Saturday meeting "have zero legal authority to conduct business regarding the Michigan Republican Party or its State Committee." there is not yet any consensus on who would replace Karamo if she is removed from her position.

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Michigan Republican on Monday was stripped of his committee assignments in the state House of Representatives over a social media post about the “great replacement” theory, The Detroit News reports.

On Feb. 6, Michigan state Rep. Josh Schriver shared a graphic posted by far-right “Republican political operative” Jack Posobiec that “depicted black figurines covering most of a map of the world, with white figures occupying smaller sections of Australia, Canada, northern Europe and the northern United States," The Detroit News reports.

Posobiec’s graphic purported to depict the “great replacement theory,” which the Guardian calls “the racist premise that white Americans and Europeans are being actively ‘replaced’ by non-white immigrants.” Schriver’s quote-tweet of Posobiec also included an emoji signifying a downward trend.

Asked by The Detroit News about his post, Schriver thanked Posobiec and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for “sharing links” on the "great replacement" theory and promised to “continue [his] research on these issues.”

"I'm opposed to racists, race baiters, and victim politics," Schriver said. ”What I find strange is the agenda to demoralize and reduce the white portion of our population. That's not inclusive and Christ is inclusive!"

According to the Detroit News, “In the days since his comments were reported, Schriver has posted on X repeatedly on the topic, calling criticism of his post ‘an anti-white agenda’ and accusing media of attempting ‘to start a race war.’" Monday, House Speaker Joe Tate “revoked Schriver’s privileges” — though the Republican “will still be able to vote on the House floor.”

“Rep. Schriver has a history of promoting debunked theories and dangerous rhetoric that jeopardizes the safety of Michigan residents and contributes to a hostile and uncomfortable environment for others,” Tate said.

"The House of Representatives is the people’s house, and all Michiganders should look upon this body and take pride in how we conduct ourselves. It is also a workplace, and I have a responsibility to make sure the employees of the House feel safe and secure,” Tate added.

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January 3, 2024

Freshman Republican state Rep. Josh Schriver of Michigan was outraged by the presence of a display erected by the Satanic Temple of Western Michigan on the lawn of the state capitol. In response, Schriver announced that he will be attempting to strip “tax exempt status from non-theistic churches.”

Schriver, recently identified by Right Wing Watch as a likely follower of racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, homophobic Christian nationalist Nick Fuentes, appeared on the “Your Defending Fathers” radio program last week. Schriver announced his intention to target churches that he doesn’t believe deserve equal treatment with Christianity under the law, putting him in company of some religious-right activists who don’t believe the First Amendment’s religious liberty protections apply equally to non-Christian religions.

“I actually am working on a policy right now—I haven’t introduced it yet—but it’s actually to really focus on making a distinction between the church—the church of Jesus Christ—and this, quote unquote, Church of Satan,” Schriver announced. “You really have an issue where they’re seen as equal in the eyes of the state, and that doesn’t seem right to me for many, many legitimate reasons. And so removing tax exempt status from non-theistic churches such as the Church of Satan, I think is very, very well in order.”

“There’s many examples of us looking at our First Amendment and how it doesn’t really protect against obscenity,” Schriver continued, revealing that he is also “working on another policy to make pornographic images illegal” because “there’s no need for a moral and religious people to indulge in certain things.”

“We have a duty to lead people as representatives who are appointed by God to make sure that we have a state that is not just good, not just great, but godly,” Schriver declared. “Honestly, I work for God and not for man. And so at the end of the day, I answer to one person, and that’s Jesus Christ.”

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in seven different states that Joe Biden won in the 2020 presidential election, MAGA Republicans hoping to keep Donald Trump in the White House circulated bogus certificates declaring Trump as the winner. One of those states was Michigan, where Democratic State Attorney General Dana Nessel has been aggressively going after Trump supporters she says were major players in the fake electors scheme in her state.

The Detroit News' Craig Mauger reports that on Thursday, December 14, "top Michigan Republicans" who testified in court linked the organization and execution of a false certificate saying Donald Trump won the state's 2020 presidential election directly to Trump's campaign."

"While the Trump campaign has previously been tied to the overall strategy of crafting electoral certificates in seven battleground states," Mauger explains, "the testimony Thursday described campaign staffers as being involved in recruiting attendees and running the meeting of the false electors in Lansing on December 14, 2020. During that gathering, 16 Republican activists signed a document that was used to claim the then-incumbent Republican president won Michigan's 16 electoral votes."

One of the witnesses who testified, according to Mauger, was former Michigan Republican Party Communications Director Tony Zammit.

According to Zammit's testimony, Shawn Flynn (an attorney for Trump's 2020 campaign in Michigan) gaveled in that December 14, 2020 meeting.

Mauger reports, "Zammit's remarks could be key because prosecutors must eventually prove the Republicans who signed the false electoral certificate had an 'intent to defraud,' a standard that could be more difficult to reach if lawyers working for Trump were indeed directing the Michigan Republicans to take the actions they did or if the Republican activists didn't understand what they were signing…. Zammit also testified that Flynn had been directed to submit the false certificate to the federal government."

Former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land testified as well.

According to Mauger, Land "said because the Board of State Canvassers determined Democrat Joe Biden won Michigan's election, she didn't understand why the GOP electors were meeting — and no one detailed to her why the event was necessary."

Land testified, "I didn't have the information to make a decision."

:{*:{Read the Detroit News' full report at this link.}:

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in 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was, according to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, the target of a kidnapping plot by far-right militia extremists. The would-be kidnappers, angry over Whitmer's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, reportedly planned to subject her to a fake "trial" and execute her if convicted.

Altogether, 14 people faced federal criminal charges for their alleged roles in the plot; five were convicted by a jury, four entered "guilty" pleas, and five were acquitted. Two of the ones who were acquitted, twin brothers Michael and William Null, were recently honored by far-right Michigan State Rep. Rachelle Smit — who, the Daily Beast reports, honored them at a late-October ceremony."

In a report published on November 8, the Daily Beast's Kelly Weill emphasizes that Smit and other far-right MAGA Republicans are seriously distorting the facts in the plot to kidnap Whitmer.

At the ceremony, Weill reports, Smit gave Michael and Wiliam Null a certificate that read, "Michael Null is an outstanding example of the kind of person who is not content to sit idly while the forces of tyranny attack our Republic. Through his courageous efforts to expose the government's false-flag Whitmer conspiracy, he has made it clear that we all have opportunities each and every day to put our love of country to good use in helping out our fellow citizens."

The certificate also said, "Michael Null could have given up. His government — state and federal — betrayed him: it sent members of its secret police forces to concoct a plot to 'kidnap' Gretchen Whitmer, and to persecute innocent men in this government-orchestrated conspiracy, for the purpose of political theater and political gain."

But Smit, according to Weill, downplays the fact that nine of the defendants in the Whitmer case were either convicted or pled guilty.

"When the FBI announced the arrests of 14 men accused of plotting to kidnap Whitmer, Michigan’s Democratic governor in 2020, commentators on the right were quick to call it a hoax," Weill explains. "While on the 2022 campaign trail, Michigan Republicans even falsely accused Whitmer of concocting the plot herself. When two men were acquitted in the scheme, a GOP gubernatorial candidate running against Whitmer baselessly asserted that 'the FBI conceived a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer and preyed on Michiganders to push it along.'"

The MAGA gubernatorial candidate that Weill is referring to is Garrett Soldano.Far-right conspiracy theorist Julie Kelly, Weill notes, has also described the kidnapping plot as a "hoax."

In response to Smit honoring the Hull Brothers, former Michigan GOP Chairman Jeff Timmer told the Beast, "It's this normalizing, inch by inch, of political violence, making what would've previously been intolerable tolerable in the sense that we just have become numb to it. It's not too distant — if it's distant at all — from the Republican Party, its elected officials, and its party officers…. many of whom, prominent members of Congress from Michigan, members of the legislature, members of the elected party apparatus, have ties to these people who were part of the kidnapping plot."

Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor and frequent legal analyst for MSNBC, described honoring the Hull Brothers as "a very dangerous and reckless move."

McQuade told the Beast, "They were acquitted at trial. And certainly, that means that the jury found that the government had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and we should respect that verdict. But it's quite another thing to celebrate political violence."

*Read The Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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'Bitter disputes' and MAGA extremism are leaving the Michigan GOP 'starving for cash': report

Alex Henderson August 29, 2023

The Michigan GOP has experienced a battle between traditional conservatives and far-right ultra-MAGA Republicans — and the latter have been prevailing. Going MAGA, however, has not served the Michigan GOP well: In 2022, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer defeated far-right MAGA Republican challenger Tudor Dixon by 11 percent. And Democrats took over both branches of the Michigan State Legislature.

In an article published on August 29, the New York Times' Nick Corasaniti stresses that the Michigan GOP is "starving for cash." And he cites MAGA extremism as the cause.

Corasaniti explains, "This turmoil is one measure of the way Donald J. Trump's lies about the 2020 election have rippled through his party…. As the party looks toward the presidential election next year, the strains are glaring. Mr. Trump's election lies spread like wildfire in Michigan, breaking the state party into ardent believers and pragmatists wanting to move on. Bitter disputes, power struggles and contentious primaries followed, leaving the Michigan Republican Party a husk of itself."

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Michigan) is among the Republicans who is sounding the alarm about the Michigan GOP's fundraising crisis.

McClain told the Times, "It's not going real well, and all you have to do is look at the facts. The ability to raise money, we've got a lot of donors sitting on the sideline — that's not an opinion, that's a fact. It's just a plain fact. We have to fix that."

READ MORE: New leak paints 'alarming financial picture' of Michigan GOP: report

The New York Times' full report is available at this link (subscription required).

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Far-right extremists keep making the Michigan GOP lose key elections: report

Alex Henderson August 23, 2023

During the 2022 midterms races, many right-wing media pundits predicted that Democrats would get clobbered in Michigan. It didn't happen. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was reelected, defeating far-right Republican challenger Tudor Dixon by 11 percent.

Moreover, Democrats won majorities in both houses of the Michigan State Legislature. Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was reelected by 14 percent, and incumbent Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel enjoyed an 8 percent victory over MAGA Republican challenger Matthew DePerno.

Those wins followed President Joe Biden's win in Michigan in 2020.

Benson was up against Kristina Karamo, a far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist and Christian nationalist who falsely claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump in her state. Karamo lost badly, but instead of distancing themselves from her, Republicans made her chair of the Michigan GOP.

Many Never Trump conservatives have argued that in order to regain the ground they have been losing in Michigan, Republicans should be nominating sensible moderate conservatives like former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). But in an article published in late August, Mother Jones' Noah Lanard warns that the Michigan GOP has been taken over by extremists — and keeps losing key races as a result.

"Just seven years ago," Lanard explains, "Donald Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Michigan since George H.W. Bush. But as the state GOP moved further and further to the right, Democrats capitalized on the extremism to string together major victories in 2018, 2020 and 2022, when they took full control of the state government for the first time in four decades. In the wake of this rout, the GOP has doubled down."

Lanard continues, "Karamo's ascension to chair is what a Republican Party freed from the constraints imposed by consultants and donors looks like in the Trump era. It is messy, short on cash, and arguably more democratic than ever before. While Karamo and her supporters fixate on 'election integrity' and culture war issues like transgender rights, convinced that it will lead to future victories, ousted moderates look on with schadenfreude. This battleground state fissure is a gift to President Joe Biden's reelection campaign and Democrats' efforts to hold an open Senate seat that is essential to maintaining control of the chamber."

READ MORE: Ethics defenders cheer as Trump 'Big Lie' allies charged in Michigan

Lanard points to an early June fundraising dinner as a prime example of the Michigan GOP's extremist direction.

Karamo, a featured speaker, ranted, "The Democrat Party is the party of Satan…. They're evil. They're definitely a Lucifer. But they have their standards, and they stick to 'em."

Karamo, according to Lanard, received "the only standing ovation of the night."

READ MORE: New leak paints 'alarming financial picture' of Michigan GOP: report

Mother Jones' full report is available at this link.

'He kicked me right in my crotch': Bodycam video shows aftermath of brawl at Michigan GOP meeting

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'It will die': Michigan GOP's latest move could put it on road to extinction ›

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Leaked recording reveals Michigan Trump ally ranting about 'civil war' after fake elector wife is indicted

Matthew Chapmanand Raw Story August 11, 2023

Michigan State Rep. Matt Maddock, the husband of one of the 16 fake electors in that state who were indicted on multiple felonies last month, is warning that MAGA loyalists could escalate their violence to the level of war in an audio recording reported by The Messenger on Friday.

“If the government continues to weaponize these departments against conservatives and the citizens that are then the taxpayers, you know what's going to happen to this country,” Matt Maddock asks, according to the audio obtained by The Messenger.

After attendees at the event shout possibilities, Maddock answers his own question: “Someone's going to get so pissed off, they're going to shoot someone. That's what's going to happen. Or we're going have a civil war or some sort of revolution. That's where this is, where this is going.”

"The comments, which Matt Maddock made days after former President Donald Trump was indicted by the Department of Justice for his actions around the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol, came at what was billed as a 'Free The 16 Electors Poolside Party!' at the Maddock’s home, hosted by Grand New Party PAC, an organization that is 'working to renew the Republican Party from within,'" reported Dan Merica.

The event is intended to raise proceeds for their legal fund to fight "Evil AG Dana Nessel."

The fake electors, including his wife and former Michigan GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock, are not the only ones facing legal consequences. The fake Trump electors in Georgia, including state party chair David Shafer, are under criminal investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, and the false electors in Wisconsin are facing a civil suit brought by two of the real electors and a voter.

The Michigan GOP has descended into chaos in recent months, after failed secretary of state candidate and QAnon conspiracy theorist Kristina Karamo took over as chair. Party officials are now warring with each other over the unclear state of their finances, culminating in a physical brawl at a GOP meeting that put one person in the hospital and has state officials investigating.

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Michigan mayor faces calls to resign at city meeting as constituents sound off on fake elector scheme

kent Vanderwood, the mayor of Wyoming, MI, on Monday fielded calls to resign as the city held its first City Commission meeting since Vanderwood and 15 others were charged with multiple felonies in connection to an alleged fake elector scheme intended to re-elect former President Donald Trump.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel last month announced a slew of charges against the 16 defendants, including conspiracy to commit forgery, forgery, conspiracy to commit election law forgery and election law forgery. Vanderwood was arraigned in court on Aug. 4.

As NBC 8 reports, “Vanderwood is among 16 people accused of meeting in December 2020 to sign a document saying they were Michigan’s electors and directing the state’s votes to former President Donald Trump.” The accused allegedly transmitted that document to the U.S. Senate and National Archives.

“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Nessel said in a statement announcing the charges.

Last week, Vanderwood’s attorney Brian Lennon called the charges “ completely off base” and promised his client will be “fully vindicated,” MLive reports. He also said his client would not be stepping down as Wisconsin mayor.

Per NBC 8, commentators at the City Commission meeting on Monday were split on whether Vanderwood should remain in office.

“ His name is on the paper,” one commenter said. “You cannot deny that. This is a stain on this city, a stain on our state, and we must get back to some type of decency and civility in our government. It resulted in an insurrection against our government. Five people lost their lives due to this action that is perpetrated against this country. Our mayor has to be held accountable for his part in that. Each of us must be accountable for our silence in that. I ask this mayor to resign.”

In a letter, an advocacy group called The Democracy Coalition urged Vanderwood to resign to “reinforce public trust” and demonstrate “a commitment to addressing this issue transparently.”

“While we recognize the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the pending criminal charges are extremely serious,” the group wrote. “We firmly believe that it is in the best interest of the city you serve for Mr. Vanderwood to resign from his position.”

:{:{Still, other constituents spoke in support of Vanderwood at the meeting.}:

“We have a right to an alternate elector when there is a question about the elector,” Phillip Smith argued during the meeting.

One commenter called Vanderwood “if a man of integrity” who “ loves the Lord” and the Constitution.}:

“For the attorney general to come out with charges three years after in a seemingly pointed fishing expedition against those who might have a difficult viewpoint needs to be thought through,” that commenter claimed.

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numerous Republican officials in Michigan are scheduled to attend a Juneteenth celebration featuring a QAnon influencer and a doctor who is best known for spreading bizarre medical claims, including that gynecological problems are caused by demon sperm.

Bernadette Smith, the ethnic vice chair of the Michigan Republican Party, is hosting a “Juneteenth Unite America” event featuring streamer Mel K and quack Dr. Stella Immanuel. A flyer for the event also lists state Reps. Neil Friske, Pat Outman, and Steve Carra; state Sen. Rick Outman; and circuit court Judge Joseph Rossi. Republican Party groups in the state have promoted the event online.

Mel Kis a streaming host who has repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory. During one of her programs, she stated that “99%” of QAnon has been “proven to be true”:

MEL K: The actual QMap is the most fascinating thing. I don't know if you've ever seen the actual map that was drawn out. It is the most fascinating strategic document I've ever seen in my life and what it is, and then the drops are just strategically placed.

…

I'd say 99% of what's been on there has been proven to be true. And the problem is, if you remember, the QMap was my favorite. It went away. But the QMap had the people listed. It had questionable deaths and it also had resignations and it also had players. This is what they're scared of. This is what the media is demonizing.

She has also promoted conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems, Smartmatic, and the death of Seth Rich. During one discussion, Mel K accused Dominion and Smartmatic of being part of a global conspiracy that’s “caught up” in “Pizzagate.”

Stella Immanuelis a COVID-19 conspiracy theorist. Will Sommer reported of Immanuel for the Daily Beast in an article headlined “Trump’s New Favorite COVID Doctor Believes in Alien DNA, Demon Sperm, and Hydroxychloroquine”:

Immanuel, a pediatrician and a religious minister, has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues. She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches.

She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens.

She has also pushed the QAnon-aligned “adrenochrome” conspiracy theory, including tweeting on June 14 that “the elites” drink the blood of children because “they are not human, and they need human flesh and blood to keep their human container. They are like vampires, they live on human blood.”

The Republican Party in Michigan is led by Kristina Karamo, an anti-LGBTQ commentator who has claimed that Beyoncé, Cardi B, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, yoga, and a Korean drama are all tools of Satan. She also has QAnon connections and refused to concede her 2022 election loss for secretary of state.

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win ~ supermaj

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state Senate on Wednesday approved a wide-ranging overhaul of the ways ballots are cast in Michigan, carrying out a constitutional amendment that voters put in place in November. Senators voted 22-16 in favor of the main proposal in an eight-bill package, which would require at least nine days of early voting across Michigan and allow clerks to work together to provide sites where ballots could be filled out and fed into tabulators before Election Day. Traditionally, Michigan voters have had to cast ballots in person on Election Day in their precincts or turn in absentee b...

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https://religionnews.com/2023/05/24/fighting-what-it-views-tyranny-michigan-board-declares-itself-constitutional-county/

...>The resolution, which is largely symbolic, is influenced by the writings of a Wisconsin pastor who promotes the idea of resistance to civil authority. The commissioners who voted for the resolution,all Christian, are committed to the idea that God has blessed America.

We wish to highlight freedoms and constitutional rights which have been violated over the past few years as well as those currently at risk due to societal and political pressures,” said Ottawa County vice chair Sylvia Rhodea in a prepared statement prior to the vote Wednesday (May 24).

Among those violations she mentioned was a “requiredaffirmation of a Marxist DEI value systemfor some county positions,” which she said conflicts with her religious beliefs. (DEI is an acronym for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” an organizational framework that promotes full participation of people or groups that have historically been underrepresented.) She also noted individual freedoms that were “repeatedly violated” during the coronavirus pandemic.

The 9-1 vote, with the lone Democrat on the Board of Commissioners opposing the measure, came after midnight, following six hours of public comment. It was the latest foray for the newly elected board, which swept into office in January on a platform of restoring the county’s Judeo-Christian heritage and thwartingtyranny, government overreach and injustice.</p>

Hundreds of residents of Ottawa County crammed into the commissioners’ meeting room and an overflow room on Tuesday. By a 3-2 ratio, they begged the commissioners not to adopt the resolution.

;If every local governmental unit saw its role as interpreting and following the Constitution as they see fit, our democracy would collapse and our country would fall into chaos,” said Milton Nieuwsma of Holland, Michigan, who spoke up at the meeting.

The>resolution adopted ;not to authorize or appropriate funds, resources, employees, agencies, contractors, buildings, or offices for the purpose of enforcing any statute, law, rule, order or regulation that restricts the rights of any law-abiding citizen affirmed by the United States Constitution.”

It was not clear if the county intended, for example, to resist a red flag law that aims to keep firearms away from those at risk of harming themselves or others. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the red flag law on Monday

Ottawa County, which voted for Donald Trump by >nearly 60% in 2020, is a deeply red county in a blue state that went for President Joe Biden.

Last year, a newly formed organization called Ottawa Impact unseated eight incumbent Republican county commissioners to win a controlling majority of the 11-member board. (Two of those commissioners have since publicly distanced themselves from the group but nonetheless voted to approve the “constitutional county” resolution.)

"Vice-Chairperson Sylvia Rhodea, second from right, speaks during an Ottawa County Board of Commissioners meeting, Tuesday, May 23, 2023, in Grand Haven, Michigan. Video screen grab

Vice Chairperson Sylvia Rhodea, second from right, speaks during an Ottawa County Board of Commissioners meeting, May 23, 2023, in Grand Haven, Michigan.

The new commissioners became politically active after the county and state health departments shut down a Hudsonville Christian school for not complying with a 2020 coronavirus mask mandate that resulted in an outbreak.

While Ottawa County has long been the province of Dutch settlers with a distinct Calvinist brand of Christianity, it has recently been consumed by a more muscular form of evangelical Christianity common in other parts of the country. That Christianity, sometimes calledChristian nationalism, maintains that preserving a Christian America may require overturning laws.

In their first meeting on Jan. 3, the new commissioners fired the county administrator and legal counsel, closed the county’s office for diversity, equity and inclusion and attempted to demote the health officer. They also changed the county motto from “Ottawa County: Where You Belong” to “Ottawa County: Where Freedom Rings.”

“They are about this far-right agenda of ‘We’re going to do things their way,’ and by the way, ‘we’re going to use Scripture to get there,’” said Roger Bergman, the sole incumbent Republican commissioner who was not defeated in 2020. He was not present at Tuesday’s meeting.

In drafting the resolution to become a “constitutional county,” the commissioners were relying on the writings of Matt Trewhella, a Brookfield, Wisconsin, pastor who in the 1990s created an anti-abortion militia and more recently has been active in promoting the idea of resistance to civil authorities based on the ideas of John Calvin and the Magdeburg Confession of 1550, which called on Protestant pastors to resist political tyranny.<

Pastor Matthew Trewhella gives an online sermon in an Oct. 2022 video.

Pastor Matt Trewhella gives an online sermon in an October 2022 video. Video screen grab

Trewhella gave a talk at an Ottawa County GOP fundraiser on May 10, where his self-published 2013 book, “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” was available. His newest venture is a website called County Before Country: Expanding God’s Kingdom through Christian Localism.

