Tag: michigan

Michigan Judge Allows Marijuana Tax Increase To Take Effect Despite Industry Lawsuit

A group of cannabis industry advocates were unable to convince a Michigan Court of Claims judge that they would face irreparable harm if a new 24 percent wholesale tax on marijuana went into effect to fund the state’s future road repairs.

In an opinion issued Monday, Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel said she was denying a request for a preliminary injunction from the plaintiffs in Holistic Research Group Inc./Michigan Cannabis Industry v. Michigan Department of Treasury.

The consolidated lawsuits posited that the new tax, passed in October as part of a comprehensive 2025-26 budget deal to raise new revenue for road repairs and rebuilds through 2030, was unconstitutional because it violated the title-object clause of the state’s Constitution.

Patel on Monday, after hearing oral arguments in the matter in November, said the industry advocates didn’t make a supported argument that a real constitutional issue existed, nor did the group succinctly show that the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act, which legalized the use and sale of cannabis in Michigan, was the only statutory mechanism to enact taxes on pot.

“The [road funding act] is consistent with the [marijuana taxation act]. The plaintiffs contend that the phrase ‘all other taxes’…refers only to generally applicable taxes, like the 6 percent sales tax imposed on all retail sales,” she wrote. “If that were true, however, the initiative could have simply said that. Instead, the initiative stated plainly that the 10 percent retail excise tax was in addition to ‘all other taxes.’ And the phrase ‘all other’ is broad and expansive. According to the plain meaning of these terms, ‘all other taxes’ broadly means all taxes other than the tax imposed by [the marijuana taxation act].”

Patel further noted that the Legislature did not directly amend any of the existing taxes in the regulatory act or replace it with the new tax in the road funding legislation; rather, the Legislature imposed a new separate tax, which is permitted under the regulatory act.

“The two statutes can be read together,” Patel wrote.

The claim regarding the mechanism by which a new tax could be enacted was therefore dismissed, Patel wrote.

Patel did, however, allow the case to move forward to determine if the tax interferes with the intent of the voter-initiated law that allowed marijuana consumption, regulations and sales. Patel said a genuine issue of fact remained on that issue, which required further consideration before the court.

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HUGE! Court Rules Defiant Michigan SOS Benson Can’t Manipulate Voter Rolls By Using Illegal Guidance to Clerks—ANOTHER Loss For America’s Dirtiest SOS

On December 4, 2025, a Michigan Court of Claims judge delivered a crushing blow to Jocelyn Benson’s attempts to weaken mail-in ballot safeguards. In another significant victory for election integrity in Michigan, a Michigan Court of Claims judge has once again ruled against Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, striking down her “guidance” that allowed absentee ballots with mismatched or missing identifying numbers to be processed and counted as “challenged” rather than rejected outright.

In 2021, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was given an award for her “outstanding” election work that gave Basement Joe an inexplicable victory in the wee hours of the morning on the day after the 2020 election in Michigan, a state President Trump won in 2016.

The decision, handed down on December 4, 2025, reinforces a key anti-fraud safeguard enacted by the state Legislature in 2024, which mandates that ballots can only be tabulated when the unique numbers on the ballot stub and envelope match perfectly. Benson’s instructions had directed clerks to bypass this requirement, potentially opening the door to irregularities (or cheating) in absentee voter ballot processing.

This latest defeat marks yet another instance of Michigan’s crooked Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson being slapped down by a Michigan court for abusing her authority to loosen critical protections around mail-in voting. The suit, which was brought by the Republican National Committee, the Michigan Republican Party, and Chesterfield Township Clerk Cindy Berry, highlighted how Benson’s directives disregarded legislative intent to prevent fraud by ensuring ballot traceability.

Michigan’s dishonest secretary of state recently refused a request by the DOJ to turn over Michigan’s undredacted voter rolls. The defiant Benson, who is currently running to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for Michigan governor, made a video explaining that the reason she’s refusing to turn over her corrupt voter rolls is that she’s protecting the privacy of Michigan citizens by not revealing their social security numbers to the federal government, the same federal government that issues their social security numbers.

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Michigan wasted millions on deceased Medicaid enrollees

Michigan made $39.9 million in Medicaid payments to deceased enrollees over a two-year period a decade ago, with a total of $249 million spent across 14 states.

This is according to a new report titled the “Welfare Walking Dead” from the non-profit the Foundation for Government Accountability, which looked at federal audit data from the Office of Inspector General, among other research.

In an exclusive interview with The Center Square, Jonathan Bain said that every taxpayer should be concerned with these findings. Bain is a senior research fellow at the FGA and authored the report.

