Why The Dems Ran The Table In Michigan

There's hopefully going to be a lot of analysis, spending time in the woodshed,  and then a lot of work put in by Republicans to turn this around - if it can even be done given the structural disadvantages that just got baked into our State's Constitution.

1. While the MI GOP were playing checkers, the Democrats have been playing chess, if not using a different board entirely.

Some major structural issues mailed the Republicans this election:

A. With the Dem-led "Voters not Politicians" redrawing the electoral map to make it "competitive"  it gave a significant advantage to the Dems.  Failure to effectively stop this referendum campaign, or battle the new gerrymandered map that resulted has given the Dems a massive advantage.

B.  Absentee for no reason, Mail in / dropbox voting which kills off the chain of custody of the ballots and opens the way to lots and lots of opportunities for fraud.

2.  The MI GOP then left these issues unfixed and then compounded these structural errors and decided to fight the battle on the terms set by the Democrats - on Abortion and Trump. 

Great decision making there, well done.

They fell right into that trap rather than on solid issues they would win on - Whitmer's actions during the lockdowns, the economy, and how the Democrats on the national level have been making a mess of the country this state.

Does the GOP and its candidates not have any polling done before deciding on their strategy? At all?

Had Tudor Dixon not chosen to make Abortion her number one issue by making a hardline statement that was even beyond what the 1931 law held - that she was for no exceptions for abortion including even for the life of the mother, she could have separated voting for her from voting for Proposal 3.  

Instead she lost and Proposal Three passed.

Yes, Proposal Three just made Michigan a more than Roe state and just enshrined it in the constitution and given the language of the amendment just got rid of most, if not all prior legal restrictions on abortion.  And it got the Dems out in droves.

She didn't separate herself and instead nicely tied herself to it in a way to make independents say no to voting for her.  Talking to independents and Dems that I know, the only thing they heard was Tudor's extreme anti-abortion stance and that was enough for them to vote no on her no matter how much they had issues with Whitmer. Had she toned it down her message might of been heard but her broadcast hardliner statements that were even more extreme than not just Roe but the 1931 law doomed that.  It also didn't help that Whitmer was outfunding and outspending Dixon by 10 to 1 or m ore, but at least have a viable message that can get more than just a portion of your base to vote for you.

That the GOP didn't think ahead, plan, and refine her message so they were not fighting on the exact ground chosen by Democrats is inexplicable.

3. The MI GOP ran some truly horrendous candidates, again choosing the ground picked by Democrats.  How many Democrats crossed over in the primary to help pick the worst possible candidates is uncertain, but that likely helped as well.

DePerno had to come off as a raving lunatic of a candidate. 

Look, while Whitmer should be investigated and prosecuted for lots of good reasons, you do not announce you're going to do it until after you're elected, not before to energize your opponents.    See our Current AG Nessel and her prosecution of former Governor Snyder for how to play this political game. You also do not put up someone running for AG who is being currently  investigated for potentially violating Michigan law for messing with voting machines.  But the GOP did and Nasty Nessel got easily reelected as a result in what should have been an easy win.  2020 election denial without court-admissible proof, not theories, goes nowhere folks.  

People, election fraud is hard to prove. But either prove it, or instead work to stop it happening in the future.  Going off with unprovable theories does not cut it at all.

If DePerno was instead running to ensure Nessel was re-elected Attorney General it is hard to see what he would do differently.

Karamo the Republican Secretary of State candidate decided to put Trump front and center in her campaign and  even filed a lawsuit seeking an extraordinary remedy of injunctive relief for absentee voting in Detroit on the very eve of the election without any admissible evidence to win.  Good job rilling up Detroit and every possible Democrat with that right before the election, and completely tainting claims of actual fraud by this absolute incompetence in filing a  frivolous lawsuit.  Really nicely done.  Again, Benson was beatable on the issues, but Karamo chose Trump and unprovable theories that made her unelectable.

If Karamo was running to ensure a Benson was elected Secretary of State it is hard to see what she would do differently.

Chief Craig, who would have been very hard to beat in the run for governor, got "ratfucked" as they say, by a corrupt Democrat and felon-led signature collecting fraud drive.  Unsurprisingly, our Democrat AG is not investigating. That the opportunity for this even happened at all is inexplicable. It belies a complete lack of competence by his campaign and the other 5 candidates to whom this occurred, and a clear lack of infrastructure for signature collecting and for guidance by the state party.