Both Joe Moss, the new chairman of the county commission, as well as Rhodea, his vice chair, endorsed Trewhella’s book and made a YouTube to promote his ideas.

“Understand, the wicked tyrants always count on the blithe compliance of the lesser authorities in order to get their evil down in the fabric of society,” Trewhella said at the May 10 GOP fundraiser, according to an audio recording of his talk. “The interposition of the lesser authorities is massively important to stop evil in a nation.”

County commissioners are generally tasked with overseeing the health and safety of residents. They supervise those who plow the roads, maintain the parks and issue licenses and certificates.

Resolutions like this, say law experts, have no teeth.<;re assertions of ideological spleen,” said Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan. “It’s a way for the counties to signal that they are unhappy with the direction the state is going. But legally the declarations are meaningless.”

Still, many residents expressed shock and dismay at their county commissioners’ actions Tuesday. They included a Michigan State University student who was barricaded in a gym on campus during the Feb. 13 mass shooting that resulted in the deaths of three students. She begged commissioners not to disregard new gun safety laws.

David Barnosky, a retired pipeline surveyor who began a Facebook group called Ottawa Objects, said the new commissioners have abrogated power that’s not theirs.

“They think they know everything,” said Barnosky. “They’re not even close.”

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This story was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation

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police late last week were called in after a physical fight broke out among attendees at the Michigan Republican Party's new state central committee meeting.

Bridge MI reports that a fight erupted on Friday night at the Doherty Hotel in Clare, Michigan between allies of current Michigan GOP Chairman Kristina Karamo and ally-turned-rival Matthew DePerno.

"A video recording obtained by Bridge Michigan shows a confrontation between Kalamazoo Republican Party Chair Kelly Sackett and Macomb County GOP Secretary Melissa Pehlis," the publication writes. "After they exchanged words, Sackett appeared to knock a cigarette and phone from the hand of Pehlis, who responded by thrusting an open hand at Sackett's head."

In an interview with Bridge MI, Sackett revealed that she filed a police complaint against Pehlis over the incident, which was apparently a dispute about DePerno's moves to purportedly purge people loyal to Karamo from the Kalamazoo Republican Party.

While Sackett did not elaborate further on the incident, DePerno himself went on the record to condemn Pehlis as a ""Karamo sycophant who was there, it appears, to intentionally harass" Sackett.

DePerno also took a shot at Karamo, who defeated him to become the Michigan Republican Party Chair earlier this year.

"There's big internal disputes within the party right now, and Karamo has done nothing to bring the party together," he said. "And how could she after she ran on a platform for the chair to divide the party? Her platform was to burn it down to eliminate the people who don't agree with her."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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3/23 rtw?

https://www.alternet.org/michigan-repeal-anti-union-labor/

yay!

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In today’s Republican Party it is no longer enough to deny that Donald Trump lost in 2020. The true Republican diehards demand that their leaders deny that Republicans ever lose any election.

That played out at the Michigan GOP convention over the weekend, with Trump’s pick for state party chair being defeated by a candidate who is even more extreme an election denier. It took three rounds of voting—counted by hand because Republicans have also made it an article of faith not to accept voting technology, even at their own convention—but Kristina Karamo prevailed over second-place finisher and Trump endorsee Matt DePerno.

Karamo ran for secretary of state in 2022, losing by 14 points. DePerno ran for attorney general, losing by 8.6 points. But DePerno conceded that he had lost, while Karamo refused to concede. At the state party convention, she made that part of her campaign message, saying, “Conceding to a fraudulent person is agreeing with the fraud, which I will not do.”

When it comes to 2020, DePerno has been an election denier in good standing, having made his name as a Republican and earned Trump’s endorsement on the basis of his quest to prove fraud in that election. He’s even faced a criminal investigation for tampering with voting machines in 2021. That is the kind of stuff that gets you Donald Trump’s endorsement to lead a state Republican Party. But apparently it is not enough for Michigan Republicans. “Matt ran out on us; he didn’t fight for us,” one delegate told The Washington Post.

Election denial isn’t Karamo’s only angle, though. At the convention, she said, “My goal number one as a Christian is to bring people to Christ, and secondarily to save our country.” A few nights earlier, in a speech to a far-right “patriot” group, she went into a little more detail.

“When we start talking about the spiritual reality of the demonic forces, it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, this is crazy, we can’t go there,’” Karamo said. “No. It’s like, did you read the Bible? Didn’t Jesus perform exorcisms? … Scriptures are clear. And so if we’re not operating as though the spirit realities of the world exist, we’re going to fail every time.”

The convention that elected Karamo to lead the state party was attended by 2,000 delegates—but not one of the outgoing party co-chairs or any member of the state congressional delegation. But Karamo claimed the party would move forward unified. “We cannot wait to get work done as one Michigan Republican Party,” she said. “And we are going to beat the Democrats.”

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A Michigan Republican Party co-chair, who is under the cloud of a possible investigation over attempting to overturn the 2020 election results, is reportedly stepping aside but her GOP colleagues fear she is not done sowing seeds of discontent after she is gone.

According to a report from the Daily Beast's Jon King, avid Donald Trump supporter Meshawn Maddockwill reportedly not run for another term as a co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party in the wake of the "ass-kicking" the party received in the 2022 midterm election that saw Democrats gain a super-majority in the legislature.

However, some Republicans think she is behind pushing her son-in-law, 22-year-old Parker Shonts, as a candidate for youth vice chair where he will continue her work elevating election conspiracies and disrupting plans for the 2024 election.

As the Beast's King put it, some of Maddock's colleagues see Shonts as a "poison pill" designed to be forced "down the throat of the party faithful."

According to King, "While the position itself is largely seen as ceremonial, and the vast majority of attention is being paid to the race for the next chair of the party, skeptics see Shonts’ candidacy as a proxy to affirm Maddock’s continued influence. In other words, some Republicans say, Shonts stands for doubling down on the same far-right, election-denying politics that may have doomed the party last fall."

Former county and district chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, Tom Stroup, claims Maddock and her husband, Republican State Rep. Matt Maddock, have been a thorn in the side of the party for years.

“I have known the Maddocks long before they came to power in the Michigan Republican Party, and they have been a problem in our party basically since day one,” he explained before adding, "Meshawn did such a poor job as co-chair of the party.”

He then suggested her son-in-law's bid “is a part of trying a power play to try and stay in power in some form.”

As for Shonts, King reports he ".... has been endorsed by a host of election deniers, including My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell andMichigan GOP District Chair Shane Trejo. The latter—who, as The Daily Beast reported, hosted a podcast with a member of the white supremacist group Identity Evropa—called for the ouster of a fellow Republican who voted to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 win."

According to Dennis Lennox, a GOP strategist in Michigan, Shonts bid to be a youth vice chair is not one to be taken lightly.

“Historically, it has been the most contested, the nastiest race,” he pointed out. “I can remember running races for a youth chair at the convention, winning some, losing some, and hating the people because you’re 20 years old and you hate the person who wins. Then, 10 years later, you’re both political professionals and you’re working together.”

You canread more here.

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new information from the Jan. 6 committee’s report includes evidence that five Michigan lawmakers were in favor of former President Donald Trump’s election fraud claims, reports Michigan Advance.

When Trump’s campaign asked Michigan GOP officials for their agreement to a “fake elector plan," five of the legislators — Senators Jon Bumstead, Rick Outman, Roger Victory, and former House Reps. Sue Allor and Daire Rendon all said “yes.” Rep. Mary Whiteford, responded with “maybe.”

The committee obtained a spreadsheet composed of the lawmakers’ answers from Trump staffer Angela McCallum when she was subpoenaed last year.

According to the spreadsheet, Sen. Bumstead happily obliged. “Would be supportive of any actions we take,” he said. He confirmed, “there is a lot of support and interest.”

Although supportive of the arrangement, Sen. Outman had further questions. He first wanted “to see the evidence of the fraud” and was “a bit unfamiliar with the process of what appointing electors looks like.”

The original script McCallum provided to the legislators in Trump’s request was also handed over to the Jan. 6 committee as evidence. It read, “You have the power to reclaim your authority to send a slate of Electors that will support President Trump and Vice President Pence. When there is a resolution to appoint electors for Trump, can the president count on you to join in support?”

The strategy, Michigan Advance reported, included a list of 16 “fake Republican electors who 'fraudulently' submitted a false certificate at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, when the Electoral College met to certify the state’s election results.”

Another fake elector plan that the committee’s report confirmed this week includes would have involved the fake electors hiding in the state capitol building and then attempt cast their votes. Past Michigan GOP Chair Laura Cox said the plan was “insane.”

All of these plans were prepared despite the fact that President Joe Biden won all 16 of the state’s Electoral College votes.

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Chief Judge Timothy M. Kenny of the Third Judicial Circuit Court of Michigan on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed in October by Kristina Karamo, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, that sought to disqualify more than 60,000 mail-in ballots in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit ahead of Tuesday's midterms.

Karamo – a proponent of former President Donald Trump's baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen – and her co-complainants argued that mail-in voting was a hotbed for voter fraud.But they never submitted any evidence of that, nor did they explain what harm was caused by allowing people to vote by mail.

"During the November 3, 2022 evidentiary hearing, Plaintiffs did not testify nor introduce any substantive exhibits into evidence. In this case, Plaintiffs' hearing witnesses consisted solely of Christopher Thomas, former Michigan State Elections Director for over 30 years and Daniel Baxter, Director of Absentee Voting Operations for the Detroit City Clerk," Kenny wrote in a 24-page order.

Kenny's opinion reflected his remarks during last week's hearing, when he expressed bewilderment over Karamo's failure to provide any proof of voter fraud through absentee ballots or that drop boxes were not secure.

“As a judge for 26 years,” Kenny said, “this is the first time I have ever had a circumstance where the party instigating a lawsuit, when asked by the judge what’s the relief you’re asking for, I don’t get an answer.”

Kenny also blasted the petitioners for waiting until the last minute to attempt to disenfranchise Michigan residents without just cause.

"Plaintiffs sat on their hands for months before bringing a complaint claiming violations of Michigan statutory election law in the August, 2022 primary and the relief sought would create the potential harm of disenfranchising tens of thousands of Detroiters in the November 8, 2022 general election. This is unacceptable and cannot be permitted," he said.

Kenny's closing statements were no less brutal.

"While it is easy to hurl accusations of violations of law and corruption, it is another matter to come forward and produce the evidence our Constitution and laws require. Plaintiffs failed, in a full day evidentiary hearing, to produce any shred of evidence. No exhibits, no testimony from any of the Plaintiffs, no evidence from Mr. Thomas or Mr. Baxter indicate the procedures for the November 8, 2022 election violate Michigan election laws. Plaintiffs have raised a false flag of election law violations and corruption concerning Detroit's procedures for the November 8th election. This Court's ruling takes down that flag," Kenny declared.

"Plaintiffs' failure to produce any evidence that the procedures for this November 8th election violate state or federal election lawdemonizes the Detroit City Clerk, her office staff, and the 1,200 volunteers working this election. These claims are unjustified, devoid of any evidentiary basis and cannot be allowed to stand. Plaintiffs' motions for mandamus, preliminary injunction, and declaratory judgment are DENIED. For the reasons stated in this Court's opinion, Plaintiffs' complaint is DISMISSED," he concluded. "This is a final order and closes the case."

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attempt block fail

https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/michigan-supreme-court-democrats-abortion/

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8 22 an

In the United States federal government, U.S. Supreme Court seats are not elected positions; High Court justices are nominated by presidents and either confirmed or rejected by the U.S. Senate. But state supreme courts are another matter, and many of their justices will be chosen or retained by voters this year.

In the 2022 midterms, Politico reports, elections for state supreme court seats are being held in 30 different states — and according to Politico reporters Zach Montellaro and Shia Kapos, two of the main issues firing up those races are abortion and redistricting.

“The U.S. Supreme Court may get all the attention, but some of the most consequential decisions for the next decade could come instead from their counterparts in the states — many of whom are facing voters in the fall,” Montellaro and Kapos report in an article published on August 17. “Like many down-ballot offices, state supreme court races have often slipped out of the headlines in favor of the battles for Congress and governorships, despite how influential the elected justices are. Judicial elections often suffer serious voter dropoff from top-of-the-ticket races…. But with the nation’s highest court punting major policy decisions back to the states over the last several years — from partisan gerrymandering to abortion access — that is increasingly starting to change.”

The Politico journalists note that “30 states” in the U.S. “have or will hold state supreme court elections this year, in a combination of traditional elections or a retention vote — an up-or-down vote to decide if a judge should stay on the bench.”

“Some of the biggest state supreme court contests this year map alongside traditional battlegrounds, like Michigan and North Carolina, while others creep into redder or bluer territory,” Montellaro and Kapos observe. “For many of the biggest partisan players in the fight over state supreme courts, redistricting is still a north star for where to invest money…. Since the U.S. Supreme Court said, in 2019, that the federal judiciary had no role in policing partisan gerrymandering, state supreme courts have increasingly weighed in — often throwing out Republican-drawn maps in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, but also, dealing big blows to Democrats in New York.”

Montellaro and Kapos cite Michigan and Illinois as some of the states to pay especially close attention to in 2022 when it comes to state supreme court elections.

“Michigan will have one of the most pitched battles for control of the state supreme court,where liberal justices have a narrow 4-3 majority,” Montellaro and Kapos observe. “The positions are technically nonpartisan elections in November, but the candidates are affiliated with parties…. The (Michigan) Supreme Court has a significant question on abortion looming in front of it, with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — who is also on the ballot this year — petitioning the Court directly to overturn the state’s 1930s-era law that bans most abortions, with a separate challenge also working its way through the state’s court system.”

The Politico reporters says of Illinois, “Two seats are open on the Illinois Supreme Court, which currently has a 4-3 Democratic majority, and Democrats are using the issue of abortion to rally voters in an effort to hold on to their edge…. Illinois pro-abortion rights groups are ramping up get-out-the-vote efforts because of a concern that a right-leaning court could imperil abortion rights, even though Illinois law keeps abortion legal in the state despite Roe v. Wade being overturned.”

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8 22 primary see RINO impeach 10

Peter Meijer, Republican who voted to impeach Trump, loses Michigan seat

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in an interview that first aired last week, Michigan's leading Republican gubernatorial candidate, Tudor Dixon, said that a 14-year-old incest victim was the "perfect example" of her justification for a nearly total ban on abortion access in the state.

During an interview with journalist Charlie LeDuff, host of the internet talk show "No Bullshit News," Dixon, who formerly worked in the steel industry and as founder of a "pro-America, pro-Constitution morning news program" for children, doubled down on her previous statements that she opposes abortion in all cases except when necessary to save the life of the mother.

Asked by LeDuff about a hypothetical situation in which a 14-year-old girl became pregnant as a result of sexual abuse by a family member, Dixon said, "Perfect example." She went on, "Because I know people who are the product. A life is a life for me. That's how it is. That is for me, that is my feeling."

The story gained wider attention this week when it was first picked up by the regional news outlet Heartland Signal and then by national outlets. In a statement to HuffPost, Dixon, who is endorsed by Right to Life Michigan, elaborated, saying, "Not everyone agrees with me that every life has value and we should have the courage, as [University of Michigan football coach] Jim Harbaugh put it, to let unborn children be born.… I know that. I'm not hiding from it."

Dixon's position is in alignment with a 1931 abortion law in Michigan, which bans all abortions except to save the life of the mother, and which might go into effect in the state following the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade last month. Currently, a lawsuit from Planned Parenthood challenging the law's constitutionality has resulted in a temporary injunction on the old law taking effect.

To moderate and progressive politicos in Michigan, however, Dixon's comments are par for the course in a Republican field that has tilted far to the right.

"It's not particularly shocking and it also doesn't really differentiate her much from the rest of the Republicans she's running against," said Michigan Democratic spokesperson Rodericka Applewhaite. "They have all pushed pretty extreme anti-choice agendas." One of Dixon's opponents, far-right pandemic skeptic Garret Soldano, declared this winter that rape victims should recognize that "God put them in this moment" and the child that could result from their rape "may be the next president."

While most Republican voters in Michigan say they support abortion exceptions in cases of rape and incest — and that position would have been normal just a few elections ago — Applewhaite continued, "It's just testament to the purity tests that have come to define the Republican Party at this point. In Michigan in particular, there's been a real sprint to the right." The entire GOP field of gubernatorial candidates, she noted, is basically in agreement on denying the validity of the 2020 election and stripping the state budget of funds for public services, from schools to infrastructure.

"The electorate isn't necessarily there yet, but at the same time, those voters are about to line up to support these people in 11 days," on the Aug. 2 Michigan primary, Applewhaite noted. "So the candidates are dragging the party to the right and I expect the electorate to follow them."

Jim Timmer, the former executive director of Michigan's Republican Party, agreed, saying Dixon's comments "show how far outside the mainstream the party has become." Timmer, who publicly opposed Donald Trump and has since left the GOP, said that, before Dixon, no past Republican candidate for the office "has ever taken the position that we're going to take a 14-year-old girl and make her carry her rapist's baby. Dixon is the first one to ever demand that that happen, and that's barbaric and it's insane."

That's indicative of larger problems in the GOP, he said: "Michigan is a microcosm of the insanity around the MAGA movement. We have what really amounts to unprecedented lawlessness within the Republican Party."

Throughout this election cycle, Michigan has stood out for repeated scandals involving Republican elected officials and candidates for office. Of 10 initial Republican candidates for governor, five were disqualified for submitting fraudulent signatures in their voter petitions. One, Ryan Kelley, was arrested in June on charges relating to his participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. ("Instead of ending his candidacy," remarked Timmer, "it catapulted him to the top tier.")

Further, Timmer pointed out, a GOP candidate for attorney general is under investigation for pushing false election fraud claims; the Republican speaker of the House is being investigated for both financial and sexual misconduct; the Republican Senate majority leader is being investigated for campaign finance violations; and the co-chair of the state party is being investigated, alongside others, for voter fraud in association with Republicans' "alternate electors" scheme.

"There's no top Republicans right now that aren't touched by criminal investigations," said Timmer. "It's unheard of."

And it doesn't even stop there. As Salon has reported, last March a candidate for state House, Robert Regan, said during a livestream that he'd told his daughters, "If rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it." In April, state Sen. Tom Barrett, who's running for Congress, sent out fundraising texts claiming that recipients' children had been scheduled for "gender reassignment surgery," and if they didn't like it, they should sign up with Republicans now. In June, state Rep. Steve Carra proposed a resolution to mark Jan. 6 as an official day of "remembrance" for the Capitol rioters.

Earlier this month, Trump's pick for Michigan secretary of state, Kristina Karamo, was reported to have described abortion as a "satanic practice" and "demon possession" as a sexually transmitted disease." Not to mention that throughout the late winter and spring, a suite of right-wing ballot initiatives — restricting voting rights, curtailing state power to address pandemics and sending public money to private schools — joined radical far-right activists with mainstream GOP leaders like Betsy DeVos (and another dose of petition fraud).

Everything happening in Michigan, said Applewhaite, is "reflective of a trend we're seeing across the country in which Republicans are moving further to the right, it's turning off a lot of independent voters and it is galvanizing a lot of Democrats." A recent poll by The Detroit News found that almost 60% of Michigan voters "strongly oppose" the recent Supreme Court abortion decision overturning Roe.

Yet given the current state of politics, Timmer warned, the likelihood that even a far-right candidate like Dixon could become governor is very significant.

The easiest thing to do would be to look at someone like Tudor Dixon and say she's so outside the mainstream she can't win. Except that she might not just win the nomination, but any of those people could be elected governor in this climate, where any of these crazy candidates are going to get 47% [of the vote]," Timmer said.

"I think 2022 is a harbinger of what we can expect in 2024 and the return of Donald Trump," he continued. "A dark dystopian future for America can become a fait accompli this year if the MAGA candidates — like Tudor Dixon, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Kari Lake in Arizona, Joe Lombardo in Nevada — win. If these folks win, we're looking at a very dark future, beginning in 2024, where how states like Michigan vote will not matter. Republicans will have their thumb on control of the certification process, and will use that power that they didn't have in 2020 to skew the election results. And that bodes very poorly for the future of democracy in America."

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[[

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On Wednesday, The Detroit News reported that Democratic state lawmakers in Michigan have introduced a resolution calling on the Justice Department to investigate 11 of their GOP counterparts for "seditious conspiracy."

"Sponsored by state Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit, the proposal is extremely unlikely to gain traction in the GOP-controlled House but underscores Democrats' beliefs that federal authorities should probe the actions that high-ranking Michigan Republicans took in the wake of Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden," said the report. "Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, a result that's been upheld by a series of court rulings, more than 200 audits and an investigation by the Republican-run Michigan Senate's oversight committee. But some of the former president's supporters have maintained unproven claims that widespread fraud swung the race."

"An essential element of being a legislator is accepting the peaceful transition of power when the people choose different leaders, and these members failed to faithfully discharge the duties of their office by acting to undermine this basic tenet of democracy," stated the resolution. "Michigan residents deserve better leaders than people who would subvert their own government to remain in power."

Michigan was one of several states targeted by former President Donald Trump and his allies as part of a plot to throw out election results. Like many other states Biden narrowly won, several Republican operatives declared themselves to be "alternate" electors for Trump,with the idea being either the legislature could submit them instead of the lawfully certified electors won by Joe Biden, or that former Vice President Mike Pence could use them as pretext to throw out the votes of Michigan altogether. The DOJ is investigating this plot.

"Five of the Republican lawmakers — state Reps. Julie Alexander of Hanover, Beth Griffin of Mattawan, Matt Maddock of Milford, John Reilly of Oakland Township and Daire Rendon of Lake City — were entangled in a plot to advance a false slate of Republican presidential electors, claiming Trump won Michigan, according to the resolution," noted the report. The lawmakers themselves didn't sign the false electors certificate, contending Trump got Michigan's 16 electoral votes, but were involved in the effort, including the GOP electors' unsuccessful attempts to gain access on Dec. 14, 2020, to the Michigan Capitol.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has also come under scrutiny after his office forwarded lists of fake electors from Michigan, as well as his home state of Wisconsin, to Pence's office.

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ref

no lnx

mich. Democrats seek probe of 11 GOP lawmakers for 'seditious conspiracy' to overturn 2020 election

2022/7/20

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan House Democrats introduced a resolution Wednesday asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate 11 of their Republican colleagues for attempting "to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election."

Sponsored by state Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit, the proposal is extremely unlikely to gain traction in the GOP-controlled House but underscores Democrats' beliefs that federal authorities should probe the actions that high-ranking Michigan Republicans took in the wake of Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden.

Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, a result that's been upheld by a series of court rulings, more than 200 audits and an investigation by the Republican-run Michigan Senate's oversight committee. But some of the former president's supporters have maintained unproven claims that widespread fraud swung the race.

