Three of the 10 counties chosen as beneficiaries of a program from the nonprofit that helped fund the private takeover of government election offices in 2020 are refusing to accept those dollars leading up to the 2024 cycle.
Election officials from Brunswick and Forsyth Counties in North Carolina and Ottawa County in Michigan have chosen not to accept funds from the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, a program that plans to funnel $80 million in election grants to jurisdictions across the country over the next five years. The alliance is a project of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, one of two groups that funneled over $328 million of private money from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, known as “Zuckbucks,” to government election offices mostly in the blue counties of swing states, mobilizing Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts and swinging the race in Joe Biden’s favor.
Many of the jurisdictions chosen as recipients for the 2024 cycle lean heavily Democrat and are located in swing states, indicating CTCL is hoping to replicate its successful scheme in the next presidential election in purple states Democrats need to win, such as Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. While CTCL might once again try to hide its efforts by claiming the alliance is also giving money to red counties, expect more than double or triple the funds to be spent on Democratic-leaning counties compared to Republican ones, just like in 2020.
Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck told RealClearInvestigations he will refuse the grant money offered to his county because of transparency concerns. When Roebuck asked the alliance about its criteria for the amount of money given to each county, those running the program refused to give a clear answer.
Tim Tsujii, director of elections for the Forsyth County Board of Elections, told RealClear that Forsyth will not take any grant money because the county has adequate funds to administer its elections. Forsyth and Brunswick Counties will still be part of the alliance, but Tsujii raised concerns about members having to pay a fee for being part of the program.
“There is all this talk about the money going to elections offices and the counties, but what about the money going from the counties to the alliance?” Tsujii said.
To be a part of the alliance, election offices must pay an annual fee, $1,600 for a basic membership or $4,800 for premium, which the CTCL-created program says gives officials access to “coaching,” tutorials, consulting, and any other as-needed handholding, such as revamping voter forms and websites. The alliance also obligates members “to make non-monetary (but highly significant) contributions to the broader activities of the Alliance,” such as participating in its events and sharing election data, documents, and forms.
While the program goes to great lengths to stress its “commitment to nonpartisanship” — “We will never attempt to influence the outcome of any election. Period” — its own founding organization, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, has demonstrated the catastrophic and deeply partisan consequences of welcoming outside groups to infiltrate government election offices.
These three jurisdictions are not the only beneficiaries raising concerns about the integrity of the alliance and the problems associated with accepting its funds. The town of Greenwich, Connecticut, narrowly approved a $500,000 grant from the program after town representatives and concerned residents wrote a letter to their local newspaper signaling their opposition to accepting the grant. The letter cited outside influence by the partisan groups in Greenwich’s election process as one reason to reject the funds.
As RealClearInvestigations noted:
When [Greenwich] residents heard that its elections office was tapped to receive $500,000 in grant money from the CTCL, a member of the town’s legislative council sent an email to the center seeking more information, including audits of the group’s books, a copy of the group’s annual report, and its conflict-of-interest policy.
The CTCL declined to provide the documents, insisting that its audited financials and conflict policies “are not publicly filed documents.”
The alliance has also failed to disclose how exactly the grant money will be used, instead keeping things vague and saying it will vary depending on each office. But if CTCL’s past is prologue, that could mean working with left-wing third-party groups to create absentee ballot forms, targeting likely-Democratic voters by harvesting and curing their ballots, and crafting automatic voter registration systems. The Center for Tech and Civic Life is already hoping to do this on a much broader scale than in 2020. As The Federalist previously reported, CTCL has an elaborate plan to infiltrate more than 8,000 local election departments across the country by 2026.
That county election officials and town leaders are suspicious of the alliance and are starting to opt out of its grant money should set off alarm bells for other jurisdictions committed to conducting free and fair elections. Unless more localities reject these private funds and memberships, CTCL — under the guise of its new U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence program — will once again undermine election integrity in 2024 and beyond.
Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.
The dust of the 2022 midterm contests has barely settled and Democrats — invigorated by the Red Wave that evaporated under extended lax voting policies — are out to make sweeping changes to our nation’s election laws once again.
Think back to 2020, when Democratic governors and unsuspecting Republican lawmakers made unprecedented changes to state election policies in the name of Covid that included mandating universal mail-in balloting and a month of early voting. Some states have kept these changes permanently. But Democrats are not satisfied, and why should they be? With their gubernatorial power retained (they kept all but one of the governor’s offices) and newfound control of state legislatures in both Michigan and Minnesota, Democrats are keen to ram through a whole gamut of unprecedented and unconstitutional changes. It’s working, so they’re going to keep doing it.
As The New York Times reported, Democrats’ list of policy proposals for 2023 includes expanding automatic voter registration systems, preregistering teenagers to vote, granting the franchise to felons, and criminalizing what the left thinks is election “misinformation.” Of course, all these policy prescriptions have little to do with “voting rights,” but Democrats package them as such, and slander their opponents as — you guessed it — racists.
Make no mistake about what these proposals are meant to accomplish. Take automatic voter registration. The New York Times notes that such a system — already adopted by 20 states — “adds anyone whose information is on file with a government agency — such as a department of motor vehicles or a social services bureau — to [a state’s] voter rolls unless they opt out.”
During the 2020 election, Michigan’s Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sent out automatic voter registration forms to all eligible Michigan residents. As a result of the mailer, 114,000 people were automatically added to Michigan’s voter rolls. Many were duplicate and otherwise inaccurate registrations. By padding state voter rolls with new unlikely voters, Democrats can target unsuspecting blocs of voters, harvest their ballots, and put their candidates over the top. Various leftist 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations are solely dedicated to this.
As I’ve previously reported regarding Democratic attempts to court high school-age kids, multiple left-wing organizations are targeting young people to effectively propagandize them into future Democratic Party voters. As two-thirds of Gen Z voters backed Democrats this past midterm election cycle, Democrats are hoping to capitalize on this emerging voting bloc while also setting their sights on even younger kids. While leftist organizations have tried to couch their outreach efforts as bipartisan, Democrat politicians admit they’re going after younger voters to benefit the left.
“[Targeting young people] is something the left’s been pushing for quite a while — along with enfranchising noncitizens and automatic restoration of felon voting rights,” executive director of the Honest Elections Project Jason Snead told me earlier this month. “They’re always looking for new people to bring into the election system and calculating the targeted groups who will be more likely to vote Democratic.”
Along with making the state a key player in their efforts to pad voter rolls in their favor, Democrats are also intent on criminalizing any information that could hurt their electoral prospects. Known Democratic Party hack and Michigan Secretary of State Joycelyn Benson told the New York Times that she wants new rules and penalties for individuals peddling “misinformation” in election mailers or language on proposed ballot amendments.
“The greatest threats to our democracy right now continue to be the intentional spread of misinformation and the threats and harassment of election officials that emerge from those efforts,” Benson said.
With Democrats’ history of using Big Tech to label the New York Post’s verified story on Hunter Biden as misinformation and its subsequent censorship during the 2020 election, as well as myriad true scientific claims that countered the bureaucracy’s Covid narrative, it’s clear Benson and fellow Democrats’ desire to censor “misinformation” is code for cracking down on any information Democrats don’t like.
What’s To Be Done
Republicans must be wary of Democratic efforts to fortify elections in 2023 and beyond. While some congressional Republicans might think the post-2020 election integrity fight is over, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Democrats have a massive ground game advantage over Republicans already, and if they pass these policy proposals — under the insufferable label of “voting rights” — in key swing states, that advantage will only grow to an insurmountable one. Republicans must realize election integrity is not a seasonal push nor a battle isolated to 2020. Rather, they must be on offense for years to come.
Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.
Michigan voters will decide Tuesday whether children in that state can obtain puberty blockers at Planned Parenthood facilities without parental consent. Proposal 3 would also give Michigan children a constitutional right to be castrated or surgically sterilized — again, without the consent of a parent.
Parental rights have become a fiercely contested battleground. Historically, your right to determine what’s in the best interest of your child has gone without question. It’s the oldest, most fundamental liberty we know, enshrined in legal doctrine since 1690.
But too often today, ideology determines whether your parental rights will actually stand in court. If a parent opposes her child’s desire to pretend to be the opposite sex, courts increasingly treat that parent’s rights as expendable.The sexual confusion of children overshadows parents’ rights to remain in their children’s lives as a potent force.
In a courtroom down the hall, however, the rights of neglectful or drug-abusing parents are treated with kid gloves, under the theme of family preservation. Activist courts stand ready to protect your parental rights, but only when your narrative matches their own.
‘I’m God in this Case’
Less than a year ago, Abigail Shrier shocked readers with her story of a California judge who stripped a father of his parental rights because he showed insufficient support for performing irreversible medical procedures on his sex-confused son. These cases are popping up all around the country. Sexual ideology is becoming the governing factor in a child’s placement, trumping the will and the voice of a parent.In a state whose governor was elected on a parental rights platform, Virginia Del. Elizabeth Guzman brazenly introduced a bill that would charge a parent who fails to affirm a child’s “sexual orientation or gender identity” with a felony. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed legislation that makes his state a “refuge” for trans-identifying minors who seek irreversible medical procedures. Just make it to the Golden State … and there is nothing your objecting parents can do.
One case in the sleepy university town of Charlottesville, Virginia, provides some insight into how a parent can suddenly get framed as “the bad parent” in a custody battle, merely for questioning a child’s sexual confusion.
Sarah Schultz told me she spent more than a half-million dollars trying to retain joint custody of her 15-year-old daughter who first claimed she was bisexual and then began to question her sex. Schultz pled for a “wait and see” approach and for the right to have an influence in her daughter’s maturing adolescence. Despite Sarah’s ex-husband’s earlier fentanyl overdose, she says, a judge gave primary custody of the daughter to her dad, who permitted both bisexual and heterosexual sleepovers. In the past four years, Schultz has seen her daughter fewer than five times.
Schultz said the appointed guardian ad litem viewed her faith as a threat to her daughter’s emerging sexuality.“I’m God in this case,” Schultz recalled her daughter’s guardian ad litem saying. The court saw her daughter as a girl in an “authentic process to discover her identity,” Schultz explained, while the father was commendable because he was “allowing her sexuality to blossom.”
Courts often use the “safety of the child” as a guise to award custody to a parent who mirrors the left’s narrative. Note the irony here. How can you be a good parent unless you are willing to oppose something harmful your child thinks she wants at the time? A teenager sees hormones and irreversible surgeries as a mirage of liberation. A concerned parent sees what a disfigured body and the inability to have children will mean 10 years from now.
A Pernicious Double Standard
Treatment of parental rights in the world of foster care and adoption, meanwhile, is a vastly different story.
A mother can give birth to a baby who spends two months in the NICU, crying for endless hours as he detoxes from the heroin his mother ingested during pregnancy, and she or her mother can still take the baby home. Parental rights are treated as sacrosanct, even though most of the maltreatment of children actually occurs at the hands of parents or their paramours.
“Family preservation” is the holy grail courts and welfare agencies pursue, often at the expense of the actual safety of children. As Naomi Schaefer Riley explains in her book, “No Way To Treat A Child,” “child welfare workers and family-court judges … believe that foster care, to the extent that it should be used at all, is an endless holding pattern for a child while parents get their affairs in order.” Sadly, many never do.
In an effort to preserve parental rights, children languish in care for years. The common complaint in foster care is “the clock.” Though a child is legally eligible for adoption after roughly two years in care, drug-abusing parents can play out the clock, attend a few recovery meetings, fulfill a requirement or two on the reunification plan — and the clock starts over. Many children age out of the possibility of adoption because the court favors parental rights over children’s attachment needs.
The Use and Abuse of Parental Rights
Given the current capricious approach of many courts, the question to ask is: Just how safe are your parental rights? If the issues at hand are related to your child’s confusion about his sex, then your parental rights can be bargained away in court far too easily. But if the court frames those rights as a matter of “family preservation,” they are nearly carved in stone.
The contrast between how parental rights are viewed, depending on the left-wing bias of courts and state agencies, should disturb everyone. The right of conscientious parents to shape their child’s life is among the most cherished of all human freedoms. That right is increasingly threatened, as the militancy of transgender ideology invades the private realm of parent and child.
How safe are your parental rights then? Only as safe as the left wants them to be.
Paula Rinehart, LCSW, is a therapist in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the author of the book “Sex and the Soul of a Woman.” She writes about family and culture.
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A group of GOP Michigan state representatives has introduced legislation that would make it first-degree child abuse to allow a child to undergo gender transition surgery or take cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers. This would apply to an individual who “knowingly or intentionally consents to, obtains, or assists with a gender transition procedure for a child,” according to the text of the bill. “For purposes of this subdivision only, ‘person’ means a child’s parent or guardian or any other person who cares for, has custody of, has authority over a child regardless of the length of time that a child is cared for, in the custody of, or subject to the authority of that person, or a physician or other licensed medical professional.”
“Child abuse in the first degree is a felony punishable by imprisonment for life or any term of years,” the bill notes.
Republican state Reps. Ryan Berman, Steve Carra, Luke Meerman, Beau LaFave, and Steve Marino introduced the measure.
“People are abusing these children,” state Rep. Beau LaFave told The Hill. “The idea that we would be making potentially life-altering changes to 11-, 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-old kids when it is illegal for them to have sex is insane. I mean, they’re not responsible enough to smoke a cigarette until they’re 21.”
LaFave noted that he is optimistic that most GOP members of the state legislature will support the bill and said that while he thinks most state Democrats actually agree with those pushing the measure, Democratic figures would face the risk of hurting their political careers if they openly backed the bill.
While Republicans have a majority in both chambers of the state legislature, they do not have enough of an edge to muster the two-thirds vote required in each house to override a gubernatorial veto. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would almost certainly veto the measure if it were ever to reach her desk. Whitmer is currently seeking reelection during the state’s 2022 gubernatorial election.
In less than one month, if Proposal 3 passes, children will have a right under the Michigan constitution to walk into one of Planned Parenthood’s 12 so-called “gender affirming” facilities in the state and, without parental knowledge or consent, obtain puberty blockers. And with Planned Parenthood of Michigan promising “gender affirming” care “via telehealth in the coming months,” Michiganders’ kids won’t even need to leave their house to obtain these sterilizing drugs.
Passage of Prop 3 will also give boys a constitutional right to be castrated and girls the right under Michigan’s constitution to be sterilized by way of a hysterectomy or the removal of their ovaries — all without their parents’ consent.
Deceptive marketing by Planned Parenthood and far-left politicians, such as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, hides this reality from Michigan voters, leading Prop 3 to be uniformly referred to as “the abortion amendment” even though the expansive language of the proposed constitutional amendment reaches far beyond abortion. And on abortion alone, notwithstanding proponents’ claims that “passing this amendment simply restores the same protections that Michiganders had for five decades under Roe v. Wade,” Prop 3 goes far beyond the controlling Roe-Casey precedent: If passed, the constitutional amendment would create an extreme regime in Michigan of abortion on demand, at any time, for any reason, without informed or parental consent, and paid for by taxpayers.
The expansive and legalistically worded language of Prop 3, crafted by Planned Parenthood and left-wing backers, however, extends beyond abortion to create a constitutional right to several aspects of what transgender activists call “gender-affirming care,” despite it being neither affirming nor caring. And Prop 3 extends that right to all individuals, including children.
This is not merely a political point, and it is not a worst-case-scenario argument based on how some liberal activist judge or justice might interpret Prop 3. This reality flows from the plain language of Prop 3 and rests on general legal principles of constitutional construction.
It’s Right in the Text
Here is the pertinent language Prop 3 would etch into the Michigan constitution as Article 1, Section 28, with the key language underscored:
“(1) Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care. An individual’s right to reproductive freedom shall not be denied, burdened, nor infringed upon unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means. …
(2) The state shall not discriminate in the protection or enforcement of this fundamental right.
* * *
(4) For the purposes of this section:
A state interest is “compelling” only if it is for the limited purpose of protecting the health of an individual seeking care, consistent with accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine, and does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.
* * *
(5) This section shall be self-executing….
Prop 3 Applies to Men and Women AND Boys and Girls
By its express terms, Prop 3 applies to “every individual” and guarantees an “individual’s right.” The proposed constitutional amendment further provides that “the state shall not discriminate in the protection or enforcement of this fundamental right.”
As a matter of constitutional interpretation, then, the rights guaranteed by Prop 3 would be rights that both adults and children possess as “individuals,” and the rights apply equally to males and females.
This proposal represents a huge demarcation from controlling Michigan law, under which minors must have parental consent to obtain medical treatment or receive prescription medications, with the only current exception being the judicial bypass provisions governing minors seeking abortions. Specifically, Michigan law currently provides that to obtain an abortion, females under the age of 18 must have the written consent of one parent or legal guardian, but the law allows a girl to seek permission for an abortion from a judge, called a “judicial bypass.” A court must grant a judicial bypass if the judge finds either that “the minor is sufficiently mature and well-enough informed to make the decision regarding abortion independently of her parents or legal guardian,” or “the waiver would be in the best interests of the minor.”
In the context of abortion, Prop 3 guts Michigan’s requirements for either parental consent or a judicial bypass, first by declaring that the amendment applies to all “individuals” and second by expressly providing that “the state shall not discriminate in the protection or enforcement of this fundamental right.” Treating females under 18 differently than those 18 or over is a textbook example of discrimination.
Section 4 of the amendment further cements the reality that minors must be treated equivalent to adults for purposes of the rights Prop 3 would establish. That section of the proposed amendment expressly limits the justifications allowed for regulating abortion or the other rights Prop 3 would inscribe in the constitution.
Under Section 4, the state may only regulate abortion and the other rights covered by the proposed constitutional amendment if it is necessary to “protect[] the health of an individual seeking care,” and “does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.”
The rights of parents do not matter; Mom and Dad have no rights. And even the health of the girl does not matter because, under the plain language of the amendment, the state’s interest cannot “infringe” on the “individual’s autonomous decision-making.”
This legal analysis flows straight from the plain language of Prop 3, but case law from other states where a state constitutional right to abortion exists confirms this analysis. For example, in Alaska and Florida, courts have declared parental consent and parental notification statutes unconstitutional. And courts in California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey have struck parental consent statutes.
Prop 3’s grant of such “autonomous decision-making” is not limited to abortion, however. Rather, the plain language of the proposed constitutional amendment provides that the right to “reproductive freedom,” “entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to … sterilization … or infertility care.”
Under Michigan law currently, minors cannot be chemically or surgically sterilized (or rendered infertile) without their parents’ consent, and even then most physicians would refuse to sterilize a minor — except in the case of transgender-identifying patients.
The modern medical community has embraced the transgender ideology that teaches that human beings can be born “in the wrong body,” and that the appropriate treatment for such individuals consists of making their bodies appear to conform to their “internal sense” of gender.
The first step in such wrongly named “gender-affirming” medical response consists of prescribing puberty blockers to children. Puberty blockers, at a minimum, render children temporarily infertile by preventing them from maturing sexually, and a longer-term use renders them sterile. The surgical procedures used under the guise of “gender confirmation” — castration, hysterectomy, and the removal of ovaries — likewise sterilize the patients.
In fact, it is this very destruction of children’s future fertility and the medical rendering of them sterile that has led to several states banning the use of puberty blockers and surgical “gender confirming” procedures on minors. For instance, in Iowa, the Legislature made these legislative findings to explain its proposed ban on puberty blockers and surgical procedures that sterilize children:
Puberty blockers prevent gonadal maturation and thus render children taking these drugs infertile. Introducing cross-sex hormones to children with immature gonads as a direct result of pubertal blockade is expected to cause irreversible sterility. Sterilization is also permanent for those who undergo surgery to remove reproductive organs[.] … For these reasons, the decision to pursue a course of hormonal and surgical interventions to address a discordance between an individual’s sex and sense of gender identity should not be presented to or determined for children who are incapable of comprehending the negative implications and life-course difficulties resulting from these interventions.