In short, the Democrats outmaneuvered the Republicans at every damn turn and the Republican candidates happily obliged and decided to fight according to the  exact terms set by the Democrats and lost handily.

As a result we got Proposal 3 passed, if you didn't like abortion in Michigan before, you're really gonna hate how unrestricted it is now.

Even worse we got Proposal 2 passed which makes it:

 - Even easier for elections to be "fortified", and it certainly is written on a manner that can be interpreted that even felons in prison (a nice Democrat voting block) have a right to vote in elections.

-  ensures the straight-party ticket beloved by the Democrats is now a constitutional lock.

- allows out-of-state and corporate money to "help" fund elections (remember when Democrats used to want corporate money out of politics? - good times, those), 

- removes any chance at independent audits of an election allowing only the Secretary of State to do an audit and it is written in a manner to keep political parties from inspecting or having any role in the conducting of the audit.

-Makes certification of the vote a ministerial duty and doesn't allow the Certification Board to meaningfully investigate nor contest election results.

Basically this is a Democrat wish-list for handling elections and to prevent fraud investigations or election accountability so long as they control the Secretary of State slot,  that just got enshrined into our State Constitution - and they sold it under the false claim of requiring people to have to have ID to vote.

Proposal 2 is a disaster for this state.

That there were no Republican led proposals on the ballot to strengthen elections, and for many other areas that things could be improved structurally  is unfathomable and a missed opportunity.

The MIGOP needs to sit down and reassess their message and tactics, and it looks like they're starting to do so, but not soon enough. Republicans in this state are now way, way behind the 8-ball in this state and the Democrat machinations to date unless effectively challenged are going to keep Democrats in power and Republicans out for a long time to come.

Does Detroit Have More Registered Voters Than Population Actually Eligible To Vote?

It certainty appears so.

Per the City of Detroit Election Website, there were 508,535 Detroiters registered to vote for the 2022 election.

The total population of Detroit per the 2020 census is 672,351 and the current census population estimate for 2021 is 632,464.

Of that population,  the census has 32% of the population under the age of 18. Hence that 32% of the population is ineligible to be registered to vote.

That would imply that around 202,388 of the population is too young to vote. Even if we ignore the 2021 estimate and pretend the population didn't change at all from 2020 that would make 215,152 people ineligible to vote.

That would imply the total pool of people in Detroit eligible to register to voter is 430,076, or if you believe the population hasn't declined even a bit since 2020, a total of 457,199.

Anyone see the issue?

Even if Detroit managed to register 100% of those eligible to vote, which would be quite an unlikely feat of efficiency indeed, there should be 78,459 or 51,336 less voters on the voting rolls than there are currently.

Interestingly, even after losing population since 2020,  Detroit now has more registered voters.  The registered voter total in 2020 was 504,714.

So Detroit both lost population and yet increased the number of registered voters from 2020, yet even if the population remained the same since 2020 the city has at least, statistically speaking, 51,336 more registered voters now than the population should be able to provide.

While not proof of fraud, this does indicate Detroit needs a serious clean-up of their voter registration rolls. Having between 51,336-78,459 more registered voters than people who are actually eligible to vote certainly provides the means and opportunities for shenanigans to take place. 

Given our re-elected Secretary of State's refusal to clean up voter rolls in this state, don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

Ah, Those Pennsylvania Democrats

They not only elected a Brain-Dead Fetterman to represent them in the Senate -- they elected a completely dead Democrat as a state representative.

Really.

The Guardian: Democrat re-elected by a landslide in Pennsylvania – even though he’s dead

Voted

Was voter #94 this morning so there's been a reasonable in-person turnout already at my precinct.

Overall, it proceeded rather smoothly, although the fellow in front of me caused a bit of a hold up. Apparently his claimed new address did not match his current driver's license, nor his voter registration records which were for a different precinct, so he got sent to the town hall to sort it out. Good to see they're checking at least that much.

So if you haven't voted yet, you have a small window left to make sure you understand the issues, the proposals, and then choose people who best represent your views, and vote accordingly.

Liz Cheney Leaps Across The Aisle

If you had any doubt that Liz Cheney is on her way to leaving the Republican party after getting primary-ed, there's really not much doubt any longer:

The Detroit News: GOP’s Liz Cheney endorsing Michigan Democrat Slotkin in a first

You generally don't see Republicans endorsing Democrats over fellow Republicans.