"An essential element of being a legislator is accepting the peaceful transition of power when the people choose different leaders, and these members failed to faithfully discharge the duties of their office by acting to undermine this basic tenet of democracy," the resolution says. "Michigan residents deserve better leaders than people who would subvert their own government to remain in power."

The resolution accuses 11 Republican state legislators of conspiring to overthrow the government and delaying the execution of laws, in violation of federal policies.

The Republican lawmakers should be investigated "for the crime of seditious conspiracy," the Democratic proposal says.

:{:{}:

Five of the Republican lawmakers — state Reps. Julie Alexander of Hanover, Beth Griffin of Mattawan, Matt Maddock of Milford, John Reilly of Oakland Township andDaire Rendon of Lake City— were entangled in a plot to advance a false slate of Republican presidential electors, claiming Trump won Michigan, according to the resolution.

The lawmakers themselves didn't sign the false electors certificate, contending Trump got Michigan's 16 electoral votes, but were involved in the effort, including the GOP electors' unsuccessful attempts to gain access on Dec. 14, 2020, to the Michigan Capitol.

The building was closed to the public that day, but state law required presidential electors to convene inside.

The Detroit News first reported in January that Trump supporters contemplated working with a Republican lawmaker who had a Capitol office to get the 16 Trump electors inside or find a way inside before the building was sealed off.

Laura Cox, who was chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party in 2020, told a U.S. House committee last month that some Trump supporters discussed hiding in the state Capitol overnight.

The Department of Justice has already been probing the false electors' activities in multiple battleground states, including Michigan. In June, some of the 16 Michigan Republicans who signed the false certificate received grand jury subpoenas from federal officials.

One of the Trump electors, Republican John Haggard of Charlevoix, has previously argued he believed Trump won Michigan's election and his First Amendment rights protected his ability to sign the false certificate.

In January, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel referred an investigation into the false electors to federal prosecutors. The Democratic attorney general has suggested forgery charges could be considered and said the GOP electors in Michigan seemed to be part of a "coordinated effort."

The new House resolution says all of the 11 House Republicans mentioned in the document signed on to an unsuccessful court filing in December 2020, claiming state legislators should have a post-election certification vote to determine the presidential electors for Michigan.

In addition to Alexander, Griffin, Maddock, Reilly and Rendon, state Reps. Gary Eisen of St. Clair Township, Michele Hoitenga of Manton, Greg Markkanen of Hancock, Jack O'Malley of Lake Ann, Brad Paquette of Niles and Rodney Wakeman of Saginaw Township signed the filing.

:{:{}:

Then-Rep. Doug Wozniak of Shelby Township also signed, but he is now serving in the Michigan Senate.

"State legislatures have plenary power to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the elections under the U.S. and Michigan constitutions, so it is our duty to conduct further investigations," Alexander said at the time.

Tate's resolution comes 111 days before the November election, in which candidates' handling of the 2020 vote is expected to be in the spotlight.

Rendon, who is mentioned in the resolution, has become entangled in an ongoing state investigation into unauthorized access to voting tabulators,The Detroit News first reported in May.

Multiple northern Michigan clerks have said Rendon contacted them after the 2020 election seeking access to voting equipment. Carol Asher, the longtime clerk in Denton Township, said she provided a statement about Rendon's request to the Attorney General's office.]]

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After now-President Joe Biden won Michigan in 2020’s presidential election, Christian nationalist and anti-vaxxer Kristina Karamowas among the far-right conspiracy theorists who falsely claimed that then-President Donald Trump was the real winner in that midwestern state. Now, Karamo is the Republican nominee for Michigan secretary of state, and she is hoping to unseat Jocelyn Benson — the Democrat who currently holds that position — in the 2022 midterms.

Trump and his MAGA allies were unsuccessful in their efforts to steal Michigan’s electoral votes from Biden in 2020, and Benson deserves some of the credit. As Michigan secretary of state, Benson forcefully pushed back against the Big Lie. But if Karamo defeats Benson, journalist Elaine Godfrey warns in an article published by The Atlantic on May 22, elections in Michigan will be run by a relentless Big Lie promoter.

“Barring any changes at an upcoming convention in August, and with Republicans poised to have a strong midterm election year, Karamo has a shot at victory in November,” Godfrey explains. “Michigan’s next election chief, in other words, might be one of its foremost election-conspiracy theorists. And what happens in this swing state in 2024 could tip the entire presidential outcome.”

Trump has endorsed the 36-year-old Karamo as well as Matt DePerno, the Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general — a position presently held by Democrat Dana Nessel, an ally of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (who is running for reelection).

“Despite never having held elected office, Karamo already has proved to be an enthusiastic brawler in the GOP’s culture war,” Godfrey observes. “On her theology-and-politics podcast, which she appears to have launched in 2020, Karamo has endorsed the conspiracy theory that left-wing anarchists were behind the January 6 attack on the Capitol. She has warned listeners about ‘conservative imposters’ within the Republican Party, declared herself an ‘anti-vaxxer,’ and called public schools ‘government indoctrination camps,” according to a CNN review. “More integral to Trump’s goals, though, is that Karamo has never backed down from her allegations of fraud, despite the State Senate investigation and multiple state-run election audits. She’s said that Trump, not Biden, is the real winner of Michigan — and the election.”

Jeff Timmer, former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, is a conservative who is highly critical of the GOP’s Trumpified direction in his state — and he views Karamo as dangerous. Timmer has no doubt that Karamo, as Michigan secretary of state, would try to help Trump steal the 2024 election if he were the Republican nominee.

Timmer told The Atlantic, “Without question.… she’ll use her office,” Timmer said. “They want to throw a wrench in the process, create chaos, and muscle through the results they want.”

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https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/**robert-regan-qanon-supporter-who-endorsed-call-kill-biden-fauci-**and-others

no lnx many scary pix

GOP nominee for Michigan legislature is a QAnon supporter who endorsed call to kill Biden, Fauci, and others

Robert Regan used Rumble to push QAnon and calls for violence

WRITTEN BY ERIC HANANOKI

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ALEX KAPLAN

PUBLISHED 03/08/22

From a January 25, 2021, video Regan posted to Rumble

Robert Regan, the GOP-backed nominee for a Michigan state House seat, used the right-wing video site Rumble to endorse the killings of President Joe Biden, Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand and Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, among others.

Regan has also frequently shared right-wing media-fueled conspiracy theories on social media, including advising people to “study” and “apply” QAnon to their lives like they do with the Bible, and falsely claiming that Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman “staged” his famous face down with insurrectionists inside the Capitol on January 6.

Media Matters and other observers have documented how Republican politicians have relied on social media to promote conspiracy theories, often from fringe right-wing outlets.

Regan is an author and businessperson who is the Republican nominee in a special election for a state House seat in Michigan. The Michigan Republican Party has endorsed his candidacy.

He has appeared in right-wing media over the years, including on Fox News, Newsmax, and local western Michigan radio station WOOD.

Regan recently made headlines because of his comments about rape. He appeared in an online video with a right-wing group and compared people saying it’s too late to decertify the 2020 election to saying: “I tell my daughters, well, 'If rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it.'”

Regan has also pushed antisemitism on Facebook. He posted a meme from a pro-Nazi website claiming that feminism “is a Jewish program to degrade and subjugate white men.” He also shared a piece from a fringe site claiming that Jewish people, led by the Rothschild family, were responsible for 9/11, assassinated Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy, and control the banks and media.

Media outlets have also noted that Regan is a 2020 election conspiracy theorist and has claimed that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “fake war just like the fake pandemic.”

Media Matters found numerous other conspiracy theories on his Facebook and Rumble accounts. Here are some -- but not all -- of them.

Regan endorsed a COVID-19 conspiracy theory video that called for killing Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Jacinda Ardern, and Anthony Fauci. Regan used his Rumble account to post a music video that’s been shared on right-wing sites called “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Genocide.” Regan put his campaign logo at the beginning of the video and website address during it. As the title indicates, the video falsely argues that the coronavirus vaccine is causing genocide.

The conclusion of the video contains the lyrics: “Because the government lies one day we’ll see these bastards swing.” The video includes images of prominent individuals next to a guillotine or noose. The targets include, among others, President Joe Biden, Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern and Boris Johnson, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Rumble is a right-wing video platform that has positioned itself as an alternative to YouTube. It is popular with right-wing users because of its lax content moderation and, as a result, is filled with misinformation and toxic rhetoric.

The following are images from the video on Regan’s account:

Robert Regan shared video: Biden

Robert Regan shared video: Arden

Robert Regan shared video: Johnson

Robert Regan shared video: Fauci 1

Robert Regan shared video: Fauci 2

Reagan is a QAnon supporter. Regan has frequently praised QAnon, the violence-linked conspiracy theory that started on message boards and has been embraced by members of the Republican Party.

He made a January 25, 2021, video that he posted to Rumble in which he praised the conspiracy theory and compared studying QAnon to studying the Bible, stating: “Just like Christianity, you want to study your Bible for yourself. You want to observe what it says, interpret what it says, and then apply it to your life. The same thing needs to be happening right here with this movement.” From his video:

[vid?]

Regan has also posted that Q -- the supposed person or persons behind QAnon -- “is spot on with intel” (Regan sometimes refers to “Q” as “Kew”). He also stated that QAnon followers “are over the target and winning” and celebrated pro-QAnon memes.

There are at least 11 members of state legislatures that have expressed some support for QAnon, including Michigan state Rep. Daire Rendon (R).

Here are 7 other examples of Regan embracing QAnon on Facebook:

Robert Regan QAnon WWG1WGA

Facebook link.

(“WWG1WGA,” or “where we go one, we go all,” is a QAnon slogan.)

Robert Regan QAnon storm

Facebook link.

Robert Regan QAnon Bible

Facebook link.

Robert Regan QAnon panic

Facebook link.

Robert Regan QAnon spot on

Facebook link.

Robert Regan QAnon scam

Facebook link.

Robert Regan QAnon phenomenon

Facebook link.

Regan called the January 6 insurrection a “false flag,” “staged,” and a “hoax.” Regan posted pictures of himself in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. (Regan has said he didn’t go inside the Capitol.)

Robert Regan hoax

Facebook link.

Robert Regan MSM staged

Facebook link.

Robert Regan false flag

Facebook link.

Regan posted that Officer Eugene Goodman “staged” his encounter with January 6 insurrectionists. During the January 6 insurrection, Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman famously faced down insurrectionists breaching the Capitol building. Regan claimed: “Staged. This policeman tried almost as hard to keep protestors out of the Capitolas Congressmen tried to keep China out of the Capitol. You know I’m right.”

Robert Regan staged capitol

Facebook link.

Regan posted a meme that listed 9/11 as a government lie. In response to the pandemic, Regan posted a meme that said the government “lied” that “jet fuel melted steel beams.” The claim that fire doesn’t melt steel is a frequently used and debunked claim from 9/11 conspiracy theorists who believe that the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives.

Robert Regan jet fuel

Facebook link.

Regan posted a meme falsely stating that Obama was born in Kenya. Former President Barack Obama was born in the United States despite right-wing media claims otherwise.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/robert-regan-shared-material-blaming-jewish-people-911-presidential

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/convoy-protesting-mandates-in-lansing-mi-leads-to-embarrassing-outcome/

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AN 2 22

A debate between the Republicans running for Michigan attorney general confirmed warnings from reproductive rights advocates that Republicans aren’t going to stop with abortion bans—they’re coming for birth control next. In the last question of last Friday’s debate, all three men said they thought the 1965 Supreme Court decision striking down laws banning the sale of contraception had been wrongly decided, because states’ rights.

At least two of the three candidates did not know what Griswold v. Connecticut was about—which itself is kind of an issue in people campaigning to be Michigan’s top lawyer, since Griswold is a pretty damn famous case. (I literally learned about it in high school, and I am not a lawyer.) But all three agreed, once they learned what it was, that it was bad.

The Connecticut law struck down in Griswold allowed the prosecution of married couples for buying contraception. In Griswold, the Supreme Court said that the law violated the “right to marital privacy,” foreshadowing the privacy right that would be invoked in Roe v. Wade in 1973.

Here’s what the Michigan Republicans seeking to be the state’s top law enforcement officer had to say about the marital right to privacy around birth control decisions.

“Remind me,” Tom Leonard, the former speaker of the state House, said. After an explanation, he was ready to condemn the decision.

“Yeah, okay, I just, and I wanted clarification,” Leonard said. “This case, much like Roe v. Wade, I believe was wrongly decided, because it was an issue that trampled states’ rights and it was an issue that should have been left up to the states.”

State Rep. Ryan Berman literally pulled out his phone during that exchange.

”Yeah, you know what, I wasn’t familiar with Griswold v. Connecticut,but I’m an advanced legal researcher so I pulled it up real quick to look what it’s about,”he said. “And it says the court ruled that the Constitution did in fact protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on contraception. Again, I would have to look more into it and the reasoning behind it, but I’m all about states’ rights and limiting federal judicial activism.”

Matthew DePerno, endorsed by Donald Trump for enthusiastically signing on to the Big Lie about the 2020 elections, had the same basic answer, minus the admission that he didn’t know what he was talking about.

”Listen, all these cases that deal—Griswold, Roe v. Wade, Dobbs— these are all state right issues.I think that’s what we’re gonna see with the US Supreme Court. They’re gonna come down on the side that these liberty issues—number one, the wide expanse that was given on Roe v. Wade and this litany—are unworkable. The Supreme Court has to deal with that, has to decide, mark my words, that the privacy issue currently is unworkable. It’s going to be a state right issue on all of these things—as it should be!”

DePerno wasn’t done. “We need to start defending state rights as attorney generals, across this country,” he said. “Too many people, even in our own party, too many people have lost the idea of what states’ rights means. They haven’t read the works of our Founding Fathers. They haven’t read The Federalist Papers. They continue to push the idea that we need to give rights away to the federal government. We don’t.We need to take state rights back. We need to stand in our borders. When the feds come and try to take our rights, we need to stand as citizens in Michigan and hold the line and protect states’ rights.”

So, yes. Republicans are 100% coming for the right to obtain birth control once the Trump Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, with that decision likely coming this June. Already some states are advancing personhood legislation, which would declare an embryo or fetus to be a legal person. Such laws criminalize abortion, but they also potentially ban forms of birth control like the pill, IUDs, and emergency contraception.

”All 3 Republicans running for Michigan Attorney General just stated that they oppose the ruling in Griswold v Connecticut which outlawed prosecuting married couples for using contraception,”Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel tweeted Friday evening. “You read that right. Terrifying.”

Lots of people who support abortion rights spent years responding lackadaisically to warnings that Republicans were stacking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and legalize abortion bans. Now we see how true those warnings were, as they come to fruition. It’s time to sit up and listen to the warnings that Republicans won’t stop there.

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// robert carone grifter??

an 2 22

no lnx twt

This Michigan Republican and Giuliani 'star witness' promoted Trump’s voter fraud lies — now she’s running for office

Alex Henderson February 21, 2022

In December 2020, MAGA Republican Mellissa Carone was attorney Rudy Giuliani’s “star witness” at a Michigan State House Oversight Committee hearing— where she claimed, with zero proof, that Michigan had been stolen from then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Now, in the 2022 midterms, Carone is running for a seat in the Michigan State Legislature — and she is still promoting the Big Lie.

Journalist Brittany Gibson, in an article published by Politico on February 21, explains, “Carone is one of a large cohort of pro-Trump Republican conspiracy theorists and election deniers running for public office this fall in Michigan, where his baseless claims about a stolen election continue to roil the political landscape. Among those candidates, Carone might be the best known nationally.”

Giuliani was one of Trump’s top attorneys during and after the 2020 election — and the former New York City mayor claimed, in December 2020, that Carone’s testimony would prove that Trump really won Michigan. But she never offered any proof of her over-the-top claims, and election recounts left no doubt that Biden won the state fairly.

Gibson notes, “In an affidavit from November 10, 2020 — six days after the AP called Michigan for Joe Biden — she alleged that some ballots were counted 4 or 5 times; that more than 100,000 ballots were then ‘found’ after vans dropped off food for the poll workers; that poll workers were filling out ballots on behalf of voters — and that her managers, who were responsible for overseeing the voting site where she was present and submitting the data, were incompetent…. She snapped at lawmakers from both parties and went on a tangent about dead people voting.”

Carone’s unhinged testimony was famously mocked in a “Saturday Night Live” skit, with “SNL” star Cecily Strong playing Carone. Carone claimed that Dominion Voting Systems helped Biden steal the election from Trump in Michigan, and the company sent her a cease-and-desist order.

Some of Trump’s allies have endorsed Carone’s 2022 campaign for a Michigan State Legislature seat, including Giuliani and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. But Trump himself has yet to endorse her.

So far, no Democrat in Carone’s district has filed to run for that seat. And Mark Brewer, who formerly chaired the Michigan Democracy Party, believes that Carone has a good chance of winning.

“A lot of the Republican base here, particularly in Macomb County, believes Trump should have been elected, the election was stolen, there should be an audit — I mean, the whole story,” Brewer told Politico. “And that’ll be what Carone will play to. A lot of Republican primary voters believe in the Big Lie …. If she gets through a primary, she could win.”

A Michigan prosecutor revealed that Rudy Giuliani and other Donald Trump allies asked him to seize his county’s voting machinesand hand them over, and a Washington Post reporter explained how the new revelation fits into the final days of his presidency.

Antrim County prosecutor James Rossiter told the newspaper that Giuliani and others called him around Nov. 20, 2020, and pressed him to hand over the voting machines so they could be examined for fraud, as part of an ongoing scheme to undo Trump’s loss in Michigan, and journalist Jackie Alemany explained the significance of her colleagues’ findings to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“Well, it’s amazing, first of all, we are continuing to find so much new information that has yet to be uncovered, which is exactly what the Jan. 6 committee is doing,” Alemany said. “But this story especially is just fairly shocking because it shows them actually trying to implement some of their plans that we’ve seen sketched out in executive orders to seize voting machines. Here is a situation where they dialed in on a specific county and found a reason to do so despite it being obviously quite unconstitutional.”

“Even in the conversations I’ve had just in the past few months there are still a lot of people involved with this effort who believed that these voting machines needed to be seized to be protected so they could prove fraud,” she added. “These people are true believers.”

That revelation came the same day the New York Times revealed that some of the presidential records found stashed at Mar-A-Lago may have contained classified documents, in possible violations of the law, and Alemany said a series of remarks Trump made about Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified material were particularly damning.

“That’s why those clips that were just played are so important for everyone to remember, especially when this investigation might potentially lead to whether or not this was negligence or actually intentional behavior,” Alemany said. “But it is clear that the former president knew exactly what was wrong with doing these things. He called up Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton on ripping up documents, taking classified information, accepting gifts, mischaracterizations because he knew it was politically damaging and gave the appearance of being corrupt. That’s what I think ultimately the DOJ is going to have to do if they decide ultimately to investigate the 15 boxes taken from Mar-A-Lago, which is what the archives has asked them to do according to our reporting yesterday.”

---

bannon?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/michigan-gop/

members of Michigan's Republican Party are installing conspiracy theorists for election-related positions.Although the individuals currently in position have years of experience, they are being replaced with Trump enthusiasts who have no political experience. It appears their only qualification is adhering to the Trump agenda.

According to The Daily Beast, a former official for the Michigan Republican Party have weighed in to express their concern about the disturbing shift in the political party's leadership. The publication reports that Michigan Republican officials are working to put canvassers in place who will continue to support Trump's election-related conspiracy theories.

Jeff Timmer, who was the former executive director of Michigan's GOP, expressed concern about what can be expected in the coming months as he suggested the political party is heading down a "rabbit-hole."

"There's no resistance within the Republican Party," Timmer said. "They are wholly invested, almost to a person, in the delusional Big Lie that there was some widespread irregularity and malfeasance in the last election, and that they need to take extraordinary steps, either by changing laws or in this case, changing elections personnel in order to fix a non-existent problem."

With an alarming number of individuals still buying into Trump's "big lie," Timmer explained how alarming Republicans' efforts are to strategically put people in place who have no problem hijacking democracy.

"It's kind of scary-looking ahead because the Republicans are making no secret about their plans to create chaos and throw a wrench in the gears of the next election," Timmer said, adding, "trying to put people in place who will go beyond what the law allows and do things in the next election that they didn't feel they had people in place to do in the last one."

However, the issue isn't just concerning for traditional Republicans but also Democratic lawmakers. Speaking to The Beast,David Knezek, a Democratic commissioner for Wayne County, also criticized the origin of the latest conspiracy-driven movement.

"Across the country there is a sad and systematic effort to create an alternate reality in which Donald Trump won the 2020 election," Knezek said. "Part of that effort is to seat canvassers who want to perpetuate this lie and call into question the validity of all elections across the country. Americans of both political parties must come together to put aside partisanship and protect our system of democracy by passionately advocating for the truth."

===

why so much militia?

oops montana

https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/the-constitutional-sheriffs-and-peace-officers-association-cspoa-and-richard-mack

no lnx

report

Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) and Richard Mack: How Extremists Are Successfully Infiltrating Law Enforcement

Constitutional Sheriffs

Sections

Key PointsIntroductionThe Emergence of Richard MackMack’s Public Speaking Crusade - Including White Supremacist VenuesRichard Mack and Indoctrinating Law EnforcementMack and CSPOACounty Membership'Training' Law EnforcementPolicy Recommendations

FULL REPORT

KEY POINTS

The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) is an anti-government extremist group whose primary purpose is to recruit sheriffs into the anti-government “patriot” movement.

CSPOA is led by Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who gained celebrity on the right in the 1990s after suing to overturn a prominent gun control measure, the Brady Law, especially after the Supreme Court ruled largely in his favor.

The central tenet of CSPOA, borrowed from the anti-government extremist sovereign citizen movement, is that the county sheriff is the ultimate authority in the county, able to halt enforcement of any federal or state law or measure they deem unconstitutional.

Mack primarily marketed this (false) claim as a way to oppose gun control measures, but in 2020-21, he has also used it to exploit anger and frustration over federal and state measures to combat Covid-19.

Mack crisscrosses the country for speaking engagements where he promotes himself, CSPOA and his county sheriff thesis.

Increasingly, he seeks out law enforcement audiences, billing his extremist events as “trainings.”

In a disturbing development, in 2021, Mack was able to win official state approval for his “trainings” in Montana and Texas, which allows attendees to receive continuing education credit for attending Mack’s events.

---

10/21

after former President Donald Trump urged supporters Friday to attend a rally on the steps of the Michigan Capitol building in Lansing next week in order to demand an audit of the 2020 election in which Trump was soundly defeated by President Joe Biden, at least one top Democrat in the state warns that the ongoing Republican obsession with what has become known as the "Big Lie" is a threat that cannot be ignored.

In his statement on Friday, Trump declared:

Big Michigan Rally coming up on Oct. 12th, on the Capitol steps in Lansing, where Patriots will demand a Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam.The Voter Fraud is beyond what anyone can believe. Anyone who cares about our Great Country should attend, because unless we look to the past and fix what happened, we won't have a future or a Country.