“The average citizen should care about these findings because it’s yet another example of government waste that’s rooted in inefficiency and lack of care and precision,” Bain explained. “Every dollar that is lost to waste, fraud, or abuse is a dollar that cannot be spent to benefit the truly needy—folks like pregnant women, low-income kids, or seniors.”

Of the 14 states the audit looked at, the report found that Michigan reported one of the highest amounts of Medicaid payments to the deceased. States that surpassed it included California at $70.9 million and Ohio at $51.3 million.

Other states, including ones with much higher populations than Michigan, reported much lower Medicaid payments to the deceased. That included Florida at $26.2 million and Illinois at $4.6 million.

Bain said there is action that states can take to ensure fraud is not happening.

“States have the tools to identify these deceased enrollees,” he said. “The issue is that they either aren’t doing the proper cross checks to discover them, or their Medicaid Management Information Systems aren’t being updated to reflect that a deceased enrollee has been flagged.”

The report found that most of the states audited did not routinely enter death information into their Medicaid Management Information Systems.

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Michigan Man Guns Down Teen Who Broke into His Garage – Is Charged With Multiple Crimes Including Manslaughter Despite State’s “Stand Your Ground” Law

A Michigan man is facing a lengthy prison sentence after killing a youth who broke into his garage, sparking a debate regarding the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law.

As The New York Post reported on Sunday, 17-year-old Sivan Wilson and six other “mainly teenagers” broke into 24-year-old Dayton Knapton’s garage in White Lake just after 1 a.m. on July 8.

Knapton received an alert from his home security system, grabbed his 9mm semiautomatic handgun, and subsequently took fatal action to resolve the situation.

The Oakland County Prosecutor’s office alleges that Knapton left this house and fired two shots through a windowless locked door, which sent the burglars fleeing. Then he continued to fire as they tried to race away to safety.

Knapton then supposedly went back inside his house to reload his gun and returned to the scene.

Wilson fled the scene with his cronies but was struck by one of the bullets. Unfortunately for him, he did not receive medical care for 30 minutes and later died.

Investigators later determined that one of the bullets fired by Knapton through the locked door struck Wilson. Another teenager in the group was also shot in the leg but survived.

On November 7, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald announced that she would be charging Knapton with multiple crimes, including Manslaughter, Assault With Intent To Do Great Bodily Harm, and two counts of Felony Firearm.

McDonald released the following statement explaining why she decided to pursue charges:

The rights to own firearms and protect one’s family and home are fundamental. Those important rights also come with profound responsibility. Our office worked closely with law enforcement to review the evidence, including the obvious mitigating factors, which led us to these charges.

We believe the evidence demonstrates this defendant crossed the line by firing outside his home at fleeing persons. His actions not only took a life but potentially endangered the surrounding community by firing his weapon into the night.

Knapton faces up to 15 years behind bars for Manslaughter, 10 years for Assault With Intent To Do Great Bodily Harm, and 4 years for the two counts of Felony Firearm. This means he could spend almost 30 YEARS in prison.

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Opposing Parents Vent to Reporter in the Stands as Trans Volleyball Player Leads Team to Dominant Playoff Win

Now that we’ve passed peak wokeness, perhaps we can start admitting that the evidence is undeniable that boys win at girls sporting events because of the massive advantages of biology.

Of course, the idea should be self-evident. It wasn’t, in some quarters, which is why we’re still having this discussion. And in very progressive Ann Arbor, Michigan, the idea that wokeness ever peaked is considered a minor heresy.

Thus you have Skyline High School making the state girls volleyball tournament for the second straight year — and in dominant fashion.

The secret to its success? The team isn’t precisely all girls.

According to sports outlet OutKick, Skyline won a straight-sets victory over Saline High School on Thursday, making Skyline one of eight teams left in the Division I Michigan High School Athletic Association girls tournament.

However, parents for the Saline team were incensed during the 25-15, 25-18, 25-21 sweep, thanks to the fact that a female-identifying male athlete was on the Skyline team.

The controversy isn’t just that the girls team has a boy on it, although that’s certainly part of the problem.

From OutKick reporter Dan Zaksheske:

The MHSAA requires transgender athletes to have an approved waiver to compete in any organization-sponsored events, which include the district and regional tournaments. The organization said in September that it had not granted any waivers since last fall (waivers have to be approved every year), but has ignored multiple follow-up requests asking if one has since been granted. 

As OutKick has reported throughout the fall season, Skyline appears to have attempted to hide its biological male player’s identity, with many parents of opposing teams expressing outrage when they discovered their teenage girls were competing against a male. 

