Tag: michigan

Michigan Lawmakers Pass Marijuana Tax Increase That’s Projected To Bring In $420 Million In New Revenue Every Year

A plan to raise money for road repairs by increasing marijuana taxes quickly advanced through the Michigan House late Thursday as part of what officials called a larger framework for a state budget deal.

The proposed Comprehensive Road Funding Tax Act would impose a 24 percent tax on the wholesale price of marijuana sold or transferred to a retail shop, beginning in January.

That would generate an estimated $420 million a year, according to the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency. Most of the funding from the proposed Comprehensive Road Funding Tax Act would go into a new Neighborhood Road Fund for local roads and bridges.

The pot tax proposal passed the Republican-led House with bipartisan support in a 78-21 vote just hours after it was unveiled, with opposition from 10 Republicans and 11 Democrats. It now goes to the Democratic-led Senate for further consideration.

A separate bill approved Thursday—and tied to the pot tax proposal—would extend new federal income tax exemptions on tips and overtime pay to state filers for three years. That would benefit qualifying workers but cost the state more than $150 million annually between 2026 and 2028, according to the fiscal agency.

The votes came shortly before Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Senate Democratic Leader Winnie Brinks and Republican House Speaker Matt Hall announced a framework agreement to pass the budget before a potential government shutdown next week.

That will include a road funding plan totaling between $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion in annual funding, according to Hall, R-Richland Township.

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New York man sentenced for online threats against Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel

A 40-year-old New York man has been sentenced to federal prison for threats he made against Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel in 2023. 

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday announced that Kevin Delgado would receive a year and a day in prison after pleading guilty to one count of transmitting threats in interstate commerce earlier this year. 

According to court documents, Delgado posted a threatening response in response to a post Nessel made honoring her friend, community leader and activist Samantha Woll, who was murdered. He told Nessel to “watch every step u take,” called her a string of insults which included a homophobic slur, and said she would be “#murdered.”

The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Frances Lee Carlson.

While pleading guilty, Delgado admitted that he threatened Nessel because of her religion and her perceived sexual orientation. Nessel is Jewish and gay. 

“The sentencing of Kevin Delgado sends a strong message that public officials elected to serve the people cannot be hindered by threats and must be able to do their jobs free from intimidation,” Reuben Coleman, acting special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office said in a statement. “The FBI in Michigan will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to identify, and hold accountable, those who issue dangerous threats against officials dedicated to protecting and serving our communities.”

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NJ Man Secures Nearly 1 Million Documents From Detroit’s 2020 Election, Including Copies of Absentee Ballots and Signed Envelopes in One of Largest Election FOIA Hauls In U.S. History

TICK TOCK…Detroit election officials and Michigan’s dirty Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson have officially been put on notice.

After years of being gaslighted by some of the most dishonest people in election history, The Gateway Pundit, along with some of the most respected election investigators in the state, are about to blow the lid off the lies about Detroit’s “secure” 2020 election that helped to give Joe Biden an inexplicable victory in the must-win state of Michigan.

On Election Night 2020, President Donald J. Trump appeared to hold commanding leads in key battleground states — approximately 100,000 votes in Wisconsin, 300,000 in Michigan, and 700,000 in Pennsylvania. For Joe Biden to erase those margins, his performance in the outstanding vote would have needed to be dramatically stronger, particularly in heavily Democratic strongholds such as Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia.

As the night wore on, reports emerged — often inconsistent — that some precincts had stopped counting, sent workers home, or restarted tabulations under unclear circumstances. To this day, there is confusion and disagreement over the extent of these pauses and whether any state laws or procedures were ignored in the process. What cannot be disputed is that vote totals from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania continued to change throughout the night, long after many Americans had gone to bed.

By the early morning hours of November 4, Wisconsin had flipped blue, followed soon after by the must-win state of Michigan. Days later, Georgia and Pennsylvania flipped for Biden as well. For many observers, the abrupt turnarounds — combined with conflicting reports of election-night disruptions — fueled deep skepticism about the integrity and transparency of the process.

Michigan lawmakers and election integrity investigators have spent an untold number of hours and resources to prove the election in Detroit was rigged. To date, they have not been able to secure the documents needed to verify what they believe happened that led to an inexplicable victory for Joe Biden in the presidential race.

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School district may have ‘intentionally deceived’ parents on girl’s gender transition, judge rules

AMichigan school district may have violated the due process rights of parents by “actively concealing” their daughter’s identification as a boy, referring to the girl by her given name with parents and her “masculine” name at school, a federal judge ruled, exacerbating conflicts in the lower courts that may trigger Supreme Court review.

U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney, known for siding with a school district that banned students from wearing “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts, greenlit Dan and Jennifer Mead‘s Fourteenth Amendment claims against Rockford Public School District for violating their “fundamental rights as parents” and “deprivation of liberty without due process.”