Choosing Slotkin over Tom Barret is a rather curious choice to come out swinging for the Democrats on the part of this Wyoming RINO.

Why choose Michigan to come out for the Dems?   Couldn't she find a race a bit closer to home to dip into?

Barrett is hardly an out-there candidate, and while on the actual conservative side as one might hope a Republican would be, he's hardly an extremist however one might label that, and instead is erudite, coherent, has a good record in the State Senate, and has a good shot at winning the race.

It could be because Slotkin is rather connected to the Obama administration  and the CIA, and is an excellent example of the definition of a Democrat DC-insider, who likely gets along great with Democrat-lite RINO-establishment Cheney.

Still a curious choice to commit to this election season, and it certainly should end any affiliation Liz Cheney has with the Republican party. 

Politifact and Michigan's Secretary Of State

Poltifact does a bit of rehabilitation of Jocelyn Benson's prior acts, and then really decides to be less than forthcoming about the effect of Zuckerberg's et al.'s outside funding of elections.

Politico: Before election, Michigan Republicans blast Secretary of State Benson for her oversight of last one 

Interestingly Politifact tends to gloss over the Michigan Court of Claims nailing her for illegally deciding that clerks did not need to verify signatures on absentee ballots, and omits quite a few other things she did in the 2020 election that were rather questionable.

Then they get to quite an interesitng observation about outside funding, mainly from Mark Zuckerberg et al, that when actually looked at paints a rather different picture than what they claim was an even-handed funding to both Republican and Democrat locales as they state they both received grants:

Democratic- and Republican-leaning communities received election grants

Over the past two years, Republicans have railed against private grants distributed to elections offices in 2020 from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which received millions of dollars from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. Republicans have dubbed the donations "Zuckerbucks" and allege the funds were funneled to Democratic-leaning communities to boost turnout in those places.

. . .

More than 450 Michigan municipalities received grants from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, according to tax filings. That included a large $7.4 million grant for Detroit — the state's largest voting jurisdiction — which went for President Joe Biden. It also included donations to smaller communities Trump won, such as Macomb County's Chesterfield Township, which received a $16,545 grant, and Ottawa County's Allendale Township, which secured a $15,398 grant. 

Looks totally fair right? Democrat stronghold gets $7.4 million, and Republican township in a Democrat County got $16,545.00. Sounds totes the same, doesn't it?

So let's dig into this a little deeper.

Detroit, with 246,562 voters in the last presidential election that went 233,908 for Biden (95%) received $30 per voter in that election from Zuck et all to get out the vote, and essentially $28.50 for each Democrat vote.

Meanwhile Chesterfield Township, which went 63% Republican and had 25,822 voters of which 16,421 voted Republican,  and 9,401 voted Democrat  received 64 cents per voter, or all of 40 cents per Republican vote.

This seems totes the same thing, right?

Sure, some Republican-majority communities got some funding, to make it appear at first glance the funding was non-partisan.  But it appears to be less than a pittance compared to the millions poured into Democrat strongholds to help drive the vote in 2020 - for example, New York City received the largest grant of $19 Million).

In short, Zuckerbucks sure as heck helped the Democrats in 2020, no matter how Poiltifact wants to gloss over or paint those facts.

Gov. Whitmer Getting Nervous?

After Republican challenger Tudor Dixon more than held her own in the governor's debate, it seems Whitmer has gotten nervous and called for reinforcements.

The Detroit Free Press: Former President Obama to hold Detroit-area rally for Whitmer, other Democrats

Probably to get out the Detroit, Benton Harbor and Flint voters as that voting base has been rather less than enthusiastic about her.  

That they have former President Obama coming to town may mean they don't quite believe the polls showing Whitmer leading the race.

Given the horrendous job Whitmer has done as governor, even her outspending Dixon (complete with lots of progressive money from California and 41% of her funding coming from out of state - so much so that her fundraising site includes a California Privacy Notice) may not be enough given her record.

Nobody Cares Because The Bad Orange Man Is Out of Office

Charlie Duff asks a rather prescient question in the Detroit News today:

LeDuff: COVID deaths climb; does anyone care?

LeDuff notes that COVID deaths are higher this year in Michigan from June 2021 to June 2022 than the last year of lockdowns from June 202 to June 2021, yet there is interestingly no urgent action from our dear governor. 