But in Michigan, if passed, Prop 3 guarantees children the right to “make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to … sterilization,” and without “discrimination,” giving boys and girls the right to obtain puberty blockers and surgical sterilization without parental notice or consent.
If passed, Section 4 of the proposed constitutional amendment will further guarantee that the Michigan Legislature cannot interfere in transgender minors’ decisions to obtain puberty blockers or surgical “gender reassignment” through castration, removal of ovaries, or a hysterectomy. That section, as excerpted above, provides that the state may only regulate such procedures for the limited purpose of “protecting the health of an individual seeking care, consistent with accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine,” and then, only so long as it “does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.”
But the “accepted clinical standards of practice” by the supposed “mainstream” medical organizations is, at a minimum, to provide puberty blockers to children, with a steady movement toward the cash cow that is surgical interventions for minors.
Planned Parenthood Targets Kids One Way or Another
Again, these conclusions flow directly from the plain language of the proposed constitutional amendment. But here the public would be wise to note two significant facts: Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan helpedlead the ballot initiative to amend the Michigan constitution through the passage of Prop 3, deceptively described as the “Reproductive Freedom for All” amendment, and Planned Parenthood nowrepresents “the second largest provider of ‘gender-affirming hormone therapy.’” In fact, less than two weeks ago, Planned Parenthood launched an ad marketing puberty blockers to minors.
What Planned Parenthood and its extremist political partners don’t want publicized, however, is that a “Yes” vote for Prop 3 will not merely make abortion-on-demand, for any reason, at any time, and without informed or parental consent the law of Michigan: It will guarantee that children have an unfettered “right” to “transition” by obtaining puberty blockers and surgical sterilization, parents be damned.
With less than one month to go before Michiganders cast their final ballots, little time remains to give proof to the left’s lie that Prop 3 is about codifying Roe. It is not. It is about sacrificing the children of the state — both born and unborn.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
An elderly pro-life volunteer is recovering after she was shot during an apparent dispute while canvassing a Michigan neighborhood.
The 83-year-old woman from Ionia County was passing out pamphlets on behalf of Right to Life of Michigan (RLM) on Sept. 20 when police say she was shot in the shoulder after an “alleged verbal altercation” at a home in the area.
The woman then drove herself to the Lake Odessa Police Department and reported the incident, according to Michigan State Police. She was transported to an area hospital and was later released, authorities said.
According to a statement from RLM, the victim was shot “while leaving a residence during a heated conversation” by a man who was not involved in that conversation.
The victim does not know the identity or motive of her shooter, according to the statement.
While RLM Education Coordinator Chris Gast could not provide much additional info, he said the victim — who has been a pro-life volunteer “for a very long time” — is recovering and “in good spirits.”
“She hasn’t mentioned returning to door-to-door activities, but she was asking me about when our yard signs come in, so she’s clearly still engaged,” Gast told The Christian Post.
Michigan State Police are investigating the case and will turn over the investigation’s results to Ionia County prosecutors.
The woman was among a group of volunteers who were going door-to-door to inform residents about Proposal 3, titled “Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative,” a state measure which, if approved by voters, would allow abortion to take place up to and including the moment of birth.
By prohibiting “state discrimination” against enforcement of Proposal 3, the measure also would allow people without medical training to assist with an abortion procedure without fear of prosecution.
While Michigan law currently requires parental consent for virtually all medical procedures for underage children, Proposal 3 would allow for children as young as 12 to undergo an abortion without parental consent.
Gast said Proposal 3 would “dramatically” impact dozens of state laws.
“It would remove basic health and safety regulations from abortion clinics; it would allow minors to take hormone-blocking pills, undergo sex changes, and have abortions without notifying their parents; it would allow abortions until birth,” he said. “There’s a long list of other problems it would create.”
The Michigan attack comes as pro-life activists, pregnancy centers, and others are being increasingly targeted by abortion activists after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
Flint, Michigan’s longtime city clerk is retiring after an election integrity group sent a letter to her office demanding she balance out the number of Democrat and Republican election inspectors.
On Sept. 6, Pure Integrity Michigan Elections (PIME) and attorney Erick Kaardal of the Thomas More Society sent a demand letter to Flint and City Clerk Inez Brown threatening legal action if they do not balance out the number of partisan poll watchers before the November general election. As previously reported, during Flint’s Aug. 2 primary, the city hired 422 Democrats compared to just 27 Republican election inspectors — in direct violation of a Michigan state statute that requires equal representation of party election inspectors.
On Sept. 8, Brown, after serving as Flint’s city clerk for 25 years, abruptly announced her resignation effective Sept. 30 — roughly one month before the November election. Brown gave no reason for her resignation and caught city officials by surprise.
“My administrative office was taken by surprise,” Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley told the Flint Beat. “I had no foreknowledge of this occurring this soon.” Because of Brown’s resignation, Neeley reached out to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office for help running the city’s elections. Benson is up for re-election this year, raising questions about the ethics of her involvement in Flint’s elections.
“Can her office be considered impartial in running the elections in Flint?” Patrice Johnson, chair of PIME told The Federalist. “The law states that if you are running for office, you cannot be an election inspector in the precinct in which you’re running.”
Despite such questions, Johnson sees Brown’s resignation as a step in the right direction. Brown’s tenure as Flint city clerk has led to multiple controversies, including giving mayoral candidates the wrong filing deadline in 2015 and alleged failure to process absentee ballots.
“The pressure we’ve put on the city led to this,” Johnson said. “This is a HUGE win.”
Regardless of Brown’s resignation, Johnson expects Flint to fully comply with PIME’s demand letter and balance its number of partisan election inspectors in time for the November election.
“In a state with more than 7 million registered voters, and where an election inspector need not live in the precinct in which they work, there is no excuse for an unhealthy imbalance of workers at our township and municipal elections,” she said.
Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.
The establishment media has neglected, yet again, to cover a story concerning voter fraud.
What a surprise. (Sarcasm intended.)
On Monday, it was announced that three Michigan women had been charged with crimes related to their alleged attempts to commit voter fraud in the 2020 election.
“These cases highlight the scrutiny applications and ballots undergo throughout the election process, as well as the thorough investigative process that ensues when instances of attempted fraud are suspected,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement.
“We will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who attempts to undermine our elections.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson added that “our election system is secure, and today’s charges demonstrate that in the rare circumstances when fraud occurs we catch it and hold the perpetrators accountable.”
“These charges also send a clear message to those who promote deceitful claims about widespread fraud: the current protocols we have in place work to protect and ensure the integrity of our elections. It’s time to share that truth and stop spreading lies to the contrary,” Benson said.
But a look at what these women were charged with tells a different story and illuminates the many potential pathways to voter fraud.
It also raises an important question: Are the American people supposed to trust government officials to catch each and every instance of fraud when mail-in voting makes it so easy to cheat the system?
The first of the women, Trenae Myesha Rainey of Macomb County, was an employee at a nursing home.
Rainey stole a stack of “roughly two dozen absentee voter applications” meant for nursing home residents, filled them out, forged the residents’ signatures and had the applications turned in.
Again, under the universal mail-in voting system Democrats so desperately want, this sort of fraud couldn’t be any easier to commit.
The second woman, Carless Clark of Wayne County, returned her grandson’s absentee ballot by mail “despite her grandson deciding to vote in person.”
The third woman, Nancy Juanita Williams of both Wayne and Oakland counties, was a caretaker for legally incapacitated people.
Williams “implemented a plan to obtain and control absentee ballots” for those individuals under her care “by fraudulently submitting 26 absentee ballot applications to nine identified city and township clerks, seeking to have absentee ballots for those individuals mailed directly to her.”
A total of 50 charges were brought against the women, including 36 felonies.
Thankfully, these alleged culprits were caught and are being held to account. If Democrats get their way with their reckless election laws, however, there’s no guarantee the next fraudsters will be apprehended.
And when more fraud does occur, the American people likely won’t know until it’s too late.
Michael Austin joined The Western Journal as a staff reporter in 2020. Since then, he has authored hundreds of stories, including several original reports. He also co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
For months, coronavirus vaccine skeptics have been mocked, shunned, turned away from events and labeled as tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists for their refusal to be injected with a novel breed of vaccines. But there are reasons to be cautious.
Michigan resident Jacob Clynick had just completed the eighth grade and looked forward to starting his freshman year at Saginaw’s Carrollton High School this fall when the 13-year-old got his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on June 13 at a local Walgreens pharmacy, the Detroit Free Press reported.
When we’re 13, life seems so vast and rife with possibilities. We either look forward to — or dread — turning the page to write our lives’ next chapter, but, in our own peculiar ways, we each anticipate the journey.
Jacob never got the chance to move on.
s the days separating his vaccination from his death came and went, Jacob reported having typical side effects — fever, upset stomach and fatigue — his aunt, Tammy Burages told the Free Press. In most cases, such mild symptoms are little cause for concern — especially from a healthy 13-year-old with no underlying medical conditions.
When Jacob went to bed June 15, he had a stomach ache, Burges told the newspaper. He died overnight.
Now, authorities are investigating whether Jacob’s death was related to the vaccination, the Free Press reported.
“The family was told that preliminary autopsy findings suggest Jacob’s heart was enlarged when he died and there was fluid around his heart, Burges said,” according to the Free Press.
The Michigan Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine would not confirm this information, the Free Press reported.
“We can verify that we are managing the investigation, and that’s the extent of what I can share,” Randy Pfau, director of operations for the institute, told the newspaper.
“It’s still an ongoing investigation,” he added, “I know the doctors are working on this case as a priority.”
As the Free Press noted, a Centers for Disease Control advisory committee has acknowledged previous instances of post-vaccine heart inflammation (aka myocarditis), saying that a “likely association” exists between the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and heart issues in younger recipients.
However, the CDC still comes down in favor of vaccination.
“The known and potential benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the known and potential risks, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis,” its website states. “Also, most patients with myocarditis and pericarditis who received care responded well to treatment and rest and quickly felt better.”
Still, the side effects are clearly real. How many more children have to share the same experience before liberals stop promoting vaccines for those in age groups at low risk for COVID-19?
Aside from the kid controversy, the adverse reactions, the horror stories and the borderline creepy governmental push surrounding these novel vaccines are exactly why mandates are a bad idea for everyone. These vaccines — aside from being the first of the mRNA breed — have only been on the market for a few short months, unlike traditional vaccines we’ve had for decades (e.g. those for rubella, measles or chickenpox). We know very little about the long-term side effects. We know very little about how our bodies will respond to this new “technology” as time goes on.
It’s only natural to be reluctant.
No definite link between Jacob’s death and his vaccination has been established. However, there’s no shortage of cases where young, healthy recipients experienced heart trouble after their immunizations. Even a CDC advisory committee has acknowledged it.
Am I saying everyone is going to die or experience adverse reactions from COVID vaccines? Of course not. But I am encouraging all readers to do what you feel is best for yourselves and your families. Get vaccinated on your own terms, not the government’s, not some official’s. If you don’t want to get vaccinated, that’s your prerogative too. Above all, have the courage to think for yourself. That’s the bravest thing you can do.
Taylor Penley is a political commentator residing in Northwest Georgia. She holds a BA in English with minors in rhetoric/writing and global studies from Dalton State College. As a student, she worked in government relations and interned for Georgia’s 14th congressional district. She previously published an article with Future Female Leaders and published a rhetorical analysis of President Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate Address in a collegiate journal. She aspires to earn an MA and a PhD in journalism in the near future.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson speaks at a news conference about election security and later-than-typical results being expected in the state’s presidential primary next week on Thursday, March 5, 2020, at the Romney Building in Lansing, Mich. Benson said clerks will face challenges because it is the first major … David Eggert/AP Photo
A Michigan judge ruled last week Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) broke state law when she unilaterally issued rules related to absentee balloting, legitimizing a key claim made by the Trump campaign in its legal challenges to the 2020 election.
Benson issued several unilateral orders during the 2020 election including sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters. She also issued “guidance” on how to evaluate absentee ballots, a move Michigan Court of Claims Chief Judge Christopher Murray held violated the state’s Administrative Procedures Act.
In the guidance, Benson said “slight similarities” in signatures on absentee ballots should lead a counter to decide “in favor of finding that the voter’s signature was valid.”
Murray ruled Benson violated the law “because the guidance issued by the Secretary of State on October 6, 2020, with respect to signature matching standards was issued in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).”
“I’m glad the court sees Secretary of State Benson’s attempts at lawmaking for what they are — clear violations of her authority,” Michigan state Rep. Matt Hall (R) said in a statement.
“If she wants to make changes like these, she needs to work with the Legislature or properly promulgate them through the laws we have on the books — in this case the Administrative Procedures Act,” he continued.
Murray’s ruling came after Allegan County Clerk Bob Genetski sued Benson and state Director of Elections Jonathan Brater over Benson’s order which Hall described as a “mandatory directive requiring local election officials to apply a presumption of validity to all signatures on absent voter ballots.”
According to the suit, Genetski argued “the presumption contained in the guidance issued by defendant Benson will allow invalid votes to be counted,” but Genetski did not allege “that this guidance caused him to accept a signature that he believed was invalid.”
The court’s opinion concluded:
…nowhere in this state’s election law has the Legislature indicated that signatures are to be presumed valid, nor did the Legislature require that signatures are to be accepted so long as there are any redeeming qualities in the application or return envelope as compared with the signature on file. Policy determinations like the one at issue — which places the thumb on the scale in favor of a signature’s validity — should be made pursuant to properly promulgated rules under the APA or by the Legislature.
Like other progressive secretaries of state, Benson put an aggressive emphasis on voting by absentee ballot in the name of safety amid the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Over 3.1 million Michigan voters cast an absentee ballot out of a possible 7.7 million voters, WWMT News reported.
In May 2020, Benson used $4.5 million in funds from the CARES Act — the original coronavirus stimulus — to send absentee ballot applications to all voters, according to Breitbart News.
“By mailing applications, we have ensured that no Michigander has to choose between their health and their right to vote,”Benson said according to NBC 25.
“Voting by mail is easy, convenient, safe, and secure, and every voter in Michigan has the right to do it,” she continued.
Hall noted, “The Legislature is an equal branch of government charged with crafting laws. This is not the role of the Secretary of State, and there is a clear process that must be respected.”
Signature validation rules created without the approval of a legislature was one of the issues the Trump campaign and Republicans claimed was done illegally in the 2020 election. Trump’s campaign and Republicans argued in cases nationwide that Article II of the Constitution requires state legislatures to make the rules governing presidential elections, and state election officials and courts lack the authority to change those rules.
Murray’s ruling undercuts the Democrat narrative that Republican legal challenges to 2020 election procedures were without merit and had therefore all been rejected by the courts. The original suit was filed October 6, 2020 — prior to the presidential election — but was not decided until March 9, 2021.
The case is Genetski v. Benson, No. 20-216-MM in the Court of Claims for the State of Michigan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays — download full podcast episodes. Follow him on Parler.
Constitutional Attorney Matthew DePerno is an American hero. Two weeks ago, Michigan 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin A Elsenheimer agreed to allow Mr. DePerno’s client, William Bailey, and a highly skilled team of IT experts to perform a forensic examination on 16 of the Dominion voting machines in Antrim County. On Monday, Judge Elsenheimer agreed to allow the results of the forensic examination to be released to the public. The results were damning.
THE REPORT:
After the forensic examination of 16 Dominion Voting machines in Antrim, Co., MI, Allied Security Operations Group has concluded that the Dominion Voting machines were assigned a 68.05% error rate.DePerno explained that when ballots are put through the machine, a whopping 68.05% error rate means that 68.05% of the ballots are sent for bulk adjudication, which means they collect the ballots in a folder. “The ballots are sent somewhere where people in another location can change the vote,”DePerno explained.The allowable election error rate established by the Federal Election Commission guidelines is 1 in 250,000 ballots or .0008%.
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Based on the Allied Security Operations report, Constitutional Attorney Matthew DePerno states: “we conclude that The Dominion Voting System should not be used in Michigan. We further conclude that the results of Antrim County should not have been certified.”
The stunning report was widely criticized by the Democrat Party mainstream media and by the dishonest Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Following the bombshell findings by Mr. DePerno and his team of IT experts, a “risk-limited audit” was ordered by Sec. of State Benson. Constitutional Attorney Matt DePerno was invited to observe the “risk-limiting audit” of Antrim County’s vote that took place yesterday in the Kearney Twp. hall in Bellaire, MI., where 6 officials from the Secretary of State continuously walked around the room observing and correcting the counters who dared to stray from their objectives.
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According to Verified Voting: The risk-limiting audit process can be conducted on any set of paper ballots that has a record of the number of ballots cast, how they are stored, and how to retrieve any particular ballot (ballot manifest). For an RLA to meaningfully support confidence in the reported election outcome, the standard is higher, and requires the following:
Paper ballots preferably marked by hand and supplemented with a ballot marking device for those who need to use one. A deliberate and intentional step for a voter to check the paper ballot for accuracy before casting the ballot (voter verification).
Rigorous ballot accounting and a properly maintained chain of custody of the ballots.
If photographic evidence proves seals on the Dominion voting machines were broken on November 27, how can a “properly maintained chain of custody of ballots” be assured. The answer is, it can’t.
Before her so-called audit was completed, Sec of State Benson explained the purpose of the “risk limited audit” to the media while ensuring the integrity of the elections in Michigan:
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“While we know the machine tabulators functioned properly in Antrim, we are conducting this audit to assure the public of what countless officials from both parties at the federal, state and local levels have already confirmed – that this was the most secure election in our nation’s history and the certified results are an accurate reflection of the will of the voters,” adding, “It is time for Michigan, and the nation to once and for all dismiss the meritless disinformation campaign that seeks to undermine the integrity of our election and move forward in support of our collective democracy.”
Mr. DePerno, who acted as an observer to the “risk-limited audit,” doesn’t agree with Ms. Benson about the integrity of Michigan’s election and has provided us with video and photographic evidence to prove that he was again able to debunk her statement about the “most secure election in our nation’s history.”
The first video provided by Matthew DePerno shows a bin of ballots from Mancelona Township, Precinct #1. The bin was delivered to three of the 20 bi-partisan volunteers that included several Antrim Co. city clerks who agreed to assist with the “risk-limited audit.”
Inside the bin, tabulated ballots were mixed in with ballots that were never tabulated, and several blank ballots were mixed in as well. Mr. DePerno referred to the bin of ballots as “an absolute mess!” On December 16, we reported about photographs taken at Mancelona Township’s Precinct #1 on November 27, 2020, that showed both of the security seals on the Dominion Voting machine were missing.
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The second video was taken at a table where ballots were being counted in Helena Twp. The volunteers can be seen questioning why there were fewer ballots in the bin than the original number that was recorded in the previous recount? Shortly after asking the question, a male SOS official approached the table with a bag marked “spoiled ballots” and told them to count them. Attorney Matt DePerno witnessed the unidentified male SOS rep pulling the “spoiled ballot bag out of the bin and delivering it to the volunteers who were “auditing” the ballots. DePerno also witnessed the SOS official telling them to add the “spoiled ballots” to the count.
The third video was taken at a table where the ballots from Central Lake Twp. were being counted. In the video, a male counter can be seen questioning “multiple ballots with the same signature.”According to Matthew DePerno, 138 ballots had write-in-votes where the penmanship was exactly the same.
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In the video below, the SOS official can be seen demanding that the counters ignore what they believe is voter fraud and count the ballots.
“We need to do the counts because if we don’t have the counts, then we can’t move forward. And we understand that there is a concern with this precinct—but this is not a time for you to be investigating right now.”
“Did you find something else?” the male counter asks.
“No,” she replies, adding, “So, you need to move forward with the audit, so we can get the numbers, so we can see how many ballots are here.”