He dismissed the Meads’ free exercise claim, however, saying surreptitious social transitions don’t “compel students (or their parents) to believe or do anything,” contrary to the mandatory exposure to LGBTQ “storybooks,” compelled school attendance and flag-salute requirement struck down by the Supreme Court in precedents from the 1940s to this year.

The President George W. Bush nominee noted the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is binding on him, last month upheld an Ohio gender identity school restroom policy as “facially neutral” in a challenge by Muslim and Christian students. (Their only potential relief was damages, since Ohio mandated restroom access by sex during the case.)

The 1st Circuit, which oversees Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island and has no Republican-nominated judges, reached the opposite conclusion as Maloney on parental rights and due process earlier this year, prompting parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri to petition the Supreme Court.

Several friend-of-the-court briefs are backing the Massachusetts parents, including detransitioners who abandoned transgender identities after medicalization and a prominent transgender child psychologist who argues parents are integral to transitions.

The 3rd Circuit, covering Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, heard a similar case this summer and already has precedents upholding parental authority, including an opinion joined by future Justice Samuel Alito on “actions that strike at the heart of parental decision-making authority on matters of the greatest importance.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley called Maloney’s ruling “potentially precedent-setting” on parental rights in public schools. He highlighted Maloney’s finding that the Meads’ allegations “show some amount of coercion or interference” from the district, implicating their right to make “fundamental decisions” for the girl.

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Dearborn’s Muslim mayor tells Christian he’s ‘not welcome’ in debate on honoring pro-terror Arab leader

At a Dearborn City Council meeting last week, Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud told local resident Edward “Ted” Barham, a Christian, that he was “not welcome” in the city after Barham raised concerns about new street signs honoring Arab American News publisher Osama Siblani.

FOX 2 Detroit reported that the signs honoring Siblani were placed at intersections on Warren Avenue by Wayne County, not the City of Dearborn. But the mayor escalated the debate, telling Barham, “Although you live here, you are not welcome here.”

Barham introduced himself as “Ted Barham, Dearborn resident,” and objected to two intersections being renamed after Siblani.

He said, “He’s a promoter of Hezbollah and Hamas” before quoting past remarks from Siblani, including, “He talks about how the blood of the martyrs irrigates the land of Palestine … whether we are in Michigan and whether we are in Yemen. Believe me, everyone should fight within his means. They will fight with stones, others will fight with guns, others fight with planes, drones, and rockets.” 

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Michigan Lawmakers Embrace Marijuana Tax Hike Plan Proposed By Governor

Michigan Senate Democrats are reportedly moving toward implementing a major tax hike on marijuana that was previously proposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).

While no legislation to effectuate the policy change has been filed yet, the plan is to impose a 32 percent wholesale excise tax on cannabis—which would be in addition to the existing 16 percent in taxes that are placed on marijuana at the retail level.

The governor said in February that the proposal would “close a loophole that exempted the marijuana industry from wholesale tax, which is applied to similar smoking products, like cigarettes, and other tobacco items.” Aligning those tax policies, her office said, could help the state fund plans to “fix the damn roads for generations to come.”

“After voters legalized marijuana, the industry has grown exponentially thanks in part to Michigan’s industry-friendly taxes, the fourth lowest in the nation,” the governor said at the time. “The industry, which recorded billions in sales in 2024, uses Michigan roads to transport marijuana multiple times throughout the process, including to grow operations, testing labs, distribution hubs, and finally retail stores. This will add an additional $470 million to help fix roads across the state.”

It would also effectively double the total tax rate on cannabis in Michigan, which advocates say would unfairly burden businesses and consumers.

“Michigan’s cannabis consumers already pay more than their fair share of taxes. They should not be singled out to bear the costs of ‘fixing the damn roads,’” Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), told Marijuana Moment.

“Michigan’s excise taxes are about 10 times as high on cannabis as they are on alcohol,” she said. “Gov. Whitmer’s proposal would roughly double the tax burden on consumers, many of whom are medical patients who are struggling to make ends meet.”

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Democrat judge in America’s ‘Muslim capital’ BANS gay pride flags after Islamic outrage

A federal judge has upheld a ban on gay pride flags after a years-long battle by an all-Muslim city council to remove the rainbow because it did not reflect their community’s values.

The court found that Hamtramck, an enclave surrounded by Detroit with a significant Muslim immigrant population, did not violate the US Constitution when it banned the flag from public buildings in 2023.

After a pride flag was flown in the city during Pride Month in 2021 and 2022, the city council said it clashed with the beliefs of some residents, so they voted to allow only five flags to be flown on publicly-owned property. 

US District Judge David Lawson, who was appointed by Bill Clinton, dismissed a lawsuit that was brought against the city for its flag restrictions, saying the ban was okay because the policy targeted all private flags. 