While Tuesday's rally is being organized by the Election Integrity Fund & Force—a non-profit in the state that claims its goal is to curb "attempts to subvert the integrity of our elections"—Trump's promotion of it and his attendance, says state House Democratic Leader Donna Lasinski (D-Scio Township), is as much about the former president's political future as it is about the GOP effort to sow continued doubt over Biden's victory in 2020.

"This is the same inflammatory rhetoric that brought men armed with assault rifles to these very steps last year and endangered the lives of our lawmakers and staff," warned Lasinski Friday night as she referenced events in April of 2020 when armed right-wing protesters stormed the State House as they objected to Covid-19 public health efforts.

"This childish, petulant behavior is not only embarrassingly unbecoming of a former president, it's downright dangerous," Lasinski added. "Efforts like this to undermine faith in our democracy are no longer just about overturning the 2020 election, they're about eroding trust and laying the groundwork to overturn the next election."

While right-wing extremists and GOP apologists for the former president "are stuck in the past reliving Trump's loss," Lasinksi said her party, both in Lansing and in the nation's capital, remain focused on the nation's future by "beating back Covid-19 and bringing billions in relief funding home from D.C. to deliver support for working families."

---

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/vaccinated-2655082656/

mich budget vax mandate

---

Extreme partisan gerrymandering once again saved Michigan Republicans — despite Biden's statewide win

Jeff Singer Daily Kos

June 28, 2021

Daily Kos Elections has calculated the 2020 presidential results for every state Senate and state House district in Michigan, where the GOP's gerrymandered maps will be replaced next year...

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/michigan-gop/

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why so much militia? 1st failed state? big cities black emergency mgrs?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/republican-paramilitaries/

no lnx

ron Johnson said recently that he wasn't scared when, on January 6, armed insurgents sacked and looted the United States Capitol. They "love this country," the Wisconsin Republican said. But "had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa [stormed the seat of government], I might have been a little concerned." [// trump jan 6 turn off the mags]

That statement was disturbing not only for the implicit racism it carried, but for the stunning confirmation of what's becoming clear to those of us who are paying attention. The Republican Party has a paramilitary problem, and it isn't new.

During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump alleged, without proof, that the electoral system was fraudulent, raising concerns about the impact that his false accusations would have in the event of his defeat. His unexpected victory opened the door to the far-right fringe and legitimized efforts that contributed to strengthening the ties between them. Many feared that this close relationship would be critical in the 2020 presidential election cycle, with rising domestic tensions and the role that paramilitaries would play in addition to Trump's false claims about the election.

It has been clear for some time now that the Republican Party had a more-than-welcoming attitude toward certain paramilitary groups.The deadly events in Charlottesville in 2017, although fundamentally led by white supremacists called by the former president "very fine people," also had protection services provided by paramilitaries. The following year, more signs of backing for their man in the White House came from Trump-supporting paramilitary groups targeting Muslims. In Oregon, a walkout staged by Republican state senators, in 2019, gained support from paramilitary groups that made credible threats against a planned rally.

For almost three decades, these paramilitaries (thought to be in the hundreds across the country) have viewed the government as the adversary. With a friend residing in the White House, however, these groups experienced an identity crisis. This need for an enemy explains the shift into targeting immigrants and religious minorities. It wasn't just to please their man. It was to embrace a cause allowing them to grow.

After Trump won, there was an increase in the number of paramilitary groups, but the GOP has been no stranger to them. In 2017, a local chapter of the Republican Party in Oregon passed a resolution allowing paramilitaries (the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, for instance) to provide security at the local party events. These groups are part of the Patriot Movement, a loose far-right network affiliated with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and armed confrontations in Nevada and Oregon in 2016.

The Republican Party seems to be very comfortable with these groups around, as we have seen in Nevada, Oregon, Michigan, and other states. However, this is not a recent venture, since the accounts of strengthening ties can be traced back even before Trump won the election in 2016. The openness about their common interests is perhaps new, but it's not surprising. Alarms were sounded when state Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mike Shirkey of Michigan, participated in a rally organized by paramilitaries that stormed the Michigan Capitol back in April 2020 alongside a member of a group involved in the planned kidnapping of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Though Michigan has a history of paramilitaries, the state GOP had tied itself to them, especially since the election as party co-chair of Meshawn Maddock. She organized a protest to interrupt ballot counting in Detroit, where paramilitaries were present.

Johnson's statement is outrageous, not only for the racism, but also for the approval of white armed groups as opposed to unarmed groups as well as the acknowledgement that he didn't feel threatened by them since they were exercising their freedom. Compare that to his comments about BLM and Antifa, but that's another discussion.

The connections the Republican Party has with paramilitaries are not ambiguous, yet the ongoing investigation into the Capitol attack will likely provide more evidence of the extremely disturbing behavior of the formerly conservative party. Ties between not only Trump and his associates, like Roger Stone, whose security detail included members of the Oath Keepers, but the GOP at state and local levels, should bring into the discussion how one of the major parties in the country is going to stand for democracy while leading a double-life with paramilitaries bent on racial supremacy.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'Cancel culture' is a reactionary fraud and liberals need to stop ... ›

Is the Republican Party fascist? An expert explains the 7 themes that ... ›

Paramilitary 'Oath Keepers' leader says she waited for Trump to ... ›

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How the G.O.P. Allied Itself With Militants - The New York Times ›

Paramilitaries, Republicans and Loyalists | SpringerLink ›

Paramilitaries Are Surging Again in Northern Ireland – Foreign Policy ›

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an 221 he has back-pedaled w/ attn

watch: Michigan Senate majority leader caught on video calling deadly Capitol siege a 'hoax'

Meaghan Ellis

A top-ranking Michigan Republican lawmaker is facing intense criticism after footage captured him...

---

~ AG

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-michigan-2649651269/

Going to get ugly'::(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}::{ Trump supporter uses his work email to threaten ‘mass execution of public officials’

Eric Dolan Raw Story

Michigan state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky (D) on Tuesday called out a supporter of President Donald Trump who sent a threatening email to lawmakers.

"This was sent to my offi....

---

trms: can't rule out violence

michigan House Republican punished for hinting at violent Electoral College disruption

Alex Henderson

December 14, 2020

During a Monday morning appearance on Michigan's WPHM-AM, far-right Republican Gary Eisen — who serves in the Michigan House of Representatives — hinted that he would take actions to disrupt the meeting of the Electoral College. And the Michigan

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/michigan-election/

hunter kos

the Detroit Free Press** reports that the Michigan House and Senate buildings will be closed both to staffers and the public on Monday as the state's electors to the Electoral College meet to cast their votes for the state's presidential winner, Joe Biden. The Capitol was already expected to be closed to the public during the Electoral College meeting; this new, expanded closure also includes the building's legislative staff.

While neither Michigan State Police nor a spokesperson for the House Speaker's office would explain the reason for the closure, other than it being due to "security concerns," State Rep. Kevin Hertel tweeted that it was due to "credible threats" that "have been made as Michigan's electors" meet.

The state has been a hotspot of fascist militia activity. Michigan legislators has been the subject of armed protests by the far right and the Michigan governor, a Democrat, was the intended victim of a domestic terrorism plot in which members of a far-right group sought to kidnap and possibly execute her over the state's pandemic safety measures.

Only a week ago, armed rightwing protesters with the intellect of flatwormsdemonstrated at the house of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over rabid Republican conspiracy theories claiming Joe Biden's win over Donald Trump was fraudulent and/or a conspiracy.

There is no word on what security measures are in place as a response to the apparent "credible" threats aimed at disrupting the electors' official vote. Michigan state Republicans, however, have repeatedly encouraged the state's violent conspiracy theorists, most recently by inviting Trump "lawyers" Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis to present their election conspiracy claims to the Republican-led House.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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an 1220

texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the election results in four states that President-elect Joe Biden won: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin. Michigan's Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel, slammed Paxton for his frivolous lawsuitduring a December 9 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" — stressing that Paxton's "publicity stunt" is showing a deep contempt for democracy. She also compared the barrage of GOP election lawsuits to the character Jason, a hockey mask-wearing serial killer in the "Friday the 13th" series of horror movies.

"This post-election process has been like a 'Friday the 13th moment," Nessel told "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski. "No matter how many times you shoot Jason or you stab Jason or you electrocute Jason, he just keeps on coming back at you over and over again — and he just won't stay down…. The claims (in these lawsuits) have been debunked time and time again, but it continues to erode people's faith and confidence in our electoral system. And that's the real lasting and damaging element of this, unfortunately."

Nessel noted that numerous GOP election lawsuits have been rejected or thrown out in the courts, including a Pennsylvania-related lawsuit that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to even consider. Republican supporters of President Donald Trump have filed one lawsuit after another attacking the election results and claiming, without evidence, that Trump was the victim of widespread voter fraud. Paxton, in his lawsuit, alleges widespread voter fraud in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin but offers no proof of it.

"Everything about this lawsuit is egregious and disturbing," Nessel told Brzezinski. "But we have to take it seriously from the perspective of….. the lasting damage it is doing to our democracy."

According to Nessel, "The Texas AG seeks to overturn the will of the voters in four other states that he certainly does not represent. But he is essentially asking that the slate of electors for Biden in all four of these states — where, of course, the election has already been certified — be instead overturned, and that a slate of electors be chosen by the Republican legislatures to reflect a Trump win in all four states where we know very well that Biden won. And in my state, it was by over 150,000 votes. The vote was not even close."

On "Morning Joe," Nessel also discussed a frightening incident in which armed Trump supporters recently surrounded the home of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and shouted what Benson described as "baseless conspiracy theories about the election." Like Nessel, Benson is part of the Democratic administration of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was recently the target of a kidnapping plot by far-right white nationalists and militia members.

Grateful to state & local law enforcement who are working to protect my family, but by far the biggest thanks of al… https://t.co/IEoDM88nCg

— Jocelyn Benson (@Jocelyn Benson)1607304127.0

Nessel told Brzezinski, "This could all end tomorrow if Donald Trump would do the decent thing and concede the election…. Instead, he continues to cling to their false (accusation) that he was somehow cheated out of this election."

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an 1120

two Republicans on an election board for Michigan's Wayne County want to take back their votes to certify the election results.

The pair agreed to a last-minute compromise Tuesday night after seeking an audit for the vote count in the Detroit area, where they said the results were out of balance, but they complained later they felt threatened into backing the certification, reported the *Washington Post*.

"I rescind my prior vote," wrote Monica Palmer, the board's chairwoman, in an affidavit. "I fully believe the Wayne County vote should not be certified."

The other GOP board member, William Hartmann, signed a similar affidavit, according to the Post.

The board's Democratic vice chairman Jonathan Kinlock said the certified results had already been sent to the secretary of state, so he said it was too late for the Republicans to change their minds.

"Do they understand how they are making us look as a body?" Kinloch said. "We have such an amazing and important role in the democratic process, and they're turning it on its head."

Palmer and Hartmann complained in their affidavits they believed they had a firm commitment to an audit, but Palmer said she felt "misled" because Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson didn't view their resolution asking for the audit as binding.

But Kinloch said the board hadn't even formally asked for the audit, and he said the two GOP member were aware the resolution wasn't binding when they agreed to it.

He told the Post that he had been texting Palmer about the request, saying he had explained that he hand't been able to directly reach Benson's office yet.

Kinloch accused the pair of bowing to pressure from the Republican Party, the White House and Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, who complained Palmer and Hartmann had been subjected to "mob rule."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/michigan-republicans-struggle-with-recognition-of-their-own-roles-in-fueling-militia-kidnap-plot

david n kos

discovering that terrorists can look like the guys next door is a jarring thing, especially if that's not how you've been conditioned to think of such matters. In Michigan this week, cognitive dissonance has been thick on the ground—especially as public officials who came too close to the plotters and their incendiary rhetoric have tried to wrestle with the consequences of last week'sarrests of 13 Michigan militiamenwho schemed to kidnap and assassinate Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

A local sheriff who had appeared onstage at an anti-Whitmer rally this spring suggested to a TV interviewer that maybe the plotters—some of whom he knows personally—were just trying to make a citizens arrest. A Republican state legislative candidate opined that the arrests were "a totally bogus sham." And the state's Republican Speaker of the House, who has helped stoke the incendiary "tyranny" rhetoric that fueled the plotters, chastised Whitmer for pointing out the connection between the plotters' actions and the rhetoric used by Donald Trump and Michigan Republicans. [vid rally w. da bois and dar]

Dar Leaf, the sheriff of Barry County—where two of theaccused domestic terrorists, William and Michael Null, reside and were arrested by the FBI Thursday—told a Grand Rapids interviewer that he believed the men might have been within their rights.

"It's just a charge, and they say a 'plot to kidnap' and you got to remember that. Are they trying to kidnap? Because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested. So are they trying to arrest or was it a kidnap attempt? Because you can still in Michigan if it's a felony, make a felony arrest," Leaf told Fox17 reporter Aaron Parshegian.

He added: "The two gentlemen that I know of from my county, were they involved in that? I don't know. They're innocent till proven guilty. And we really, really should be careful, trying to try them in the media."

The evidence unveiled by the FBI included multiple instances of surveillance of Whitmer's summer home, where the militiamen—who called themselves the Wolverine Watchmen—planned to abduct her, as well as multiple instances in which the men discussed killing her. The evidence also showed that not only had the men originally planned a paramilitary assault on the state Capitol, they also made plans to kill law-enforcement officers. The discussion of a "citizens arrest" of Whitmer was largely rhetorical.

Leaf's comments created an uproar. Shortly after the interview aired, Michigan's attorney general, Dana Nessel, ripped into him on Twitter:

As Michigan's top law enforcement official, let me make this abundantly clear-Persons who are not sworn, licensed members of a law enforcement agency cannot and should not "arrest" government offficials with whom they have disagreements. These comments are dangerous.

Leaf tried to defend the remarks subsequently by insisting that he only wanted to ensure that men weren't being "tried in the media."

"I don't want anybody to think I'm sympathetic towards these charges, right, these are very, very serious charges," he said. "What I don't want is I don't want us to be trying it in the media and we mess it up in the justice system somewhere, 'cause they can't get a fair trial."

Leaf told MLive: "The governor has the right to govern and also the right to be safe." Yet he went on to criticize officials like Whitmer and Nessel for blaming people like Trump and himself for creating an atmosphere empowering fringe groups.Leaf said the militia movement "has been brewing for quite some time" over what he described as "a gradual and growing loss of rights."

In fact, as Jen Hayden explored earlier, Leaf is a member of a law-enforcement organization closely aligned with the "Patriot" militia movement with which the plotters identified. He also was an outspoken critic of Whitmer's anti-COVID-19 pandemic orders.

At aMay 18 "Michigan Patriots Rally" held at Rosa Parks Circle in Grand Rapids, Leaf had appeared onstage with several militiamen, including Michael Null. In his speech, he compared Whitmer's stay-at-home orders to being held unlawfully under house arrest. Leaf had also described Owosso barber Karl Manke—who had defied the governor's order by opening his shop—a "little version of Rosa Parks."

Meanwhile,Republican legislative candidate Paul Smith of Sterling Heights angrily denounced the arrests on Twitter.

"What a totally bogus sham," Smith commented. "These citizens never did anything illegal. Law enforcement is employed to punish people who COMMIT crimes, not people The Governess simply HATES. You can legally hurt Whitmer by voting out her minions."

State Republican leaders were appalled, and announced they had withdrawn financial and other support for Smith's candidacy, calling the remarks "conspiracy theories and hateful remarks."

"If you can't denounce the evil plans and actions of these white nationalists, we don't want you in our caucus," Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield said. "In fact, if there's any 'Republican' who thinks like this guy, we don't want your vote either. We don't support domestic terrorism."

Chatfield, however, also chastised Whitmer for her remarks laying some of the blame at Trump's feet that week: "Just last week, the president of the United States stood before the American people and refused to condemn white supremacists and hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups," Whitmer said, adding that extremists had "heard the president's words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry—as a call to action."

In a Twitter thread, Chatfield criticized Whitmer, claiming she had kept the investigation under wraps: "Why weren't we warned of the plot to take hostages at the Capitol? The plot by these terrorists was against us too. Why weren't House sergeants warned? You knew and we weren't even given a warning. We had people working in the building and their lives matter too." However, it was the FBI, and not Whitmer, who had overseen the sharing of information with potential victims.

Chatfield also suggested that she shared in the blame: "Hatred and violence are wrong, and that's why I've continually denounced it," he wrote. "And I agree, it's time to tone the partisan rhetoric and 'the heat down.' Will you do the same for President Trump? Will the [lieutenant governor] do it to the entire GOP? We have to make this decision together."

However, Chatfield and other leading Michigan Republicans, had played their own not-insignificant roles in whipping up anti-Whitmer hysteria, as Michigan journalist Joshua Pugh pointed out on Twitter. When"Patriot" protesters had locked down Lansing with an anti-Whitmer protest on April 15 that featured Confederate flags and incendiary rhetoric, Chatfield had greeted them by waving a flag out his window and tweeting out encouragement.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey had been even more incendiary.On the floor of the Senate during a subsequent Lansing protest—during which armed militia members were watching from the gallery above—Shirkey had called the governor a tyrant: "If she does not recognize the end of the emergency declaration, we have no other choice but to act," he said, not clarifying what kind of action he intended.

After Thursday's arrests, Shirkey was defiant: "This is no time to be weak in our commitment to freedom," Shirkey told a "Let MI People Go" rally at the Capitol. "We need to be strong…and not be afraid of those who are taking our freedoms away from us."

Shirkey also told the crowd at Thursday's rally that they were not the same people involved in the plot to kill the governor. However, the**Detroit Free Press** identified several of the arrestees as participants at the earlier protests against Whitmer's orders.

In Barry County, Leaf's remarks sparked calls for his resignation. Local residents organized a protest demanding he step down or face a recall movement—but that protest was called off when organizers became concerned about the safety of participants amid the likelihood of armed right-wing counter-protesters.

"Whereas I truly believe in the statement we were trying to make, I cannot in good conscience compromise the safety of my fellow Barry County residents," organizer Olivia Bennett wrote on the event's Facebook page.

"I have come to this conclusion for a couple reasons. First, there were many concerns about confrontational counter protesters. Second, this protest garnered enough attention this weekend that crowd size was a concern given short notice, security, and capacity at the commissioners' meeting."

Bennett tried to clarify that she and other protesters aren't suggesting the sheriff was a participant. "We are not accusing him of having known about the kidnapping plot and we are not accusing him of being a part of it at all," Bennett told MLive. "What I am suggesting is his actions and his words embolden people who would attempt to do such things."

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/michigan-sheriff-implies-that-extremists-arrested-in-plot-to-kidnap-gretchen-whitmer-were-merely-trying-to-arrest-her/

vid

On Thursday, the FBI announced that six men were facing federal charges in connection with an alleged plot to kidnap and possibly kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that seven of their allies were facing weapons charges at the state level.

And in a new local sheriff who had appeared at a rally with some of the suspects made an awkward effort to defend them, implying that perhaps they were merely trying to "arrest" Whitmer rather than kidnap her.

According to the FBI, far-right extremists (including members of the Wolverine Watchmen, a militia group) planned to kidnap Whitmer and take her to Wisconsin, where they would conduct a "trial" for treason. The militia members were furious with Whitmer for the social distancing restrictions that she ordered in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And if they found Whitmer guilty of treason, the FBI said, she would be executed.

But when Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf was interviewed by Fox 17 (a Fox affiliate in Grand Rapids, Michigan), he implied that what the extremists had in mind was not a terrorist plot, but merely a citizens' arrest.

Two of the men facing charges are brothers Michael and William Null, who have been accused of providing support for terrorist acts. Fox 17 aired video that showed Leaf standing alongside William Null at a demonstration in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where both of them protested against Whitmer's stay-at-home order. Leaf was a guest speaker at that event.

Leaf, discussing the Null brothers, told Fox 17, "We can't convict them in the news media here. They do have a right to a fair trial."

Leaf was asked if he had any "regrets" about standing alongside a man who is "now being charged in a plot to kidnap the governor."

He responded, "Well, it's just a charge. And they say a plot to kidnap, and you gotta remember: are they trying to kidnap — because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested. So, are they trying to arrest, or was it a kidnapping attempt? Because in Michigan, if it's a felony, you can make a felony arrest."

Leaf added, "It doesn't say, if you're elected to office, that you're exempt from that arrest. I have to look at it from that angle, and I'm hoping that's more what it is. In fact, these guys are innocent until proven guilty. So, I'm not even sure if they had any part in it."

Leaf's comments are drawing a lot of responses on social media. Twitter user George Schwab, @CpkGeo, posted, "That sheriff needs to go NOW!," and another Twitter user, Eric Brown, @EricBrown1911, wrote, "Words cannot describe the lengths at which people go through to justify ignorance and stupidity."

Detroit-based attorney William Maze, @TheDUILawyer, tweeted, "Insane. But Sheriff Dar Leaf is a member of the far right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) and has links on his page to 'Posse,' which can only refer to the right wing hate group Posse Comitatus."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/gop-groups-in-michigan-sue-to-overturn-late-ballot-ruling/

dETROIT —Three GOP-led groups are making urgent appeals in state court to gain the legal standing needed to appeal and overturn a recent ruling requiring clerks to count late ballots and making changes to the rules governing ballot collection. The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday issued an order that expedites consideration of the requests to intervene and ordered a ruling in at least one of the cases by Wednesday. The potential challenges from the GOP-led Legislature, the Republican National Convention and the Michigan Republican Party stemmed from a Sept. 18 ruling by state Court of Claims Ju......

AFTER KASICH OHIO FLIPPED

Thursday, The Detroit News reported that former Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI) announced he would be voting for Joe Biden in November — blasting President Donald Trump as a “bully.”

“As a proud nerd, I had to deal with bullies over many years,” wrote Snyder in an op-ed for the USA TODAY network. “It is tragedy watching our world suffer from one.”

Snyder is best known for being the governor who presided over the Flint water crisis, where thousands of people were exposed to lead after the city switched water supplies on the demand of state-appointed emergency managers.

“Other Michigan Republicans endorsing Biden include former Congressman Joe Schwarz, former Congressman Dave Trott, former Michigan Chamber of Commerce legal counsel Bob LaBrant, Sterling Heights Mayor Michael Taylor and former state Reps. Doug Hart, Mikey Knight and David Maturen, according to Biden’s website,” said the report.

an 520

Moore says he knows the armed protesters at the Liberate Michigan protests — and they’re frauds

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/republican-corruption-and-carelessness-led-to-devastation-in-michigan-does-trump-even-care

Trump spent another week feuding with a Democratic governor, this time as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer dealt with historic levels of rainfall which led to the collapse of a pair of privately-owned dams in the state. Instead of momentarily pausing his politics of petty revenge, Trump made matters worse, as is his wont.

The president diverted already strained resources for a campaign stop in Michigan that doubled as a political stunt, advertising his personal refusal to wear a mask, even in settings where everyone else is required to. Trump’s antagonistic rhetoric towards a state that is facing multiple life-or-death crises at the same time was widely criticized. But what he did more quietly did this week reveals just how vulnerable his deregulatory actions have left America.