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The female counter asks, “So when we’re done with the audit, there’s still the opportunity to challenge the fact that we have multiple ballots with the very same signature?” she asks.
“I don’t know if ‘challenge’ is the right word,” the SOS official says.
“But we’re challenging—” the volunteer says.
The male volunteer tells the SOS, “We’ll go ahead and count the ballots moving forward, but we will separate out, and count those— there’s going to be an asterisk, saying ‘these ballots have the same signature.’”
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“And again, we know that you have a concern with this precinct,” she tells them, explaining, “That’s not your role at this very moment,” as she continues to push for them to ignore the multiple matching signatures and only count the ballots.
“What I need you to do right now is finish the audit,” she tells them again. Both of the volunteers explain that they are going to make a note of the ballots, to which the SOS official replies, “Again, that is not the process.”
The SOS official implores them to continue to count the presidential ballots.
At no point does the SOS official assure them that the issue of the multiple potentially fraudulent ballots will be addressed, but instead demands that they count them as if they were all legitimate ballots.
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In this video, the SOS official can be seen telling the volunteers who are objecting to adding the ballots in question to the vote total, “This is not an investigation right now!”
On December 16, one day after Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos testified in front of the MI Senate Oversight Committee, Mr. DePerno contacted us to say Poulos was incorrect in his statement that the ballots were securely stored. In fact, Mr. Derno provided us with photos showing seals were broken on one of the tabulators. DePerno explained, “In Central Lake, the lock that protects the side data port where you can insert a thumb drive in order to perform a software upgrade, that could change the program, was missing.” He explains, “The missing lock gives the ability of any person, including a voter to change the Dominion Voting machine program.” Mr. DePerno explained to us that once the seals are broken, and the lock is removed, the integrity of the machines has been compromised. “It definitely showed that someone had accessed the inside of the tabulator, and it no longer represents a secure voting platform,”DePerno said.
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The bin (or box) seen in the image below is where the ballots are stored. DePerno explained, “If you remove the tape, it gives you the ability to separate the tabulator from the box that contains the ballots.”
The photo below shows the stack of ballots in Central Lake that were cast for Joe Biden. The ballots that are pulled forward are all ballots that the counters pulled forward after objecting to the legitimacy of the ballots.
Mr. DePerno was stunned by the number of blank ballots that were mixed in with actual ballots, saying that he believes he observed more blank ballots in the recount than there are registered voters in Antrim County.
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DePerno told us, “The guidelines from RLA were not followed. What they did yesterday was not an audit under those guidelines. It was a hand recount of the presidential race only and failed to address many of the problems with down-ballot races. Members of the public who assisted in the hand recount were not allowed to ask any questions or question any ballots. This hand recount also failed to address any of the glaring problems from the erroneous counts conducted on November 3 and November 6. Yesterday was nothing more than political theatre designed to allow the Secretary of State to again publish the same false narrative to the Michigan voters. Yesterday, when the people conducting the count dared ask questions, they were shut down.”
DePerno’s forensic and photographic evidence should be enough to call the entire Michigan election into question. Will the media or the courts care, or have we now entered a period in our nation’s history where we have officially become a Banana Republica after decades of Republicans ignoring the corruption of our media and our judicial system.
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
The Electoral College is meeting today to formalize the 2020 election results. The Trump campaign is contesting election results in several states due to massive voter fraud and irregularities so Republican Electors are stepping up and casting procedural votes to preserve the legal challenges.
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So far Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania electors cast their votes for Trump and Pence today.
President Trump was way ahead of Joe Biden in Michigan on election night when a massive ballot dump 100% for Joe Biden appeared at 4:30 AM the day after Election Day.
A group of GOP electors on Monday arrived at the Michigan state Capitol to cast their votes for President Trump.
WATCH:
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But the Michigan state police blocked the GOP electors from entering the building.
“The Electors are already here, they’ve been checked in.” the police said as they blocked access to the Capitol.
WATCH:
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“If you have a problem, you can contact the Governor’s office.”the police said giving no reason for why the building is locking down.
The Trump elector asked for the Sergeant at Arms, but the police officer said he was in a meeting. The GOP electors were redirected to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s office!
Multiple states have thrown their support behind a Texas election lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin at the United States Supreme Court which alleges that those four states exploited “the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 General Election.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit late on Monday night, arguing that “Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election.”
“The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution,” Paxton continued. “By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections. Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election. We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error.”
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced late on Monday that his state would back Texas’ lawsuit at the Supreme Court.
“Election integrity is central to our republic,” Schmitt wrote on Twitter. “And I will defend it at every turn. As I have in other cases — I will help lead the effort in support of Texas’ #SCOTUS filing today. Missouri is in the fight.”
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry released a statement calling for the Supreme Court to consider the case brought by Texas.
“Only the U.S. Supreme Court can ultimately decide cases of real controversy among the states under our Constitution. That is why the Justices should hear and decide the case which we have joined representing the citizens of Louisiana,” Landry said. “Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court should consider the most recent Texas motion, which contains some of the same arguments. Louisiana citizens are damaged if elections in other states were conducted outside the confines of the Constitution while we obeyed the rules.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement that he expects the Supreme Court to “act quickly in deciding whether to grant the State of Texas’s request.”
“That decision will instruct me as to how the State of Alabama will proceed in our fight to ensure election integrity,” the statement continued. “The unconstitutional actions and fraudulent votes in other states not only affect the citizens of those states, they affect the citizens of all states — of the entire United States. Every unlawful vote counted, or lawful vote uncounted, debases and dilutes citizens’ free exercise of the franchise. The State of Alabama will continue to pursue any legal remedy available to protect her people from such disenfranchisement. Both our rights and our republic demand it.”
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said that after reviewing Texas’ lawsuit: “I have determined that I will support the motion by the State of Texas in all legally appropriate manners.”
Bill Bailey stands outside the Antrim County Building in Bellaire.
On November 16, several members of the MI State legislature sent a letter to Michigan’s Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson requesting that a full, independent audit of the accusations prior to the certification of the vote. This was after reviewing hundreds of sworn affidavits by GOP and Independent poll challengers and evidence of vote switching by Dominion voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan. The radical Secretary of State, who has a problem with telling the truth, ignored their request.
On November 23, Matthew DePerno of DePerno Law Offices, LLC filed a lawsuit on behalf of Central Lake resident William Bailey, demanding Antrim County allow a forensic investigation of the Dominion voting machines after it was discovered that thousands of ballots cast for President Trump were counted as votes for Joe Biden.
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Additionally, ballots were re-run through the Dominion tabulator machine after a 262-262 tie on a vote for a ballot initiative that would allow a marijuana establishment to be located within the Village of Central Lake. While ballots were being inserted into the machine, 3 of them were destroyed and were not placed through the tabulator. At the conclusion of the recount by the tabulating machine and with three fewer votes, the result was 262-261, and the initiative passed. Of course, this result could only be possible after 3 of the ballots were destroyed.
Two more unexplainable vote counts in Antrim County also left voters questioning the outcome of the vote result by Dominion.
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In his lawsuit, Mr. DePerno asks the 13th Circuit Court to provide Mr. Bailey with the ability to perform a forensic study of the 22 Dominion Voting machines used in Antrim Co., MI to process the ballots in the November election. DePerno, who based his estimate of machines on the number of school boards in Antrim County, later discovered there were only 16 Dominion voting machines that were used in the election.
“Based on all the allegation of fraud, statutory violations, and other misconduct,” DePerno wrote, “it is necessary to immediately permit the plaintiff to take a forensic image of the 22 precinct tabulators, thumb drives, related software, the Clerk’s “master tabulator,” and conduct an investigation of those images, after which a manual recount of the election results and independent audit of the November 3 election may be ordered to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the election.”
In his lawsuit, Matthew DePerno claims that based on the evidence they have provided to the court that Dominion Voting Systems “committed material fraud or error in this election so that the outcome of the election was affected.”
At 5:30 PM on Friday, December 4, 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin A. Elsenheimer granted permission to William Bailey and his team of IT experts to conduct a forensic study of the 16 Dominion voting machines, tabulators, thumb drives, related software, and the Clerk’s “master tabulator.” In his court order, Bailey was also granted the ability to conduct an independent investigation of the images they obtained in their examination. According to DePerno, it would take approximately 6 to 8 hours to obtain the forensic copies, and it made sense to do the work on the weekend when most government employees and residents would not be in the building.
Matthew DePerno was able to quickly assemble a team of seven highly trained forensic IT experts who agreed to arrive the next day (Saturday) to conduct the forensic examination.
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Peter Garwood
Following Judge Elsenheimer’s order for the forensic examination of the Dominion Voting machines, the unelected Township Administrator Peter Garwood informed Mr. Bailey that he would not allow the machines to be accessed until Monday at 11:00 am. DePerno explained that Garwood also contacted Dominion officials and suggested they come to the Antrim County building where the court-ordered examination was to take place. As a result, DePerno and his client, William Bailey, were tasked with ensuring that the Dominion equipment inside the Antrim County building wouldn’t be tampered with before the team’s arrival. According to DePerno, Garwood was told by several elected county commissioners to stand down and allow the examination to take place over the weekend. A group of patriots from northern Michigan answered Mr. Bailey’s call for help. For two days and nights, in freezing cold weather, the group of brave, volunteer patriots stood ready and willing to protect the precious sanctity of our vote. On Sunday morning, the seven-people IT forensic team arrived; Mr. Bailey and his attorney Matt DePerno were given access to the county building and started gathering the forensic evidence. Shortly after the collection began, Antrim County Administrator Peter Garwood began to take photos of the seven IT experts. When one of the IT team members saw him taking photos of them, they demanded Garwood delete them from his phone. According to DePerno, Garwood reluctantly deleted them. While he couldn’t say for certain, DePerno believes Garwood was attempting to dox the highly-skilled IT forensic experts. Several photos of Mr. DePerno’s vehicle were taken by outside protesters as well.
An IT investigator enters the Antrim County Building on Sunday to inspect the Dominion voting machines. (Record-Eagle)
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After 8 hours, the collection was complete. With 16 CF cards (similar to SIM cards), 16 thumb drives, and forensic images of the Dominion voting machines in hand, the IT team was escorted to the local Antrim County Airport by two Antrim County Sheriff vehicles, where they boarded their jet plane with evidence in hand.
Two of the patriots followed attorney Matthew DePerno for at least half of his long drive home. Like many Americans, these patriots simply wanted to ensure the safety of a man who has risked so much to protect our right to free and fair elections.
Mr. DePerno expects to have the results of the study sometime tomorrow. He explained the forensic images of the thumb drives and the master computer would tell if machines were connected to the internet—and if they were, who were they communicating with? DePerno said the examination would be able to determine the algorithms used by the computer and will provide the number of ballots read through the machine compared to the actual number of paper ballots.
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Bill Bailey stands at the Antrim County Clerk’s office on Sunday (Record-Eagle)
DePerno told us that he doesn’t believe the issue of voter integrity should be a political party issue; he believes every American should want to ensure voter integrity in America, regardless of the outcome. He also explained how crazy it is that Americans are willing to allow Dominion to have complete control over the results of our elections. “When Dominion tells us to trust the results they provide us with, they are essentially taking away a meaningful ability to review the contents of the program or the algorithms,” DePerno said.
“My plaintiff only wanted to know if it’s fair to vote in Antrim County?” DePerno said, adding that William Bailey was simply asking for a forensic examination of the Dominion voting machines “to determine if the machine is accurate or not?”
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DePerno has also contacted the Republican members of the Michigan House Oversight Committee and several Michigan senators to discuss the Dominion voting systems, the oppressive and unconstitutional contract that brought it to Michigan, and the system’s ability to manipulate votes. So far, none have been willing to return his calls.
Here is the original complaint filed on November 23rd — William Bailey vs. Antrim County Michigan
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
Big League Politics has reported extensively on the behavior of Lathrup Village, Mich. Mayor Mykale “Kelly” Garrett and the rest of the Garrett Crime Family since the election. Garrett was responsible for brokering a $25 million contract to bring Dominion into the state of Michigan back in 2017 while was serving as a Democrat official in Oakland County. We have also covered her family’s nefarious actions as part of a Democrat political machine that has dominated corrupt Detroit-area politics for over a generation.
However, it is worth noting that the contract to bring Dominion into the state of Michigan was not enacted by reviled Democrat Gov. Gretchen “Grandma Killer” Whitmer. It was enacted under the administration of her predecessor, Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican Never Trumper who supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 and then Joe Biden for president in 2020.
Big League Politics reported on how Snyder went public with his Biden support, encouraging Republicans to switch sides to betray their country and vote Biden in the 2020 election. Hilariously, the effort backfired when Democrats became enraged that the Biden campaign was touting the endorsement of the infamous Flint water villain:
Liberal activists are up in arms at Joe Biden’s presidential campaign for pushing the endorsement of former Michigan governor Rick Snyder, who is blamed by the Left for the Flint water crisis.
Last week, Snyder penned an op/ed in the Detroit News in which he officially endorsed Biden’s presidential candidacy.
“I will continue to support and stand up for Republican policies and values, and support Republican candidates, but I will not support Donald Trump for reelection,” Snyder wrote.
“I had the opportunity to interact with Mr. Biden when he served as vice president. My interactions were always constructive and respectful. He has shown the desire to heal a deeply divided nation; has demonstrated strong moral character and empathy; and he seems willing to listen to people who have different perspectives from his own,” he continued.
“While I am endorsing Joe Biden for president, I am still a Republican who also will be publicly supporting Republican candidates at the local, state and federal level,” Snyder added.
Democrat leaders in the state of Michigan jumped on the news and widely promoted Snyder’s endorsement… While establishment Democrats may be happy about the endorsement, the left-wing activists who Biden needs on his side to win in November are enraged by the news.
“You were the one who defenestrated local governments, many of them representing Black citizens, a policy that led directly to the catastrophe in Flint,” wrote Charles Pierce in Esquire with regards to Snyder.
“For a guy who’s trying to win over the environmental movement and progressives more broadly, I gotta say, this seems like a bad move for Biden. What’s the point of touting your dubious commitment to racial equality and environmental policy if you’re going to drool over the endorsement of a guy who presided over a historic case of environmental injustice?” wrote Dharna Noor in Gizmodo.
“There remain plenty of actual Democrats, however, who feel like Biden is doing little to court them. Maybe he should focus on them,” wrote Lee DeVito of the left-wing Metro Times publication in Detroit.
Republican politicians severely dropped the ball on protecting electoral integrity before the election, which is probably why so many GOP officials are happy to sweep the fraud under the rug and move on as quickly as possible while certifying Biden’s vote steal.
Yesterday, data scientist Sarah Eaglesfield tweeted about some interesting facts she uncovered while looking into Wayne County, Michigan’s voter data from the November 2020 election. According to 100Percent Fed Up, her data, so far, explores cluster votes in Michigan’s Wayne County, where hundreds of affidavits have been filed sharing eye-witness accounts of voter fraud and intimidation by paid election workers and officials and Democrat activists present at the TCF Center, where absentee ballots were processed.
Eaglesfield’s tweet reads:
In order – clusters in Wayne County, Michigan with the most votes cast in #Election2020 were:
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1. A psychiatric hospital (@NedStaebler is that you?)
This comment directed at Ned Staebler is in reference to his viral, videotaped, unhinged rant directed at the Republican Wayne Co. Board of Canvassers who refused to certify the county’s election last week.
2. Apartment block (but no apartment number)
3. A convent
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4. THE FOUR SEASONS Care facility (really!)
5. Homeless drop-in centre
Today, Sarah Eaglesfield shared the data she used to obtain the information she shared on Twitter yesterday. She tagged Michigan’s Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (who insists there was no voter fraud or intimidation of poll challengers in Wayne Co), Trump attorney Sidney Powell, President Trump, Joe Biden.
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RE #1: The psychiatric hospital that, according to Eaglesfield’s research, provided the largest number of cluster votes in Wayne Co.
The largest cluster of votes received in Wayne County was from the Walter P. Reuther Psychiatric Hospital, which provides treatment, care, and services to adults with severe mental illness. 97 patients at the facility either applied for a ballot or are register as absentee voters, and 78 appeared to have returned their ballot.
From the Michigan.gov website: Walter P. Reuther Psychiatric Hospital provides treatment, care and services to adults with severe mental illness.
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Given that the psychiatric facility in question specifically states that it caters to those with severe mental illness it should be investigated what mental capacity these voters had and whether these ballots were potentially abused. It is my understanding that there is no capacity test for voting in Michigan, although state law allows for one to be applied.
RE #2: Apartment block ( but no numbers)
The most striking thing about the Wayne Co. dataset in this regard is that there is no normalization of data in the Mailing Address field. This is a shortcoming in the software that could be abused for fraudulent purposes.
For example, some addresses have been written using the state abbreviation, and some with the full state name. Some have the house number contained in a separate field; some have it adjoined with the street name. In one case, the zip code field has been used to note that the address is an incorrect address.
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The same issue exists in the residential address field, where there is no set format for apartment or studio numbers. Apartment numbers are sometimes stored with a “#”, sometimes as “Apt”, sometimes as “Apartment”, meaning that the same apartment number in the same block could be stored differently in the system, allowing voters to receive more than one voter number.
One example of a person with the same first name, middle name, address, and year of birth, who has been assigned different voter numbers, voted twice and been counted twice, has their address stored as both:
PIO BOX 32910 FORT ST POST OFFICE, DETROIT, MI 48323 and
PO BOX 32910, DETROIT, MI 48232-0910
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Due to the shortcomings with regards to address format, it is difficult to provide a thorough analysis of voter clusters. An example of the problem can be seen, for example, in apartment blocks such as The Pavillion (1 Lafayette Plaisance St) where some residents did not even provide an apartment number.
RE #3: Convent
In the case of the Felician Sisters convent in Livonia, who sadly lost 13 of their sisters due to COVID-19 in May 2020, all their deceased had already been removed from the dataset.
Washington, MI Trump rally Nov. 1, 2020. Catholic nuns came out publicly in support of President Trump in Michigan and in other states, so it’s weird that the names of the deceased nuns were removed from the MI voter rolls, while names of dead voters across Michigan state remained on the voter rolls.
RE #4: The Four Seasons Care Facility
There are a large number of care centers catering for the elderly population within the county. Analysis found two instances where people had died in October, but their vote was still sent and counted. This isn’t problematic in itself, but there were a few care centers that stood out as suspicious – either through having returned all their ballots from the residents on the same day (Four Seasons Care) or through having received ballots for more than one deceased person who had previously been in their care (Hope Care).
RE #5: Homeless Drop-in Center
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The State’s drive to allow homeless people to vote seems to have been successful, and there were a number of votes received from homeless drop-in centers and through the Samaritans. Although these cannot be verified, the numbers are consistent with what you would expect from a raised awareness campaign.
In addition to her findings related to cluster votes, Eagelsfield also released more evidence of voter irregularities that she discovered.
Wayne County Dataset
The Wayne County Dataset was obtained from Jocelyn Benson, the Secretary of State for Michigan. It contains 613,091 lines of data, each representing a vote cast in Wayne County, including voters’ personal information (such as name, home address and year of birth). It is a partial dataset and does not contain all the voter data for Wayne County.
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Forensic Analysis Questions
There are a number of questions that can be asked to help determine the integrity of the election data provided. Although one factor on its own would not point to election fraud having taken place, these questions can still help determine shortcomings in the computer systems used to process the ballots, and where human error may have occurred.
Q1. Is rejection rate in line with other years?
If the rejection rate was significantly higher than other years, this would indicate a possibility that valid ballots were being rejected. Conversely, if the rejection rate was significantly lower, it would point to potentially legal ballots being disregarded.
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A1. 7,700 votes were rejected in the provided dataset, a rate of 1.256%. This is lower than the statewide 2016 Michigan rejection rate of 2.02% stated by the Election Assistance Committee in their 2016 Election Administration and Voting Survey. Although not an immediate cause for concern, given the increase in absentee ballots, rejection rates would be expected to be higher than previous elections, and ballot rejection procedures should be reviewed in the audit.
