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Posts Tagged ‘Michigan’

Michigan Governor Whitmer Goes Full Orwell, Demands Full Names, Phone Numbers For All Restaurant Customers

Posted by M. C. on November 4, 2020

I hope comrade Wolf doesn’t hear about this.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/november/03/michigan-governor-whitmer-goes-full-orwell-demands-full-names-phone-numbers-for-all-restaurant-customers/?fbclid=IwAR0cS2cF5bxtBz5wTjsumIPEcU6DAb4BeVT2zktfFexSWkk6_krtqc6Cy28

Written by Tyler Durden Tuesday November 3, 2020
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Effective this week, diners in Michigan are now going to be required to produce their full name and contact information simply for wanting to eat out at a restaurant or bar.

Ironically, it’s likely more information than citizens are required to produce in order to vote. 

Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has moved her state one step closer to a true Orwellian paradise, asking her citizens to surrender their privacy every time they want a cheeseburger and a coke at their local diner. Whitmer has already been struck down once by the Supreme Court over trying to unilaterally extend the state’s emergency declarations, The Western Journal noted. 

A new release from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said: “Like many other businesses in Michigan, bars and restaurants will also be required to take names and contact information to support effective contact tracing if necessary.”

But who can be worried about such mundane things as rights in the midst of an unstoppable pandemic that is slightly more deadly than the flu, right?

That was the Michigan DHS’s take. They said: “Michigan presently has 172 cases per million people and positivity of tests has increased from about 2 percent to 5.5 percent and both indicators have been increasing for over four weeks. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have doubled over the last three weeks while the state death rate has increased for five consecutive weeks.”

The order also reduced the amount of people that can gather in the state for weddings and parties: “As part of the newly extended orders, MDHHS today reduces from 500 persons to 50 persons the maximum gathering size for indoor gatherings such as weddings, parties, and banquets which occur in nonresidential settings without fixed seating.”

It added: “For bars, restaurants, and social events outside private homes, indoor party sizes at a single table are now restricted to six people.”

Violating the order could result in a $1,000 fine, a misdemeanor, and potentially imprisonment, the DHS said: “Violations are punishable by a civil fine up to $1,000 and may also be treated as a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than six months or a fine of not more than $200, or both. In addition, failure to comply with orders may violate a business or professional’s licensure requirements or present a workplace safety violation.”

Unsurprisingly, Michigan businesses are not happy about the new order. 

Michigan Licensed Beverage Association Executive Director Scott Ellis concluded: “Again, what’s this data gathering if the data is not truthful, how do we know how good it is? Our front-line servers have already had trouble dealing with masks and mandates and mandating masks. We did de-escalation training and all kinds of other things to help with that and now we’re taking to the next level. We have to gather someone’s personal information?”

Reprinted with permission from ZeroHedge.

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Two Types of Terror in Michigan

Posted by M. C. on October 10, 2020

The FBI admits that it paid one informant $8,600, and there may be other payments that are revealed in the coming days or weeks. FBI agents have been taught that subjects of FBI investigations “have forfeited their right to the truth,” which helps explain the vast increase in federal entrapment operations in recent decades.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/october/10/two-types-of-terror-in-michigan/

Written by James Bovard

#StopTrumpsTerror is one of the hottest trending topics on Twitter, with more than 90,000 tweets. Yesterday, the FBI announced the arrest of six people yesterday in a plot (perhaps government-hatched) to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and put her on trial for treason for destroying the state’s economy with the lockdowns she imposed. Seven other individuals were arrested and charged with violating Michigan’s anti-terrorism law.

Trump had no connection to the plot, and at least one of the alleged plotters denounced Trump as a “tyrant” and “the enemy.” But Trump’s condemnations of lockdowns was enough for Gov. Whitmer to denounce Trump yesterday as “complicit” with the plotters. She derided Trump for spending “the past 7 months denying science, ignoring his own health experts, stoking distrust, fomenting anger and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division.” Former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi told MSNBC that Donald Trump should be investigated for “aiding and abetting” the Michigan plot. 