In a move strikingly reminiscent of the Ukraine scandal, Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to threaten to withhold federal funding from Michigan, even as floodwaters from the two breached dams forced thousands of residents of the city of Midland to flee their homes. Trump apparent goal was to coerce Michigan officials not to send vote-by-mail applications to the state’s 7.7 million registered voters vote-by-mail. As usual, the president was unclear about exactly what funding he had in mind. Hours later he sent another tweet claiming that his administration had already activated military and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response teams but said Gov. Whitmer “must now ‘set you free’ to help.” Whitmer said at a news briefing on Tuesday that she had already contacted federal officials for help and activated the National Guard. Once again, nobody really knows what Trump was talking about.

Nevertheless, the salient point here is that the president of the United States, after witnessing the flooding of an entire region amid a major public health crisis rages on was to suggest, in public, that the government and people of Michigan owed him something in exchange for federal aid. Trump then traveled to a Ford plant in Michigan on Thursday and offered this explanation for the failure of the privately-owned dams: “Perhaps there was a mistake."

like many disasters, the beginnings of the Michigan dam failures are far removed in time from the actual even, but this event can hardly be described as a mistake. All indications are that this week’s historic flooding was caused by years of neglect and mismanagement of a public good that was co-opted for private profit. It doesn’t help that the headquarters of **Dow Chemical, including a Superfund site with known cancer-causing chemicals, is directly downstream of all this floodwater.

The owner of the breached dams, Lee Mueller, who heads a company called Boyce Hydro, has been cited numerous times in recent years. State regulators had even revoked one of the company’s four dam operating license in 2018 over an inability to handle a major flood. At least two of Boyce Hydro’s dams were identified as being “high hazard,” meaning that according to the National Dam Safety Program and FEMA, loss of life would likely result if they failed or were incorrectly operated.

The potential failure of the Edenville Dam, wrote federal regulators, “would pose a very substantial risk to life and property, and Boyce has repeatedly failed to comply with the orders of the Regional Engineer and other Commission staff or to work with Commission staff to resolve these instances of noncompliance, notwithstanding being given many opportunities to do so.” The dam was flagged as unable to handle heavy rainfall as long ago as the 1990s. But Mueller, a Trump supporter who publicly backed the president against impeachment in a Reuters article last year, didn’t want to pay to repair them. After years of delay, Boyce Hydro finally agreed to sell the dams to a task force of residents from four neighboring counties who hoped to implement overdue repairs. This is yet another example of the wealthy privatizing their profits and socializing the losses.

The Army Corps of Engineers says more than half of the nation’s 91,458 dams are privately owned, and according to E&E News, a majority of them are more than 50 years old. Jokes about Trump’s always-impending and never-arriving “Infrastructure Week” have long gone stale, but it’s worth remembering that increased infrastructure spending, like the kind needed to upgrade the nation’s aging water infrastructure, was one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises.

“We have a great plan and we are going to rebuild our infrastructure,” Trump _{said}_on Fox Business Network in an August 2016 appearance. He further claimed that the numbers Hillary Clinton was proposing ($275 billion) was “a fraction of what we’re talking about, we need much more money than that to rebuild our infrastructure. Well, I would say at least double her numbers and you’re going to really need more than that. We have bridges that are falling down.”

After taking office with Republican control of both chambers of Congress, Trump increased his theoretical ask to $1 billion. While Trump did sign a 2018 water infrastructure bill, that legislation, which passed the Senate 99-1, was a bipartisan reauthorization of $6 billion in federal funding for state-level projects and must be renewed every two years. In contrast, Trump signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era environmental standards that required the federal government to account for climate change in infrastructure projects, and also directed agencies to loosen water regulations in California.

Like Trump, the owner of Boyce Hydro tried to blame environmental regulations as the cause of his negligence. The company complained that the state had threatened it with litigation because lower water levels were killing freshwater mussels. “The state agencies clearly care more about mussels living in the impoundment than they do about the people living downstream of the dams,” Mueller said in a statement.

But even as some Republicans are reportedly lobbying for Trump to revisit his pledge to invest in infrastructure — pandemic relief funding provides “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give a facelift to the country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNN — the president awarded the largest federal building contract of his entire term in office this week. It was for his border wall. The Washington Post reports that the $1.3 billion deal to build just 42 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border was awarded to a company that has only one other border contract, and is currently under investigation by the Defense Department inspector general:

The company that won the contract, Fisher Sand and Gravel, has been repeatedly lauded by the president in White House meetings with border officials and military commanders, the result of a long and personalized marketing pitch to Trump and ardent supporters of his barrier project.

After its initial bids for border contracts were passed over, the company and its CEO, Tommy Fisher, cut a direct path to the president by praising him on cable news, donating to his Republican allies and cultivating ties to former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, GOP Senate candidate Kris Kobach and other conservative figures in Trump’s orbit.

This is what happens when conservatives decide to utilize an infrastructure budget to subsidize profitable businesses. It rained a lot in Michigan this week, but the private corporation in charge of the dam let this devastating flood happen as a direct result of its neglect and cost-cutting. And that’s without considering the downstream effects of the Dow Chemical plant, which is likely to make the danger and death from this flood much worse. Republicans, of course, will pretend to be mystified.

5/20 massive flood (agw?) dow? chem superfund

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21052020/michigan-dams-flooding-climate-change-storms-extreme-weather

The flooding disaster in Michigan this week emphasized, in stark reality, the warnings by scientists that climate change is causing heavier and more frequent rainstorms in many parts of the country, including the upper Midwest.

Old dams are at risk of failing under the pressure of torrential rains. And in the hours leading up to Tuesday's failure of two dams about 150 miles northwest of Detroit, about eight inches of rain fell in the watersheds that drain into the Tittabawassee River.

First the 1920s-vintage Edenville dam broke, sending water rushing down the river to Sanford Lake. That deluge overtopped and breached the Sanford Lake dam, officials said, prompting the evacuation of 11,000 people, the flooding of the city of Midland and the inundation of its sprawling Dow Chemical Company complex.

At the Dow plant, the water flooded a containment pond, prompting environmentalists to fear that a toxic brew could spill into the river. That could set back years of downriver cleanup of the pollution from more than a century of chemical production at Dow's chemical manufacturing plant, they said. ,...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/maga-extremists-worried-about-mail-in-voting-and-obamagate-as-michigan-is-battered-by-coronavirus-unemployment-and-severe-flooding/

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has had a lot to deal with this week, from the coronavirus pandemic and job losses to severe flooding in parts of her state. But where there are real problems, there are also far-right extremists and diehard MAGA voters obsessing over non-issues — and journalist Tim Alberta, in an article for Politico, examines some of the things they have been focusing on in that key battleground state.

On May 21, President Donald Trump visited Michigan — where he hasn’t been shy about offering political red meat for his MAGA base.

“Just 24 hours before he arrived in Michigan,” Alberta notes, “the president launched a dangerous disinformation campaign, accusing the secretary of state of going ‘rogue’ by illegally sending absentee ballots to every Michigan voter. He threatened to block funding to Michigan — a state beleaguered by multiple converging disasters, including one that was unfolding just as the tweet was sent: ‘if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!’”

At a time when coronavirus and flooding are a double whammy in Michigan, Trump and his hardcore MAGA base are worried about mail-in ballots being a source of voter fraud in the state. But truth be told, voting by mail is something that Republicans have a long history of supporting. And as Alberta explains, Trump is promoting fear over a problem that doesn’t exist.

In Michigan, Alberta writes, “Voters were sent applications to vote absentee, a practice consistent with a newly adopted Michigan law — a law that exists in other states, red and blue alike. The Michigan GOP has itself sent out applications. There is nothing sordid or illegitimate going on; both parties here understand the rules of the game and are attempting to master them before November. But Trump is playing his own game.”

Politico interviewed an abundance of MAGA voters in Michigan on May 21, and found that they bought into Trump’s bogus voter fraud claims.

“In conversation after conversation with voters here Thursday,” Alberta reports, “Trump supporters repeatedly — and completely unsolicited — say Democrats are attempting to steal the election from the president.”

Michigan is also where far-right wingnuts have been holding raucous anti-shutdown rallies, declaring that Whitmer’s stay-at-home order is an anti-Trump conspiracy and that she is exaggerating the dangers of coronavirus. “Obamagate” is another non-issue MAGA voters are buying into.

But according to polls, most Michigan residents approve of the way Whitmer has handled the coronavirus crisis.

A statewide poll by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, released May 20, found that 86% of Michigan voters believe that COVID-19 is a threat to public health — not a hoax. The poll also found that 69% of Michigan voters believe that the recent anti-shutdown protests in Lansing sent the wrong message and that only 11% of Michigan voters refuse to wear a mask in public when they go out.

The poll found 64% approval for Whitmer’s coronavirus response; that figure includes voters in general, but the number leaps to 96% approval among Democrats. Among independents, the number was 65%.

Recent polls have also found Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in Michigan by 6% (Public Policy Polling), 3% (Change Research) or 8% (Redfield & Wilton Strategie

roberts says 2nd time state legis closed by guns, 1st Oregon]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/michigan-cancels-legislative-session-to-avoid-armed-protesters?sref=Zd9D2evu

may 14

Michigan closed down its capitol in Lansing on Thursday and canceled its legislative session rather than face the possibility of an armed protest and death threats against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

The gathering, meant to advocate opening the state for business despite the coronavirus pandemic, followed one April 30 that resulted in pictures of protesters clad in military-style gear and carrying long guns crowding the statehouse. They confronted police and taunted lawmakers.

The shutdown was done with little fanfare at the end of Wednesday’s State Senate session. About 4:30 p.m., lawmakers in the Republican-majority chamber simply adjourned until Tuesday rather than call the next previously scheduled meeting for Thursday morning at 10 a.m. The Michigan State Police are closing the buildings due to the coronavirus, said spokesman Lieutenant Brian Oleksyk.

For the past week, lawmakers have been debating how to safely enable lawmakers to work and vote in session while the state’s laws allow people to bring firearms into the capitol building. The debate grew more tense in recent days as some lawmakers read about threats to the governor’s life on social media, which were published in the Detroit Metro Times.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel issued an opinion on May 11 saying that the State Capitol Commission -- a body of six lawmakers who oversee the building and its grounds -- could ban firearms. The commission voted to study a ban this week, but took no action.

Thursday’s protest, billed as “Judgment Day,” was organized by the right-wing group Michigan United for Liberty, which is protesting the state’s extended stay-at-home order. Whitmer pushed the order to the end of May while giving automakers, their suppliers and other manufacturers the green light to go back to work. On its Facebook page, the group posted a memo asking that protesters remain peaceful.

[pix: Protesters gather outside the doors of the chamber room at the Michigan Capitol Building on April 30.

Photographer: Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg]

Still, lawmakers feared a repeat of April 30, when armed protesters entered the Senate Chamber and stood above them in a visitors gallery during the session.

State Senator Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat, on Tuesday proposed a bill to ban firearms in the capitol building. The bill has heavy support from her party.

[dl jokerboogaloo pix]

https://www.**aljazeera**.com/news/2020/05/trump-calls-michigan-protesters-armed-good-people-200501181644301.html

no lnx pix vid twt

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NEWS/UNITED STATES

Trump calls Michigan protesters, some armed, 'very good people'

Hundreds of protesters, some armed, descended on the Michigan Capitol demanding an end to state's coronavirus lockdown.

1 May 2020

Protesters carry rifles near the steps of the Michigan State Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan, the United States [Paul Sancya/AP Photo] [Daylife]

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United States President Donald Trump on Friday voiced support for protesters, some armed with rifles, after they entered the capitol building in the US state of Michigan and demanded that Governor Gretchen Whitmer lift strict coronavirus lockdown orders, causing some lawmakers to reportedly don bulletproof vests.

[More:

US doctors go online to reveal 'bold, loud' coronavirus truths

US doctors, nurses on coronavirus front line beg for critical PPE

Coronavirus: Overwhelmed US funeral homes turn families away]

"The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire," Trump tweeted. "These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal."

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.

210K

5:42 AM - May 1, 2020

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Dozens of demonstrators crowded the lobby of the building in Lansing on Thursday, where they demanded to be allowed inside the chamber of the Michigan House of Representatives.

State police blocked them from entering the chamber, which was closed to the public to allow room for state representatives and reporters to spread apart.

The demonstration, dubbed the American Patriot Rally, was organised by a group calling itself Michigan United for Liberty.

US anti-lockdown protests

People gather near the North Carolina Legislative Building to protest the current stay-at-home orders issued by Governor Roy Cooper amid the current coronavirus outbreak in Raleigh, North Carolina [Gerry Broome/AP Photo]

"We do not agree with or consent to our unalienable rights being restricted or rescinded for any reason, including the COVID-19 pandemic," the group said on its private Facebook page, where it has more than 8,800 members.

It was the second time this month that protesters have demanded Whitmer lift lockdown restrictions in the state, which has seen more than 3,500 people killed by the coronavirus, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

On April 16, around 3,000 protesters, some of them also armed, descended on Lansing for "Operation Gridlock," causing a massive traffic jam around the capital building.

A day later, Trump appeared to lend his support to them and scattered protests elsewhere, tweeting "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!"

That tweet and similar ones drew widespread criticism, with one governor accusing the president of "fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies".

Public, judicial support

Thursday's protest came a day after a Michigan court ruled that stay-at-home directives issued by Whitmer on March 24 do not infringe on residents' constitutional rights, according to local media reports.

Anti-lockdown protests, many organised by conservative or some fringe groups, have sprung up across the US, including a small demonstration in New York and a larger one in California on Friday. But the protests appear to have little public support.

NBC 7 San Diego

@nbcsandiego

WATCH: Large crowds gathered in Huntington Beach to protest the closure of Orange County beaches -- which Gov. Gavin Newsom closed because of large crowds at area beaches. http://on.nbc7.com/7gWO4Ts

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12:57 PM - May 1, 2020

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Whitmer

Whitmer is reportedly being considered for vice presidential nomination in the United States [File: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images/AFP]

Whitmer's handling of the virus crisis has been met with a generally favourable response, and polls show public anxiety about reopening before adequate testing and a vaccine are developed.

A PBS Newshour/NPR/Marist poll of 1,008 respondents released on April 29 found that without further testing, 91 percent of people think allowing large groups to attend sporting events is a bad idea - and 85 and 80 percent think children returning to school and restaurants opening for customers to eat inside are bad ideas, respectively.

This poll is roughly in line with others on the same subject.

Whitmer has previously stated that it is fine to be angry, but the restrictions are necessary.

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Michigan is an extraordinary place to live because of the people who call it home. There are millions of Michiganders doing their part to slow the spread of #COVID19 every single day. We are going to get through this together," Whitmer tweeted Thursday after the protests, without commenting directly.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3makv/protestors-with-guns-and-no-masks-swarmed-the-michigan-state-capitol-to-protest-the-coronavirus-lockdown

no lnx pix

People With Guns (and No Masks) Swarmed the Michigan State Capitol to Protest the Coronavirus Lockdown

Some state legislators, anticipating the possibility of violence, had even come to work that day wearing bulletproof vests.

By Tess Owen

Apr 30 2020,

Hundreds of protesters — including heavily armed men — crowded into Michigan’s state Capitol building Thursday as Republican House legislators were voting to sue the Democratic governor over coronavirus lockdown measures.

Some legislators, anticipating the possibility of violence, had even come to work that day wearing bulletproof vests.

Earlier in the day, the demonstrators, many in MAGA hats or carrying signs promoting QAnon slogans or bizarre coronavirus conspiracies, stood outside in the pouring rain by the Capitol. Hours later, the group — most not wearing masks — moved indoors and crowded into the hallways, where they jostled for space and demanded to be let in to the legislative chambers. One reporter covering the protest was accidentally hit in the head with a rifle. (She’s fine, but she was shocked by the lack of attention to social distancing).

While the protest was happening, the Republican-led Michigan House voted against an extension of the pandemic-related emergency declaration and prepared to sue Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The Right has villainized her for the steps she’s taken to contain the spread of coronavirus in Michigan.

Some of the protesters even chanted “Lock her up.” And when Republicans came out to tell the crowd about the outcome of the vote, the demonstrators cheered.

Thursday’s “American Patriot Rally” was organized by a group called Michigan United for Liberty. Facebook removed their event page for the protest last week. Its members had organized one of the first anti-lockdown protests, on April 7, which was much smaller in size. Since then, more than 90 anti-lockdown protests have gone down in 46 states, according to an analysis by VICE News.

On Wednesday, a judge had ruled that Whitmer’s measures were constitutional. She wanted to extend the emergency declaration, which expires late on Thursday, for another 28 days. The vote won’t impact Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, however, which remains in effect until May 15.

“Governor Whitmer understands that this is a frustrating time and that many people are angry,” her office said in a statement. “The governor supports Michiganders' right to free speech and the right to protest, but those participating should not put themselves or first responders at risk.”

“It’s disappointing to see people congregating without masks, and without practicing social distancing,” it added. “ This kind of activity will put more people at risk, and it could mean that more people will die.”

Guns are allowed inside the Michigan Capitol, which has no metal detectors. But protesters aren’t allowed to carry signs or posters in case they damage the historical interior.

Michigan has the third-highest death toll from coronavirus in the country. So far, 3,800 people have died, and nearly 42,000 have gotten sick. The U.S. hit a grim milestone on Wednesday, surpassing 60,000 deaths.

Cover: Protesters try to enter the Michigan House of Representative chamber and are being kept out by the Michigan State Police after the American Patriot Rally organized by Michigan United for Liberty protest for the reopening of businesses on the steps of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan on April 30, 2020.

https://www.the GUK .com/us-news/2020/apr/18/coronavirus-americans-protest-stay-at-home

no lnx many pix

Thousands of Americans backed by rightwing donors gear up for protests

Conservative activists to demand governors lift stay-home orders – and movement has been driven by wealthy conservative groups

Adam Gabbatt

@adamgabbatt

Sat 18 Apr 2020 06.00 EDT...

Many of the rallies have been inspired by a protest at the Michigan state capitol.

Many of the rallies have been inspired by a protest at the Michigan state capitol. Photograph: Matthew Dae Smith/AP

Thousands of people are preparing to attend protests across the US in the coming days, as a rightwing movement against stay-at-home orders, backed by wealthy conservative groups and promoted by Donald Trump, continues to take hold.

Conservative activists are demanding governors lift orders designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, despite the recommendations of public health officials. Trump, who has clashed with Democratic governors over how soon to reopen the US economy, tweeted his support on Friday, in an unprecedented endorsement of civil disobedience by a sitting president.

Many of the planned rallies have been inspired by a protest at the Michigan state capitol on Wednesday, which was attended by thousands.

2:09

Armed protesters demand an end to Michigan's coronavirus lockdown orders – video

Yet while organisers claim the protests are grassroots- and people-driven, a closer look reveals a movement driven by traditional rightwing groups, including one funded by the family of Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos.

The rallies have drawn comparisons to the Tea Party movement, which sprang into life in 2009 following the election of Barack Obama and was driven in part by Americans for Prosperity, a group founded by rightwing donors Charles and David Koch.

As with the Tea Party, the anti-stay-at-home movement has been promoted by a rightwing media eager for the economy to reopen, including Fox News which on Friday aired a segment on protests in Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota. Two minutes later, Trump tweeted to his 77.4 million followers the need to “liberate” those states.

1:40

'They seem very responsible to me': Trump defends anti-lockdown protesters- video

A majority of Americans support the lockdowns, with a Pew Research Center poll finding that 66% are concerned state governments will lift restrictions on public activity too quickly. But protests, helped by media coverage, have spread around the country.

The two groups behind the “operation gridlock” rally in Michigan on Wednesday have ties to the Republican party and the Trump administration.

The Michigan Freedom Fund, which said it was a co-host of the rally, has received more than $500,000 from the DeVos family, regular donors to rightwing groups.

The other host, the Michigan Conservative Coalition, was founded by Matt Maddock, now a Republican member of the state house of representatives. The MCC also operates under the name Michigan Trump Republicans, and in January held an event featuring several members of the Trump campaign.

“Absolutely the Michigan event was a huge inspiration and it was a huge success,” said Evie Harris, organizer of a ReOpen Maryland protest planned for the state capitol on Saturday.

“That was the model for our event.”

Thousands drove to the Michigan state capitol in Lansing, while the Michigan Freedom Fund purchased Facebook advertising to promote the rally. Protesters, many waving Trump campaign signs, honked their horns and chanted for Governor Gretchen Whitmer to end the stay-at-home rules.

The protest was covered exhaustively by the rightwing media.Harris said her Facebook following grew from “700-800 people” to more than 15,000 members following the Michigan rally, inspiring her to organize “Operation Gridlock Annapolis” for Saturday.

Harris said her group had support from some elected officials in Maryland, but declined to name them.

While ReOpen Maryland might not have funding from rightwing advocacy groups, it appears to be linked to at least four other “reopen” organizations.

“Government mandating sick people to stay home is called quarantine,” ReOpen Maryland said. “However, the government mandating healthy citizens to stay home, forcing businesses and churches to close is called tyranny.”

That text is identical to text on Facebook pages calling for rallies in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Virginia. ReOpen Virginia aims to hold its own “gridlock” rally on Wednesday – again inspired by the conservative-funded Michigan event.

Despite ReOpen Virginia billing itself as a “grassroots group of people and small business owners”, founder Kristen Lynne Hall said the idea for the protest came from the organizers of the “Lobby Day” demonstration earlier this year.

That demonstration was organized by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group that has donated tens of thousands of dollars to politicians.

Hall, who said Candace Owens, a rightwing activist and favorite of Trump, had been in touch to discuss the event, said the president’s tweet about “liberating” Virginia was “great”.

“It could be spreading the movement,” she said. “Any support is appreciated right now.”

A decade ago, the Tea Party movement billed itself as “grass roots”, despite receiving money from the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the conservative organization FreedomWorks.

Jenny Beth Martin, who founded the Tea Party Patriots group, promoted this week’s Michigan protest. The Tea Party Patriots also supported the protest, in messages to its 200,000 Twitter followers.

Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, said the similarities between the Tea Party and ReOpen movements went further, with rightwing media boosting both.

Fox News ran favorable coverage of the Michigan rally and hosts including Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro endorsed the protest.

“Fox gave the Tea Party a phenomenal amount of attention and promotion,” Gertz said. “It really sort of boot-strapped it to another level, and made it a political force, and we see something similar happening with these anti-stay-at-home order movements.”

Gertz said he was not “simply” concerned with “the conservatives having a strong election the next time out”.

“It’s a real chance for devastating consequences with regard to the coronavirus,” he said.

no lnx pix video twet

https://www.ajc.com/news/trump-defends-angry-protesters-who-stormed-michigan-capitol-with-rifles/Lcmt25QHIoZcRDjU5xHOeP/

www.ajc.com

Members of the Michigan Liberty Militia, including Phil Robinson, right, join protesters at a rally at the state Capitol Thursday in Lansing, Michigan. Hoisting American flags and handmade signs, protesters returned to the state Capitol to denounce Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-home order and business restrictions due to COVID-19.

Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Associated Press

Trump defends angry protesters who stormed Michigan Capitol with rifles

NEWS May 01, 2020

By ArLuther Lee, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

State lawmakers report wearing bulletproof vests to work during ongoing demonstrations by militia members

President Donald Trump is defending hundreds of protesters angry about stay-at-home orders who marched into the Michigan Capitol on Thursday, some armed with rifles, and tried to force their way to the chamber floor but were blocked by state police.

“Let us in! Let us in!” the jostling crowd shouted inside the statehouse, according to multiple news reports. It is legal to carry firearms inside the Capitol, according to The New York Times, but demonstrations are not permitted on the House floor. Thursday’s “American Patriot Rally” in Lansing was ignited after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed three executive orders Thursday, renewing a state of emergency that will keep residents under stay-at-home orders through May 28.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wants people to stay at home longer.

Photo: Associated Press

Her action came after the state’s Republican-led Legislature refused to extend her original emergency declaration, which expired Thursday night. Reports say state lawmakers want to strip the governor of her power to declare emergencies.

“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.” — President Donald Trump said in a tweet

“While some members of the Legislature might believe this crisis is over, common sense and all of the scientific data tells us we’re not out of the woods yet,” she said. “By refusing to extend the emergency and disaster declaration, Republican lawmakers are putting their heads in the sand and putting more lives and livelihoods at risk. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Lock her up!” chants could also be heard inside the statehouse Thursday.

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.

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Trump tweeted about the episode Friday, calling the protesters “very good people.”“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.”Photographs from inside the statehouse Thursday showed a scene of mutiny, with men brandishing semi-automatic long guns in a gallery above lawmakers, screaming anti-government slogans, according to reports. Hundreds more demonstrators were outside the building. The Guardian reported a protest sign outside the statehouse that read: “Tyrants get the rope.” Other signs said: “Stop the tyranny!” and “Freedom over fear!”

Craig Mauger

@CraigDMauger

A sign currently on the lawn:

View image on Twitter

Legislators were concerned enough about the ongoing protests that some have begun wearing bulletproof vests to work. “Some of my colleagues who own bulletproof vests are wearing them,” state Sen. Dayna Polehanki wrote Thursday on Twitter, with an accompanying photo of the demonstrators above her.

Senator Dayna Polehanki

@SenPolehanki

Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us. Some of my colleagues who own bullet proof vests are wearing them. I have never appreciated our Sergeants-at-Arms more than today. #mileg

View image on Twitter

The armed militia group leading Thursday’s protest appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of extreme anti-government groups. Reports said the crowd included a mix of the Michigan Liberty Militia and people carrying signs in support of Trump, who three weeks ago called for his followers to defy state lockdowns and “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA! and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” »

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MORE: CDC director warns virus could come back stronger, deadlier in fall]

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The resulting protests have skirted social distancing restrictions that were supposed to be in place nationwide until at least April 30 but were supplanted by a new White House plan for a gradual reopening of the country. Some at Thursday’s protest wore protective face masks. At least 31 states are set for a gradual reopening of businesses that started a week ago amid the pandemic. »

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MORE: Fauci says reopening too quickly will ‘backfire’

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The nation’s top health experts have warned that reopening the economy too soon would lead to a resurgence of virus infections. Many governors, including Whitmer, are choosing to follow the advice.Michigan has the third-highest death toll in the nation after New York and New Jersey. “For anyone to declare mission accomplished means they’re turning a blind eye to the fact that over 600 people have died in the last 72 hours,” Whitmer said at a virtual town hall Thursday night.A new poll Friday by ABC News found most Americans said they felt uneasy about returning to normal, with only some saying they would visit a restaurant or bar if the coronavirus restrictions were lifted now.

Similar scene in January

On January 31, armed protesters entered Kentucky's state Capitol in Frankfort after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam pushed for new gun control measures. The episode along with ongoing threats led Northam to declare a state of emergency.

Getty Images News

@GettyImagesNews

Gun rights activists carrying semi-automatic firearms walk through the Capitol Building on January 31, 2020 in Frankfort, Kentucky. ??: @woolstonphoto

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter

According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, visitors to the Kentucky Capitol building are banned from entering with items like umbrellas or protest signs that can be “used as weapons,” but guns and rifles are permitted.

Joe Gerth

@Joe_Gerth

Weirdest thing about guns in the Kentucky Capitol: if you have one, you’re told to walk around the metal detector. Others must pass through and get wanded.

Embedded video

walks back https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/anti-lockdown-protests-are-imploding-because-the-koch-network-has-soured-on-them-columnist/

post Mich guns?

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https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/496550-michigan-governor-backs-banning-guns-inside-state-capitol-after-armed

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said this week that she is in favor of banning guns from being brought inside the state Capitol after protesters entered the building brandishing firearms last week.

“There are legislators who are wearing bulletproof vests to go to work,” Whitmer told NBC News in an interview on Wednesday. "No one should be intimidated by someone who's bringing in an assault rifle into their workplace.”

“And so there is conversation about changing that law,” she continued. “I think it's long overdue, and I absolutely support that change. You shouldn't be intimidated going to be the voice of the people who elected you.”

Hundreds of demonstrators, some of them armed, descended on the Capitol last week to protest the governor’s stay-at-home order and demand that she and state legislators reopen businesses in Michigan, a state that has been among those hardest-hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

While Whitmer said in her interview that there’s “no question that there's intense pressure to reopen, whether it's coming from the White House or the people of our state,” she maintained that data collected so far about the international outbreak “tells us COVID-19 is still a very real threat in this country, all across the country.”

“So while we've been able to achieve some flattening of the curve, we are by no means done with COVID-19, and that's why we've got to be really smart,” she said....

scary pix

no lnx twt

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-protestors-with-guns-in-michigan-capitol-are-very-good-people-2020-5

Trump calls protesters who carried guns into the Michigan Capitol 'very good people' and says the governor should 'make a deal' with them

Grace Panetta

Michigan protest .JPGMichigan protest .JPG

[pix A militia group with no political affiliation from Michigan stands in front of the governor's office after protesters occupied the Capitol in Lansing on Thursday during a vote on extending Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's emergency declaration and stay-at-home order in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Seth Herald/Reuters

In a tweet on Friday morning, President Donald Trump described protesters in Michigan as "very good people."

On Thursday, hundreds of protesters — many of them carrying guns — descended on the Michigan Capitol to oppose Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's extension of the state's stay-at-home order.

"The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire," Trump wrote. "These are very good people,but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal."

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In a tweet on Friday morning, President Donald Trump described protesters in Michigan as "very good people" and suggested that the governor should strike a deal with them.

On Thursday, hundreds of protesters — many of them carrying guns — descended on the Michigan Capitol to oppose Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's extension of the state's stay-at-home order by another two weeks, to May 15.

"The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire," Trump wrote. "These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal."

It is unclear what kind of a deal Trump was referring to. While Whitmer extended the order, telling citizens to stay home and keeping nonessential businesses closed, she also relaxed some of the restrictions in the original order.

Michigan residents are still required to follow social-distancing guidelines but are now allowed to travel between their main and second homes, go out boating, and play golf.

Michigan, one of the states hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, is not close to meeting the Trump administration's own guidelines for reopening economies and lifting stay-at-home orders, one of which is experiencing 14 days of declining positive cases.

As of Thursday, Michigan health officials had reported more than 41,000 COVID-19 cases in the state and 3,789 deaths, with 980 new cases and 119 new deaths reported on Wednesday.

Also on Thursday, Whitmer issued a new executive order extending Michigan's state of emergency for 28 days. The Republican-led Michigan House of Representatives had declined her request to extend the declaration that was expiring, and it authorized a lawsuit challenging her emergency authority.

Whitmer's stay-at-home order, now extended to May 15, and emergency order, extended to May 28, keep "places of accommodation" like restaurants, bars, movie theaters, and gyms from providing in-person services, while still allowing restaurants to offer take-out and delivery.

Protesters have demonstrated against stay-at-home orders at capitols in dozens of states. But Thursday's protests in Michigan were the starkest example yet of protesters actually entering a capitol while the legislature was in session — and bringing weapons with them.

Trump has previously expressed support for people protesting lockdown orders in multiple states, calling to "LIBERATE" Michigan, Virginia, and Minnesota in a series of tweets on April 17.

Some protesters also carried signs referring to Whitmer as a "tyrant" and others even comparing her to Hitler.

Jarring photos and videos shot on Thursday at the Capitol showed militia members and other protesters armed with rifles bringing their weapons into the building

—Senator Dayna Polehanki (@SenPolehanki) April 30, 2020

—Reuters Pictures (@reuterspictures) May 1, 2020

—Rod Meloni (@RodMeloni) April 30, 2020

—Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) April 30, 2020

As state Rep. Mari Manoogian and the news outlet MLive have explained, Capitol rules prohibit people from bringing protest signs into the building over fears that the sticks that often prop them up could scratch the paint on the walls.

Michigan is an open-carry state, however, and there are no rules barring people from bringing guns into the Capitol.

"It's always been on the books — even before the last constitutional convention — the right to open carry in Michigan," Sgt. Jeffrey Held of the Michigan State Police told MLive.

"We just worry about damaging the walls, because on the decorative paint, a sign turning the wrong way or even a rifle can gouge the thing," Steve Benkovsky, the Capitol facilities manager, told the outlet.

"Until one of the legislators comes up and says let's make this a weapon-free zone, or they put in some stipulation like you can't bring long rifles in here but you can wear sidearms, I've got to live with it," Benkovsky added. "It's not a fun thing though. It's tough."

While the protests and backlash against Whitmer's aggressive measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 have garnered a significant amount of attention,polling has found that Michiganders are largely supportive of Whitmer and her administration's handling of the crisis.

An exhaustive nationwide survey of over 22,000 Americans in all 50 states conducted by a team of researchers from Harvard, Northeastern, and Rutgers published on Thursday found that among a sample of 555 Michiganders, 68% said they thought their state government was "reacting about right" to the crisis, while 24% said they thought it was overreacting. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The survey, conducted from April 17 to 26, also found that 79% of Michiganders said they trusted their state government a lot or somewhat to do the right thing in its approach to handling the COVID-19 crisis, while 20% said they didn't trust their state government at all or didn't trust it too much.

Of the Michiganders polled, 95% said they somewhat or strongly approved of federal, state, and local governments asking people to stay home, 84% said they somewhat or strongly approved of requiring most businesses to close, and 90% said they approved of limiting restaurants to carry-out only.

Overall, just six percent of Michiganders surveyed believe the state should re-open immediately, while 24% said it should re-open after four to six weeks, 16% said it should re-open after six to eight weeks, and 23% said Michigan should re-open after eight weeks.

Another poll released on April 20 from the pro-business Detroit Regional Chamber and the Glengariff Group found that 57% of Michiganders approved of Whitmer's handling of the crisis, compared with 37% who disapproved, giving her a net approval rating of 20 percentage points.

The poll, which surveyed 600 Michigan residents on April 15 and 16 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, found that while Republicans disapproved of Whitmer's handling of the crisis by a margin of 48 points (22% to 70%), self-described independent voters approved of Whitmer's performance by a margin of over 20 points (56% to 35%).

SEE ALSO: Lockdown protesters in Michigan brought rifles and other weapons into the state capitol

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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-**04-17/**column-gun-toting-republicans-ignoring-quarantine-orders-yes-even-coronavirus-has-become-part-of-the-culture-wars

OPINION

Column: Gun-toting Republicans ignoring quarantine orders? Yes, even coronavirus has become part of the culture wars

Virus Outbreak Michigan

Protesters gathered Wednesday outside the Michigan state Capitol to express displeasure with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s orders to keep people at home and businesses closed during the coronavirus crisis. (Associated Press)

By ROBIN ABCARIAN COLUMNIST

APRIL 17, 20201:14 PM

It was 35 degrees and lightly snowing in Lansing the other day when cars and trucks filled the streets, stretching as far as the eye could see. This was “Operation Gridlock,” and the idea was to shut the city down with cars, trucks and rage.

Thousands of Michiganders had come to protest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, one of the most extreme in the nation, aimed at slowing down the inexorable march of the coronavirus. Detroit, with a majority black population and a poverty rate nearly three times the national average, has been hit especially hard by the virus.

By executive order, only essential Michigan businesses can remain open. At least 1 million people, a quarter of the state’s workforce, have applied for unemployment.

Until May 1, and maybe beyond, Michigan residents cannot cross the street to visit friends, mow their lawns or take their boats out. They can’t fish, golf or travel between their primary residence and vacation home.

Protesters were supposed to stay in their vehicles, to respect the social distancing rules most of us are trying to follow. And most did. But dozens were on the Capitol’s steps, mingling on the grounds, thrusting a metaphorical middle finger at the new world order.

I watched a livestream of the protest on the website of the Detroit Free Press. Protesters waved American flags, “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, handmade protest signs demanding the governor be recalled and dozens of “Trump 2020” banners. Some concerned citizens, the Lansing Journal reported, brought their assault rifles and Confederate flags.

“We believe the government has overreached,” a masked man told a local TV reporter. “The virus is not as serious as they made it out to be.”

For a moment, I was catapulted back to 2009, when righteous citizens pretended to be terribly upset about the federal budget deficit (and of course their protests had nothing to do with the fact that the country had its first black president). The tea party fizzled, but its free-floating rage remained, only to be harnessed in 2016 by Donald Trump. His authoritarian tendencies would seem to be at odds with the freedom-loving patriots who support him, but that’s a question for another day.

The anger on display Monday in Michigan was yet another expression of our ongoing national political divide. It also raised a question: Are Republicans less likely to embrace social distancing and shutdown measures than Democrats?

The answer, according to a group of economists who have studied the question, is yes.

We appear to be in the midst of a coronavirus culture war.

In a new working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, economists from Stanford, Harvard and New York University looked at whether partisan leanings influence beliefs about coronavirus. They were motivated to look into the issue by polls and surveys suggesting that residents of red states and blue states were responding differently to the coronavirus threat.

Study co-author Matthew Gentzkow, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, said he initially thought the differences could simply be attributed to the fact that Democrats tend to live in big cities, where the virus has flourished, while Republicans are more likely to live in places where the population is more spread out.

But the differences held even when comparing red and blue areas with similar kinds of communities with similar disease outbreaks. Using GPS location data from a large sample of smartphones, combined with a survey that examined political attitudes, Gentzkow and his colleagues found that Democrats and Republicans “genuinely differ in their beliefs about the severity of the outbreak.”

In other words, it’s not simply posturing or “partisan cheerleading” that has led Republicans to worry less about the virus, and Democrats to worry more.

“It’s not like we know what the right answer is,” Gentzkow told me. “We can’t say who is right and who is wrong. It’s precisely the fact that there is a huge amount of uncertainty that makes this difficult.”

Gentzkow, who has studied political polarization the United States, said he was surprised by what the study revealed. He thought there might have been partisan differences early on in the crisis, when President Trump was downplaying the risks of the coronavirus, saying it was no worse than the flu, and Democrats were citing models showing that 80% of the American population were going to contract the contagion.

He assumed that, as time went on, the partisan gaps would disappear, that his working paper would turn out to have simply been a snapshot of a polarized moment that faded as the country pulled together. That does not appear to be the case.

“These partisan differences,” he said, “do not seem to be going away.”

For the foreseeable future, Americans will wrestle with tradeoffs between public health and economic well-being. The president, who recently asserted his omnipotence, has blinked. Now he says governors will make the calls. This allows Trump to avoid making tough calls while attacking states whose Democratic governors have strict stay-at-home rules.

“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” he tweeted on Friday. “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” And “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” (Last week, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law a slate of gun control measures.)

It’s easy to dismiss the Lansing protesters as fringe conservatives, with their guns, their Gadsden flags and their willingness to flout social distancing rules to make their points. But the thousands of folks who respected the rules and stayed in their vehicles cannot be discounted. Their pain is real.

Those of us whose salaries continue to appear in our checking accounts because we can work from home cannot be cavalier about the economic trauma this virus has inflicted on so many of our fellow citizens.

In the next couple of weeks, and perhaps until summer, we will see more protests, more polarization and more division as states wrestle with balancing safety and solvency.

And we will also see more infections, more illness and more death.

Coronavirus, after all, doesn’t care about partisan politics.

@AbcarianLAT

Michigan governor slams Betsy DeVos for her ties to a far-right anti-lockdown protest group

Alex Henderson

Americans still support social distancing measures — 83% of Democrats, 72% of independents and 62% of Republicans, according to an Axios/Ipsos poll released this week.

4/17/2020 snyder knew about flint water river switch danger waaaaay before he admitted 16mos?

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/conservative-group-linked-to-devos-family-organizes-protest-of-coronavirus-restrictions-in-michigan

no lnx

Conservative group linked to DeVos family organizes protest of coronavirus restrictions in Michigan

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon April 16, 2020

Protesters rallied around the country this week against stay-at-home orders forcing nonessential businesses to shut down, but Michigan’s governor warned that they may have backfired by creating “a need to lengthen” the lockdowns.

Protesters in at least six states planned to protest restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the new coronavirus this week. In Michigan, a conservative group linked to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ family organized “Operation Gridlock” to protest restrictions on nonessential businesses and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s recent order barring travel between homes. The state is among the hardest-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, reporting more than 27,000 confirmed cases and 1,909 deaths.

A convoy of motorists protested Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic directive, calling on state leaders to allow small businesses to reopen.

Dubbed “Operation Gridlock,” the demonstration jammed the streets around the capitol. https://t.co/5qef4M6K1e pic.twitter.com/zbpvG4OWns

— ABC News (@ABC) April 15, 2020

Some protesters, several of whom wore pro-Trump gear, gathered on the capitol steps as many remained in their cars. Demonstrators chanted “recall Whitmer” and “lock her up,” a chant normally usually used by Trump supporters in reference to his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Chants of “recall Whitmer,” “USA” and “lock her up” outside Michigan Capitol. #OperationGridlock pic.twitter.com/7Q7niiNFUF

— Malachi Barrett (@PolarBarrett) April 15, 2020

Whitmer, who has feuded with President Donald Trump over the delayed federal response to the crisis, argued that “it wasn’t really about the stay-at-home order at all.”

“It was essentially a political rally — a political statement that flies in the face of all of the science and all of the best practices from the stay-at-home order that was issued,” the Democrat told MSNBC on Wednesday.

Whitmer said the cars “were blocking one of our hospitals, so an ambulance literally wasn’t able to get into the bay for ten minutes.”

“We know that this demonstration is going to come at a cost to people’s health,” she said. “The sad irony of the protest is that they don’t like to be in this stay-at-home order, but they might have just created a need to lengthen it.”

Other states saw smaller protests against the coronavirus restrictions.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, had his news briefing interrupted Wednesday by dozens of protesters. The small group chanted, blew horns and shouted into a megaphone to drown out the governor’s comments. The protesters chanted “we want to work” and “facts over fear.”

Protesters who oppose Gov. Andy Beshear’s decision to close businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus have gathered en masse outside the room where he is doing his daily #COVID19 press conference, crying out “We want to work!” and now “Facts over fear!” pic.twitter.com/49812u8G4R

— Morgan Watkins (@morganwatkins26) April 15, 2020

Scientists and business executives alike have repeatedly argued that the economy cannot simply reopen if the risk of infection remains high.

“We do have some folks up in here in Kentucky today – and everybody should be able to express their opinion – that believe we should reopen Kentucky immediately, right now,” Beshear said at the briefing. “Folks, that would kill people. That would absolutely kill people.”

Dozens of protesters also gathered outside of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s Monday news briefing to call for an end to the state’s stay-at-home order. DeWine, a Republican, has also received criticism from his own party for issuing a stay-at-home order, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

This photo, from an Ohio protest demanding opening the economy, is everything (taken by Joshua A. Bickel for The Columbus Dispatch) pic.twitter.com/WlSHauMvjM

— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) April 15, 2020

DeWine told MSNBC that he would not reopen the economy until medical experts deem it safe to do so.

“Whenever we open up, however we do it, if people aren’t confident, if they don’t think they’re safe, they’re not going to go to restaurants,” he said. “They’re not going to go to bars. They’re not going to really get back into society.”

Dozens of individuals also gathered in Utah to protest the business closures, carrying signs like “Resist like it’s 1776” and “America will never be a socialist country,” according to KSL-TV.

Walk for Freedom on Wednesday-Southern #Utah doesn’t let a pandemic get in the way of a protest #COVID19 #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/JbpA8jCkt9

— Scott Schwebke (@TheChalkOutline) April 16, 2020

The state’s stay-at-home order was set to expire this week, but Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, extended it through May 1.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that in order for us to slow the spread and to get back on our feet socially and economically, this is not the time” to reopen, he said earlier this week.

At least one protester was arrested in North Carolina after about 100 protesters gathered in Raleigh to protest the state’s stay-at-home order. The Raleigh Police Department warned that “protesting is not listed as an essential function.”

Holly Springs woman arrested during protest to Reopen NC https://t.co/dcbFAiDyv5 pic.twitter.com/3SV0t6Xanx

— CBS 17 (@WNCN) April 14, 2020

Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said Monday that reopening the economy prematurely would be disastrous.

“Some people want to completely obliterate these restrictions,” he said. “It would be a catastrophe. The numbers are very clear that the interventions that we’ve entered into — social gatherings, limitations on bars and restaurants, the stay at home order — those kinds of things are working.”

Protesters are also set to demonstrate against the restrictions Thursday in Virginia.

“Government mandating sick people to stay home is called quarantine. However, the government mandating healthy citizens to stay home, forcing businesses and churches to close is called tyranny,” the group ReOpen Virginia said in a statement, claiming that “thousands of concerned citizens” would gather at the state capitol.

Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, extended the business closures Wednesday through May 8.

“As we have seen from our data and models, social distancing is working, and we are slowing the spread of this virus,” he said. “But it is too early to let up. By extending this order to keep certain businesses closed or restricted, we can continue to evaluate the situation and plan for how to eventually ease restrictions so that our businesses may operate without endangering public health.”

Former Obama aide Tommy Vietor argued that the protests’ ties to conservative groups like the DeVos-linked Michigan Freedom Fund show that the demonstrations are just “astroturf” efforts “paid for by billionaires.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel slammed the protesters for defying guidelines intended to protect the public.

“Using your right to peaceably protest in such a manner as to spread a virus which may endanger your life, the lives of your friends, family and neighbors, and the lives of countless food service, law enforcement and healthcare workers does not make you a patriot,” she said. “A ‘patriot’ is defined as a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against its enemies. The enemy here is the virus-not each other.”