The individual in question, Zaksheske wrote, “dominated the first set with several massive kills, helping Skyline cruise to the first set win.”

As Zaksheske’s report noted, this wasn’t met with unmixed delight by the parents of Saline athletes.

“As you saw, it was actually a pretty even match when he wasn’t on the court,” one parent said after the match.

“I’ve never seen a girl jump that high,” another remarked, presumably in sarcasm.

And another parent kept putting his thumbs down every time the male athlete made a play.

That didn’t stop Skyline’s march to the Elite Eight in the tournament, however.

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Meet Michigan’s DEAD Voters: Several Voted “In-Person,” Others Voted “Absentee” — One Voted 41 Years After He Died

Michigan’s defiant Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has been in the news after she refused the DOJ’s demands to turn over unredacted voter rolls. The term-limited secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, whose 2026 campaign for governor is being funded in large part by members of George Soros’s family, cites the need to protect voters’ US Social Security numbers from the federal government that literally issues the Social Security numbers.

Jocelyn Benson doesn’t think Michigan voters are smart enough to understand her motives.  Benson claims she’s denying the DOJ access to Michigan’s voter rolls because she doesn’t want them to see MI driver’s license numbers. It’s more likely she is protecting the State Department from exposure when the DOJ discovers the number of non-citizens registered to vote once they obtain a Michigan driver’s license.

And finally, another reason Jocelyn Benson doesn’t want the DOJ to investigate Michigan’s voter rolls is that, given the many ways elections are stolen, the DOJ is likely to discover that Michigan’s voter rolls are among the most corrupt in the nation.

A good place to start is with some of Michigan’s OLDEST “ACTIVE” voters…

At 115 years old, Naomi Whitehead is America’s oldest living citizen.

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The Terror Plot Too Big for Media Attention?

There’s even more to the major media’s blind eye.  Ten days ago a story popped up in the press about a terror plot planned for Hallowe’en.  The story focused on suspected plotters in Michigan, later connected to other states, who were allegedly inspired by ISIS.

Again, the media almost immediately acted like this was a “Trumped-up” story.  The potshots started against FBI director Kash Patel.  The FBI did not immediately elaborate on its investigation, with media voices suggesting the Bureau was backing away from its charges.

Now the news is coming out that this wasn’t just a couple of “gamers” on the Internet.  At least six young people have been arrested in multiple states.  The FBI had not been talking because it has been seeking more evidence before it evaporates.

The suspects, it turns out, include several young men from well-to-do families.  There is talk of interstate travel for meetings, encrypted messages, gun ranges and rapid reloading practice.  Potential terror targets included an LGBTQ+ neighborhood in Ferndale, Michigan, and the Cedar Point amusement park in northwest Ohio – both targets that would normally draw massive media interest.

This may turn out to be a story the media can’t bury, despite its best efforts.  But if the likes of MSNBC and CNN aren’t interested in history, rest assured history is interested in them.  Violence against orderly implementation of our laws – and our election results – is rising.  So too is antisemitism, the history-repeating viciousness that has inspired many of the worst actors of the past century.

We can try to look the other way, as millions of Europeans and Americans did in the 1930s.  But history has a way of grabbing us by the throat and forcing us to see what’s in front of us – in Chicago and other major cities across the nation.  We will answer for our silence.

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Rep. Jamie Thompson: Despite age of consent being 16, state BOE wants to teach ‘safe and healthy’ sex to 8-year-olds

Michigan’s Department of Education has proposed major updates to the state’s health education standards, reshaping how schools teach about sex, relationships, and identity. The draft guidelines, still under review, emphasize inclusivity, consent, and respect, and have sparked debate among educators, parents, and lawmakers across the state.

The proposal moves away from the state’s longstanding abstinence-focused framework toward a more comprehensive model. It calls for lessons that explicitly address sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, encouraging respect for all individuals regardless of their background.

Students in middle and high school would learn to define and distinguish between biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, treating each as a distinct part of personal identity. The framework also asks students to practice empathy and show courtesy toward those whose sexuality or gender differs from their own.

Rep. Jamie Thompson, R-Brownstown, who has been a vocal critic of the new guidelines, told The Midwesterner that “it shifts essential aspects of child development from parents to schools without sufficient oversight. It uses a classroom to push radical and unproven ideologies and downplay the real consequences of adult decisions.”

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Famous American writer’s son, 19, arrested over alleged plot to bomb Detroit gay bars in ISIS terror attack

The son of famed Iranian-American poet Roger Sedarat was arrested after allegedly plotting to bomb gay bars in Detroit in an ISIS-inspired attack, police sources said. 