Whitmer, one of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s favorite governors, enraged many Michiganders by locking down the state after the outbreak of Covid-19. Whitmer placed almost the entire state under house arrest, dictating a $1,000 fine for anyone who left their home to visit family or friends. Business owners faced up to three years in prison for refusing to close their operations. Whitmer severely restricted what stores could sell and prohibited purchasing seeds for spring planting after she decreed that a “nonessential” activity. (Purchasing state lottery tickets was still an “essential” activity.) Though Covid infections were concentrated in the Detroit metropolitan area, Whitmer shut down the entire state — including northern counties with few cases, boosting unemployment to 24 percent statewide. In a tweet yesterday, Trump said Whitmer “has done a terrible job. She locked down her state for everyone, except her husband’s boating activities.”

Whitmer’s actions infuriated many Michiganders and no informants were necessary to spur much of the anti-government rhetoric recited in the federal indictment yesterday. Plenty of hotheads say things online or in allegedly encrypted messages that look menacing or idiotic in cold print afterwards. Threatening violence against government officials – or anyone else – is reprehensible. But how far did those guys move to actually carrying out their plot? Last month, some of the conspirators “drove to the area surrounding the [Whitmer vacation] residence and discussed detonating explosives to divert police — even checking the underside of a bridge for spots to place a charge,” as the Washington Post summarized the indictment. 

The FBI admits that it paid one informant $8,600, and there may be other payments that are revealed in the coming days or weeks. FBI agents have been taught that subjects of FBI investigations “have forfeited their right to the truth,” which helps explain the vast increase in federal entrapment operations in recent decades. Trevor Aaronson, author of The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism, estimated that only about 1% of the 500 people charged with international terrorism offenses in the decade after 9/11 were bona fide threats. Thirty times as many were induced by the FBI to behave in ways that prompted their arrest. The bureau’s informant program extends far beyond Muslims. It bankrolled an extremist right-wing New Jersey blogger and radio host for five years before his 2009 arrest for threatening federal judges. A long-term FBI informant organized the Ku Klux Klan rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in July 2017. 

The alleged Michigan plot is almost too idiotic to believe. The alleged conspirators purportedly planned to kidnap Gov. Whitmer and take her to Wisconsin for a private trial. This is on par with the 2006 FBI-fabricated terror plot of the Liberty City Seven, where an informant swayed a bunch of dimwits to babble about blowing up government buildings. That group was so knuckle-headed that they asked the informant for military uniforms and wanted to conduct a parade. 

The Michigan conspirators are receiving vastly more coverage than a recent Michigan Supreme Court decision, which effectively labeled Whitmer a lawless dictator who had extended a “state of emergency” far beyond what an unconstitutional state law allowed. Instead of obeying the ruling of the highest state court, Whitmer responded by having the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services issue “new COVID-19 emergency orders that are nearly identical to her invalidated emergency orders,” as the Mackinac Center noted.

Four months earlier, the Michigan Court of Claims condemned Whitmer for contorting a Michigan workplace safety law to unjustifiably inflict additional penalties on businesses and individuals who failed to submit to her pandemic commands. 

But, according to the media, locking down Michigan isn’t tyranny – it is public service. 

Anyone who protests or heartily condemns lockdowns will also be presumed collectively guilty with the Michigan plotters. The same media moral framework will likely be used to exonerate new lockdowns that may be imposed in the name of curbing Covid-19. Earlier this week, many pundits denounced Trump as a would-be Mussolini for his statement on the White House balcony after he returned from Walter Reed Hospital. Commentators were horrified that Trump, who was standing outside not close to anyone, removed his facemask. 

If Biden is elected president and fulfills his promise to impose a national facemask mandate or dictates a national shutdown of the economy, such actions will be portrayed as benevolence at its best, rather than the most foolhardy federal interventions since the 55 mile per hour speed limit. 

Will the Michigan plot be touted by the media to valorize every government official who placed any American under house arrest in response to the pandemic? It is possible to heartily condemn both nitwit conspirators and oppressive politicians. Unfortunately, the media will likely pay far more attention to the bluster of boneheads than to actual devastation produced by unjustified shutdowns.

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Government Licensing Is Just As Illegitimate – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on May 19, 2020

But the occupations necessitating a license and the requirements to obtain a license vary so widely from state to state that the whole process seems quite arbitrary and illogical. And besides, since when is it the proper role of government to forbid or permit people to exercise what should be their natural right to make a living? Since when is it the proper role of government to forbid or permit people to freely contract with other people to provide them services?

