🚨 Let’s clear up a HUGE Michigan voting misconception.
Many people believe you must show a driver’s license to register or vote in Michigan. That’s not always how the law works.
Under current Michigan law, a person can register to vote without a driver’s license, and if they arrive at the polls without photo ID, they can still vote by signing an affidavit of identity affirming who they are.
That’s one reason some lawmakers are pushing for stronger voter ID requirements and proof-of-citizenship safeguards in Michigan elections.
Non-citizens should never be voting in American elections. When that line is blurred, it undermines confidence in the system and weakens the voice of every American citizen.
Michigan House Committee Meeting exposes MASSIVE mail-in ballot fraud operation, registering ineligible voters to cast fraudulent and absentee ballots for overseas voters with ballots being misdirected to local addresses, with voter roll inaccuracies, and votes cast without individuals' knowledge during the 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024 elections. This is beyond wild...
Some of the addresses that these "overseas" ballots were being redirected to were locations filled with illegal immigrants where most couldn't even speak English.
So they were cooking the books and sending multiple ballots meant for overseas to local addresses and getting illegal immigrants to fill them out to steal the 2020 election. If we don't do something about this, we will lose this republic.
The Tigers have signed three-time American League Cy Young and nine-time All-Star RHP Justin Verlander to a one-year contract for the 2026 season.
Welcome home, JV!
Detroit News Pollster Allegedly Laundered Dark Money for Democrat Elites
By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff
The Detroit News, which clings to the pretense that it’s Michigan’s conservative voice, has not endorsed the Republican candidate for president in 15 years.
Fine by me. I don’t read the paper, anyhow. I canceled it years ago. Most people have.
But occasionally the paper publishes something that makes its way around and gets repeated often enough that it becomes the consensus.
Things like political polls.
Richard Czuba, founder of the Glengariff Group, is the pollster for both The News and WDIV. They quote him in print. They interview him on TV. The governor’s race is too close to call! Mike Duggan is a kingmaker in the U.S. Senate race! The governor's race is deadlocked!
What the paper hasn’t told you is that Czuba is the subject of a criminal referral—drafted by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, no less—accused of raising and laundering more than $750,000 into the campaign coffers of a 2020 gay rights campaign co-chaired by Alanna Maguire.
It is no small detail that Maguire is the wife of Attorney General Dana Nessel, a hyper-partisan Democrat.
For her part, Nessel stands accused by the Michigan House Oversight Committee of tanking that investigation into Czuba and her own wife. Nessel herself will soon face impeachment charges by the House of Representatives.
To this day, the paper’s political writers have not disclosed the incestuous affair to the public.
Czuba, it is alleged, was the paid middle-man who collected dark money from DTE’s political arm and funneled it to Maguire’s campaign. Instead of divulging his name, the paper uses the name of Czuba’s now-defunct advocacy organization, Bipartisan Solutions.
Would somebody please explain to me what is “bipartisan” about a pollster raising money for some of the most powerful and most connected Democrats in the state?
Meanwhile, The News has spilled barrels of ink on a similar story.
A conservative group, Unlock Michigan, pushed a ballot initiative back in 2020 looking to repeal Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s emergency Covid powers.
People involved with raising money for that initiative were criminally referred by Benson to Nessel, accused of laundering dark money in order to conceal donor identities.
Nessel brought criminal charges on that one, which carry up to 14 years in prison and potentially millions of dollars in fines. That case is ongoing, and The News can’t get enough of it.
But the case of the Attorney General, her wife and their “non-partisan” pollster?
Crickets.
I don’t know. Sounds like a story to me.
But there’s another question: Is Czuba is even good at polling?
I called him to ask.
Again, crickets.
But there is this: The News published a Glengariff poll just a week before the 2024 election. Czuba had Kamala Harris beating Donald Trump by 3% (Trump, in fact, beat Harris by 1.4%). In the Michigan senate race, Czuba had Elissa Slotkin beating Mike Rogers by 4.5% (Slotkin beat Rogers by 0.3%). Both results were outside the poll’s margin of error.