Milo Sedarat, 19, was apprehended at his father’s home in Montclair, New Jersey, on Wednesday in connection with the probe into the foiled attack, which was set to unfold on Halloween.

The teenager was arrested alongside another 19-year-old from Montclair, Tomas Kaan Guzel, police sources told the New York Post.

Their arrests come after five other alleged co-conspirators and one minor were charged in connection with the plot. 

Their alleged scheme was uncovered last week by the FBI and the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau, which said the bombing was intended to copy ISIS‘s terror attack in Paris in 2015. 

According to the Post, Guzel was arrested in a food court in Newark Liberty International Airport on his way to Turkey, with the goal of reaching Syria to train with ISIS. 

The arrests of Sedarat and Guzel also came two days after three additional Michigan men were charged with intending to supply weapons for the alleged ISIS-inspired attack. 

Guzel was allegedly intending to travel on November 17, but moved his flight forward after hearing that the FBI had raided the homes of several other terror suspects in Detroit, sources said.

FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrests before the Halloween weekend, saying the terror cell was plotting a ‘violent attack‘. 

Sedarat and Guzel are set to be charged in New Jersey federal court. The Daily Mail has reached out to the FBI for further comment.

Three of the other men arrested in connection with the plot include Mohamed Ali, 20, Majed Mahmoud, also 20, and Ayob Nasser, 19.

As the attack would have unfolded in gay bars in Michigan, Ali and the rest of the group intended to make their way to Syria to train with ISIS, prosecutors said in court documents. 

Authorities said their raids uncovered three AR-15 style rifles, two shotguns, four pistols, and more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition. 

The raids also led to the discovery of GoPro cameras, tactical vests and combat gear, prosecutors said. 

Announcing the arrests of the five alleged terrorists last week, Patel said they were intent on launching a ‘violent attack’.

‘Thanks to the men and women of FBI and law enforcement everywhere standing guard 24/7 and crushing our mission to defend the homeland,’ Patel said. 

The Daily Mail has contacted the FBI and Sedarat for comment. 

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On the Five-Year Anniversary of 2020 Election, Michigan Court Moves the Goalposts on the Attorneys Who Exposed Antrim County’s Machines

On November 3, 2025—the five-year mark of the 2020 election—the Michigan prosecution of attorneys Matt DePerno and Stephanie Lambert took a troubling turn.

The Oakland County Circuit Court order, People of the State of Michigan v. Stefanie Lambert (Case No. 2023-285759-FH), leaves no question where the balance tilts.

Judge Jeffrey Matis denied every defense request—fifteen in all—and granted the prosecution’s positions in full.

Key Excerpts from the Court’s Order

“The request to modify the instructions regarding Count 24 is DENIED.”
“The request to modify the Court’s prior rulings … is DENIED.”
“The special non-standard instruction captioned Unauthorized Possession of a Voting Machine shall be modified as follows:
The defendant is charged with the crime of unauthorized possession of a voting machine. To prove this charge, the prosecutor must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
1. The defendant intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly obtained or had possession of
2. A ballot box or voting machine
3. Without authorization by the Secretary of State or valid court order.”

That third element—the “authorization by the Secretary of State” requirement—has never appeared in Michigan’s election-law statutes. By inserting it into the official jury instruction, the court has effectively created a new legal requirement after the fact.

The order also denies the defense’s proposed instructions on lawful authority, investigative intent, and definitions vital to the defense theory; rejects all four sections of Lambert’s Supplemental and Revised Requested Jury Instructions (“Law,” “Lawful Instruction,” and “Private Investigator”); and refuses reconsideration based on People v. Holkeboer (2024). Even Lambert’s request for clarification of the definition of “voting machine” was denied.

Finally, the court imposed a strict exhibit deadline: “Defendant shall produce trial exhibits on or before December 3, 2025. Exhibits not provided by this date and time may be excluded at trial.”

The trial is set for Monday, March 2, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. in person. Defense counsel warns that the combination of denials and deadlines pre-loads the case in favor of the prosecution.

A Law That Never Existed

The centerpiece of this dispute is simple: no statute in 2020—or now—required “authorization from the Secretary of State” before examining election equipment pursuant to a court-ordered discovery.

In the Antrim County litigation, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was the opposing party. Requiring her permission to obtain discovery evidence would have been absurd; she was actively fighting to suppress the very records the plaintiffs sought to examine.

A December 20, 2020, email in the case file confirms that no such authorization rule existed. The state’s later attempts to reinterpret procedures only arose after the Antrim forensic findings became public.

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