Although the states opening up and removing the ridiculous restrictions
they have imposed on businesses because of the coronavirus insanity is a
good and necessary thing, it does not mean that we will be returning to
a free society—not when Americans still need permission from the
government to work. Government licensing needs to be done away with
along with government lockdowns and restrictions.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/05/laurence-m-vance/government-licensing-is-just-as-illegitimate/

By

Karl Manke, a barber in the fascist state of Michigan, recently opened his barbershop in downtown Owosso in violation of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s executive order for non-essential businesses to remain closed. He has been following all of the ridiculous government safety guidelines: wearing masks, social distancing, and using an ultraviolet sanitizer on his tools.

Customers came from around Michigan and waited hours to get their hair cut. “I’m doing walk-ins, appointments, working people in between appointments,” Manke said. “It’s hard, but I love doing it. I’m so grateful I can make a living again.” The 77-year-old barber said that he was “not trying to prove some point,” but just “needed to get back to work.” Governor Whitmer “is not my mother,” he added. “We’re not children, we can manage our own lives.”

Manke received a citation for violating the executive order on the third day he was open. He also faces two misdemeanor charges for reopening his shop despite state shutdown orders: a health department violation and the governor’s executive order violation.

So, what else did the state of Michigan do? It revoked his barber’s license.

Elsewhere in the “land of the free,” restaurants that are reopening in violation of governors’ executive orders are being threatened with having their liquor licenses taken away.

In the fascist state of Pennsylvania, politicians in Beaver, Dauphin, and Lebanon counties declared that their counties would begin returning to business as usual on May 15. “It is time to reopen the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and return our state to the people (as prescribed by our Constitution) and not run it as a dictatorship,” Dauphin County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jeff Haste wrote on May 8.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic fascist governor, Tom Wolf, responded with a threat “to withhold federal stimulus money from counties—and take away liquor licenses from restaurants—that open up in defiance of state law”; that is, his decree. Said the governor:

The enemy is a deadly virus set on destroying us. Yet, over this past weekend, some have decided to surrender to this enemy. These are politicians who were elected to serve their fellow citizens. Others are business owners who have chosen to serve their customers by putting them in harm’s way. These folks are choosing to desert in the face of the enemy.

There will be a price to pay for this “morally wrong” behavior.

To those politicians who decide to cave in to this coronavirus, they need to understand the consequences of their cowardly act.

A greater enemy than the virus is the Pennsylvania governor.

All of this state-level fascism brings up a point that most people are not thinking about: government licensing is just as illegitimate as government decrees ordering businesses to shut down.

Since, as the Michigan barber said, the governor is not our mother, and neither are government bureaucrats our fathers, babysitters, caretakers, or nannies, why is it that adults must get permission from the government to open a business, engage in commerce, work in certain occupations, have a particular vocation, or provide a service to willing customers? In other words, why do Americans need permission from the government to work?

An occupational license is simply a certificate of permission and approval from a government-sponsored board that a job-seeker is required to obtain before he can begin working in a certain occupation. These licenses are most commonly issued by state governments.

And it’s not just professionals like as doctors, lawyers, dentists, and accountants who must obtain a government license. Many other occupations are licensed as well: barbers, auctioneers, child-care workers, animal breeders, manicurists, interior designers, emergency medical technicians, skin-care specialists, upholsterers, hair shampooers, bill collectors, fire-alarm installers, midwives, make-up artists, crane operators, fishermen, security guards, security-alarm installers, coaches, taxidermists, sign-language interpreters, locksmiths, bartenders, taxi drivers, pest-control applicators, funeral attendants, and travel agents. It all depends on the state one lives in.

Proponents of occupational licensing would have us believe that without such government intervention in the economy, businesses would be full of untrained, incompetent, uneducated, unqualified, unscrupulous workers who would take advantage of consumers, rip them off, provide them with poor quality service, injure them, and possibly kill them.

But the occupations necessitating a license and the requirements to obtain a license vary so widely from state to state that the whole process seems quite arbitrary and illogical. And besides, since when is it the proper role of government to forbid or permit people to exercise what should be their natural right to make a living? Since when is it the proper role of government to forbid or permit people to freely contract with other people to provide them services?

Although the states opening up and removing the ridiculous restrictions they have imposed on businesses because of the coronavirus insanity is a good and necessary thing, it does not mean that we will be returning to a free society—not when Americans still need permission from the government to work. Government licensing needs to be done away with along with government lockdowns and restrictions.