There's been no call for lockdowns, no arbitrary high-handed restrictions from on high, no restaurant shut downs,  no orders for masking in public.  Nothing.

Yet more people have died from or with Covid than before.

Of course, some of these deaths may be back-filling and accounting and reporting for the nursing home deaths that were under-reported when Governor Whitmer ordered nursing homes to take in Covid-positive patients, but that won't account for all of it. 

We will note the true scandal in all of this was that nursing homes accounted for over 37% (likely much more once the true number is known) of all Michigan Covid deaths, and the state then undercounted at least 42% or more of those deaths.

I guess the fierce urgency to destroy the economy and immiserate the population is for some strange reason no longer so urgent.

He asks the rather important question:  

Is there an acceptable death rate in Michigan, now that Gretchen E. Whitmer — and not Donald J. Trump — is up for re-election?

Funny question, that.

Someone Is Stacking The Michigan Primary Election Deck

The most viable challenger to Gov Whitmer, the former Detroit chief of police James Craig ,has just been removed from running for governor.

This is due to a finding that his, along with four other Republican candidates all had fraudulent signatures collected by collectors, putting all of them below the number of valid signatures needed to run for office.

The Detroit News:  James Craig, Perry Johnson, 3 others ineligible for ballot, Bureau of Elections says

The Detroit News: Michigan petition forgery report spurs bipartisan calls for criminal prosecutions

This knocks 5 of 10 Republican candidates out after non-campaign signature collectors - 36 of them - apparently collected 68,000 invalid signatures which means they committed very widespread forgery, 

Dirty tricks and possibly the Democrats playing games, especially to knock out Chief Craig, the strongest contender against Whitmer, or it may very well be other Republican candidates doing so to knock out the competition. Or it just may be that 36 individuals all happened to decide to commit fraud in signature collecting for 5 specific candidates, but that seems rather unlikely.

There should be an investigation and those 36 and it will be interesitng if they were hired by the same unnamed "consulting firm", and they  should be squeezed until they reveal who hired them to do the forgery.

Gov. Whitmer's Proposed Vote Buying Spree

The State of Michigan is currently flush with cash - both from state tax revenue being up and lots of that sweet, sweet Biden money. So, since an election is coming up, it's time for her to buy votes with taxpayer money.

The Detroit News:  Whitmer urges $500 rebate; House, Senate push $2.6B in tax relief

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer asked legislative leaders to consider sending $500 rebates to residents. . . . Revenue estimates for the current and coming fiscal years are expected to come in $4 billion to $5 billion higher than the state predicted in its last January estimate — a surplus not accounted for in current budget plans.

If you read the article, the Demas are proposing to target these $500 checks not to every resident but to lower income ones only as "inflation releif paymentrs" - so the plan is for relief provided by tax-payer money and debt from a Democrat Governor for the inflation caused by a Democrat President's policies. Not to mention giving out another $500 to be spent is itself inflationary. Awesome plan.

Quick question governor- Whatever just happened to the Governor's urgent need for money to "fix the damn roads" then? 

She was all for a tax increase to do that, but now that a tax increase isn't needed as the budget is fat on federal money, she wants to not channel it to "fix the damn roads" but instead hand it out to buy votes.  Of course, shes against a broad-based relief like a state income tax cut to provide relief to those who are paying into the system whose money made the surplus occur in the first place.

November can't come soon enough.

Speaking Of Snow Jobs - Gov Half-Whit Pays Off Some Electoral Allies

Ah, election time is coming up, so its time for Democrats to bribe their constituencies, often rather blatantly enough that even the Detroit Free Press notices.

The Detroit Free Press: Union bid won $8M state training grant, despite providing less training at higher cost

The Whitmer administration awarded an $8 million training grant to one of her staunchest union allies, despite the fact a different agency offered to provide lengthier training to more workers for the same price, with greater emphasis on underserved groups such as minorities.

Funny how that works, neh?

No worries though, it's not like she's spending her money to payoff her allies for continued support, she's spending our Michigan tax dollars to do it.

An Election Is Coming Up - So Let's Change Covid Reporting Methods

In essence, the purpose of statistics is to accurately measure things. 

It becomes rather hard to accurately measure a thing when you change the reporting methods about the thing, making comparisons difficult if not impossible, likely due to an upcoming election.