1119

DHS created a fake university near Detroit as part of a sting operation targeting foreign students — and around 250 have been arrested so far

Alex Henderson

Complaints from immigrant groups about the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) didn’t start with President Donald Trump: there were plenty of deportations under former President Barack Obama,…

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06062019/tar-sands-oil-pipeline-court-ruling-spill-risk-minnesota-michigan-enbridge-canada-climate-change

2 More Tar Sands Oil Pipelines Run Into Trouble in the Midwest

A court in Minnesota andofficials in Michigan are raising concerns about

the Enbridge pipelines’ safety and risk of oil spills in or near the Great Lakes.

beat 2018 --> dirty tricks: (anti-democratic authoritarian moves)

eg https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/03/04/right-wing-funded-groups-battle-new-state-governors

ctr-attack

If the corporate-funded influence groups on the Right have their way, there will be no honeymoon for newly elected Democratic governors.

Affiliates of the State Policy Network (SPN), a network of right-wing “think tanks” in 49 states bankrolled by the Kochs and other billionaires and big corporations, have already been deployed to oppose legislation introduced by Democratic governors in states that previously had GOP governors.

Last week the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) wrote about the battle over Medicaid in Wisconsin, where the newly elected Democratic governor, Tony Evers, who replaced the GOP’s Scott Walker, has introduced a measure to expand Medicaid in the state.

The article showed how right-wing “think tanks,” in this case the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) and the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy (CROWE), and state legislators quickly rolled out a flawed study to exaggerate the costs of Medicaid expansion to the tune of $600 million. The “research” was released without noting that the paper supported the anti-Medicaid expansion position taken by the groups’ major funders: the Bradley Foundation and the Koch brothers.

Minimum Wage Fight in Illinois

In Illinois, Governor J.B. Pritzker, who defeated Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner, introduced an increase in the state’s minimum wage as one of his first acts. The state’s SPN affiliate, the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI), quickly went on the attack, repeating claims that a rise in the minimum wage reduces jobs,because Illinois would have higher minimum wages than surrounding states. The group does not consider the relative cost of living among Midwestern states, and ignores the experience of nearby Minnesota where 92,600 have directly benefited from the January 1 increase, the Economic Policy Institute reports.

Nonetheless, the Illinois legislature voted along party lines to increase the state minimum wage to $15 by 2025, starting with a $1 increase next year to $9.25 an hour. On February 19, the Governor signed the bill into law.

IPI is well-connected to right-wing billionaires. The GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein has provided $11.8 million through his foundation to IPI since 2009, according to a CMD analysis of IRS filings. Robert Mercer has donated $1.1 million through his foundation to IPI over the same period, and the preferred piggy bank of the Koch donor network, DonorsTrust and its sister organization Donors Capital fund, has funneled over $1.5 million to IPI since 2010.

Notably, IPI has received $717,300 from SPN itself between 2012 and 2017, making it one of the largest grant recipients over this period.

Previously IPI was listed as a “partner organization” in the Charles Koch Institute‘s Liberty@Work program, but the current status of that program is unknown.

Consistent with the opinions of its funders, IPI also does not consider the ripple effect of a rise in the incomes of low wage workers.

A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute finds that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024 would increase wages for 40 million U.S. workers, which would “stimulate the economy and spur greater business activity and job growth.”

Renewable Energy in New Mexico

In New Mexico, newly elected Democratic Governor Lujan Grisham has made increasing the state’s reliance on renewable energy a hallmark of her first year. “We know that we cannot rely on the federal government right now to lead on climate action,” Lujan Grisham said in her January 15 State of the State address. “It is our responsibility and indeed our moral obligation to ensure our planet and our state are preserved for our children and their children.”

The SPN local affiliate, the Rio Grande Foundation (RGF), came right out to oppose the increase in renewable energy the state relies on, from 20 percent to 50 percent by 2030, and then to 80 percent by 2040, saying it will raise electrical bills.

RGF has received over half a million dollars from DonorsTrust since 2010 and tens of thousands from the Charles Koch Foundation since 2015. In addition, RGF has held joint events with the Charles Koch Institute.

RGF fails to consider the cost of carbon on health and its effects on climate change in its analysis. The industry-backed group also leaves out the fact that renewable energy prices in New Mexico have gone down by 60 percent to 70 percent, according to the newly appointed state energy agency head, Cottrell Propst, and that as new technologies are adopted the costs will come down even more. “We know that this technology and cost will not stay the same for renewables or energy storage,” Propst said. “History shows us it’s good to be ambitious, it’s good to be bold.”

RGF does not share that ambition and is even out of step with the state’s major utilities which, while not now embracing the same targets as the Governor, support increases in the state renewable energy standard to reduce carbon emissions.

Medicaid Work Rules in Michigan

The SPN affiliate in Michigan, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, is already battling newly elected Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s reconsideration of a 2018 law that included a work rule requirement for Medicaid recipients. Mackinac lobbied for the work requirement and testified in support of its passage.

Whitmer wants a reconsideration of the requirement in light of new research showing that people are losing coverage in Arkansas, one of the first states with the work requirement. Thousands of people in the state have lost coverage because of failing to report their activities, whether they are meeting rules or not, and almost 17,000 Medicaid recipients in all lost coverage in 2018.

In December alone, 4,655 Medicaid recipients lost coverage, many for failing to report their activities to the state. “Arkansas takes an especially aggressive approach to terminating coverage due to paperwork and compliance issues, such as not responding to a (state) request for information quickly enough,” the *Arkansas Times* reported.

The Mackinac Center ignores the negative societal effects a work requirement has and instead focuses on cutting Medicaid costs. “Medicaid has ballooned into an unwieldy and massively expensive entitlement program that crowds out access to services and vital resources for that most vulnerable population,” Mackinac reports.

But it provides no such evidence for its claims. Whitmer believes the Arkansas research may show that vulnerable people are losing coverage and that, until it is known who is losing coverage and why, Michigan should go slow on adopting the work rules.

Mackinac Center has received over $1.5 million from the Bradley Foundation since 1993 and $590,000 from the Koch family foundations since 2001, as well as over $3.4 million from the DonorsTrust conduits since 2010.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05022019/michigan-whitmer-office-climate-change-energy-filnt-water-policies-climate-alliance

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan signed orders on Monday to revamp the state's environmental policy apparatus, becoming the latest newly elected Democratic leader in an industrial swing state to pick up the reins of action on climate change.

Whitmer is creating a new office of climate and energy that will coordinate efforts across state government to address climate change and will ensure that climate change is a consideration in the vetting of new policies.

She also signed an order to join the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group of governors who commit to upholding the principles of the Paris climate agreement. Michigan is the 20th governor to join, following similar actions by others who came to power after running green campaigns and toppling Republican incumbents. In the past few weeks, the governors of Illinois and New Mexico have also joined.

Michigan stood out as a fulcrum of Donald Trump's narrow electoral victory. It's an economic monument to the internal combustion engine, but also a place where the urgency of confronting environmental challenges, including climate change, can't be ignored.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24012019/great-lakes-governors-climate-change-clean-enegy-pipelines-michigan-illinois-attorney-general-clean-power-plan-lawsuits

Climate change poses risks to the economy and identity of a Great Lakes landscape, much of it defined by bountiful farms, pine forests and clear waters. But political leaders haven't always treated it that way.

That's starting to change as a wave of new governors and attorneys general take office across the region with promises—and actions—to address climate change.

The regional changes may signal a new dynamic for national debates, as climate policy advocates broaden their base of support to include some of the country's hubs of manufacturing and farming. It also is happening at a time of growing urgency for concerted state-level efforts on climate change in response to the federal government's push to roll back greenhouse gas emissions rules.

"It's really crucial in this time when there are so many environmental policies going the wrong way to have more hands on deck," said Kim Smaczniak, a staff attorney for Earthjustice.

This year, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin each switched from a Republican governor to a Democrat. In both Michigan and Illinois, the governors have made moves on climate change issues in their first 10 days.

Michigan and Wisconsin also have new Democratic attorneys general replacing Republicans. The upshot from the 2018 election is that Democrats now hold both the governor's and attorney general's office in six of the eight states that border the Great Lakes.

Democratic electoral waves have hit the Great Lakes region before and given hope to environmental advocates, only to be undone by later political cycles. In 2007, a group of states and a Canadian province aimed to start a cap-and-trade system for reducing carbon emissions. But their Midwest Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord ceased to function by about 2010 as newly elected officials dropped their states' support for the plan.

Today, climate change is increasingly evident in the extreme weather, heat waves and algae blooms that hurt agriculture, drinking water and tourism, as the Midwest chapter of the 2018 National Climate Assessment describes.

Falling prices for renewable power are also shifting the energy landscape. While most utilities in the region still depend heavily on coal, many are now exploring expanding their use of clean energy and retiring coal-fired power plants early. There is potential for offshore wind energy in the Great Lakes and advancements in onshore wind, solar and energy storage. And the new governors are bringing different views on the construction of fossil fuel pipelines.

"We want it to be bipartisan. We want it to be pragmatic," said Tyler Huebner, executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, a clean energy advocacy group. "We want it to be everyone understanding the benefits so this transition can continue unimpeded."

Michigan: Challenging a Pipeline – and Trump

The new dynamic was on display on Jan. 2, when newly elected Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer started a legal fight against Enbridge Line 5, an aging fossil fuel pipeline that passes under the Great Lakes at the Straits of Mackinac.

She sent a letter to state Attorney General Dana Nessel seeking a legal opinion that could help to undo a plan to replace the pipeline. Nessel is also brand new to the job, and, like Whitmer, very different from her Republican predecessor.

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/wisconsin-power-grab-protestors-state-capitol

failed in n carolina? also done now in MI

Stinging from their defeat at the polls in November, Republicans are now rushing a set of bills through a special session of the Wisconsin State Assembly nakedly designed to curb the power of Democratic Governor-elect Tony Evers and Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul, and handicap Democrats' competitiveness in upcoming elections. The bills are scheduled for a vote on Tuesday, with the plan of getting them on outgoing GOP Gov. Scott Walker's desk so he can sign them before losing his job in a few weeks.

But Republicans didn't plan on the furious wave of protests that would descend on the state capitol in Madison on Monday afternoon.

Demonstrators crowded outside as the bills were debated, trying to shout down Republicans' power grab: [pix tweets]

The protests were spurred along by MoveOn political director Ben Wikler, who has been covering the GOP's power play closely since last Friday when the bills were first introduced, and who urged his followers in other states to call senators in key districts:

https://www.alternet.org/general-motors-laying-thousands-workers-and-closing-two-us-plants-michigan-and-ohio

General Motors has made an announcement that is going to bring considerable pain in the Rust Belt. The automotive giant will be slashing 14,700 jobs, many of them in Michigan and Ohio—and a plant closing is expected in Ontario, Canada as well.

This is the biggest restructuring at GM in a decade, with 15% of its workforce being eliminated in North America. According to GM CEO Mary Barra, these job cuts reflect changing tastes in the automotive market and will bring a greater emphasis on electric and autonomous vehicles. Models expected to be discontinued include the Cadillac CT6, the Chevrolet Cruze and the Buick LaCrosse.

According to GM, tariffs on imported steel—which were imposed by the Trump Administration earlier this year—have cost the company $1 billion. And in late October, GM offered buyouts to 50,000 salaried workers in North America.

The decline of traditional passenger cars in favor of larger SUVs and pickup trucks has been a major factor in GM’s evolution. In 2012, traditional passenger cars comprised over 50% of vehicle sales in the U.S., but during the first nine months of 2018, that number decreased to 31%. This year, SUV and pickup truck sales have increased by about 31%.

GM announced that it will also be closing two plants outside of North America by the end of 2019.

Ohio politicians, including Rep. Tim Ryan and Sen. Sherrod Brown ripped the company's decision.

...

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Republican state AGs were in the majority...until this months election, when the majority flipped, with the most climate-denying AGs (in Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin and Nevada) losing their jobs to Dems who ran on strong environmental platforms.

The outgoing climate-deniers pioneered a strategy of coordinated lawsuits and legal action (such as amicus briefs) to hold back action on climate and liability for fossil-fuel companies.

Now that Dems hold those offices, they could deploy the same tactics to grind the climate-wrecking looters' plans to a halt -- for example, Michigan's new Democratic AG Dana Nessel has vowed to shut down the Enbridge pipeline that carries Canada's planet-destroying, filthy tar-sands oil to US markets.

In addition to the New York suit, which relies on a 1921 anti-fraud act aimed at curbing Wall Street excesses, and a suit by Rhode Island, which uses its anti-nuisance laws to hold 14 oil and gas companies liable for pollution, Massachusetts is using consumer protection laws to argue that the industry’s failure to alert the public to the long-term risks of its products amounted to false and unfair advertising.

“One thing that’s really interesting in working with Democratic attorneys general across the country is that every office is a little bit different in how it’s structured, what powers they’ve been given, what their budgets are, what sort of authority they have,” Ulmer said. “When it comes to issue-specific questions, it truly is going to depend on the state.

“But I can tell you a number of these candidates have talked about the importance of climate change, protecting the environment, protecting natural resources, making sure that the citizens of their states have clean water and really clean air and protecting the future during their campaigns. We know that’s something they’re going to continue…once they’re fully transitioned into office.”

Legal Blue Wave? New Democratic AGs Could Change the Face of Climate Fight[Seamus McGraw/Climate Liability News]

(via Naked Capitalism)

918

Republicans Could Be Heading for an Electoral Bloodbath in the Key State of Michigan

By Matthew Chapman, AlterNet

The nation's most tenuous Trump-voting state looks ready to swerve hard blue. READ MORE»

Two years later, the US Chamber of Commerce, under the leadership of an aggressive new president named Tom Donohue, picked up on Rove’s strategy.Pledging to “play hardball” against “frivolous” lawsuits, the Chamber spent $10 million on judicial races in 2000 alone. It pumped $4.4 million into Ohio’s Supreme Court election—the largest expenditure from a single source on a court race in US history. In the following years, the Chamber injected tens of millions into races in Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, and Wisconsin. Corporate America had grasped the potential to install friendly judges who could crack down on costly class actions and neutralize the efforts of consumer advocates. “We’re clearly engaged in hand-to-hand combat,” as Donohue put it, “and we’ve got to step it up if we’re going to survive.”

Unions spent millions on these races as well—particularly across the Upper Midwest, as labor leaders recognized they could get a great return on investment by backing justices sympathetic to workers’ rights. As an official with the Ohio AFL-CIO once said: “We figured out a long time ago that it’s easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.”

A major showdown came in 2004, in West Virginia’s Supreme Court election.Don Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy, donated $3 million to Republican candidate Brent Benjamin. Meanwhile, a nonprofit funded primarily by Massey Energy ran TV ads accusing incumbent Justice Warren McGraw of getting a child rapist out of prison and into a job at a high school. After Benjamin won, the investment paid off big time: He later cast the deciding vote to overturn a lower court’s $50 million verdict against Massey Energy. Two years later, the US Supreme Court ruled that Benjamin should have recused himself. It overturned the decision and sent the case back to West Virginia. (Massey Energy ultimately prevailed in state court.)

Corporate interests also reaped a huge return on investment in the 2004 Supreme Court election in Illinois. Five years earlier, a jury had handed down a $1.19 billion penalty to the insurance company State Farm for requiring millions of claimants to accept subpar replacement auto parts. State Farm and its employees—working through the US Chamber, the Illinois Republican Party, and an Illinois-based tort reform group—steered $4 million to elect a sympathetic judge named Lloyd Karmeier to the Supreme Court, which was considering State Farm’s appeal of the auto parts verdict. Karmeier, his opponent, and various outside groups spent a record $9.3 million on the race. Karmeier, who would later acknowledge that the sum was “obscene,” won easily. And the millions State Farm spent were a pittance compared with what it gained: The next year, Karmeier cast the deciding vote to overturn the more than $1 billion verdict against State Farm.

Up to this point, the big spenders were mostly targeting contested judicial elections—ones in which a candidate challenged a sitting justice. Then came the Iowa Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Varnum v. Brien, in which the seven justices unanimously ruled that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the state constitution. Social-conservative groups leapt into action, targeting three of the seven justices who were up for retention election—ones where voters only check “yes” or “no.” The National Organization for Marriage and its allies spent nearly $1 million and defeated all three. “They wanted to make sure we were punished for our decision and that other judges witnessed that so they wouldn’t do it either,” former Justice Marsha Ternus told me.

The strategy of turning sleepy retention elections into political showdowns has been spreading. In Florida’s 2012 retention elections, theKoch-backed Americans for Prosperityand the Republican Party of Florida spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to unseat three sitting justices. A group called Defend Justice From Politics spent $3.1 million on the justices’ behalf, helping them prevail. In Michigan in 2012, two anonymously funded nonprofits, the Judicial Crisis Network and Americans for Job Security, poured $2.1 million into attack ads against five judges on Michigan’s 6th Circuit Court, though the judges won out. And earlier this year,Tennessee’s lieutenant governor, Ron Ramsey, took it upon himself to spearhead an effort to unseat three sitting state Supreme Court justices—and, along with them, the attorney general, who is appointed by the court. Ramsey’s PAC pumped $425,000 into a group running negative ads that blasted the three justices as “liberal on crime”and for “helping advance Obamacare.”Funds were also contributed by Americans for Prosperity and the GOP’s State Government Leadership Foundation, which said it planned to spend an additional $5 million in 2014 on judicial races in North Carolina, Tennessee, and elsewhere.

Though the three Tennessee justices prevailed in the end, one of them, Connie Clark, told me she’s concerned about the precedent set by the fight. “As long as there are no limits on outside money,” she says, “then this will become the new normal.”

The transformation of judicial campaigns has alarmed another veteran of the court system. “Judicial elections pose a serious threat,” former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told Mother Jones. “If judicial decisions are in fact not fair and impartial—or even if they are perceived as being biased—the basis of support for our courts crumbles.”

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/confederates-revolted-michigan-school-after-black-student-snatched-white-kids

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gop leadership conf

MACKINAC ISLAND — In a word, satisfied. That’s the mood here on Mackinac Island, where the state GOP gathered this weekend for its biannual conference.It’s the 32nd time the party has held such a conclave, but this time it’s different: The GOP exercises control of state government. Of the U.S. Congress. Of — as GOP Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel says — the U.S. Supreme Court. And for the first time since 1988, this state, once part of the vaunted Democratic “blue wall,” went red in a presidential election. "We in Michigan have a lot to be proud of, but nothing more than that," said U.S. Secretary of Education and GOP mega-donor Betsy DeVos, addressing the assembly Friday night.More: Politicians drop big money on Mackinac Island, records show More: School choice, Secretary DeVos? Let's try good choicesThe work wasn’t easy. It took years. And lots and lots of money. That's the part DeVos didn't talk about. But in this venue, it's impossible to ignore. The DeVos family has made at least $82 million in political contributions nationally, as much as $58 million of those dollars spent in Michigan — with $14 million in the last two years alone.There’s something really through-the-looking-glass about DeVos addressing a room full of legislators whose campaigns she has funded, lobbyists whose work she has paid for, and activists whose movements she launched. This is, in a very real way, a room DeVos built, in a state her family has shaped, in a country whose educational policy she now plays a key role in administering. And we should all pay very close attention to what she has in store for us.If you question the influence of the DeVos family’s spending, a new analysis by the watchdog Michigan Campaign Finance Network should settle that: In 2016, the candidate with the deepest pockets won 80% of contested races for state or federal office. The DeVoses are by no means the only big-money donors, on either side of the political aisle. But in Michigan, it's difficult to find a significant state-level policy change the DeVos family hasn't backed: right-to-work, pension reform, unfettered school choice.And here's what's troubling: When DeVos says that this country's education system is failing, she's right. Compared to other developed nations, America is behind. That's true everywhere, from those just-fine suburban districts whose schools still draw new residents, to large urban districts, where disinvestment and poverty have exacerbated the challenge of educating children.Kaffer: School slide worries suburban parents, and should worry Lansing, too Kaffer: Charter choice more complicated than it seemsDeVos is now in a powerful position to spread her philosophy of unconstrained school choice to the rest of the country. But Michigan is left to deal with the mess that the charter movement has wrought. DeVos' school-choice movement is predicated on the idea that given options, parents will choose what's best for their child. She's not entirely wrong. But this philosophy doesn't account for parents for whom there are no good options. For many Detroit families, too many neighborhoods offer underperforming public schools and underperforming charters. Not much of a choice for parents desperate to do right by their kids. And while DeVos says she's not against traditional public schools, she takes no accountability for the damage done to traditional districts when kids decamp for charters, taking the state's per-pupil funding with them or the painful reality that while there are strong charter schools that deliver great outcomes, many charters perform worse, or deliver only marginally better results than traditional public schools.Michigan, far from being DeVos' proof-of-concept, should be the experiment that gives the lie to the viability of school choice as a panacea to the nation's educational woes: In Michigan, after two decades, despite some modest gains in science, fewer than half of students test proficient in math and reading. Parents should have options — strong educational options — and choice alone doesn't provide them. What would? Investment in what we know works: Highly qualified teachers paid competitive salaries. Wraparound services for children whose parents struggle to provide the advantages some kids are born to. Functional transportation, so that quality choice for parents is something more than a concept. A willingness to look behind an uncompromising ideological agenda at the people whom that agenda should serve. A little less satisfaction, and a little more self-awareness.