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Armed US protesters enter Michigan capitol to demand lockdown end

Posted by M. C. on May 1, 2020

Do you find Michigan is at odds with itself?

Whitmer for VP?

Consider carefully who the old guys choose for VPs.

https://www.breitbart.com/news/armed-us-protesters-enter-michigan-capitol-to-demand-lockdown-end/

by AFP

Lansing (United States) (AFP) – Demonstrators, including some carrying guns, entered the capitol building in the US state of Michigan on Thursday and demanded the Democratic governor lift strict coronavirus lockdown orders, as some lawmakers reportedly donned bulletproof vests.

Dozens of demonstrators crowded the lobby of the building in Lansing, where they demanded to be allowed inside the House Chamber.

State police, wearing masks, blocked them from entering. None of the protesters appeared to be wearing masks.

“Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us,” tweeted Senator Dayna Polehanki along with a photo showing four men, at least one of whom appeared to be carrying a weapon.

“Some of my colleagues who own bullet proof vests are wearing them. I have never appreciated our Sergeants-at-Arms more than today,” she continued.

More protesters could be seen outside carrying signs, including one depicting Governor Gretchen Whitmer as Adolf Hitler.

The demonstration, dubbed the American Patriot Rally, was organized by a group calling itself Michigan United for Liberty.

“We do not agree with or consent to our unalienable rights being restricted or rescinded for any reason, including the COVID-19 pandemic,” the group said on its private Facebook page, where it has more than 8,800 members.

“We believe that every American and every Michigander has the right to work to support our families, to travel freely, to gather for religious worship and for other purposes, to gather in protest of our government and to direct our own medical care.”

The protest comes a day after a Michigan court ruled that stay-at-home directives issued by Whitmer on March 24 do not infringe on residents’ constitutional rights, according to local media reports.

It was the second time this month that protesters have demanded Whitmer lift lockdown restrictions in the state, which has seen more than 3,500 people killed by the coronavirus, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

On April 16 around 3,000 protesters, some of them also armed, descended on Lansing for “Operation Gridlock,” causing a massive traffic jam around the capital building.

A day later Trump appeared to lend his support to them and scattered protests elsewhere, tweeting “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”

Whitmer, whose name has emerged as a potential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, shrugged those protests off, telling CNN it was “OK to be angry.”

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — Michigan is an extraordinary place to live because of the people who call it home. There are millions of Michiganders doing their part to slow the spread of #COVID19 every single day. We are going to get through this together,” she tweeted later Thursday, without commenting directly on the protests.

Despite the demonstrations, Whitmer’s handling of the virus crisis has been met with a generally favorable response.

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Here’s how to report noncompliance with Michigan’s stay at home order | wzzm13.com

Posted by M. C. on March 26, 2020

Our Michigan comrades reporting their neighbors before they report them.

https://www.wzzm13.com/mobile/article/news/health/coronavirus/heres-how-to-report-noncompliance-with-michigans-stay-at-home-order/69-b4609768-ee69-4d76-9bdf-32e0b0f39333?fbclid=IwAR0rmPRV7PpU7wfZCvRIJOK4K-Afh8NW2iS-5xkTOrQw-KrKAJy7XENObQ8?fbclid=IwAR0rmPRV7PpU7wfZCvRIJOK4K-Afh8NW2iS-5xkTOrQw-KrKAJy7XENObQ8

Author: 13 ON YOUR SIDE Staff

Emergency lines and the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection hotline were flooded with calls reporting noncompliance with the governor’s stay at home order on Tuesday.

The order, which calls for the suspension of all nonessential activity, went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and by the evening it was unclear who should be fielding the calls clogging state and local agencies’ phone lines….

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Pavlik Morozov
Be a COVID-19 Young Pioneer

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Retired man’s home seized over $8.41 in unpaid property taxes

Posted by M. C. on November 24, 2019

A few tidbits for all those big government lovers.

This highlights a very important lesson: when governments are broke, they will plunder the wealth of their citizens in order to make ends meet, even if it means stealing a retired man’s home.

…You’re eating. It’s against the law.”

https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/retired-mans-home-seized-over-8-41-in-unpaid-property-taxes/

By Simon Black

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.

County government seizes home over $8.41 in unpaid tax

When an 83-year old retiree paid his property taxes late, he miscalculated the interest owed to the county government.