Q2. Does any voter ID appear more than once in the dataset?
As each voter ID represents a unique person, and each person is only allowed to vote once, a voter ID appearing more than once should be flagged as suspicious.
A2.
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A total of 1,104 voter IDs appeared more than once in the dataset, with 4 voter IDs appearing three times, and one voter ID appearing four times.
Whilst the majority of duplicate voter IDs were processed correctly, the dataset appears to show 21 processing errors with these duplicates. 10 voters with the same voter ID who voted twice appear to have been counted twice, two of whom had changed their address, one of whom was an overseas voter. 5 voters voted twice and had neither vote counted. 6 voters had their ballot counted more than once, as detailed below.
Q3. Does any ballot ID appear more than once in the dataset?
As each ballot ID represents a unique vote, a ballot ID appearing more than once should be flagged as suspicious.
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A3.
A total of six ballots were counted more than once according to the provided dataset. Of these six, four were counted twice, one was counted three times, and one was counted four times.
Q4. Were ballots received after the cut-off date rejected?
The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that voters in Michigan must return absentee ballots to their clerk by 8 p.m. on Election Day (November 3rd) in order for their vote to count. Were any votes received after this date processed?
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A4.
13 ballots are shown to have been received on 4th November, of which 11 were rejected and 2 were accepted.
It is possible that the dataset provided could have been generated using UTC, which is 5 hours ahead of Michigan Eastern Daylight Time, and this may account for the two late ballots being accepted. However, there is no exact timestamp given, and considering there is evidence that some ballots received on the 4th of November may have been processed, it is also possible that other votes were counted which arrived after 8 p.m. EDT on November 3rd, 2020.
A former project manager for Dominion has been revealed as the Mayor of Lathrup Village, Mich., a small town right on the outskirts of Detroit.
Mayor Mykale “Kelly” Garrett is a veteran Democrat operative in the state of Michigan. New York Young Republican Club President Gavin Wax made the discovery in a Twitter post, noting that she has been earmarked by the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee:
Garrett also attempted to get onto the county commission in Oakland County. She lost her Democrat primary race but her comments in a pre-election interview show how deep her ties in the Michigan Democrat Party truly are.
“I also want to learn more about Oakland County government,”Garrett said during an interview with the Oakland County Times – talking up the “inclusion and diversity”she has brought to her small town.
“If anyone knows me knows that I put Lathrup where it’s at right now,” she arrogantly boasted.
The interview started to get interesting when Garrett started talking up her “professional experience.”She could not help but flaunt her credentials.
“I was the deputy director for voter protection for the Michigan Democratic Party,” she explained.
“I’m very passionate about everyone that can vote, who wants to vote, should be able to cast a ballot and that ballot count and that is something that I still, um, fight for,” she said.
Garrett also leads Mothering Justice, a nonprofit organization that agitates for socialism and wealth redistribution.She continued to brag in the interview about her deep ties in the Democrat Party of Michigan.
“I was the vice chair of the Oakland County Democratic Party, and I just recently stopped being the chair of the Southfield-Lathrup Democratic Party,”she said.
“Because of some of the volunteer positions that I have, I actually know people across the state. I have a very good relationship with our governor, with our secretary of state,”Garrett added.
A lawsuit filed Nov. 8 in Michigan alleges that Detroit, Mich. elections officials oversaw and openly encouraged election fraud totaling many “tens of thousands” of fraudulent ballots, plus other illegal election-tampering.
The complaint filed by an in-state conservative nonprofit legal group alleges numerous instances of illegal and suspicious activity in the Democrat stronghold encompassing Detroit, Wayne County. President Trump’s legal team has filed a separate lawsuit alleging additional voting crimes and irregularities in the county.
The current results of the presidential race in Michigan suggest an approximately 146,000-vote gap between President Trump and Joe Biden, and an 84,000-vote gap between U.S. Senate candidates Gary Peters (D) and John James (R). The Associated Press and the state’s Democrat officials say Biden has won the state’s electoral votes and that Trump’s claims of fraud are insulting and inaccurate.
Wayne County is estimated to have been the site of some 850,000 votes this year. If this lawsuit is accurate, however, a massive portion of these votes is fraudulent.
The Great Lakes Justice Center complaint provides “eyewitness accounts and direct evidence” that “approximately 40,000” unsecured, irregular ballots arrived in vehicles with out-of-state license plates at Detroit’s only vote-counting location, TCF Center, in the wee hours of the Nov. 4 morning during a shift change in election workers. Eyewitnesses signed affidavits saying that every one of this group of 40,000 ballots they saw “was counted orally and attributed only to Democratic candidates,” specifically Joe Biden.
Other eyewitnesses signed affidavits under penalty of perjury stating they saw multiple other piles of ballots, together additionally numbering in the tens of thousands, that were counted despite violating election law, sometimes at the direction of local election officials. This allegedly happened both before the election, during early voting, and during the election and subsequent vote count.
“After poll challengers started discovering the fraud taking place at the TCF Center, Defendant election officials and workers locked credentialed challengers out of the counting room so they could not observe the process, during which time tens of thousands of ballots were processed,” the complaint says. It also alleges:
“Defendant election officials and workers allowed ballots to be duplicated by hand without allowing poll challengers to check if the duplication was accurate. In fact, election officials and workers repeatedly obstructed poll challengers from observing. Defendants permitted thousands of ballots to be filled out by hand and duplicated on site without oversight from poll challengers.”
Poll challenger Daniel Gustafson signed an affidavit stating he “witnessed tens of thousands of ballots being delivered to the TCF Center that were not in any approved, sealed, or tamper-proof container…Large quantities of ballots were delivered to the TCF Center in what appeared to be mail bins with open tops. Contrary to law, these ballot bins and containers did not have lids, were not sealed, and did not have the capability of having a metal seal.”
The Federalist reported earlier this week on one affidavit filed in this complaint, from former Michigan Assistant Attorney General Zachary Larsen, but there are many, many more, and the details are scandalous.
The First Big Batch of 40,000 Suspicious Votes
An affidavit signed by poll challenger Andrew Sitto tells more about the 40,000 ballots he says he saw brought in: “At approximately 4:00 a.m. on November 4, 2020, tens of thousands of ballots were suddenly brought into the counting room through the back door…by vehicles with out-of-state license plates (Exhibit C). It was observed that all of these new ballots were cast for Joe Biden,” summarizes the complaint.
Sitto’s affidavit expands on what he saw while observing the vote-counting process from election night, Nov. 3, overnight into the early morning of Nov. 4. He says by 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 4, right before a 5 a.m. shift change between poll watchers, one of two men in charge of the vote counting “got on the microphone and stated that another shipment of absentee ballots would be arriving and would have to be counted.”
“At approximately 4:30 a.m., tens of thousands of ballots were brought in and placed on eight long tables. Unlike the other ballots, these boxes were brought in from the rear of the room. The same procedure was performed on the ballots that arrived at approximately 4:30 a.m., but I specifically noticed that every ballot I observed was cast for Joe Biden,” his affidavit states. “While counting these new ballots, I heard counters say at least five or six times that all five or six ballots were for Joe Biden. All ballots sampled that I heard and observed were for Joe Biden.”
There Was a Second Big Dump of Suspicious Ballots
The lawsuit alleges the 40,000 vote dump is not the only suspicious one observed on Nov. 4 in Detroit. Poll challenger Robert Cushman attested that on Nov. 4, 2020 at approximately 9 p.m., he “was surprised to see numerous new boxes of ballots arrive at the TCF Center in the evening… I estimate these boxes contained several thousand new ballots when they appeared.” He noticed that none of the names on these new ballots were of registered voters, which poll workers were supposed to verify.
“I saw the computer operators at several counting boards manually adding the names and addresses of these thousands of ballots to the QVF system,” his affidavit states. “When I asked what the possible justification was to counting ballots from unknown, unverified ‘persons,’ I was told by election supervisors that the Wayne County Clerk’s Office had ‘checked them out.’” Subsequently, Cushman challenged the entire process encompassing these “thousands of ballots.”
Election workers are supposed to match the name on each ballot with a registered voter on the state’s official lists. Instead, Cushman says, the Wayne County Clerk’s officers told poll workers to add all the names on the ballots from these boxes to the state’s list, giving them all a false birth date of January 1, 1900.
Election rules also say absentee voters are supposed to be added to the state’s registered voter lists before 9 p.m. on Nov. 3, election day. All of the voters for these ballots were added after this deadline, at the direction of local election officials, Cushman says.
“None of the names of these new ballots corresponded with any registered voter,” the complaint says.
Whistleblower: Election Officials Broke the Law Big-Time
One of the affidavits is signed by a Detroit Elections Department worker whose identity is concealed in the court documents under whistleblower protections. A Great Lakes Justice Center attorney told The Federalist she snuck out yellow sticky notes during ballot processing to be able to stay and observe some of the illegal activities alleged in her affidavit. The affidavit alleges numerous illegal activities conducted by Wayne County election officials, affecting thousands if not tens of thousands of votes atop all those outlined above.
The whistleblower says that during her work processing early votes, “I was instructed by my supervisor to adjust the mailing date of these absentee ballot packages to be dated earlier than they were actually sent. The supervisor was making announcements for all workers to engage in this practice.” If true, this is fraud and election tampering.
The same sort of fraud, she alleges, happened on Nov. 4. That day, she says, “I was instructed to improperly pre-date the absentee ballots receive date that were not in the QVF [the state’s registered voter list] as if they had been received on or before November 3, 2020. I was told to alter teh [sic] information in the QVF to falsely show that the absentee ballots had been received in time to be valid. I estimate that this was done to thousands of ballots.”
Throughout her daily elections work in September through November 2020, the whistleblower says, “I directly observed, on a daily basis, City of Detroit election workers and employees coaching and trying to coach voters to vote for Joe Biden and the Democrat party.” This is also illegal. “I witnessed these workers and employees encouraging voters to do a straight Democrat ballot. I witnessed these election workers and employees going over to the voting booths with voters in order to watch them vote and coach them for whom to vote.”
The whistleblower also says Detroit election officials actively avoided verifying voters’ identities: “During the last two weeks while working at this satellite location, I was specifically instructed by my supervisor not to ask for a driver’s license or any photo I.D. when a person was trying to vote.”
The whistleblower also alleges encouraged voter fraud through the possibility of double voting: “I observed a large number of people who came to the satellite location to vote in-person, but they had already applied for an absentee ballot. These people were allowed to vote in-person and were not required to return the mailed absentee ballot or sign an affidavit that the voter lost the mailed absentee ballot.”
The suit names the City of Detroit, the Detroit Election Commission, Detroit Clerk Janice Winfrey, Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett, and the Wayne County Board of Canvassers as defendants. The Democratic Party has made a motion to join the lawsuit as defendants, meaning it is volunteering to be also sued for these alleged crimes.
In the three Midwest battleground states, vote counting irregularities persist in an election that will be decided on razor-thin margins. As of this writing, it appears that Democratic Party machines in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are trying to steal the election.
As reporters and commentators went to bed early Tuesday morning, all three states were too close to call, but President Trump led former Vice President Joe Biden by comfortable margins—far beyond what had been predicted in the polls. None of the networks called these states because enough mail-in ballots remained uncounted that it could swing either way, but Trump’s position looked good.
Then, something strange happened in the dead of the night. In both Michigan and Wisconsin, vote dumps early Wednesday morning showed 100 percent of the votes going for Biden and zero percent—that’s zero, so not even one vote—for Trump.
In Michigan, Biden somehow got 138,339 votes and Trump got none, zero, in an overnight vote-dump.
When my Federalist colleague Sean Davis noted this, Twitter was quick to censor his tweet, even though all he had done was compare two sets of vote totals on the New York Times website. And he wasn’t the only one who noticed—although on Wednesday it appeared that anyone who noted the Biden vote dump in Michigan was getting censored by Twitter.
Buzzfeed later reported that according to a spokesperson at Decision Desk HQ, the votes for Biden were the result of a “data error” from a “file created by the state that we ingested.”When the state noticed the “error” it updated its count, which somehow gave 138,339 votes to Biden and zero to Trump.
It turns out, the vote dump was the result of an alleged typo, an extra zero that had been tacked onto Biden’s vote total in Shiawassee County, Michigan. It seems the error was discovered only because Davis and other Twitter users noted how insane and suspicious the vote totals looked, and demanded an investigation that uncovered what was either a typo or an incredibly clumsy attempt to boost Biden’s vote count.
There was also something suspicious about the vote reporting in Antrim County, Michigan, where Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 30 points in 2016. Initial vote totals there showed Biden ahead of Trump by 29 points, a result that can’t possibly be accurate, as plenty of journalists noted.
After the strange results caught national attention, election officials in Antrim County said they were investigating what they called “skewed” results, working with the company that provides their election software to see what went wrong. The county clerk said they plan to have an answer by Wednesday afternoon.
Then another mysterious all-Biden vote dump happened in Wisconsin. Biden miraculously overcame a 4.1-point Trump lead in the middle of the night thanks to vote dumps in which he got—you guessed it—100 percent of the votes and Trump got zero.
Note the vertical lines in both graphs below:
On Wednesday, the Trump campaign demanded a full recount in Wisconsin, citing “reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results.”
In Pennsylvania, the Democratic scheme to steal the election is a bit different. Rather than vote dumps that impossibly go 100 percent to Biden, Pennsylvania is relying on the Democratic Secretary of State’s plan to count indisputably late mail-in ballots as though they were received on Election Day—even if they have no postmark.
This plan was of course rubber-stamped by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which cited the need for “equitable relief” to address mail delays amid the pandemic.
Note that this isn’t just about ballots that come in after Election Day, but about ballots that come in after Election Day that don’t even have a postmark—that is, there is no way to tell when the ballots were mailed, or from where.
Although it’s true that the long delays we’ve seen for absentee ballot counts are due in part to state laws in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania that prohibit the counting of absentee ballots before Election Day, which is not the case in most other states. But the cumulative circumstances under which these absentees ballots are now being tallied is highly suspicious.
Unless election officials in Michigan and Wisconsin can explain the overnight vote-dumps and, in Michigan, the “typo” that appeared to benefit Biden, and Pennsylvania officials can explain their rationale for counting ballots with no postmark, the only possible conclusion one can come to right now is that Democrats are trying to steal the election in the Midwest.
John is the Political Editor at The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.
The Trump campaign on Wednesday announced it filed suit in Michigan after a massive dump of ballots for Joe Biden appeared overnight.
“As votes in Michigan continue to be counted, the presidential race in the state remains extremely tight as we always knew it would be. President Trump’s campaign has not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process, as guaranteed by Michigan law,” Trump’s camp said in a statement.
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“We have filed suit today in the Michigan Court of Claims to halt counting until meaningful access has been granted. We also demand to review those ballots which were opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access.”
Last night Michigan halted counting ballots after Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden early on.
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Suddenly 200,000 ballots for Biden appeared in a midnight ballot dump.
Notice the vertical blue line showing the massive ballot dump for Biden.
(INSET: Hunter Biden) Passersby look at a life size replica of the Chinese Army Z-10WZ attack helicopter displayed outside the office of China’s main state-owned aircraft maker AVIC (Aviation Industry Corporation), China’s leading aircraft manufacturer in Beijing, China Thursday, July 17, 2014. China’s military spending has increased substantially almost every … Andy Wong/AP, ABC News
In September 2015, the Obama-Biden administration approved the sale of a strategically sensitive Michigan manufacturer, Henniges Automotive, to a firm connected to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and a Chinese military contractor that was on an American watch list because of its close ties to the People’s Liberation Army. Hunter Biden’s equity fund, backed by the Communist Chinese government, and the Chinese contractor, Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC), needed special approval for the deal from the Committee of Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CIFIUS) because Henniges produced technology with potential military use.
AVIC entities have been sanctioned by the United States on five separate occasions since 1993 and the addition to the watch list–a major red flag—occurred less than a year-and-a-half before they co-purchased Henniges with the Biden-led Chinese joint venture known as Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). The fact that CFIUS approved the deal is alarming given that Henniges owns numerous facilities in the United States that are now controlled by a Chinese military front company.
Internal BHR documents show exactly how the Chinese military contractor was able to disguise its ownership via shell corporations and formed a joint-venture with the son of the vice president to facilitate the Chinese takeover of an American dual-use technology supplier. Additional documents suggest that Hunter Biden’s Chinese-backed venture funneled money to an entity controlled by Vanessa Kerry, the daughter of then-Secretary of State John Kerry, just one month before CFIUS approved the takeover. At the time, Secretary Kerry played a lead role on the Obama-Biden CFIUS committee.
When news of the AVIC takeover of Michigan-based manufacturer Henniges Automotive hit the wire, Biden’s associates celebrated, calling the transaction a “proof of concept” for future Chinese acquisitions. “Congratulations!!!! Proof of concept again,” read the subject line of Devon Archer’s email on September 15, 2015. “This is great. Let’s get a letter out to Ambassador Baucus ASAP Archie (an apparent Archer nickname),” Bevan Cooney replied. Cooney is a former Biden associate who is now incarcerated for a separate venture—the tribal bond scheme—involving Biden’s business partners. Cooney has provided investigative journalists Peter Schweizer and Matthew Tyrmand with access to his emails with written authorization.
Cooney’s emails (and their attachments) reveal how Hunter Biden’s BHR viewed the Henniges acquisition—which they code named “Project Hanson”—as a major coup and a model for future BHR “cross-border” investments.
Moments after the deal closed, Archer set to work drafting a letter to U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus (who happened to be a longtime friend of the Biden family). Archer’s letter was an invitation to Ambassador Baucus to attend a banquet celebration for the deal with esteemed guest including BHR’s communist state-owned “strategic partners” and investors:
I am writing to invite you to a cross-border banquet to celebrate our acquisition of Henniges Automotive. We consummated the transaction earlier this month, in conjunction with our strategic partner, AVIC, for $600 million. I have also attached a news article about the transaction.
This milestone marks our first U.S.-based acquisition. Our strategic partners, including AVIC and Sinopec, will be in attendance, as will our investors, including the Bank of China and China Development Bank. We hope to discuss the opportunities and challenges of cross-border investments for Chinese companies in today’s macro environment. A member of our team has also extended an invitation to your economics advisor – Jonathan Fritz – to speak at the seminar.
The strategic partners and investors that Archer listed—particularly Sinopec, the Bank of China, and the China Development Bank—are all State-owned entities and therefore arms of the Chinese Communist Party whose executives/officials, along with BHR, clearly wanted to celebrate the Henniges coup.
Indeed, Hunter Biden’s Chinese business partner were pleased. One internal BHR document states in both English and Mandarin Chinese: “We are incredibly proud of the perseverance, dedication and ingenuity of the Project Hanson team who collectively brought to life the first-born of BHR’s cross-border investment platform, the first of many to come.”
Roger Robinson, a former senior director for international economic affairs on President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council, claims that “the U.S. government has known for years that AVIC has been helping China’s military and aiding U.S. enemies and as such was sanctioned in the past.” AVIC’s well-known and long-established ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex makes the Obama-Biden administration’s approval “all the more curious.” “This is anything but a benign Chinese enterprise,” said Robinson.
But BHR and AVIC’s Project Hanson helped obfuscate and ameliorate the AVIC connections by creating a complex ownership structure. One internal BHR document reveals precisely how the Chinese military front company was able to disguise its true ownership in a byzantine off-shore structure, presumably obfuscating the fact that the Chinese military was taking over U.S. company whose technology is on the restricted Commerce Control List (“Target” refers to U.S. military supplier Henniges Automotive):
Another internal BHR document contains a shocking revelation: Devon Archer facilitated Chinese “support” for an entity called Seed Global Health. Seed Global Health was co-founded and controlled by the daughter of Secretary John Kerry. According to BHR’s December 2015 internal document: “A special shout out to our director and shareholder, Devon Archer, for his involvement with the Seed Global Health non-profit foundation, which works to send medical staff and resources globally to countries in need. BHR will continue to support this and other worthy causes.”