‘Hamtramck’s refusal to display the Gay Pride flag did not violate the Constitution,’ the judge said. 

Hamtramck has a population of around 27,000, and more than 40% of its residents are immigrants. A large proportion of them are Muslim with Yemeni or Bangladeshi descent. 

The city is right next to Dearborn, a larger enclave city in the Detroit area that the Wall Street Journal once called ‘America’s Jihad Capital’ in a piece that claimed the city’s leadership supported Hamas and Hezbollah. The publication was widely criticized for the moniker. 

The Hamtramck flag ban restricted public property to only display the American flag, Michigan flag, city flag and flags that represent the ‘international character’ of the city’s population. 

Businesses and residents are still allowed to fly whatever they want on private property. 

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Lawless Jocelyn Benson Pushes New Rules to Make It Easier to Cheat in Michigan Elections – Then Skips Her Own Hearing on the Changes

Corrupt Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is pushing new election rules that were not approved by the state legislature, but rather by her, to make it easier for Democrats to cheat in the upcoming elections.

This is Benson’s latest obvious effort to make elections less secure in her state. Benson is running for governor in Michigan in 2026, and she is very unpopular in the state.

Secretary of State Benson has lost AT LEAST NINE lawsuits in the state, pushing illegal tactics to make it easier for Democrats to cheat in the state.

In her latest attempts to make elections less secure in this battleground state, Benson is making it nearly impossible for the election integrity group Check My Vote to operate in the state and to continue to clean up the voter rolls in Michigan.

Jocelyn Benson currently waged a war against the election integrity group Check My Vote and its founder, Phani Mantravadi.

Phani described the current assault on his organization:

1) MI SOS Jocelyn Benson doesn’t want Michiganders to know the real reason behind how 125,428 excess votes got cast in the Nov 2024 election, per the Oct 28, 2024, daily absentee report, and what precisely the glitch was. The latest explanation offered by her office doesn’t hold water.

(2) SOS Benson doesn’t want Michiganders to know that vote counts from statewide QVF don’t reconcile with vote counts from county QVF, from what little we’ve been able to see, until the SOS prohibited release of voter data from local counties. Why is she preventing the release of voter lists from counties and voter data from e-pollbooks?

(3) Ms. Benson wants Michiganders to think that voter roll maintenance is top-notch under her administration, with an occasional “glitch”. She wants Michiganders to believe that the problems being exposed are due to misadministration by local clerks.

However, the mountain of problems in the voter rolls discovered so far, compounded with the pattern of “glitches,” suggests that there might be something more sinister and intentional.

After all, if she truly wants to address the problems being brought to light and the issues that arose due to “misinformation,” as she claims, one would think she would welcome solutions such as CheckMyVote.org and all the free work that citizen volunteers are doing.

On Friday there was a hearing in Lansing open to the public to discuss Benson’s latest attempt to cheat in elections. Why else would she want corrupted voter rolls if she wasn’t planning on cheating?

According to The Midwesterner, Jocelyn Benson skipped her own hearing. She’s not just crooked, she’s also a coward!

ZERO attendees spoke in favor of Benson’s new rules that make it easier to cheat in state elections.

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Dearborn Heights Police Department Unveils Police Patch with Arabic Writing

The Dearborn Heights Police Department became the first in the nation to feature a police patch with Arabic writing.

The patch was designed by Officer Emily Murdoc with the intent to honor the diversity of the community.

“The Dearborn Heights Police Department is proud to share a new patch that our officers may wear as part of their uniform,” the Dearborn Heights Police Department said in a Facebook post.

“This patch was created by Officer Emily Murdoch, who designed it to reflect and honor the diversity of our community – especially the many residents of Arabic descent who call Dearborn Heights home. By incorporating Arabic script alongside English, this patch represents unity, respect, and our shared commitment to service. We are proud of Officer Murdoch’s creativity and dedication in helping our department better represent the people we serve,” they said.

“Our officers proudly serve all members of our community, and this new design is another way we continue to celebrate the rich cultures that make our city unique,” they said.

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Michigan Democrat Busted for Touting Fake Endorsement

Rep. Haley Stevens, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, got caught in an embarrassing situation. Stevens took to social media to boast about an endorsement from Berrien County Commissioner Chokwe Pitchford.

Stevens wrote on X, in a post that has since been deleted, “I am truly honored to be endorsed by Commissioner Pitchford. Your work in Berrien County is inspiring Thank you, Commissioner.”

The only problem? Pitchford did not, in fact, endorse Stevens.

Pitchford took to social media to say that he has not endorsed Stevens and has not spoken to her or anyone in her campaign.

Pitchford shared on social media, “I literally never endorsed her or heard a word from her team. I promise you, I have not talked to anyone, emailed anyone about endorsements, or even hinted that I would be open to endorsing her.”

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