Did Czuba’s poll sway voter turnout? Not likely, since almost no one reads The News.
Still, it’s farcical when you know what’s going on under the sheets.
If you want to cancel your subscription to The Detroit News, it is easiest to cancel your credit card to avoid the financial loop the newspaper puts you through.
And if you want real news, subscribe to our newsletter. Still 100% free.
Michigan went from the lowest to the highest energy costs in the Midwest. With limited electricity choice and rising bills, families and businesses are paying the price says @JarrettSkorup on the Talk Midland podcast with Logan Richetti.
Jocelyn Benson’s Grassroots Fundraising Is a Smurf-Ridden Lie
A little old lady in Lansing apparently has sent more than $82,000 to Democrats, but says “I don’t think that was me”
By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff
Lansing — Linda D. Appling, a 77-year-old retiree, resides in a humble house with a sign in the front door that instructs visitors to try the side door. The side entrance is missing a storm door and the steps are in need of a shoveling.
Ms. Appling lives with a young man who can’t manage to get his car started this cold morning because the battery is old and a new battery is beyond his means.
Despite these lean circumstances, Ms. Appling is something of a Democratic super donor. According to state and federal campaign filings, Ms. Appling has made 8,738 contributions totaling more than $82,000, a fact that she seems wholly unaware of.
“I don’t think that was me to be truthful about it,” said Ms. Appling as she struggled with the ice in her ill-fitting boots and aluminum cane. “I acknowledge that I’ve given some people about $2.50.”
According to those filings, she has also contributed to the gubernatorial campaign of Jocelyn Benson, the current Michigan secretary of state, even though she hasn’t made up her mind about governor.
“Who do you like for governor?” I asked.
“Well now, I have no idea,” she said.
“No idea just yet?”
“I don’t.”
Nevertheless, I showed Ms. Appling a spreadsheet which noted that she has contributed nine months in a row to Benson. The January pledge was $7 and the subsequent eight donations of $2.50 were all paid on the last day of the month.
Benson crows about her 32,000 small donors, people like Ms. Appling, who have contributed less than $100, allowing her to raise nearly $5 million in her bid for governor.
Benson calls it a grassroots swell. But it appears to be something more nefarious.
A random sample of these so-called “small donors” who have contributed to Benson’s campaigns were examined by Bob Cushman, a retired pilot and current citizen journalist.
Since November 2022, Benson has raised $5.5 million, with nearly half of that money coming from out-of-state donors, according to Cushman’s research. Nearly all of those contributions were $10 or less.
There’s 85-year-old Frank from Maryland who kicked in a total of $100 at six bucks a pop.
There’s 84-year-old Fred from Upstate New York who anted up with six contributions of $6.
How about 82-year-old Marcella of Surprise, Arizona? It’s no surprise Marcella is all in for Jocelyn with 20 donations of $1 a piece.
How is this possible? ActBlue is an online fundraising site designed specifically to raise money for Democrats. People can contribute to candidates through ActBlue or may contribute directly to ActBlue, which in turn donates to Democratic candidates and causes. It has raised $16 billion since its founding in 2004.
But ActBlue is ensnared in multiple federal investigations alleging that it has stolen the identities of small donors—usually senior citizens like Ms. Appling—and is using their names to launder larger donations that exceed legal limits. By breaking the large donations into multiple smaller contributions, the amount and the origin of the money is hidden.
Several senior staff members from ActBlue abruptly resigned earlier this year following the fraud allegations.
Little people like Ms. Appling are called straw donors or smurfs. And Benson—in her capacity as secretary of state—is supposed to protect them. Not use them.
“I’ve donated some money for sure,” said Ms. Appling, the Grandma Smurf of south Lansing, “but not this amount.”