It appears that BHR is referring to a fundraiser hosted by Devon Archer for Secretary Kerry’s daughter and her Seed Global Health organization that occurred on August 16, 2015—less than one month before Kerry’s State Department and the rest of the Obama-Biden CFIUS agencies approved Henniges takeover. The politically connected Seed Global Health has previously come under fire for receiving more than $9 million in State Department funds without bids or competition and, in 2018, an executive at Seed Global Health was charged by federal prosecutors for violating federal conflict of interest laws and illegal lobbying.
This is a developing story.
Peter Schweizer is the author of Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite. Seamus Bruner is the author of Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies, and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties.
During the pandemic, many state governors exercised their “emergency power” rights to enact a variety of rules and regulations. They were designed to protect the citizenry, of course. But many people, including politicians and lawmakers, questioned these moves. Some viewed the actions as an abuse of power or even unconstitutional in nature.
Well, one state Supreme Court recently agreed with the latter opinion.
On Friday, the Michigan high court issued a split decision, ultimately ruling that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “extension of emergency declarations”was unconstitutional.
Whitmer responded by saying she “vehemently disagrees” with the court’s decision, but that won’t change the result.
And now the ruling is already having an impact on other aspects of Michigan government. Their Attorney General, Dana Nessel, made the following announcement yesterday:
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said Sunday she will not continue to enforce Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive orders ‘through criminal prosecution’ after the state Supreme Court ruled the orders unconstitutional Friday.
In other words, law enforcement won’t be able to enforce Whitmer’s executive orders and issue punishments to residents. However, Nessel added that she hoped people would “continue to abide by the measures that Governor Whitmer put in place.” These include face masks and social distancing.
It’s also important to note that the court’s ruling doesn’t go into effect for three weeks (21 days). Until that time, the emergency declarations will continue to be enforced.
Whitmer locked Michigan down in March, which included shutting down most businesses deemed “non-essential.” As was the case with other states that issued similar declarations, protests quickly erupted. In particular, business owners afraid of losing their livelihoods railed against the edicts. And as the pandemic continues, and politicians continue to weigh more lockdowns and restrictions, the difficulty continues. Balancing public safety with economic stability is a serious challenge.
On top of which, we have to be sure we’re not going against the Constitution.
Most would probably agree that the key is to maintain our founding principles, while also attempting to stem the tide of the epidemic.
Key Takeaways:
On Friday, the Michigan state Supreme Court ruled that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “extension of emergency declarations” was unconstitutional.
As a result, Michigan AG Dana Nessel said she won’t continue to enforce Whitmer’s orders via “criminal prosecution.”
Similar cases are going to court in other states. Balancing public and economic health has proven to be a difficult task.
Ben S. Dutka is a journalist, writer and editor with over two decades of experience. He has worked with three newspapers and eight online publications, and he has also won a Connecticut short story contest entitled Art as Muse, Imaginary Realms. He has a penchant for writing, rowing, reading, video games, and Objectivism.
Employees of Miami-Dade Elections Department scan the votes for counting during Florida Primary Election amid the coronavirus pandemic, at Miami-Dade Elections Department in Miami, Florida on August 18, 2020. – In Miami-Dade, voters are casting ballots to elect Miami-Dade’s mayor, School Board seats, Miami-Dade state attorney and Judges. The polling …CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
Mail-in ballots postmarked by November 2 must be counted up to two weeks after the presidential election, a Michigan judge ruled this week. The ruling also authorizes the temporary use of ballot harvesting.
Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens essentially extended the deadline for mail-in ballots to be counted, even if they arrive after the polls close on Election Day, which stood as the previous deadline. Stephens attributed her ruling to the impact of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic:
“The unrefuted affidavits and documents compel the conclusion that, in light of delays attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, mail delivery has become significantly compromised, and the risk for disenfranchisement when a voter returns an absent voter ballot by mail is very real,”Stephens stated in the lawsuit the Michigan Alliance for Retired Americans lodged.
The ruling also authorizes the use of ballot harvesting — allowing a third party to deliver the ballots, although it is confined to a specific timeframe.
The ruling states:
As it concerns the voter assistance ban, MCL 168.932(f) is unconstitutional as applied to only a narrow timeframe: the time between 5:01 p.m. on the Friday before the election and Election Day, i.e., when the clerk or an assistant is not required to assist a voter who wishes to cast an absent voter ballot. During this timeframe, and only during this timeframe, a voter may select any third party of his or her choosing to render assistance in returning an absent voter ballot. Any penalties and prohibitions that would otherwise apply to the mere act of helping a voter return an absent voter ballot, 3 including those found in MCL 168.932 and MCL 168.935, will be enjoined from applying during this specified timeframe only.
“Normally, it is a misdemeanor to hire drivers to take voters to polling places unless they physically cannot walk,”the outlet reported:
Stephens said she heard evidence about one case in which a ballot mailed to the clerk’s office in Wyandotte was routed out of state, to Illinois, before arriving late at its intended address.
That was just one of “the over 6.400 otherwise valid ballots that were rejected for having been received after the election day receipt deadline,” she said.
Similarly, on Thursday, a Pennsylvania judge ruled that ballots received three days after the election must be counted, regardless of evidence of a timely postmark.
Democrats scored two judicial victories in Pennsylvania on Thursday, when the court kicked the Green Party presidential candidate off the ballot, and ruled that mailed-in ballots could still be counted util 5:00 p.m. ET on the third day after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked by 8:00 p.m ET that day.
The court added: that “ballots received within this period” — i.e. between November 3 and 6 –“that lack a postmark or other proof of mailing, or for which the postmark or other proof of mailing is illegible, will be presumed to have been mailed by Election Day unless a preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that it was mailed after Election Day.”
In a footnote, the court explains its reasoning, saying that disqualifying a ballot without a postmark would “disenfranchise a voter based upon the absence or illegibility of a USPS postmark that is beyond the control of the voter once she places her ballot in the USPS delivery system.”
Michigan and Pennsylvania are both crucial battleground states President Trump hopes to secure again this year after defeating Hillary Clinton in both states in 2016 by less than a single percentage point.
A voter cast her mail-in ballot at in a drop box in West Chester, Pa., prior to the primary election, Thursday, May 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Wayne County, Michigan, leaders want the Secretary of State to intervene after there was chaos while counting absentee ballots on primary election night.
Recorded ballot counts in 72% of Detroit’s absentee voting precincts didn’t match the number of ballots cast, spurring officials in Michigan’s largest county to ask the state to investigate ahead of a pivotal presidential election.
Without an explanation from Detroit election workers for the mismatches, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers requested this week for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office to examine the “training and processes” used in Detroit’s Aug. 4 primary, which one official described as a “perfect storm” of challenges. The board is charged with certifying election results.
Forty-six percent of all precinct numbers were askew, canvassers were told.
According to state law, precincts cannot be counted where poll books — that is, a list of registered voters in that precinct — are not matched with the ballots.
Data presented to the board said 81 precincts, including 73 absentee voter precincts, were +/- 5 votes “without explanation.”
Monica Palmer, one of the Republican members of the four-person Wayne County Board of Canvassers, told the News procedures were not followed.
“It was so inaccurate that we can’t even attempt to make it right,” she said.
Breitbart News obtained an affidavit from Bob Cushman, who was appointed as a “poll challenger” by the Michigan Republican Party and was present as ballots were being counted at the TCF Center, formerly known as the Cobo Center. Cushman said he stayed on site until 5:10 a.m. after Election Day.
Cushman recounted several counting tables “had opened ballots with no poll book” to check whether the individual was authorized to cast that ballot.
In another instance, he “noticed pages being inserted into several poll books.”
According to Cushman, some workers left early as the day dragged into the night.
Polls closed at 8:00 p.m., but Cushman observed at 12:37 a.m., “The threat was made that the $100 bonus that had been promised earlier (over the public address system) would not be paid.”
Cushman said an order was made around 2:00 a.m. to open the remaining ballots “for immediate tabulation without additional processing or notation.”
Cushman will be appearing on The Kyle Olson Show this week and his interview will be released exclusively at Breitbart News.
The Detroit News reported 1.6 million Michiganders cast absentee ballots in August and that number is expected to be higher in November.
Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on weekends. Listen to segments on YouTube or download full episodes at iHeartRADIO.Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, and follow him on Parler.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated– $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and has had his toons tweeted by President Trump.
The Left and the media are now claiming that if you want to get back to work and not starve to death, you are a neo-nazi and a “racist.” CNN’s Jake Tapper asked an incredibly leading question asking Whitmer if she thinks the Americans (that are unemployed and starving) are in the same “vein” as Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.
Here is how she responded…
Whitmer said, “We know that people are not all happy about having to take the stay-at-home posture, and you know what, I’m not either. The fact of the matter is we have to listen to epidemiologists and public health experts. Displays like the one we saw at the state capitol are not representative of who we are. There were swastikas, Confederate flags, nooses, people with assault rifles. That’s a small group of people. When you think about the fact that this is a state of almost 10 million people, the vast majority of whom are doing the right thing, that’s why we’ve seen our curve gets pushed down. We’ve saved lives in the process. We have to keep listening to the epidemiologists and experts and not listen to the partisan rhetoric, or these political rallies or tweets, for that matter. We have to keep doing the next right thing.”
She added, “Some of the outrageousness of what happened at our capitol this week, you know, depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country. The Confederate flags and nooses, the swastikas, the, you know, behavior that you’ve seen in all of the clips, is not representative of who we are in Michigan. The fact of the matter is, I mean, we’re in a global pandemic. This isn’t something we just negotiate ourselves out of, as a political matter. This is a public health crisis that’s taken the lives of almost 70,000 Americans, has put 30 million people into unemployment.”
CNN's Jake Tapper asks if the Stay at Home protesters at the Capitol are in the same "vein" as the Charlottesville Neo-Nazis.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer says the protesters "depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country." pic.twitter.com/gImo4ebIIk
Meet this man below an immigrant and a small business owner that Whitmer just called a Nazi and a racist. This man is as American as apple pie and what this country has been built on and the Democrat party is trying to destroy it. Please watch this video below and share it.
The DNC Media has slandered the patriots who peacefully assembled in Michigan to protest Gov. Whitmer and her lockdown. The media called them "racist" & "hate-filled." I was there. I spoke with this immigrant. Does he sound racist or hate-filled? RT to defeat this fake narrative: pic.twitter.com/yn9AgStEuh
On Wednesday, Michigan residents banded together to protest against Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s wildly inconsistent stay at home orders that she’s been putting in place for the lockdown. Thousands of people gathered in this “drive-by” protest because they’re sick of Gov. Whitmer’s stupidity.
Keep in mind it was Whitmer who banned the use of hydroxychloroquine for people in Michigan who may benefit from using the treatment. This is against doctors even. The governor of a state has no business telling a doctor how to do his or her job.
Now a number of sheriffs in Michigan have vowed to defy the governors orders in the case of the measures that they say overstep her authority. Sheriffs Mike Borkovich, Ted Schendel, Ken Falk, and Kim Cole announced their decision Wednesday, telling the public that they take their oath to the U.S. Constitution seriously and consider themselves the “last line of defense in protecting your civil liberties.”
“We write today to inform the public for our respective counties of our opposition to some of Governor Whitmer’s executive orders,” the press release reads, as reported by Michigan Live.
“While we understand her desire to protect the public, we question some restrictions that she has imposed as overstepping her executive authority,” the sheriffs continued. “She has created a vague framework of emergency laws that only confuse Michigan citizens.”
Instead, the sheriffs “will deal with every case as an individual situation and apply common sense.”
As one person put it, “Quarantine is when you restrict movement of sick people. Tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people.”
He added, “Every person has learned a harsh lesson about social distancing. We don’t need a nanny state to tell people how to be careful.”
And it’s very apparent that they have let this get out of control in other states as well. Mississippi was fining people for going to church and literally had to be told by the Department of Justice that they can’t do that!
This is why we fight for our freedoms because they have no problem taking them away.
I am glad to find this article today because I have been wondering what would happen if we told all these tyrannical politicians to take their draconian EXECUTIVE ORDERS and shove them. These Sherriff’s realize the difference between a “lawful” and “unlawful” order. Once again I remind you: EXECUTIVE ORDERS BY ANY POLITICAL EXECUTIVE HAS NO WEIGHT OF LAW.
I’m 73 years old. I’m breaking out of this “house arrest”.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Thursday endorsed Joe Biden for president, a significant boost for the former vice president ahead of next week’s primary in the Wolverine State. Whitmer, whose state’s primary will allocate 125 pledged delegates, cast Biden as an advocate for working families, citing his work on health care, bailing out the auto industry and more during his time in the Obama administration.
“Working families in Michigan need a president who will show up and fight for them, and Joe Biden has proven time and again that he has our backs,” she said in a statement. “Michiganders have grit. We’re tough. We know what it’s like to be overlooked and counted out. And we know that when you get knocked down, you pick yourself up and get back to work. Joe Biden has been right there with us in the tough fights.”
“Joe Biden is the candidate we need to defeat Donald Trump in November. He’s always had our backs. Now, I’m proud to have his,” added Whitmer, who is also being named a national co-chair to Biden’s campaign.
Whitmer said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”that Biden’s commitment to expanding health care was personal to her, noting that the same type of brain tumor killed both her mother and Biden’s son.
“I have commiserated about Joe about this very thing,” she said of her mother’s brain cancer diagnosis. “I know his commitment.”
Biden is set for up for a battle in Michigan next week with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who narrowly took the state’s primary in 2016 over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
The Wolverine State is a key contest for both candidates’ claims of support from white working-class voters. The state was one of the key victories, along with others in the Rust Belt, for President Trump in the 2016 general election.
Whitmer, who was endorsed by Biden during her 2018 gubernatorial bid, has steadily gained a national profile after winning the gubernatorial election two years ago and delivering the Democratic Party’s response to President Trump’s State of the Union in February. Her endorsement comes just one day after former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm also threw her support behind the former vice president.
They are just the latest in a slew of establishment Democratic figures falling in line behind Biden after resounding victories in South Carolina and several Super Tuesday states vaulted him back into the front-runner position in the primary.
Though Biden put up underwhelming showings in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, a 30-point win in the Palmetto State and victories in 10 out of 14 Super Tuesday states have revived his campaign, setting him up to have a narrow delegate lead after all of California’s primary votes are tallied.
Sanders, meanwhile, won California, Colorado, Utah and his home state of Vermont on Super Tuesday.
Biden appears set to capitalize on his Super Tuesday resurgence in upcoming primary and caucus states, which consist heavily of demographics that appear to favor the former vice president. Six more states will cast ballots on Tuesday, with Michigan representing the heftiest delegate haul.
Michigan prosecutors say Nikki Joly, a longtime LGBT activist, set fire to her home and killed her pets due to resentment from subsiding controversy over the enactment of nondiscrimination legislation he advocated for.
The Detroit News reported Monday that law enforcement charge Joly, a transgender man from Jackson, Michigan, burned down her own home, killing five pets inside, in what was initially investigated by the FBI as an alleged hate crime in 2017. The newspaper, citing two individuals who worked along Joly at St. Johns United Church of Christ, where the Jackson Pride Center is based from, reported that Jolly, 54, had become “frustrated the controversy over gay rights had died down with the passage of the nondiscrimination law.”
The church officials, Barbara Shelton and Bobby James, when asked by police about a possible motive for the fire, said Joly was disappointed the Jackson Pride Parade and Festival, held five days before the blaze, hadn’t received more attention or protests.
Contacted by a reporter, James declined to comment. But Shelton quibbled with the way police characterized her remarks, saying she had no idea if Joly was frustrated by the lack of controversy.
“Not sure I said that,” she wrote in an email. “I have no idea about anything, never heard Nikki comment in any fashion about anything like that.”
Police officer Aaron Grove, who interviewed Shelton and James, said the pair described Joly as “‘very deceptive” and possessing “layers of manipulation.”
Joly, who was named MLive’s 2018 Citizen of the Year, spearheaded several LGBTQ-friendly initiatives and events, including the town’s first gay festival.
“It’s embarrassing,” said Travis Trombley, a gay resident of Jackson and former ally of Jolly. “How do you do it to the community you have put so much effort into helping?”
The paper reports that five pets — two German Shepherds and three cats — died in the fire. The body of one dog blocked a door as firefighters tried to enter.
The alleged hate hoax comes after Chicago prosecutors charged Empire actor Jussie Smollett for filing a false report with police in connection to staging a racist and homophobic attack on himself last month.
Smollett told police two masked individuals hurled bigoted insults and doused him with an unknown chemical substance while walking home from a sandwich shop at 2 a.m. on January 29. The actor also told police his assailants looped a thin rope around his neck and shouted “This is MAGA country!” before fleeing. He allegedly enlisted the help of two brothers — Abimbola “Abel” and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo — to stage the attack, paying them $3,500 by check.
Smollett returned to the Chicago set of Empire after posting bond for $100,000 at a Cook County courthouse hours prior. However, Smollett’s role on the hit FOX studios program is uncertain as executive producers considering recasting his character.
A leading Democratic congressman settled a wrongful dismissal complaint for more than $27,000 in taxpayer funding after he allegedly fired the staffer because she would not “succumb to [his] sexual advances,” according to a new report.
The congressman, Michigan Rep. John Conyers, is described as a serial sexual harasser who would prey on his female staffers in sworn affidavits signed by four of his former staffers. BuzzFeed News first reported the bombshell allegations and accompanying settlement after right-wing blogger Mike Cernovich provided the website with the documents.
One former female employee filed a complaint with the Congressional Office Of Compliance in 2014, alleging that she was fired for rebuffing Conyers’ sexual advances. It was that employee who eventually received a $27,111.75 settlement in 2015, in exchange for a confidentiality agreement. The congressman did not admit to fault as part of the settlement agreement.
“In her complaint, the former employee said Conyers repeatedly asked her for sexual favors and often asked her to join him in a hotel room. On one occasion, she alleges that Conyers asked her to work out of his room for the evening, but when she arrived the congressman started talking about his sexual desires,” BuzzFeed reported. “She alleged he then told her she needed to ‘touch it,’ in reference to his penis, or find him a woman who would meet his sexual demands.”
Conyers regularly made sexual advances on female staffers and would ask them for sexual favors, according to the affidavits signed by his former staffers. “Rep. Conyers strongly postulated that the performing of personal service or favors would be looked upon favorably and lead to salary increases or promotions,” one former employee said in an affidavit.
He also allegedly abused taxpayer funds to shuttle in women with whom he had sexual relationships.
“One of my duties while working for Rep. Conyers was to keep a list of women that I assumed he was having affairs with and call them at his request and, if necessary, have them flown in using Congressional resources,” one affidavit states. Another staffer told BuzzFeed that Conyers, who is the longest-serving congressman, used taxpayer funds to fly women into see him.
The bombshell allegations come just days after it was revealed that the Congressional Office Of Compliance spent $17 million of taxpayer funding on harassment settlements, including for sexual harassment.
Yet another attack. This one was on US soil. Police took to Twitter to update the public on the situation.
It read:
“STABBING: Bishop Airport. Officer stabbed in the neck. Suspect is in custody. #Flint #FlintTwp #GCSDMedics”
Here is what we know so far:
An officer for Bishop International Airport was stabbed Wednesday in a possible terror-related incident in Flint, Michigan, sources told NBC News.
The attacker allegedly shouted “Allahu akbar” before stabbing Lieutenant Jeff Neville, who was bleeding from the neck, sources and witnesses at Bishop International Airport said.