All told, he was $8.41 short. Yes you read that correctly, i.e. less than nine dollars.

So the county seized the home over that trivial amount.

Then they sold the man’s home at auction for $24,500, even though the house was worth about $128,000.

But the county didn’t just keep the $8.41 they were owed. They kept the entire $24,500.

Although this was the most egregious case, the man found out he was far from alone.

The county has been systematically robbing homeowners, selling their homes, and keeping the proceeds over much smaller tax bills than the homes are worth.

In case you’re wondering, the county in question is Oakland County, Michigan, which is part of the Detroit area, and one of the most fiscally vanquished municipalities in the country.

(Detroit even declared bankruptcy in 2013.)

This highlights a very important lesson: when governments are broke, they will plunder the wealth of their citizens in order to make ends meet, even if it means stealing a retired man’s home.

Click here for the full story.

San Francisco commuter arrested for eating a sandwich

Maybe you heard that San Francisco recently announced they will no longer prosecute public urination, amid a homelessness epidemic.

In contrast, one rule they are still enforcing apparently is an ordinance that bans eating on public transit platforms.

A video went viral last week that showed a legitimate commuter who was on his way to work being arrested for eating a sandwich on a train station platform.

He is approached by a transit officer, who told him, “You are detained and not free to go. You’re eating. It’s against the law.”

Click here for the full story.

New York Cops brag about big drug bust… of legal hemp

FedEx flagged a package of legal hemp that was being shipped from a grower in Vermont to a company in New York City.

Generally speaking, hemp is legal as long as it doesn’t contain more than a certain amount of the psychoactive substance THC.

And the local Vermont police department cleared the shipment because it the hemp was well below the THC threshold.

But when the shipment got to New York City, NYPD treated it as a major drug bust.

They kept it at the station and arrested the man who came to pick it up.

The police are still holding on to the product, even though it was legally grown and shipped.

Click here for the full story.

China assigning Communist officials to sleep detainees’ wives

The Chinese government has detained an estimated one million Uighurs, a Muslim minorty.

Many Uighur men have been taken to what China calls ‘reeducation camps’, which the government describes as “free hospital treatment for the masses with sick thinking.”

While these men are off at camp, Communist party officials are assigned to stay at the detainees’ homes to “promote ethnic unity.”

Apparently it’s a modern day prima nocta initiative; the government calls it the “Pair Up and Become Family” program.

These officials “help” the families of detained men “with their ideology, bringing new ideas,” and over time “develop feelings for one another.”

And apparently the government “helps them to make proper arrangements” for the in-house official to share a bed with the detainee’s wife.

The in-house officials are referred to as the family’s new “relative.” While the husbands and fathers are being brainwashed in concentration camps, these officials do the job at home.

Click here for the full story.

 

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Police Seized Property of Close to 1,000 People in Michigan—Without Ever Convicting Them of Crimes – Hit & Run : Reason.com

Posted by M. C. on July 12, 2018

https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/11/police-seized-property-of-close-to-1000

Close to 1,000 people in Michigan had their property seized by police or government officials last year even though they were neither convicted nor sometimes even charged with committing a crime.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have this information at all. In 2015 Michigan passed legislation that mandated local law enforcement agencies report more information to the state about the extent of their seizures. The Department of State Police just released its first report that encompassed all agencies for a full calendar year.

Law enforcement agencies across the state seized more than $13 million in cash and property in 2017. And while State Police Director Kriste Etue claims in the report’s introduction that all those seized assets were “amassed by drug traffickers,” that’s not really what the numbers show… Read the rest of this entry »

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Michigan Axes Basic Skills Test for Teachers

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2018

Snyder is on the republican side of the republicrat coin.

I didn’t think the bar could get any lower. Silly me.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/07/02/michigan-axes-basic-skills-test-teachers/

by Katherine Rodriguez

Michigan lawmakers axed a requirement that would make prospective teachers take a basic skills test before earning their certification in Michigan.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation last week to get rid of the law requiring all prospective teachers to take the SAT to become certified in the state of Michigan, the Detroit Free Press reported.

“The basic skills test … is not a strong indicator of how successful a teacher will be,” said Sen. Marty Knollenberg (R-Troy), one of the sponsors of the bipartisan-supported legislation. Read the rest of this entry »

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