Author name: Victor Skinner

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson recently attacked the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, labeling him an online “troll,” for highlighting an issue that’s fueling distrust and questions about transparency in the 2024 election.

“Michigan has more registered voters than eligible citizens!? Is that true @CommunityNotes?” Elon Musk posted to X, the social media site he owns.

Michigan has more registered voters than eligible citizens!? Is that true @CommunityNotes? https://t.co/f7Q2iCZdQ7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2024

The site’s fact checkers responded with a community note that asserts “Michigan plans to remove over 600,000 inactive voters by 2027.”

“The state currently has 8.4 million registered voters, according to the latest records obtained by Bridge Michigan, nearly 500,000 more than the number of people in the state who are old enough to vote,” the note read, linking to the Bridge Michigan analysis. Those facts were immediately countered with election misinformation from Benson, who twisted the data to fit her own narrative.

Read the full story at The Midwesterner

When Vice President Kamala Harris was a 24-year-old law student San Francisco, her father, a Marxist economics professor at Stanford University, published a critique of immigration policies hurting black families.

Harris and six of his like-minded colleagues argued in 1988 that “the current immigration policy, which allows relatively large numbers of low-skilled workers to enter the United States” translates into a “burden … on low-skilled native-born workers,” and black families in particular, Restoration News reports. “At the same time that the trends in international trade have moved against U.S. workers, U.S. immigration laws have been modified in ways that increase the influx of low-skilled workers, who compete with native-born youths and low-skilled adult workers for low-skilled jobs,” the pamphlet read. “This shift has been a particularly serious problem for blacks, who constitute a high proportion of the low-skilled adult workers.”

Fast forward 26 years, and Donald Harris’ 1988 pamphlet Black Economic Progress: An Agenda for the 1990s has become even more relevant as his daughter oversees the largest influx of migrants in the nation’s history.

Read the Full Story at The Midwesterner

While Michigan’s finances improved in 2023, it ranked 35th out of 50 states for its “taxpayer burden” in a recent analysis by Truth in Accounting, a nonprofit focused on highlighting government finances. Truth in Accounting’s fifteenth annual Financial State of the States grades states using an A-F grading scale, while providing perspective on finances through each state’s “taxpayer burden,” which is essentially the amount per taxpayer to pay off all of a state’s debt.

With $46.8 billion in available assets to pay bills, and more than $75 billion in bills, “the outcome was a $28.2 billion shortfall, which breaks down to a burden of $7,600 per taxpayer,” according to the report. The bulk of those bills involve more than $39 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

“Bottom line: Michigan would need $7,600 from each of its taxpayers to pay all of its outstanding bills and received a ‘D’ grade for its finances,” the report reads. “According to Truth in Accounting’s grading scale, any government with a Taxpayer Burden between $5,000 and $20,000 is given a ‘D’ grade.”

Read the Full Story at The Midwesterner

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer contends efforts to keep Stellantis from moving its headquarters out of the Great Lakes State is a “top priority,” though her social media antics raise questions about whether she’s serious.

“We have an open dialogue going on,” Whitmer told Crain’s Detroit Business at the Battery Show at Hunting Place in Detroit this week. “We want to help Stellantis see the wisdom and the opportunities for changing up their headquarters but making sure it stays here in Michigan. That dialogue is robust, continuous, and we’re not going to take our eye off the ball. We want Stellantis to continue to call Michigan home.”

Whitmer is in talks with Carlos Tavares, CEO of the company that produces Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge, over the possibility of relocating Stellantis’ American headquarters in Auburn Hills. Those conversations follow struggles at Stellantis over the last year, with a UAW strike last September, delays in EV product launches, sputtering sales and significant layoffs this month. The company formed from a merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Peugeot S.A. in 2020 and its global headquarters is now located in the Netherlands.

Read More at The Midwesterner

Michigan Republicans scored another legal victory last week when a Michigan Court of Claims judge ordered Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to clarify incomplete election guidance. Last month, the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit against Benson over improper guidance to local election officials that instructed clerks and election inspectors to process and count bail ballots with missing stub numbers.

On Oct. 3, Judge Brock Swartzle ordered Benson to revise page 7 of her “Election Inspectors’ Procedure Manual” that states “without exposing any votes, the election inspector should verify that the number on the ballot stub agrees with the ballot recorded for the voter in the (Qualified Voter File) Absent Voter List.” The passage, Swartzle ordered, “shall be revised” to read, “Without exposing any votes, the election inspector must verify that the number on the ballot stub agrees with the ballot number on the face of the absent voter return envelope.”

During a hearing in the case, Benson conceded that ballots with mismatched serial numbers could be the result of voter fraud, and the RNC “applauds the finding by the Court requiring … Benson to follow Michigan law requiring ballot number matching,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement.

Read More at The Midwesterner 

Two attorneys general known for attacking high profile Republicans joined forces in Michigan over the weekend to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats.

“We all need to step outside our comfort zones to support pro-democracy and pro-choice candidates in this crucial election,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel posted to X on Saturday. “Whether it’s phone banking, knocking on doors, or writing postcards, every effort counts.

“Thank you @DistillSocial for having AG @TishJames and I!” the post read.

The stop in Southfield was among others with New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led a civil lawsuit against the Trump Organization that continues on appeal. That case started with a promise from James during her 2018 campaign for AG to investigate the 45th POTUS.

Read More at The Midwesterner

A Republican National Committee lawsuit against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson resulted in new guidance on signature verification following issues in Warren during the August primary. The RNC sued Benson in September after incomplete guidance from her office resulted in thousands of absent voter ballots tabulated in Warren during the Aug. 6 primary “despite the complete absence of a statement by the clerk on the corresponding return envelope that the absent voter ballot is approved for tabulation as expressly required” under Michigan law, the lawsuit read.

“The clerk must verify that the signature on a returned absent voter ballot envelope matches the voter’s signature on file,” according to the updated guidance cited by The Federalist. “Approval can be expressed by completing and initialing the portion of the ‘clerk section’ indicating that the signature was verified.”

Guidance issued by Benson in February 2024 did not inform clerks of the requirement to include “a statement by the city or township clerk that the absent voter ballot is approved for verification” once the voter’s signature is verified, as required by law. Without that verification, the law states “the clerk shall reject the absent voter ballot and provide the elector with notice of the opportunity to cure the deficiency.”

“In response to our lawsuit, Secretary Benson has updated her guidance to require proof that signatures have been verified before ballots are counted,” according to a RNC statement.

Read the Full Article at The Midwesterner

Last week, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Cella warned about dangers the Chinese Communist Party-linked Gotion battery plant pose to national security, particularly the Camp Grayling National Guard base used to train Taiwanese soldiers.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged five University of Michigan graduates from China with spying on the military base as it conducted Northern Strike, one of the largest National Guard exercises in the nation that also involved the Taiwanese military, The Detroit News reports.

“Camp Grayling is the hub of the National All-Domain Warfighting Center, which trains our troops and those of our allies, including Taiwan, in strategic and tactical battle operations,” Cella told the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability during a hearing on the CCP last week, according to the Taipei Times.

FBI Special Agent Caroline Julee Colpoys wrote in a criminal complaint filed Wednesday that five Chinese nationals were found with cameras at Camp Grayling during Northern Strike on Aug. 13, 2023, when they were caught by a Utah National Guard sergeant major taking photos just feet from military vehicles, tents and communications equipment.

Read the Full Story at The Midwesterner