Neville is a member of the airport’s Department of Public Safety and a retired Genesee County Sheriff’s Department lieutenant.
Law enforcement officials said the suspect is from Quebec and has a Canadian passport.
Police officers gather at a terminal at Bishop International Airport on June 21, 2017, in Flint, Michigan. Dominic Adams / The Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP.
Michigan State Police initially tweeted that the officer was in critical condition. Just after 1 p.m., officials confirmed Neville was out of surgery and was upgraded to stable condition. — read more
As for the condition of the cop:
Here is the FBI’s statement:
We note that the attack was in Flint Michigan. So we checked in with Michael Moore.
Steve Tennes and his wife, Bridget, are banned from selling produce at a farmers market in Michigan because of their religious belief that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. (Photo: Facebook)
No one showed up to protest that August day last summer, though, and Tennes continued selling organic apples, peaches, cherries, and pumpkins at the seasonal market until October, as he had done the six previous years.
Nevertheless, East Lansing moved earlier this year to ban Tennes’ farm, the Country Mill, from participating in the farmers market when it resumes June 4. The city cited its human relations ordinance, an anti-discrimination law that includes sexual orientation. So Tennes and his wife sued the city for religious discrimination.
As a Marine veteran who is married to an Army veteran, Tennes told The Daily Signal, this was consistent with his philosophy of defending freedom:
My wife Bridget and I volunteered to serve our country in the military to protect freedom, and that is why we feel we have to fight for freedom now, whether it’s Muslims’, Jews’, or Christians’ right to believe and live out those beliefs.
The government shouldn’t be treating some people worse than others because they have different thoughts and ideas.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal aid organization, is representing the Tenneses.
Michigan farmers Steve and Bridget Tennes and their family. (Photo: Facebook)
Neither East Lansing’s public information office nor the city manager’s office responded Wednesday to phone calls about the case from The Daily Signal.
East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows told the Lansing State Journal that the city’s decision to exclude Country Mill—also known as Country Mill Orchard—from the farmers market had nothing to do with religious beliefs, but with the farm’s “business decision” not to host same-sex weddings.
“This is about them operating a business that discriminates against LGBT individuals, and that’s a whole different issue,”Meadows said, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, says of Steve and Bridget Tennes’ perspective, in part:
Plaintiffs support the rights of citizens and other businesses to express their views about marriage. Plaintiffs simply seek to enjoy the same freedom.
Yet, East Lansing’s policy strips plaintiffs of their constitutional freedoms, including free speech and the free exercise of religion, by punishing plaintiffs’ viewpoint on marriage, going so far as to prohibit Country Mill from continuing its long history of participating in the farmers market because plaintiffs publicly stated their sincerely held religious view that marriage is a union between one man and one woman.
The suit also says the farm has employed people from a wide variety of racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds, including members of the LGBT community.
Country Mill hosts a corn maze, birthday parties, weddings, and other events.
In 2014, two lesbians sought to be married in a wedding ceremony at Country Mill, but Tennes turned them down.
This occurred beforethe 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage across the country.
According to his legal complaint, Tennes had a “civil” discussion with the women, and said his venue didn’t host same-sex weddings because of his religious beliefs. But he referred the women to an orchard that held same-sex weddings. In 2015, the two women were married at another orchard. On Aug. 22, 2016, one of them wrote a Facebook post discouraging consumers from doing business with Country Mill. In response, Tennes initially said the farm would cease holding any weddings, writing on Facebook:
After this post, the East Lansing official asked Tennes not to sell produce at the market, saying he feared protests.
Tennes did anyway, and no protest occurred, according to the lawsuit.
In December, Tennes announced on Facebook that Country Mill would resume holding weddings:
This past fall our family farm stopped booking future wedding ceremonies at our orchard until we could devote the appropriate time to review our policies and how we respectfully communicate and express our beliefs. The Country Mill engages in expressing its purpose and beliefs through the operation of its business and it intentionally communicates messages that promote its owners’ beliefs and declines to communicate messages that violate those beliefs.
The Country Mill family and its staff have and will continue to participate in hosting the ceremonies held at our orchard. It remains our deeply held religious belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and Country Mill has the First Amendment right to express and act upon its beliefs. For this reason, Country Mill reserves the right to deny a request for services that would require it to communicate, engage in, or host expression that violates the owners’ sincerely held religious beliefs and conscience.
Furthermore, it remains our religious belief that all people should be treated with respect and dignity regardless of their beliefs or background. We appreciate the tolerance offered to us specifically regarding our participation in hosting wedding ceremonies at our family farm.
East Lansing city officials determined that these public statements violated the city’s 1972human relations ordinance prohibiting discrimination. That law was the first in the state to recognize sexual orientation as a protected class from discrimination. But this brought up a jurisdictional issue on top of First Amendment concerns, the farmer’s lawsuit says.
East Lansing, the complaint says, “has no authority to enforce its ordinance based on Tennes’ religious beliefs and their impact on how he operates Country Mill.”The farm, it says, is 22 miles outside the city. The lawsuit also notes that the city has not taken action against a vendor that promoted same-sex marriage.
In March, East Lansing sent Tennes a letter denying Country Mill’s application to be a vendor at the 2017 farmers market:
It was brought to our attention that the Country Mill’s general business practices do not comply with East Lansing’s civil rights ordinances and public policy against discrimination as set forth in Chapter 22 of the City Code and outlined in the 2017 market vendor guidelines.
“As such,” the letter reads, “Country Mill’s presence as a vendor is prohibited.”
Jill Stein was an idiot before. She remains one now.
“Eighty-seven of Wayne County’s decade-old voting machines broke on election day, according to Detroit’s elections director, Daniel Baxter. He told the Detroit News, which first reported the story, that ballot scanners often jammed when polling place workers were trying to operate them. Every time a jammed ballot was removed and reinserted, he suspects the machine may have re-counted it.”
In other words, in an area where the significant majority of people voted for Hillary Clinton, their votes may have been counted twice.
This means that Trump’s margin of victory in Michigan may be even larger than the 10,704 votes initially recorded. — The Guardian
And in Wisconsin? Trump’s lead is up by 26 votes.
THAT was a productive use of taxpayer time, energy and funds.
Remember all that talk about a ‘Peaceful transition of power’. That’s out the window.
Michael Banerian, an Electoral College Voter in Michigan is a young Republican that has faith in our current system. He is set to cast his ballot on December 19 for Donald Trump but has been facing very disturbing pressure to become a ‘Faithless Elector’ by changing his vote.
On Dec. 19, the 22-year-old Banerian is scheduled to join 15 other Michiganians to cast their electoral votes for Republican President-elect Donald Trump. But Trump’s opponents have deluged Banerian and other GOP electors with pleas and nasty emails to reverse course and cast their ballots for Clinton, according to the Michigan Republican Party.
“You have people saying ‘you’re a hateful bigot, I hope you die,’” he said. “I’ve had people talk about shoving a gun in my mouth and blowing my brains out. And I’ve received dozens and dozens of those emails. Even the non-threatening-my-life emails are very aggressive.”…
…“Even if I could, I wouldn’t be remotely interested in changing my vote,”said Banerian, a political science senior at Oakland University and youth vice chair of the Michigan Republican Party. “The people of Michigan spoke, and it’s our job to deliver that message.”…
…Even if Banerian or another elector had a change of heart, other Michigan electors would just cast another vote for Trump, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
In other states, some electors could change their minds and cast votes for Clinton, a prospect that is considered highly unlikely since candidates tend to recruit diehard supporters to be electors.
An online petition on change.org signed by more than 4.3 million people is calling on the nation’s electors to vote for Clinton instead of Trump…
…While some lobbying is peaceful, other electors report receiving intimidating emails or messages, Michigan Republican Party spokeswoman Sarah Anderson said Wednesday. The Detroit News couldn’t reach several electors on Wednesday.
“Hearing from them that they are also receiving threats, I’m interested in getting a consensus from the group … and seeing if it’s something that we should report to the police,”Anderson said. “It’s obviously something that we’re taking very seriously.”
Banerian said he has not yet reported any threats to the police but is considering doing so.
Read more: Detroit News
But wait! There’s more!
Electors in Michigan aren’t the only ones being targeted:
Electors across the country have been barraged with phone calls and emails from voters urging them to become ‘faithless electors’ on December 19 in a last-ditch effort to block Donald Trump from the presidency.
In the US, presidents are elected by the Electoral College rather than the popular vote, where Hillary Clinton is 2.2million ballots ahead of Trump.
In most states, electors must cast a vote for the winner of their state’s popular vote or face fines ranging from around $500 to $1,000.
Other states like Arizona, Idaho, and Georgia don’t have a rule against electors going rogue…
…’It is total harassment,’ Robert Graham, an elector and chairman of the state Republican Party, told the Arizona Republic.
Arizona elector Saron Geise estimates that she has received as many as 8,000 calls and says she has stopped picking up altogether.
Some electors like Banerian hope their votes will uphold the electoral system, while others are actively trying to dismantle it.
At least six Democratic electors have signed an agreement to try to block Donald Trump from securing the presidency with 270 Electoral College votes.
Michael Baca, a registered Democrat who supported Bernie Sanders, is considering rallying behind Mitt Romney or John Kasich if that means coaxing Republican electors away from Trump.
Even if he is unsuccessful in his efforts, Baca said: ‘I do think that a byproduct would be a serious look into Electoral College reform.’
Read more: Daily Mail
NOTE: Colorado law does have ‘pledged electors’ that are legally bound to vote with the state’s popular vote, but the penalty for becoming a ‘Faithless Elector’ is minimal.
The current Electoral College standings have Trump with 306 and Hillary at 232.
It would require a number of ‘Faithless Electors’ to drop Trump below 270, so having Hillary or a ‘moderate’ Republican win is a long shot.
The Electoral College voters aren’t suppose to pick a candidate that wasn’t on the ballot.
The Democrats are making this election into a circus because they don’t like the results.
They suddenly don’t like the Electoral College… again. Like they didn’t like it in 2000.
How far will they go?
They don’t like the Presidential results and want to change the final national result.
Baca is looking to throw the Electoral College votes for Hillary to a ‘moderate’ Republican.
Colorado, a state that voted Democrat would then be voting for a Republican. Is that fair to the voters there?
Aside from the subsidy/cost issue, there are many other reasons why this is bad public policy. (Photo: istockphoto)
Norbert Michel studies and writes about housing finance, including the reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as The Heritage Foundation’s research fellow in financial regulations. Read his research.
Several politicians have recently been offering free goodies to voters. One of the most popular of these, oddly enough, is something that several state governments have already tackled: free college tuition.
Louisiana provides a great case study for advocates of similar federal policies.
Louisiana provides a great case study for advocates of similar federal policies. Louisiana just so happens to be in the news right now because the governor is threatening to suspend his state’s version of free college tuition for everyone.
In 1997 the state removed the income caps. At that point, all Louisiana students, regardless of financial need, were made eligible for “free” tuition at any Louisiana public college. Once in college, students had to maintain a C average to keep their TOPS awards.
As of 2010, approximately 70 percent of Louisiana’s high school graduates headed to college within one year. That’s nearly 20 percent higher than the rate in 2000.
Who’s Paying for It?
It’s easy to call the program a success because of this increase, but it’s just as easy to point out that the program doesn’t really provide free education. In one way or another, someone pays for it.
In one way or another, someone pays for it.
The eventual implosion of the program was easy to predict back in 1997 for the same reasons that pretty much any similar subsidy is destined to fail. Subsidies don’t really lower the cost of products and services; they only lower the up-front price that some people pay.
(In 1997, this program inspired my very first public critique of a government policy. Back then, I thought it was a terrible idea.)
No Such Thing as Free Tuition
A person receiving “free” tuition may not see it (or even care), but subsides actually raise the total cost of an education. The core problem is that they remove the paying customer—in this case the student—from the equation.
Without the subsidy, the paying customer receives the direct benefit for the service and bears the direct cost. If that person doesn’t think the cost is worth it, they don’t pay.
Louisiana’s program replaces this paying customer with groups of government officials. These officials neither receive the direct benefit nor endure the direct cost of obtaining an education. These groups do, however, benefit a great deal from obtaining more of your tax dollars.
And they rarely bear any direct cost from either increasing your taxes or delivering a substandard education product. (The incumbency rate is fairly high for politicians.)
On a practical level, Louisiana’s program converts tuition payments into a state budget item. In other words, a large chunk of each school’s “tuition” becomes nothing more than revenue sent in by the state bureaucracy.
In Louisiana, four separate higher education systems—each its own bureaucracy—fight over these “tuition” payments. Smaller schools inevitably get the smallest shares, but that’s kind of another story.
A Burden on University Resources
When the influx of students hits—more people going to school when tuition is “free” is pretty much a foregone conclusion—it strains universities’ existing resources. So the transfer of money has the natural tendency to lead to expanded facilities, faculty, and staff.
But these increases call for a permanently higher level of funding, and all of these effects tend to reinforce each other. That is, school officials have a built in reason to ask for larger transfers, and politicians have a built in excuse to raise taxes.
When the state’s coffers are not flush with cash, the schools’ budgets get cut. Thus, universities have every incentive to raise more money from students who are not a part of the Taylor Opportunity Program.
Of course, for any given level of Taylor Opportunity Program students, a higher posted rate of tuition results in a larger transfer from the state. If the program covered full fees and tuition for literally every student, then taxpayers would bear the full cost. But it doesn’t, so non-TOPS students bear some of the cost.
(Pretty much every student ends up paying higher fees directly, too, but that’s almost an aside.)
Non-subsidized markets don’t work this way—prices can actually fall in response to changes in demand and supply. Subsidized systems, on the other hand, are destined to result in higher—not lower—tuition.
What I failed to fully appreciate in 1997 was how bad of a deal the Taylor Opportunity Program would end up being for the smaller schools. Then I spent almost a decade teaching at Nicholls State University, a regional state school in Thibodaux, La.
Small Universities Are Hardest Hit
In one sense, the Louisiana program amounted to a cruel trick for these institutions. Smaller schools are the ones least able to sustain the permanently higher costs associated with the new TOPS-generated revenue stream.
When the state budget goes south—and it always does in Louisiana—smaller schools get slammed. (Louisiana State University has more than 25,000 students, so small changes in per-student fees go a long way).
No matter how much we want it to, subsidizing something simply doesn’t make it more cost-effective.
The Taylor Opportunity Program does give certain people a better deal on tuition at one point in time, but then it makes up for it somewhere else.
Ironically, the earlier waves of Taylor Opportunity Program graduates are among those about to get hit with a tax increase. That’s what politicians mean by free.
Ironically, the earlier waves of Taylor Opportunity Program graduates are among those about to get hit with a tax increase. That’s what politicians mean by free.
Aside from the subsidy/cost issue, there are many other reasons why this is bad public policy.
First of all—and I know this sounds crazy—everyone should not go to college. Some people simply aren’t cut out, and many just don’t need to. Yes, people with college degrees tend to earn more than those without, but it does not follow that everyone should go to college.
When the program was started, Louisiana public universities offered students a good value because they were relatively inexpensive. Now that Louisiana taxpayers have spent more than $2 billion on the program, tuition rates are out of reach for many students that don’t qualify for the program.
While the best solution for Louisiana would be to get rid of the program altogether (unlikely since politicians love the program), the best residents can hope for now is an increase in the program’s academic standards and some form of means testing. At least these changes would better direct subsidies to academically prepared students with more financial need.
A Michigan man allegedly threatened to kill police and churchgoers to show support for Islamic State, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday. Khalil Abu-Rayyan, 21, of Dearborn Heights, was allegedly talking to an undercover FBI agent about his support for the terror group and how he wanted to shoot up a church that has nearly 6,000 parishioners, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The newspaper, citing the affidavit, reported Abu-Rayyan planned to shoot up the church one day, but he was stopped by his father.
“I tried to shoot up a church one day. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s close to my job,”Abu-Rayyan told the agent, according to the complaint. “It’s one of the biggest ones in Detroit. Ya. I had it planned out. I brought a bunch of bullets. I practice a lot with it. But my dad searched my car one day and he found everything. He found the gun and the bullets and a mask.”
The man had wanted to shoot up the church because it would’ve been an easy target, the complaint said.
“It’s easy and a lot of people go there. Plus people are not allowed to carry guns in church. Plus, it would make the news. I regret not doing it. If I can’t do jihad in the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here.”
The FBI said he didn’t carry out the attack because he didn’t have the proper weapon to use for it. The agency said the church has up to 6,000 members and was only a half mile from where Abu-Rayyan worked.
The agency had been investigated since May 2015. Agents were tracking him through social media, phone calls and surveillance. The FBI said in the complaint he had two Twitter accounts on which he expressed support for ISIS, according to the Free Press.
Abu-Rayyan has not received any terror charges. According to Click On Detroit, he’s being held on gun and drug charges. He was stopped on Oct. 7, 205 for speeding when a Detroit police officer found a gun, sleeping pills and marijuana in his car.
U.S. President Barack Obama delivers his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington January 12, 2016. REUTERS/Evan Vucci/Pool
President Barack Obama was quick to condemn Michigan officials for letting high levels of lead contaminate Flint’s drinking water and promised millions of dollars in aid and justice for the city. The same cannot be said for his reaction to the thousands of people who had their drinking water tainted by the Gold King Mine spill in August — a spill caused by his own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
It’s a tale of two rivers, both contaminated by government mismanagement, but only one provoked moral outrage from Obama. While Obama said Michigan’s government shouldn’t “shortchange basic services that we provide to our people,” he was virtually silent when his own administration polluted rivers flowing through western states and Indian territory.
Flint’s water is full of lead
“If I was a parent in Flint, I’d be beside myself over my kids’ health,”Obama told auto workers during a visit to Detroit, Mich., Wednesday. Obama had met the day before with Flint Mayor Karen Weaver where he “heard firsthand how the residents of Flint are dealing with the ongoing public health crisis,”according to the White House.
Obama’s outrage comes after news his own administration knew about lead in Flint’s water for months and did nothing about it.The head of EPA’s regional office resigned over the disaster, and the agency and the White House have launched investigations into the matter.
“So we’re going to work with the state, we’re going to work with Flint,”McCarthy said. “We’re going to take care of the problem. We know Flint is a situation that never should have happened.”
Flint’s water crisis began in 2014 when the city switched its water supply over from Lake Huron to the Flint River. It was a money-saving effort proposed by state managers while the city was going through massive financial troubles because of its public employee pensions.
The Flint River’s water is more corrosive than Lake Huron’s, meaning treatments were required to keep the water from corroding lead pipes. But Michigan regulators applied the wrong standards, and Flint’s water became contaminated with high levels of lead.
Susan Hedman was made aware of the problems in April after a draft report on the issues was released. Flint’s mayor became aware of the draft report, but Hedman downplayedconcerns while she waitedfor a “legal opinion” on how to proceed.
“The preliminary draft report should not have been released outside the agency,”Hedman wrote to Flint’s former mayor Dayne Walling in a July email. “When the report has been revised and fully vetted by EPA management, the findings and recommendations will be shared with the city and DEQ will be responsible for following up with the city.”
In October 2015, state officials finally admitted to applying the wrong water treatmentsto Flint’s drinking water. By January, Hedman had resigned and the Obama administration was moving quickly to give Flint money and investigate the situation.
EPA literally contaminated drinking water in three states
Compare the Obama administration’s response to Flint with its response to a disaster it actually caused.
In August 2015, EPA workers looking to stop mine wastewater leaks from abandoned mines near Silverton, Colo., accidentally ended up unleashing three million gallons of wastewater into the Animas River. The huge orange plume got into the San Juan River and made its way through three states and tribal territory, contaminating drinking water for thousands of people.
EPA did move to work with state officials to combat the spill, but the agency would not tell state and local officials information on how the spill happened or the federal contractors who caused it. The agency also did not notify affected communities for more than 24 hours after the spill happened.
Obama, however, did not issue an emergency declaration, even though Colorado’s governor did.The president also did not make a speech expressing moral outrage at the fact his own administration polluted drinking water for thousands of people with heavy metals — which could stick around in the water for decades.
In August, Obama issued four other disaster declarations for areas hit with heavy flooding and wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) even rejected pleas from Navajo Nation to help mitigate the damage from the mine blowout — tribal members along the San Juan River are heavily reliant on river water.
The Wall Street Journal eventually broke news on who the federal contractor was onsite when the mine blew out in August. To date, EPA has still been silent on the contractors involved in the spill, citing a nondisclosure agreement. In fact, EPA paid the contracting company, Environmental Restoration LLC, nearly $2.7 million after it caused the massive mine blowout, according to reporting from The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Ethan Barton.
EPA released an internal review of the mine blowout in August claiming the incident was “likely inevitable” despite admitting agency workers ignored “expensive and technically challenging” procedures that could have prevented workers from blowing out the mine that day.
The finding was seen as an attempt by the agency to downplay its role in spilling millions of gallons of mine waste into people’s drinking water. EPA’s report was contradicted by an Department of the Interior technical review of incident, which found the blowout was completely preventable.
What’s more interesting is that, to date, no EPA employee or contractor has been punished or fired for the incident, despite the fact the agency took responsibility for the incident in August. No criminal investigations have been launched by the government into the incident. Instead, EPA officials have been accused of trying to undermine their own inspector general’s investigation into the spill. The nature of the IG’s investigation is unknown, as they don’t comment on details in ongoing investigations.
“[T]he Committee on Natural Resources is troubled by the EPA’s disclosure last week that it had recently interviewed two material witnesses to the EPA’s activities at Gold King Mine,”Republican Reps. Rob Bishop (R) of Utah and Louie Gohmert (TX) – R wrote to EPA’s inspector general.
“Specifically, the Committee is concerned that the EPA’s interview did not follow best investigative practices and may have interfered with the OIG’s ongoing investigation,” the lawmakers wrote to the agency.
On Monday and into Tuesday, more than two dozen governors moved to block Syrian refugees from entering their states. (Photo: Kelsey Lucas/Visualsey)
In the aftermath of Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, governors across the United States are attempting to shut their doors on Syrian refugees looking to find a safe haven in the country. As of Monday evening, more than two dozen governors announced opposition to policies that would permit Syrian refugees to enter their states amid concerns they could have ties to terrorists.
KentuckyGov.-elect Matt Bevin, who will take officeDec. 8, also said he opposes resettlement efforts.
The movement, which was overwhelmingly spearheaded by Republican governors, came after French prosecutors discovered aSyrian passporton one of the suspected Islamic State suicide bombers in Paris. That finding raised concerns that terrorists are embedding with refugees to enter Europe and other nations.
The series of attacks in Paris on Friday night left more than 130 dead and hundreds others injured. French President François Hollande called the attacks an “act of war” and launched airstrikes against ISIS.
President Barack Obama sharply pushed back against the growing number of states attempting to undermine his policies surrounding Syrian refugees, saying Monday at a press conference in Antalya, Turkey, that it would be “shameful” and “not American” to close America’s doors on Syrian refugees.
“When some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful,”he said. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.”
In September, Obamavowed to accept10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States next year.
Those issuing executive orders to block refugees pushed back on the president’s narrative while announcing their decision.
“Michigan is a welcoming state, and we are proud of our rich history of immigration,”said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. “But our first priority is protecting the safety of our residents.”
In a letter addressed to the president, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said, “Neither you nor any federal official can guarantee that Syrian refugees will not be part of any terroristic activity. As such, opening our door to them irresponsibly exposes our fellow Americans to unacceptable peril.”
While their responses send a clear message to the president, John Malcolm, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said the practical implications blocking refugees are limited.
“Governors can certainly order state agencies to stop doing anything to assist federal authorities with their resettlement efforts, but they cannot stop federal authorities from continuing those efforts, nor can they stop immigrants who are lawfully admitted to this country from moving to and settling in those states,”Malcolm said. “They can, however, ask state law enforcement authorities to keep an eye on the refugees who settle in their states, so long as those authorities do so within the bounds of the Constitution.”
“It’s abhorrent for the federal government not to consult with and consider the interests of the states,”added Jim Carafano, a foreign policy expert at The Heritage Foundation. “Particularly the views of governors, as it impacts the welfare and public safety of their citizens.”
Florida Gov. Rick Scott addressed those concernsin a lettersent to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell. In that letter, dated Nov. 16, Scott wrote:
[I]t is our understanding that the state does not have the authority to prevent the federal government from funding the relocation of these Syrian refugees to Florida even without state support. Therefore, we are asking the United States Congress to take immediate and aggressive action to prevent President Obama and his administration from using any federal tax dollars to fund the relocation of up to 425 Syrian refugees (the total possible number of refugees pending for state relocation support at this time) to Florida, or anywhere in the United States, without an extensive evaluation of the risk these individuals may post to our national security.
In response, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced legislation on Monday afternoon that would suspend issuance of visas to refugees from countries with a high risk of terrorism until the U.S. Department of Homeland Security meets certain standards. Those standards include fingerprinting and screening all refugees, implement a tracking system “to catch attempted overstays,”and enhancing security measures that are already in place.
“The time has come to stop terrorists from walking in our front door. The Boston Marathon bombers were refugees, and numerous refugees from Iraq, including some living in my hometown, have attempted to commit terrorist attacks,”Paul said in a press release.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also called to suspend the refugee program.
“The Syrian refugee program should be suspended until the American people are satisfied that they know exactly who the president is admitting into the country via this program,” Burr said. “There is simply too much at stake, and the security of the American people should be our top priority.”
This article and its accompanying map has been updated to reflect the growing number of governors who do not wish to permit Syrian refugees into their state.
And so it begins. I guess America was feeling a little left out of all the Muslim influence in western democracies like Britain and Australia. We want our fair share of Islamic indoctrination too. And now, a suburb of Detroit has stepped up and elected the first Muslim majority city council in American history. The Polish settled town of Hamtramck, Michigan voted Muslim in four of the six council elections in what is generally considered a reflection of the town’s changing demographics. It wasn’t even that close. Muslims were the top three vote getters.
To be fair, two of the Muslims were actually re-elected. And while we’re not talking about the Islamists who boycotted the police in Australia, this is the same city that saw no problem voting unanimously in 2004 to allow the mosques to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer. Look, I’d love nothing more than to report this as a great step for new believers in America and immigrants who reflect constitutional ideals. Unfortunately, last I checked, this is still the same religion whose highest leadership defines its faith on Sharia Law and destroying America.
Beside the questions about empowering people of a dangerous and violent faith, despite their individual integrity, there’s the issue of diversity. Of course, don’t tell this reporter that there’s a diversity problem. As he rambles on about Hamtramck’s new reflection he seems happy to ignore the fact that the city council’s “diversity” is 67% one faith and ethnic background. Don’t even get into the question of political diversity.
Apparently, ethnic majorities are only a problem when were dealing with Caucasian males.
Often, when there is a confrontation of free speech in the public square and one side becomes violent, police want to step in and instead of dealing with the violent party, they will remove the law-abiding citizens “for their own safety.” It is clearly a violation of the right of the people to assemble, as well as a free speech violation. Now, a US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled constitutionally when it comes to police attempting to remove Christians from public areas just because Muslims threaten them with violence.
The case was brought by Bible Believers, Ruben Israel, Arthur Fisher and Joshua DeLosSantos against Wayne County, Michigan, Sheriff Benny Napoleon and deputies Dennis Richardson and Mike Jaafar.
It cited the plaintiffs’ messages on signs and T-shirts that included “Islam Is A Religion of Blood and Murder,” “Turn or Burn,” “Fear God,” “Jesus Is the Way, the Truth and the Life. All Others are Thieves and Robbers” and “Prepare to Meet Thy God – Amos 4:12.”
The Christians also began their walk carrying a pole with a pig’s head attached to the top, further angering the Muslim crowd.
The opinion noted that two types of speech are unprotected, incitement to riot and fighting words.
The judges found any advocacy for the use of force or lawless behavior is “absent from the record in this case.” And the judges found regarding fighting words, “the average individual attending the festival did not react with violence, and of the group made up of mostly adolescents, only a certain percentage engaged in bottle throwing.”
The opinion cited the “heckler’s veto” concept of one person or group silencing others by threatening violence.
While lower courts ruled that police could issue unlawful commands to Christians to remove themselves from the public square because of lawless threats against them by Muslims at the International Arab Festival in Dearborn, Michigan, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned those rulings by stating, “We find that defendants violated the Bible Believers’ First Amendment rights because there can be no legitimate dispute based on this record that the [county and officers] effectuated a heckler’s veto by cutting off the Bible Believers’ protected speech in response to a hostile crowd’s reaction.”
“The First Amendment offers sweeping protection that allows all manner of speech to enter the marketplace of ideas,”the ruling added. “This protection applies to loathsome and unpopular speech with the same force as it does to speech that is celebrated and widely accepted. The protection would be unnecessary if it only served to safeguard the majority views. In fact, it is the minority view, including expressive behavior that is deemed distasteful and highly offensive to the vast majority of people, that most often needs protection under the First Amendment.”
The incident in question occurred in 2012. Many Christian apologists attend the festival to share the Gospel with Muslims who are willing to listen. However, often the confrontations are not exactly positive, but do become violent. Take a look at this video from 2012 at the festival in which Muslims assaulted Christians with milk crates, glass bottles, eggs and whatever else they could get their hands on.
The American Freedom Law Center co-founder and Senior Counsel Robert J. Muise, who worked on the case said, “This was a complete victory for the Constitution and for all freedom-loving Americans who enjoy the protections of the First Amendment. This decision makes clear that the First Amendment protects speech critical of Islam and that when the government seeks to suppress such speech by enforcing a heckler’s veto that favors the violent Muslim mob over the free speech rights of Christians, the government will pay dearly for this egregious violation of the Constitution.”
“Kudos to Judge Clay and the majority. Judge Rogers’s dissenting opinion, on the other hand, speaks volumes about how progressives (be they Republicans or Democrats) view the Bill of Rights,”added AFLC co-founder and Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi. “For Judge Rogers, there is one constitution for minorities and quite a lesser document for those perceived to be in the majority. The former’s speech is protected; the latter’s is protected only up to the point that some minority – especially Muslims – protests or, as in this case, engages in violence by attacking the speaker. In this case, the Christians and the Constitution did not lie down and roll over. This is an example where lawfare, fought on behalf of liberty, has moved the proverbial mountain and buried the jihadi’s heckler’s veto six feet under.”
This is a huge win for Christians in the public square. Now, if we can just get those who are entrusted to keep the peace to actually do that by arresting those who act unlawfully and protecting those who are doing good, then all will be well.
More than a dozen states that saw gay marriage bans struck down last week by the U.S. Supreme Court are vowing to protect religious liberty, even though they grudgingly accept that the ruling is now the law of the land.
In the wake of Friday’s decision, Texas’s attorney general told county clerks in the state that they have a statutory right to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples if they have religious objections to gay marriage.
In Alabama, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore — a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage — said a new state court order could temporarily delay the practice, only to walk back the remarks.
And in Louisiana, the attorney general contends there is nothing in the Supreme Court’s ruling that renders it effective immediately, raising questions about how soon the state would have to comply.
Many other states across the South and upper Midwest are criticizing the ruling as an encroachment on states’ rights and religious freedom, though most acknowledge they cannot ignore it. “Ultimately, my position is that the state should have been legally entitled to define marriage,” South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley told The Hill. “I feel the state has traditionally held that role, and certainly when it’s in the state’s constitution it should be respected.” “But we are a nation of laws and we must respect that,” he added.
Before the Supreme Court’s ruling last Friday, those states and 11 others — Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and Tennessee — had laws prohibiting same-sex marriage. Though not outright defying the high court’s decision, states are now seeking to make clear the limits of its scope. “The ruling does not tell a minister or congregation what they must do, but it does make clear that the government cannot pick and choose when it comes to issuing marriage licenses and the benefits they confer,” said Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the state would issue exemptions to county clerks, judges and justices of the peace who express religious objections to issuing gay marriage licenses, promising to “defend their religious beliefs.” “The government cannot force them to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies over their religious objections,” Paxton said, accusing the Supreme Court of “ignoring the text and spirit of the Constitution to manufacture a right that simply does not exist.”
In cases where there are objections, however, other public officials would issue the documents.
A federal judge ruled in May that Alabama’ s same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional and stayed her opinion until the Supreme Court ruled on the issue. This week, Moore — the state Supreme Court’s chief justice — initially said a new motion in the earlier case would effectively table Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, a case known as Obergefell v. Hodges.
But same-sex marriage advocates argued that the order has no tangible effects thanks to a federal injunction, and Moore later backed away from the assertion. “In no way does the order instruct probate judges of this State as to whether or not they should comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell,” he said.
Still, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange accused the Supreme Court of “overturning centuries of tradition and the will of the citizens.” “I expect the focus will now turn to the exercise of one’s religious liberty,”Strange said.
A number of attorneys general also complained that the Supreme Court’s decision infringes on states’ right to define marriage how they see fit. Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell said the court’s ruling “overturns the will of the people of Louisiana, and it takes away a right that should have been left to the states.”
Caldwell is threatening to essentially disregard the Supreme Court’s ruling for the time being, saying there is “nothing in [the] decision that makes the court’s order effective immediately. Therefore, there is not yet a legal requirement for officials to issue marriage licenses or perform marriages for same-sex couples in Louisiana.”
Gay rights activists warn that any acts of perceived defiance would threaten to undermine the legal system. “It’s a dangerous message for southern governors to disobey an order from the Supreme Court,”said Marc Solomon, national campaign director at Freedom to Marry. “The notion that public employees get to pick and choose which laws they follow based on their religious beliefs is a really dangerous precedent and a terrible public policy,”he added. “If you’re a public official, you need to carry out those laws, and you don’t get to decide whether they’re right or wrong.”
The attorneys general in North Dakota and Mississippi both said they are waiting on other court cases to be resolved before they enforce the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage. Other states like Ohio and Nebraska expressed disappointment that the Supreme Court was interfering with their marriage laws but also indicated they would respect the ruling.
And top officials in a handful of states that formerly banned gay marriage are now welcoming the Supreme Court’s ruling. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said he would move swiftly to recognized same-sex marriage in the wake of the court’s ruling. “The history of our country has always been one of moving toward inclusion and equality,” Koster said in a statement. “I applaud the court for their courage and strong sense of fairness. Missourians should be seen as equals under the law; regardless of their gender, race, or whom they love.”
Austin Yack, Hanna Krueger, Kate Hardiman and Rachel Ravina contributed.
WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — The Supreme Court declared Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the United States. Gay and lesbian couples already could marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The court’s 5-4 ruling means the remaining 14 states, in the South and Midwest, will have to stop enforcing their bans on same-sex marriage. Gay rights supporters cheered, danced and wept outside the court when the decision was announced.
The outcome is the culmination of two decades of Supreme Court litigation over marriage, and gay rights generally. In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that same-sex marriage must be allowed under the United States Constitution.
“No union is more profound than marriage,” Kennedy wrote, joined by the court’s four more liberal justices.
“From their beginning to their most recent page, the annals of human history reveal the transcendent importance of marriage. The lifelong union of a man and a woman always has promised nobility and dignity to all persons, without regard to their station in life. Marriage is sacred to those who live by their religions and offers unique fulfillment to those who find meaning in the secular realm. Its dynamic allows two people to find a life that could not be found alone, for a marriage becomes greater than just the two persons. Rising from the most basic human needs, marriage is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations,” Kennedy wrote.
Kennedy also wrote the court’s previous three major gay rights cases dating back to 1996. It came on the anniversary of two of those earlier decisions. As Kennedy read his opinion, spectators in the courtroom wiped away tears after the import of the decision became clear. One of those in the audience was James Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court fight. Outside, Obergefell held up a photo of his late spouse, John, and said the ruling establishes that “our love is equal.” He added, “This is for you, John.”
President Barack Obama placed a congratulatory phone call to Obergefell, which he took amid a throng of reporters outside the courthouse.
Kennedy was joined by the four liberal justices of the court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer.
Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented, and all wrote separate dissents.
Alito wrote, “Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage.”
Roberts said gay marriage supporters should celebrate, but don’t celebrate the Constitution.
“If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it,” Roberts wrote.
Scalia wrote his dissent “to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.”
“Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves,” Scalia wrote.
Thomas wrote, “Aside from undermining the political processes that protect our liberty, the majority’s decision threatens the religious liberty our Nation has long sought to protect.”
Obama called the ruling a “big step in our march toward equality.” In a statement in the Rose Garden, Obama said that justice arrived like a thunderbolt. “This ruling is a victory for America,”Obama said. The president thanked gay rights supporters who worked tirelessly for this cause. “America’s a place where you can write your own destiny,”he said.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton weighed in, calling the ruling a “historic victory for marriage equality.”
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said in a statement that the Supreme Court should have allowed the states to decide. “Guided by my faith, I believe in traditional marriage. I believe the Supreme Court should have allowed the states to make this decision. I also believe that we should love our neighbor and respect others, including those making lifetime commitments,” the former Florida governor said. “In a country as diverse as ours, good people who have opposing views should be able to live side by side. It is now crucial that as a country we protect religious freedom and the right of conscience and also not discriminate.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser celebrated the ruling saying the court’s recognition of same-sex marriage as a right in every state “affirms our democratic values, that each of us is equal.”
The ruling will not take effect immediately because the court gives the losing side roughly three weeks to ask for reconsideration. But some state officials and county clerks might decide there is little risk in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The cases before the court involved laws from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee that define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Those states have not allowed same-sex couples to marry within their borders and they also have refused to recognize valid marriages from elsewhere.
Just two years ago, the Supreme Court struck down part of the federal anti-gay marriage law that denied a range of government benefits to legally married same-sex couples. The decision in United States v. Windsor did not address the validity of state marriage bans, but courts across the country, with few exceptions, said its logic compelled them to invalidate state laws that prohibited gay and lesbian couples from marrying.
The number of states allowing same-sex marriage has grown rapidly. As recently as October, just over one-third of the states permitted same-sex marriage.
There are an estimated 390,000 married same-sex couples in the United States, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute, which tracks the demographics of gay and lesbian Americans. Another 70,000 couples living in states that do not currently permit them to wed would get married in the next three years, the institute says. Roughly 1 million same-sex couples, married and unmarried, live together in the United States, the institute says.
The Obama administration backed the right of same-sex couples to marry. The Justice Department’s decision to stop defending the federal anti-marriage law in 2011 was an important moment for gay rights, and Obama declared his support for same-sex marriage in 2012.
If you live in a state without its own Obamacare health exchange, you can expect to see individual insurance premiums rise sharply in anticipation of an upcoming Supreme Court’s decision on the legality of federal subsidies to consumers there.
Such is the case in Michigan, in which seventeen of 21 health insurers selling coverage at HealthCare.gov. are requesting rate hikes. Premium increases from 5% to a whopping 37% are being sought by more than half of the insurers beginning in January under the Affordable Care Act, the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services said Monday. The requests require approval of the state insurance agency.
The nation’s highest court is expected to rule this month on the King v. Burwell case concerning the legality of federal subsidies paid to customers in the 36 states that use the federal Health Insurance Marketplace at HealthCare.gov; 14 states have their own marketplaces.
88% of consumers on Michigan’s health exchange receive some kind of subsidy according to Rick Murdock, executive director of the Michigan Association of Health Plans, which represents most insurers in the state. More than 341,000 Michiganians purchased insurance on the health exchange. The average premium paid by consumers was $130, with a savings of $236 because of the premium tax credit, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Murdock suggested that insurers may be adjusting for a potential loss of business if federal subsidies are eliminated and consumers abandon their policies.
Similarly, North Carolina’s largest insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, stated that it seeks to raise individual healthcare premiums by 13.5% for Obamacare compliant plans, affecting some 315,000 consumers in that state.
Nationwide, insurance companies want rate hikes of over 10% in 37 states.
According to the CMS, more than 8 in 10 individuals who selected a 2015 plan through HealthCare.gov qualified for an average advanced premium tax credit of $263 per person per month. That is $263 per month- or $3,156 per year- that taxpayers must subsidize per person for over 80% of consumers on Obamacare approved plans. These are plans that must include unnecessary coverage of myriad specialty drugs and procedures under the federal government’s one size fits all mandates.
The Democrats just had to “pass the bill to find out what was in it,” and we are now witness to the unintended (or perhaps intended) consequences of a disastrous bill designed to provide health insurance to the 10% of uninsured Americans, all at the expense of the 90% who were perfectly happy with the plan they had.
While Obama insisted that premiums would decrease by $2500 per person, the reality is much different; rising healthcare premiums for all, along with unsustainable subsidies in the form of tax credits to enlarge the ever increasing entitlement class in a country holding more than $18 trillion in national debt.
The looming Supreme Court will hopefully rule that the federal government has acted illegally in forcing taxpayers nationwide to subsidize residents of states which have chosen to not be party to the one of the most audacious pieces of legislation ever passed. What happens afterwards is anybody’s guess, but one thing is certain; increasing premiums and chaos in the US healthcare system are imminent.
Please Sign the Tea Party petition HERE to send a message and demand once again that our Congressmen repeal the (Un)Affordable Care Act NOW.
LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation today that creates a drug-testing program for adult welfare recipients who are suspected of using drugs.
The Republican-backed proposals, House Bill 4118 and Senate Bill 275, were among several bills approved by Snyder. The one-year pilot program will be implemented in three counties that have not yet been determined.
Under the program, welfare recipients or applicants suspected of drug use will be required to take a substance abuse test. Refusal to take the test will result in being ineligible for benefits for six months.
A positive drug test would lead to referrals to treatment programs. If an individual refuses to participate in the program or fails to submit to periodic substance abuse testing required under the program, their assistance will be terminated. Benefits can be restored after a person passes a substance abuse test.
“We want to remove the barriers that are keeping people from getting good jobs, supporting their families and living independently,”Snyder said in a press release. “This pilot program is intended to help ensure recipients get the wrap-around services they need to overcome drug addiction and lead successful lives. We’ll then have opportunity to assess effectiveness and outcomes.”
Opponents of the legislation, including the Michigan League for Public Policy, have said similar programs in other states haven’t saved taxpayers money. The nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency estimated a statewide program would cost roughly $700,000 to $3.4 million, while potentially saving $370,000 to $3.7 million in caseload reductions.
The American Civil Liberties Union has said the program would promote ugly stereotypes of poor people and discriminate against a group that doesn’t use drugs at a rate significantly higher than the general population.
“We give out tax credits to schools, we give out tax credits to students, we give out tax credits to police and fire (departments),”Sen. Vincent Gregory, D-Southfield, said earlier this year on the Senate floor. “And yet the only (group) that we are now saying is subject to drug screening are the poor — the poorest of the poor.”
Bills aim to keep Michigan kids in school, reduce truancy and chronic absence
Michigan has roughly 80,000 welfare recipients, 21,000 of them adults age 18 and older who could be subject to drug testing depending on which counties are selected for the pilot.
The pilot program must be completed by Sept. 30, 2016.
Snyder also signed bills Friday that extend the Michigan film credit program by seven years to 2021; update who can administer the oath of office for state representatives and senators to include the secretary of the Michigan Senate and clerk of the Michigan House of Representatives; and allow cemetery owners to recover burial rights for abandoned burial plots.
He vetoed legislation that would have established procedures for naming Michigan delegates and alternates to a federal constitutional convention, in the event one is called.
Jennette Hall, whose 10th grade daughterattends Jenison Public School in Jenison, Michigan, was astonished after she saw the assignment her daughter received in her World History class on Islam.
The assignment directed students to make a pamphlet which would then be created to fit curriculum suitable for third graders.
“It was an assignment given to my 10th grade daughter in her World History class. The assignment was to make a pamphlet geared toward a third grade audience. They did not actually hand them out to third graders. This assignment upset me because they are teaching that Allah is the same God of the Christians and Jews. This paper, in my opinion, is promoting Islam by describing Allah’s names as beautiful. To me this is not simply factual as it should be. I have a meeting on Tuesday with the principle of Jenison High School to discuss my concerns.”
Not only was the assignment riddled with inaccuracies where it states that Christians, Jews, and all other religions worship the same “god” as Muslims, it is full of propaganda — stating that the Muslims’ god “Allah” is the “ONE and ONLY GOD.”
The assignment then goes on to paint the prophet Muhammad as the wonderful and peaceful messenger of “God” whose spiritual revelation produced Islam. They leave out the historical FACTS, however, that Muhammad was a mass murderer, terrorist, misogynist, cult leader, rapist, torturer, assassin, narcissist, and not to mention a pedophile — who married his child bride Aisha when she was just six years old.
Below is a the text version of the assignment the students received:
Part 1: Introducing Islam
Islam and Muslims- The name of this religion is Islam, the root of which is SILM and SALAM, which means “peace.” SALAM may also mean, greeting one another with peace. One of the beautiful names of god, is that he is the peace. It means more than that; submission to the ONE GOD, and to live in peace with the creator within oneself, with other people, and with the environment. Thus, Islam is a total system of living. A Muslim is supposed to live in peace and harmony with all these segments; hence, a Muslim is any person, anywhere in the world whose obedience, allegiance, and loyalty are to god, the LORD of the universe.
Part 2: Muslims and Arabs
The followers of Islam are called Muslims. Muslims are not to be confused with Arabs. Muslims may be Arabs, Turks, Persians, Indians, Pakistanis, Malaysians, Indonesians, Europeans, Africans, Americans, Chinese, or other nationalities.
An Arab could be a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, or an Atheist. Any person who adopts the Arabic language is called an Arab. However, the language of the “Quran” the holy book of Islam, is Arabic. Muslims all over the world try to learn Arabic so that they can read the Quran and understand its meaning. They pray in the language of the Quran; namely, Arabic.
Supplications to god to be in any language. While there are 1 billion Muslims in the world, there are about 200 million Arabs. Among them, approximately about 10 percent are not Muslim. Thus, Arab Muslims constitute only about 20 percent of the Muslim population of the world.
Part 3: Allah The One and the Only God
Allah is the name of the one and only god. Allah has 99 beautiful names, such as: the gracious, the merciful, the beneficent, the creator, the all-knowing, the all-wise, the lord of the universe, the first, the last, and others.
He is the creator of all human beings. He is the god for the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Atheists, and others. Muslims worship God whose name is “Allah.” They put their trust in him, and they seek his trust and his guidance.
Part 4: Muhammad
Muhammad was chosen by God to deliver his message of peace, namely Islam. He was born in 570 CE (Common Era) in Makkah, Arabia. He was trusted with the message of Islam when he was at the age of 40 years. The revelation that he received is called the Quran, while the message is called Islam.
Are you outraged yet? It looks as though the mom is handling the situation adequately so far, with her plans to pay the principal of the school a little visit and voice her concerns. If students are taught anything about Islam, it should be based on facts and current events. If the school wants to show the truth about Islam, perhaps they should show the students a couple of beheading videos so they can see first hand what this “peaceful” religion is truly all about.
When Michigan mother Christine Duffy brought her 17-year-old daughter into her physician’s office for a minor foot injury, she was told that a new medical access law required a nurse to have a “private” conversation with her child, another example of how parental authority is being eviscerated by the state.
Duffy’s experience is best explained in her own words;
“I was there last week for an appointment for Amy. She hurt her foot, which makes dancing difficult, so we had to get that checked out. Amy is 17; I asked if this policy was in effect and if so, how could I opt out. The receptionist told me it’s a new law and there is no opting out. Working to keep my cool, I said, “I’m sure there is.” She said, “No, there isn’t.” At which point I asked if I needed to leave and go to the urgent care center because I was not submitting my daughter to such a conversation.’
“That did not go over well.’
‘The receptionist closed the window. Almost immediately, the office manager turned the corner and said, “Mrs. Duffy, may I speak with you?”’
“She said there was a new policy that would allow a child to access his/her medical records online and the child would be allowed to block a parent from viewing the website. The nurse would also inform my children that the doctor’s office is a safe place for them to receive information about STDs, HIV and birth control. That is what the nurse would be chatting about with my children without any pesky parental oversight.’
“I kindly informed her that no one would be talking with my children privately, and I needed to know how to opt out of this policy before bringing Amy back for her physical next month. (Yay for physicals! Amy is so excited.)’
“By this time, the doctor was ready to see Amy so I had to cut the conversation short because I was not letting my girl out of my eyesight or earshot. Not when it was clear that these people were angling to undermine my parental authority.’
“Does that sound a bit dramatic to you? It shouldn’t. Because that is exactly what they are trying to do.”
Duffy went on to assert her right as a parent to decide what her daughter should be told about sex or birth control. She also cited the potential of teenage boys being given condoms by doctors in defiance of parental encouragement to abstain from having sex before marriage.
In addition to the conversation about birth control and STDs, previous examples have taught us that nurses sometimes quiz children about domestic abuse, to the point where an accident or an incident where the child was spanked can escalate into a full blown CPS investigation.
This case highlights how the state, primarily via the schooling system and health care, is moving aggressively to curtail parental authority and set the precedent that the government is responsible for protecting children from their own parents.
“We are living in a new America, one in which officials and their subordinates will stop at nothing to control every aspect of our lives, as well as those of our children,”writes Mac Slavo, adding, “With tens of thousands of laws on the books and more coming, it is only a matter of time before the government will have given themselves permission to do whatever they like with you… and your children.”
Last monthwe reportedon how EMS workers told a mother who homeschooled her children that they were “agents of the state,” before proceeding to conduct an inspection of her home.
The increasing effort to characterize children as property of the state was perhaps best emphasized in a recent MSNBC promotional video which featured host Melissa Harris-Perry decrying the “private notion of children” and that “kids belong to their parents or their families” in favor of a “collective notion” that “kids belong to whole communities.”
Liberals will make their perverted believes the norm in society.
Alex Jones covers the new medical laws in Michigan that says Drs will have a confidential meeting with children privately without parental supervision to turn them into Nanny-State snitches for the system. See Alex below:
WASHINGTON – Momentum is building behind what would be an unprecedented effort to amend the U.S. Constitution, through a little-known provision that gives states rather than Congress the power to initiate changes.
At issue is what’s known as a “constitutional convention,” a scenario tucked into Article V of the U.S. Constitution. At its core, Article V provides two ways for amendments to be proposed. The first – which has been used for all 27 amendment to date – requires two-thirds of both the House and Senate to approve a resolution, before sending it to the states for ratification. The Founding Fathers, though, devised an alternative way which says if two-thirds of state legislatures demand a meeting, Congress “shall call a convention for proposing amendments.”
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The idea has gained popularity among constitutional scholars in recent years — but got a big boost last week when Michigan lawmakers endorsed it.
Michigan matters, because by some counts it was the 34th state to do so. That makes two-thirds.
In the wake of the vote, California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter pressed House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday to determine whether the states just crossed the threshold for this kind of convention. Like Michigan lawmakers, Hunter’s interest in the matter stems from a desire to push a balanced-budget amendment — something that could potentially be done at a constitutional convention.
“Based on several reports and opinions, Michigan might be the 34th state to issue such a call and therefore presents the constitutionally-required number of states to begin the process of achieving a balanced budget amendment,” Hunter wrote.
“With the recent decision by Michigan lawmakers, it is important that the House – and those of us who support a balanced budget amendment — determine whether the necessary number of states have acted and the appropriate role of Congress should this be the case.”
If two-thirds of the states indeed have applied, the ball is presumably in Congress’ court to call the convention.
But Article V is rather vague, and it’s ultimately unclear whether 34 states have technically applied. In the past, states like Oregon, Utah and Arizona have quietly voted to approve the provision in their legislature.
But some of the 34 or so have rescinded their requests. Others have rescinded, and then re-applied.
Alabama rescinded its request in 1988 but in 2011, lawmakers again applied for a convention related to an amendment requiring that the federal budget be balanced. It was a similar story in Florida in 2010.
Louisiana rescinded in 1990 but lawmakers have tried several times, unsuccessfully, to reinstate the application since then.
It’s unclear whether the applications still count in these scenarios.
Some constitutional scholars like Gregory Watson, an analyst in Texas, say once states ask, there may be no take-backs.
“There is a disagreement among scholars as to whether a state that has approved an application may later rescind that application,” Watson told The Washington Times. “If it is ultimately adjudicated that a state may not rescind a prior application, then Ohio’s 2013 application for a Balanced Budget Amendment convention would be the 33rd and Michigan’s 2014 application would be the 34th on that topic.”
Others say if a state changes its mind, it can no longer be part of the 34.
Even if the requisite number of states have applied, questions remain about how such a convention would work — and whether, as Michigan wants, such a convention could be limited to only discussing a balanced-budget amendment.
It still may be a long shot, but some analysts are warning about the unintended consequences of such a move.
In Louisiana, Budget Project Policy Analyst Steve Spire argued against the state’s resolution, saying the convention could permanently damage the nation’s political system.
The last time there was a successful amendment was more than four decades ago – the 26th Amendment which changed the voting age to 18. States ratified the 27th Amendment on congressional pay increases, but it took more than 200 years to do it.
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Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2020.
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Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2020.
Peter Hasson | Associate Editor | 11:23 PM 11/20/2017
Lieutenant Jeff Neville, who was bleeding from the neck, sources and witnesses at Bishop International Airport said.
Michael Bastasch, 01/26/2016
In response, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced legislation on Monday afternoon that would suspend issuance of visas to refugees from countries with a high risk of terrorism until the U.S. Department of Homeland Security meets certain standards. Those standards include fingerprinting and screening all refugees, implement a tracking system “to catch attempted overstays,” and enhancing security measures that are already in place.
What Did You Say? 
Several politicians have recently been offering free goodies to voters. One of the most popular of these, oddly enough, is something that several state governments have already tackled: free college tuition.
The details vary by state, but Oregon, Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan, and Louisiana (among others) all use tax dollars to pay for at least some of their residents’ college tuition.
Louisiana provides a great case study for advocates of similar federal policies. Louisiana just so happens to be in the news right now because the governor is threatening to suspend his state’s version of free college tuition for everyone.
Louisiana’s Tuition Program
Louisiana’s plan is called the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or, more commonly, TOPS. This extremely popular program uses tax dollars to pay full tuition (and some fees) at any of Louisiana’s public universities. Other than residency requirements, all high school students qualify as long as they have a C average (2.5 GPA) and at least an 18 on the ACT.
So the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students doesn’t cover every student’s tuition, but it ends up covering it for a large chunk of middle-/upper-class families.
How It Started
The program started out in the late 1980s as the brainchild of oil tycoon/philanthropist Patrick Taylor. The program, which wasn’t originally named for him, started out as a tuition assistance plan only for low-income individuals.
In 1997 the state removed the income caps. At that point, all Louisiana students, regardless of financial need, were made eligible for “free” tuition at any Louisiana public college. Once in college, students had to maintain a C average to keep their TOPS awards.
As of 2010, approximately 70 percent of Louisiana’s high school graduates headed to college within one year. That’s nearly 20 percent higher than the rate in 2000.
Who’s Paying for It?
It’s easy to call the program a success because of this increase, but it’s just as easy to point out that the program doesn’t really provide free education. In one way or another, someone pays for it.
The eventual implosion of the program was easy to predict back in 1997 for the same reasons that pretty much any similar subsidy is destined to fail. Subsidies don’t really lower the cost of products and services; they only lower the up-front price that some people pay.
(In 1997, this program inspired my very first public critique of a government policy. Back then, I thought it was a terrible idea.)
No Such Thing as Free Tuition
A person receiving “free” tuition may not see it (or even care), but subsides actually raise the total cost of an education. The core problem is that they remove the paying customer—in this case the student—from the equation.
Without the subsidy, the paying customer receives the direct benefit for the service and bears the direct cost. If that person doesn’t think the cost is worth it, they don’t pay.
Louisiana’s program replaces this paying customer with groups of government officials. These officials neither receive the direct benefit nor endure the direct cost of obtaining an education. These groups do, however, benefit a great deal from obtaining more of your tax dollars.
And they rarely bear any direct cost from either increasing your taxes or delivering a substandard education product. (The incumbency rate is fairly high for politicians.)
On a practical level, Louisiana’s program converts tuition payments into a state budget item. In other words, a large chunk of each school’s “tuition” becomes nothing more than revenue sent in by the state bureaucracy.
In Louisiana, four separate higher education systems—each its own bureaucracy—fight over these “tuition” payments. Smaller schools inevitably get the smallest shares, but that’s kind of another story.
A Burden on University Resources
When the influx of students hits—more people going to school when tuition is “free” is pretty much a foregone conclusion—it strains universities’ existing resources. So the transfer of money has the natural tendency to lead to expanded facilities, faculty, and staff.
But these increases call for a permanently higher level of funding, and all of these effects tend to reinforce each other. That is, school officials have a built in reason to ask for larger transfers, and politicians have a built in excuse to raise taxes.
When the state’s coffers are not flush with cash, the schools’ budgets get cut. Thus, universities have every incentive to raise more money from students who are not a part of the Taylor Opportunity Program.
Of course, for any given level of Taylor Opportunity Program students, a higher posted rate of tuition results in a larger transfer from the state. If the program covered full fees and tuition for literally every student, then taxpayers would bear the full cost. But it doesn’t, so non-TOPS students bear some of the cost.
(Pretty much every student ends up paying higher fees directly, too, but that’s almost an aside.)
Non-subsidized markets don’t work this way—prices can actually fall in response to changes in demand and supply. Subsidized systems, on the other hand, are destined to result in higher—not lower—tuition.
Recent numbers support this explanation. The Taylor Opportunity Program has nearly doubled in cost since 2008, and most of that increase has been due to higher tuition.
What I failed to fully appreciate in 1997 was how bad of a deal the Taylor Opportunity Program would end up being for the smaller schools. Then I spent almost a decade teaching at Nicholls State University, a regional state school in Thibodaux, La.
Small Universities Are Hardest Hit
In one sense, the Louisiana program amounted to a cruel trick for these institutions. Smaller schools are the ones least able to sustain the permanently higher costs associated with the new TOPS-generated revenue stream.
When the state budget goes south—and it always does in Louisiana—smaller schools get slammed. (Louisiana State University has more than 25,000 students, so small changes in per-student fees go a long way).
No matter how much we want it to, subsidizing something simply doesn’t make it more cost-effective.
The Taylor Opportunity Program does give certain people a better deal on tuition at one point in time, but then it makes up for it somewhere else.
Ironically, the earlier waves of Taylor Opportunity Program graduates are among those about to get hit with a tax increase. That’s what politicians mean by free.
Aside from the subsidy/cost issue, there are many other reasons why this is bad public policy.
First of all—and I know this sounds crazy—everyone should not go to college. Some people simply aren’t cut out, and many just don’t need to. Yes, people with college degrees tend to earn more than those without, but it does not follow that everyone should go to college.
When the program was started, Louisiana public universities offered students a good value because they were relatively inexpensive. Now that Louisiana taxpayers have spent more than $2 billion on the program, tuition rates are out of reach for many students that don’t qualify for the program.
While the best solution for Louisiana would be to get rid of the program altogether (unlikely since politicians love the program), the best residents can hope for now is an increase in the program’s academic standards and some form of means testing. At least these changes would better direct subsidies to academically prepared students with more financial need.