The Detroit Free Press: Michigan health department to change how it reports COVID data

Starting next week, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is changing the way it reports coronavirus data.

It will update Michigan cases and COVID-19 deaths weekly, rather than three times a week, starting April 4 on its website

       . . .

The change in the way the state will report cases and deaths going forward adheres to a national surveillance strategy created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Lynn Sutfin, spokesperson for the state health department.

"At this stage in the pandemic, daily updates do not inform policy or contribute to the national surveillance program," Sutfin said. "Many states have also begun to move to less frequent public reporting of data.

Thus causing it to reflect a lagging rather than leading trend and likely end up reporting more cases but less deaths as a result. 

Most  interestingly, they're now going to reduce the number of deaths publicly attributed to Covid as well:

Another change is that the health department will no longer report how many COVID-19 deaths were discovered during a review of vital records.

That's quite a change, as that retrospective review was previously used to pump the death-from-Covid numbers up.

So the numbers will now be adjusted to reduce the numbers of deaths from/with Covid in the run up to the mid-terms, and also deliberately lag in case of an increase in cases.  Our Gov can now announce there are fewer deaths based on these new statistical methods as the midterms approach. 

Now isn't that wonderfully convenient?

Gov Half-Whit Rewrites History

Elections tend to focus politicians' minds most carefully, and they try to cover up their track record of failure.

Oh really?  Remind us who closed the schools in the first place? Who kept them closed long past the time they should have opened based on you know, the science that schools were not in fact a major disease vector for Covid and that Covid was not an imminent danger to school-age kids and youth?

Oh, right, it was none other than Governor Whitmer.

From michgian.gov:  Governor Whitmer Announces Statewide Closure of All K-12 School Buildings; School building closures will last Monday, March 16 through Sunday, April 5

Gov Half-Whit Vetoes Gas Tax And Income Tax Relief

Reason:  Not enough opportunities for graft and government spending if you provide relief to all the people of Michigan rather than the Democrat's favored few and using the money to buy votes.

The Detroit Free Press: Whitmer vetoes GOP Legislature's plans to cut taxes on personal income, fuel

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday issued a double-barreled veto, nixing a massive tax cut passed by the Michigan Legislature and promising to reject a pause in the state gas tax.

Both moves were expected.

Whitmer is instead calling for more targeted tax relief, such as a repeal of the state pension tax and a tripling of the state Earned Income Tax Credit for low income earners. 

Michigan be sure to remember this come November.

Gov Half-Whit: I Will Veto State Gas Tax Abatement

As I suspected and expected, Governor Whitmer has never seen a tax she didn't like, nor any legislation that would prevent her from tinkering with taxing and spending to buy votes.

The Detroit News: Michigan gas-tax suspension bill could be headed for veto

Instead of broad-based relief, Whitmer wants targeted tax breaks to those most likely to vote for her and not for all the citizens of this state who she is supposed to represent.

The lovely double standard of requesting federal broad based abatement of the federal gas tax while refusing to do the same that is in her power  at the state level is truly excellent,

If it wasn't for double standards, Gov. Whitmer would have none at all.

The Michigan Republicans better capitalize on this veto, her refusal to provide real relief and her ongoing double standard that sticks it to every Michigan resident in the election campaign.

Michigan Republicans Put Gov Half-Whit Into A Gas Tax Dilemma

So Gov. Whitmer asked the Feds to abate the Federal Gas Tax of 18.3 cents a gallon in a transparent effort to appear that she's doing something for Michigan drivers, and indeed everyone in mcihgian as everything is transported somewhere.

Michigan House Republicans just did her one better by introducing and passing legislation to suspend the Michigan Gas Tax of 27+ cents a gallon:

The Detroit News: House approves 6-month pause of Michigan's 27-cent per gallon gas tax

No worries though, Michigan will still be getting over 24 cents a gallon in sales tax.  Too bad that wasn't abated as well.

This puts Whitmer in quite a dilemma:  Rather hard for her to veto the legislation considering she just pushed for the Feds to do what Republicans are asking the State to do - and this would bring more relief than a federal abatement.

But, Whitmer does love her taxes, and wants to spend the State fisc on Democrat priorities, not tax relief for all citizens equally.

But, if she vetoes this, it's a re-election year.

The Whitmer flop-sweat on this should be epic.