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12/12http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/13391-the-conservative-agenda-behind-right-to-work-in-michiganloganOn Tuesday, Michigan became the nation's 24th state, and the most unionized state, to enact right-to-work legislation. Thousand of protesters failed to dissuade Republican governor Rick Snyder from signing a law that will likely weaken unions and lower wages, but do nothing to help the state's economy. Along with anti-union legislation in other Midwestern States, however, it could transform the national political landscape.For the past two years, the Governor had publicly stated that "divisive" right-to-work legislation was "not on his agenda." Then, at the last minute, he endorsed the bill because it would protect "worker choice" on union membership and help to grow the Michigan economy - both highly questionable claims. First, under federal law, neither unions nor employers can require employees to join unions in either the public or private sectors, so Snyder is professing to give employees a right that they already enjoy. The legal question here is whether nonmember employees in unionized workplaces should be required to pay an "agency fee" to the unions that are legally required to cover the cost of negotiating for them. Equally dubious are Snyder's claims that right-to-work will boost the Michigan economy, as research indicates lower wages and poorer labor standards, not greater economic development, are the most likely results of the anti-union legislation. So if right-to-work fails to advance employee choice or promote job creation, why did Snyder really throw his weight behind it?Governor Snyder portrays himself as a pragmatist, rather than a right-wing ideologue, but in reality he has supported a sustained assault on unions. Early in his term, Snyder eliminated collective bargaining rights for almost 20,000 subsidized home-based childcare providers. In March 2012, he signed legislation prohibiting union representation for graduate assistants at Michigan public universities, and the following month he prohibited union dues for teachers and other school employees from being collected by payroll deduction. On labor issues, Snyder is a moderate only when compared with more extreme Michigan Republicans.The reason behind the governor's flip-flop is that right-to-work is being championed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Americans for Prosperity, militant conservative groups funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers. Following the Republican election victories in 2010, ALEC has pushed hundreds of anti-union bills in states across the country. It has promoted right-to-work in 19 states and succeeded in passing the legislation in neighboring Indiana in 2011. Now that Snyder has become a right-to-work convert, even the Detroit Free Press, which had previously endorsed him for governor, has accused him of "drinking the Koch Brothers' Kool-Aid." As the Koch Brothers understand, right-to-work legislation could have an enormous impact on national, as well as state, politics. In November, President Obama won only four right-to-work states - Florida, Iowa, Nevada and Virginia - and lost heavily in most of the other 19. Union support was key to his victory in Nevada, as well as in several Midwestern States. In Ohio - most likely the next right-to-work target for anti-union conservatives – 70 percent of union members voted for Obama, even though the state's unionists are 83 percent white, 40 percent evangelical and 53 percent gun owners. While the evidence on the impact of right-to-work is inconclusive on several issues, the legislation clearly weakens unions. Most right-to-work states have always had feeble labor movements. But with 17.5 percent density and 671,000 members, Michigan is still a union stronghold, even though the state's powerhouse union, the United Auto Workers, has declined in membership from 1.53 million in 1979 to 380,000 in 2011. Organized labor hopes that there will be a political backlash against Michigan Republicans, but it is equally likely that in four years, the state's unions will be weaker, and few voters will remember the underhanded way that GOP lawmakers enacted right-to-work. And if ALEC and other Koch-supported efforts are successful in forcing through right-to-work legislation in the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania - both currently controlled by conservative Republicans - the next Democratic presidential nominee could face a radically different political landscape come 2016. On a recent visit to Michigan, President Obama stated that right-to-work laws have "everything to do with politics." As Obama suggests, the real purpose of right-to-work is not to protect employee choice or promote economic growth, but to damage the organizations that give an effective political voice to Michigan workers, instead of to the Koch Brothers.----https://www.thenation.com/article/michigan-adopts-alec-model-diminishing-democracy/john nichols 2016? Michigan legislators did not write the so-called “right to work” legislation that they have enacted in a mad rush of anti-democratic excess.They simply did as they were told.The ideas, the outlines and the words themselves came from the American Legislative Exchange Council, the right-wing “bill mill” that produces “model legislation” at the behest of Koch Industries, Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, ExxonMobil and the corporate cabal that is always looking to “buy” states.As the Center for Media and Democracy’s “ALEC Exposed” project revealed (in conjunction with The Nation), ALEC has developed binders full of “model legislation” that assaults the rights of working people, consumers and communities.ALEC’s package of “model legislation” includes numerous bills and resolutions that, by any reasonable measure, would be referred to as “no rights at work” schemes.Those measures formed the basis for HB 4003, the Michigan “Right-to-Work Act” that has provoked mass demonstrations in Lansing and other Michigan communities.Section after section, line after line, of the Michigan legislation mirrors the ALEC model legislation, as revealed by the “ALEC Exposed” project. “The legislation is straight out of the Koch-funded ALEC playbook,” explains Brendan Fischer, the staff counsel with the Center for Media and Democracy. At some points, the Michigan lawmakers shifted words, from “resign or refrain from…a labor organization” in the ALEC model legislation to “refrain or resign from…a labor organization” in one of the two Michigan bills.At other points, the Michigan Republicans simply lifted whole sections verbatim, outlining how workers who get the advantage of union representation will not have “to pay any dues, fees, assessments or other charges, of any kind or amount” to a labor organization.The willingness of legislators in Michigan and, it should be noted, other states to simply take marching orders from ALEC is troubling enough.But even more troubling is the reason why corporations and politicians in states where the middle class was forged by organized labor agree on the “need” to advance anti-labor legislation.This is not about economic development, growth or job creation. And it is certainly not about “freedom,” as Michigan Governor Rick Snyder claims.

This is about warping democracy so that corporations have a consistent upper hand, with the result being that those politicians who are willing to do the bidding of corporations and wealthy donors are more likely to prevail. In this sense, the best way to understand the recent rush to enact anti-labor legislation is as part of the same initiative that has produced restrictive Voter ID laws, schemes to limit early voting and proposals to eliminate same-day registration.What distinguishes the anti-labor initiatives is that they do not explicitly seek to make voting more difficult. They seek to make it harder for groups that seek high turnout to get voters motivated, to get voters organized and to get them to the polls.Ultimately, however, the end result of the assault on labor rights is the same as a direct assault on voting rights: a diminished democracy.Democracy is, of course, about more than elections. And that’s where the anti-union push becomes even more significant. It seeks to narrow the discourse by weakening groups that offer an alternative to a Wall Street–dictated future for communities, states and the nation.Attacks on labor are nothing new. Michigan is not the first state to enact a “right to work” law—the most draconian of anti-labor initiatives. It is the twenty-fourth. Southern states enacted their laws restricting labor organizing and political engagement decades ago, at a time when legislators and governors in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and other bastions of segregation feared that integrated unions would unite white workers and African-American workers on the side of social improvement. That created barriers to the labor movement in the South at a time when it was still growing in much of the country.Now, however, the anti-labor push has come north.There is a reason ALEC and its corporate sponsors want to undermine unions.In states such as Michigan, and Wisconsin, and Ohio, and Indiana, organized labor provides a political counterbalance to corporations. Unions cannot and do not match the spending on elections by wealthy donors and corporations. But the willingness of unions to commit financial and human resources to political fights makes a huge difference at election time in states where the labor movement has a significant presence. The 2012 election results—particularly the big wins for President Obama and Democratic Senate candidates in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—point to the connection.This is not, however, simply about Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Among the Michigan legislators who opposed the latest attack on union rights were six state House Republicans. Unions have long traditions of aiding Republicans, and even social conservatives, who have proven to be allies of working people.Prominent conservatives once opposed “right to work” laws, as Ronald Reagan did at the start of his political career, writing as he launched his 1966 California gubernatorial race: “I also was a leader of our [Screen Actors] Guild in the fight in 1958 against the [California] right-to-work bill. I am still opposed to right-to-work.”Now, for the most part, conservatives have cast their lot with corporations. And the demand of corporations, particularly those engaged in the ALEC project, is that politicians who want to earn the favor of corporations and wealthy donors such as Charles and David Koch or Michigan right-wingers Dick and Betsy DeVos must advance anti-labor legislation.Anti-labor laws in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan—and the attempts to do so in states such as New Hampshire—have been advanced by political figures with ALEC ties. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is an ALEC alumnus, as is Ohio Governor John Kasich. Among the key sponsors of the Michigan law that Governor Snyder signed today was state Senator Dave Hildenbrand, a Republican who famously paid his ALEC dues with taxpayer funds.Those political figures are determined to limit the ability of unions to engage in political activity on behalf or working families, communities, public services and public education.Why? By making it harder for unions to organize and to represent workers, “right to work” laws make it easier for corporations to get their political allies elected. The corporations and the legislators come together in the American Legislative Exchange Council. They produce “model legislation” to advance their project. And that project is about rewriting the rules so that the corporations win.“What they’re doing is basically, betraying democracy,” says Teamsters president James Hoffa, who promises a great struggle to restore labor rights in Michigan.Hoffa’s point is well taken.Michigan politicians have betrayed democracy.And democracy betrayed is democracy denied.http://www.alternet.org/7-election-integrity-and-cyber-security-experts-say-stopping-michigan-recount-corrupt-exercise-power= Right-wingers Koch, ALEC, pushed Michigan 'right-to-work' laws ...www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/right-wingers-koch-alec-pushed-michigan-ri Dec 12, 2012 - Right-wingers Koch, ALEC, pushed Michigan 'right-to-work' laws ... legislation, unionpresident Bob King told msnbc Tuesday, shortly after Gov.GOP, Koch Brothers Sneak Attack Guts Labor Rights in Michigan | The ...https://www.thenation.com/.../gop-koch-brothers-sneak-attack-guts-labor-rights-michi... Kochs, ALEC Top Conservative Forces Behind Right-to-Work in ...www.truth-out.org/.../13391-the-conservative-agenda-behind-right-to-work-in-michi... Dec 18, 2012 - The Koch Brothers understand right-to-work legislation could have an ... on unionmembership and help to grow the Michigan economy - both highly ... The reason behind thegovernor's flip-flop is that right-to-work is being ...ALEC-Inspired Union-Busting Bill Narrowly Passes in Michigan as ...www.prwatch.org/.../alec-inspired-union-busting-bill-narrowly-passes-michigan-koch... Dec 6, 2012 - Right to work bills prohibit unions from requiring all members to pay dues. ... Standing tall behind the measure was David Koch's Americans for ... Michigan's Republican Governor Rick Snyder has vowed to sign the bill into ...A Majority of States Now Have Right-to-Work Laws – Mother Joneswww.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/majority-states-now-have-right-work-laws/ Meet the New Kochs: The DeVos Clan's Plan to Defund the Left ...www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/devos-michigan-labor-politics-gop/ Koch brothers, Tea Party cash drives Michigan right-to-work bill - Salonwww.salon.com/.../koch_brothers_tea_party_cash_drives_michigan_right_to_work_b... Dec 11, 2012 - Why did Gov. Rick Snyder buckle on an anti-union law? Just look at his big- money donors.The big union fight in Michigan explained - CBS Newshttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-big-union-fight-in-michigan-explained/ How Michigan's Right-To-Work Law Came to Be | BillMoyers.combillmoyers.com/2012/12/11/how-michigans-right-to-work-law-came-to-be/ Dec 11, 2012 - Governor Snyder's surprise announcement that he would sign the controversial bill into law is a blow to unions in the labor movement's birthplace. ... that the Koch brothers and Amway owner Dick DeVos “bullied and bought their ... ALEC's model right-to-work bill “mirrors the Michigan law word for word.”.Who's to Blame for Michigan's Right-to-Work Debacle? - Counterpunchhttps://www.counterpunch.org/.../whos-to-blame-for-michigans-right-to-work-debacl... ===The ALEC agenda for this year’s State and Policy Summit contains the usual potpourri of anti-worker, anti-government proposals along with quite a few important pay-to-play measures for big telecom, health care companies, and nuclear utilities. But much of the agenda will be taken up with speculation on opportunities presented by a new Trump presidency to advance ALEC’s corporatist agenda and its politicians.TRANSPARENCY FOR UNIONS AND SCHOOL TEACHERS, BUT NOT FOR BILLIONAIRES OR CORPORATIONS BANKROLLING ALECALEC’s offshoot for local governments, ACCE, is taking a page from the ALEC play book and advancing a measure to harass public sector workers.ACCE’s “Public Employee Bargaining Transparency Ordinance” targets public sector workers by opening up public sector collective bargaining negotiations to public scrutiny and participation. The bill is nothing but an effort to advance the harassment of a targeted group of public-sector workers. There are no ALEC bills opening closed partisan caucuses or opening up economic development loan negotiations, other areas of state government where millions are spent with no public participation.Similarly, ALEC’s bill “Substantive Transparency in Education Act” is up for renewal vote by special interest lobbyists and legislators in the Education and Workforce Development Task Force. The bill requires public schools to open up their instructional materials for review by any parent or guardian. Note that the bill does not apply to private schools and many private charters refuse to abide by state open meetings and open records laws.ALEC, however, is for secrecy when it benefits itself and its donors.It is notable that another ALEC bill under consideration at this week’s meeting “Resolution in Support of Nonprofit Donor Privacy” recommends that the public be kept in the dark when it comes to finding out which millionaires or corporate interests are bankrolling ALEC, because the poor souls might be subject to public criticism or public pressure to drop their ALEC membership.The resolution highlights 501 (c) (3) organizations like ALEC, but the operative language also protects 501 (c) (4) dark money groups like the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity. ALEC along with the State Policy Network, the Wall Street Journal, and leaders of dark money groups have been fighting donor disclosure for dark money non-profits active in campaigns and elections. Wrapping dark money in the American flag and the Federalist Papers, they argue in endless articles, books, and speeches, that “anonymous speech” goes back to the founding fathers. But back then no Supreme Court had embraced the deeply flawed and corrosive concept that money is speech. They are sparing no effort to promote the idea that secrecy of donors is essential to protect First Amendment rights, despite the hundreds of millions now being secretly spent in elections without the disclosures the public supports to guard against corruption.It comes as no surprise that Wall Street Journal editorial writer Kim Strassel, who has become the key proponent of this propagandistic effort to shield the billionaire class from scrutiny with her fact deficient new book “The Intimidation Game,” will be addressing the ALEC meeting. Her book attempts to smear concerned citizens and small community organizations across the country that have successfully convinced over 100 ALEC firms to stop funding ALEC’s extreme agenda.HOSTILITY TO RAISE THE WAGE EFFORTSALEC’s offshoot organization for local officials ACCE is advancing a series of muddled measures geared toward keeping wages low and handicapping activist federal agencies.The “Local Resolution in Support of a State Minimum Wage Law” sounds like ACCE is in support of raising wages, but the cookie-cutter ordinance instructs local governments not to raise the minimum wage and to embrace preemption of local control by state legislatures. This is a rather odd position for a group whose model “Founding Philosophy and Principals Act” teaches American school children government “as close to the people as possible” is best.But ALEC and its key funders like the billionaire Koch Brothers have long opposed any measure to raise the wage, including living wages and prevailing wages, and the Kochs have even characterized the federal minimum wage as an “obstacle to prosperity.” ALEC opposes even having a minimum wage for workers.While ACCE favors state preemption of localities on some issues, on others it seeks unconstitutional local preemption of federal policy making. ACCE’s draft “Ordinance for Local Coordination on Federal Regulations” suggests that any local government — from a city or county to a school or water district — or even an NGO can invoke a theory of “coordination” to “force” the federal government to meet with them on an equal basis to work out their differences. “Coordination” is defined as “the process by which an agency of the federal government brings its regulations, whether proposed or established, into consistency with the public policy of [the local jurisdiction.”So for instance if Superior, Wisconsin, thinks that the federal mercury standards for walleye and perch are too strict, ACCE thinks they should be able to impose their own notions on the federal government. In truth, ALEC has no consistent position on federalism or local control and simply attempts to hamstring any policy it or its funders don’t like.ALEC’S EXTREME EDUCATION AGENDA ADVANCES WITH TRUMP PICK OF BETSY DEVOSALEC education bills were not publicly available at the time of this writing, but the nomination of billionaire Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary is a big win for the ALEC crowd and will be a hot topic at the ALEC meeting.DeVos and her husband of the AmWay fortune have long bankrolled the dark money group, American Federation for Children (AFC), which spends big each election cycle on politicians advancing her agenda to transform Americas public education system into a for-profit “cash for kids” enterprise. As CMD reported recently, AFC aggressively promotes school vouchers for private schools, religious schools, and even sham virtual schools through ALEC where DeVos lobbyist Scott Jensen, the disgraced former Speaker of the Assembly, has played a leadership role.CMD has also documented how charter schools promoted by DeVos in her home state of Michigan have been embroiled in fraud and scandal, and how the state has even received federal tax dollars for charters that never opened. The New York Times has covered in depth how they are failing the state’s children. Even charter advocates acknowledge that her efforts in Detroit represent “the biggest school reform disaster in the country.”...http://www.prwatch.org/files/new_charter_school_black_hole_report_oct_21_2015.pdf ref cmd report: MICHIGAN Michigan provided the least information to CMD of any of the 12 states/jurisdictions within our investigation. However, information from CMD’s federal FOIAs and other sources sheds light on Michigan and reveals significant problems with oversight of charter schools. In many ways, state officials appear to be still reeling from a critical blockbuster series published last year by the Detroit Free Press about the serious failures in charter schools in Michigan. As part of that series, the leading state paper documented that Michigan spends about $1 billion in state taxpayer money on charter schools that are accountable to no one. 31 (Overall, Michigan has approximately 1.5 million public school students, and nearly 10% are in charters.32) According to information CMD has obtained about federal funding for charters, charter schools in Michigan received $34,997,658 between 2010-’15 under the CSP umbrella, after the state was awarded $43.9 million under the CSP expansion in 2010. 33 (This discrepancy is based on appropriations amounts and cycles and other differentials.) Almost half (139) of the charters in Michigan were subsidized in part by federal tax dollars, in the past five years. (Michigan itself calls charter schools “public school academies” (PSAs).) As of 2014, Michigan had 297 charter schools operating in the state, and 141,204 students were enrolled in charters, in the most recent school year with complete data.34 Since the inception of charters in the state, more than 100 charters have closed (108).35 Many of them have closed due to lack of “academic viability” (poor results) while other have closed due to lack of “financial viability” (such as inadequate enrollment) and some for both or other failings. The total amount these schools have received is not known, but they certainly consumed well over $1 million in federal CSP grants before shuttering. Other charter operators in the state have been accused, and convicted, of crimes: These crimes include felony fraud and tax evasion. For example, the “Bay City Academy,” landed a $200,000 CSP grant. Its founder, Steven Ingersoll, had obtained a construction line of credit to convert a church into the Bay City Academy, but instead funneled $934,000 to his private account. Union members with LIUNA Local 1098 “blew the whistle” on Ingersoll for improper asbestos removal, and eventually prosecutors discovered Ingersoll’s financial fraud, even though the “neither the school’s board nor Lake Superior State University, the authorizer of the charter school, nor the Michigan Department of Education found anything illegal in the school’s audits."36 In 2015, Ingersoll, pleaded guilty of two felony counts for tax evasion and “conspiracy to defraud the United States.”37 Bridge Magazine called this “the most significant federal criminal case in the history of Michigan’s 20-year-old charter school industry.”38 “If this happened in public schools, the public would be up... Judge to issue order on requests to end Mich. recount Robert Snell , The Detroit News 1:43 p.m. EST December 7, 2016 Detroit — A federal judge won’t immediately stop a statewide recount of the Nov. 8 presidential election results Wednesday after hearing 90 minutes of argument following three days of court battles in two states. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith said he will issue a written order, possibly later Wednesday, after considering requests from the Michigan Republican Party and state officials that effectively would halt the recount in light of a lower-court ruling Tuesday. The judge’s decision added a dramatic pause to a flurry of legal challenges playing out across state and federal courts in Michigan and Ohio regarding the continuation of a statewide manual recount triggered by a presidential candidate who concedes she has no chance to win. Near the end of the 90-minute hearing, a lawyer for state Attorney General Bill Schuette addressed the gravity of the judge’s pending order. “You would be the first federal court in history to order a recount for a candidate who lost by more than 2 million votes,” Bursch said. The state Board of Canvassers, meanwhile, halted its review of Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s recount petition Wednesday while awaiting the federal judge’s order. The state GOP and lawyers for the Board of State Canvassers argued for the recount to stop, saying three days of manual counting found a change in only 66 votes between President-elect Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton. They reiterated earlier arguments that Stein does not have a right to pursue a recount because she lost badly, finishing fourth in the election with about 1 percent of the vote in Michigan. Stein also lacked evidence any fraud was involved or that voting machines fell victim to cyber attacks. Stein has a “zero, and I do mean zero, likelihood of succeeding on the merits,” said attorney John Bursch, who is representing Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette. Stein conceded her goal is not to win the election. Instead, she wants to test the integrity of a state voting system and prove whether voters were disenfranchised, her lawyers have said. Bursch earlier said Stein should post at least a $5 million bond if the judge is going to continue the recount. That money would help cover the recount’s cost, the lawyer said. Horowitz, however, said the $5 million estimate is inaccurate and pushed for a more precise figure. Late Tuesday, a Michigan Court of Appeals panel ordered the Board of State Canvassers to reconsider and reject a recount petition filed by Stein. The court ruled Stein did not qualify for a recount because she had no chance at winning the presidential election. A possible ruling Wednesday could bring a dramatic end to a recount and conflicting legal decisions from judges in Detroit, Lansing and a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, and end a recount costing Michigan taxpayers almost $1 million a day. Wednesday’s hearing caps a two-day flurry of legal battles. On Sunday, Goldsmith ordered the hand recount of 4.8 million ballots start immediately. But Tuesday, with the recount underway in several counties, the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati suggested the judge reconsider his order if state courts ruled against Stein, which happened late Tuesday. During Wednesday’s hearing, Goldsmith considered requests from the state GOP and Board of State Canvassers to dissolve a temporary restraining order that has prevented state officials from stopping the recount. Late Tuesday, her lawyers filed an amended lawsuit asking Goldsmith to continue the recount after raising concerns that Michigan’s voting machines are vulnerable to fraud and computer hacking. If the recount stops, Stein “and every citizen and voter in Michigan will be left victims of a system for recording and tallying votes that is unreliable, vulnerable and unsecure,” Stein lawyer Jessica Clarke wrote. It would be premature to dissolve the temporary restraining order while Stein tries to fight the appeals court decision in front of the Michigan Supreme Court, her lawyers argued Wednesday morning. “...The only available course is to wait at least until Michigan Supreme Court rules before taking any action to dissolve the stay,” Stein lawyer Mark Brewer wrote in a filing. rsnell@detroitnews.com (313) 222-2486==naag ~ gay marriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._BurschAttorney General Bill Schuette announced today that he has appointed Aaron Lindstrom to succeed John Bursch as the next Solicitor General for Michigan, effective December 7, 2013. By statute, the Attorney General may appoint a Solicitor General to represent the State of Michigan in the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Lindstrom left Warner Norcross & Judd LLP to join Michigan's Solicitor General Bureau in 2012. John Bursch will now return to Warner Norcross & Judd after nearly three years of distinguished service as Michigan's 10th Solicitor General, including eight oral arguments in the United States Supreme Court. Government AffairsCHAIR: TROY M. CUMINGSWarner’s Government Affairs Practice Group, situated on Michigan’s political pulse in Lansing, has forged solid relationships with legislators, state officials and government agencies. Unlike mere consulting and lobbying firms, we have the knowledge and experience to propose legislative and administrative language that will withstand legal challenges. We are also bound by a code of conduct and steadfastly avoid conflicts of interest. In sum, we have the expertise, ethics and the political access to best serve your legal needs. Our clients appreciate our sound policy advice and solid base of knowledge on state law and guidance. We're successful advocates for our clients because we nurture the relationships we've established on both sides of the political aisle in Lansing. The Michigan Tax Tribunal, Liquor Control Commission and departments of Treasury, Environmental Quality and Community Health are among the agencies we work with on behalf of clients. Jim Cavanagh has spent more than two decades in government relations and advocacy. He began his career as legal counsel for two speakers of the Michigan House of Representatives and the House Democratic Caucus. His work earned him recognition as a top Michigan lobbyist, both by the Michigan Information Research Service (MIRS) and Inside Michigan Politics. Government affairs attorney Troy Cumings served as legislative aide to a former Senate Majority Leader. In addition to lobbying, Troy conducts an active campaign finance and environmental law practice. He was appointed to lead the transition team for Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette, a former Warner attorney, after Schuette’s 2010 victory. Schuette isn’t our only connection to state government. Former Michigan Solicitor General John Bursch also is a Warner partner attorney. William Fulkerson, who serves in an of counsel position at Warner, was Chief Administrative Law Judge for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for more than 20 years. Here are a few recent accomplishments of our Government Affairs attorneys: