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Michigan Tag

Musician Kid Rock has made waves since he hinted that he may challenge Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) in November 2018. But Michigan rules may prohibit the name Kid Rock and force him to use his real name Robert Ritchie. Roll Call reported:
If Ritchie were to submit enough valid signatures to make the ballot and indicate that he wanted to be listed as “Kid Rock,” the Michigan Bureau of Elections staff would have to research the question of whether that name would be allowed. At an initial glance, Ritchie’s stage name isn’t an obviously acceptable one under the state’s criteria.

Social media erupted on Sunday when a poll showed musician Robert Ritchie, aka Kid Rock, up by four points over incumbent Democratic Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow. Delphi Analytics, whose website just launched this month, released the findings:
Of respondents who stated a preference between Debbie Stabenow and Robert Ritchie, 54% stated they would vote for Ritchie while 46% said they would vote for Debbie Stabenow. These results could indicate that Ritchie is a popular figure in Michigan, Debbie Stabenow is unpopular, or some combination of concurrent trends. The relatively large, 44%, number of undecided respondents may be due to the early stages of the campaign.

The investigation into female genital mutilation (FGM) in Michigan has now spread to five other states after authorities identified possible new defendants. The lawyer for Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, the woman charged with performing FGM on numerous girls, disclosed this information in new court documents "to show the complexity of the case and explain why" the court should release her client "from jail to prepare for trial.

On Wednesday, Amor Ftouhi, a Canadian originally from Tunisia, screamed Allahu Akbar after he stabbed Lt. Jeff Neville at Bishop International Airport in Flint, MI. The FBI have started investigating the attack as a terrorist act, but have not found Ftouhi involved in a wider plot.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Shuettte has filed charges against Michigan Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon and Chief Medical Executive Eden Wells in the Flint water probe. Lyon faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office while Wells faces obstruction of justice and lying to a police officer. These charges stem from the "Legionnaires' disease outbreak in the Flint area that led to 12 deaths after the city's water supply was switched to the Flint River in April 2014."

Attorney Cynthia Nunez, the guardian of the children of one of the doctors accused of performing female genital mutilation (FGM) on girls in Michigan, has claimed that a local mosque paid for the surgeries. The court held a hearing on Tuesday "in which the state is seeking to terminate the parental rights of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, 44, of Northville, the lead defendant in Detroit's historic genital cutting case." Nagarwala and her attorney Shannon Smith denied Nunez's allegations.

Last week, authorities charged Dr. Jumana Nagarwala for female genital mutilation on a 7-year-old-girl. Now authorities have arrested and charged the doctor and his wife, the owners of the Burhani Medical Clinic. Officials arrested Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, 53, and his wife Farida Attar, 50. They face charges for "conspiring to perform genital mutilation on minor girls by letting a doctor use their clinic to perform the procedure."

Here is a story that has gone underreported in the media, but deserves so much more attention. Last September, the Indianapolis Star reported that females have accused now former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University physician Larry Nassar of sexual abuse. By November the number reached 50 women. Some of these women have spoken out about the alleged abuse, including Jessica Howard, the U.S. National champion from 1999 to 2001 in rhythmic gymnastics. Nassar veiled the alleged sexual abuse as medical treatment for her.

If the political gossip mill is correct, Kid Rock's name has been dropped for a Michigan Senate run against Democratic incumbent Sen. Stabenow. Stabenow is up for reelection in 2018. Robert Ritchie or Kid Rock has long considered himself a libertarian-leaning Republican, supporting Mitt Romney, Ben Carson, and finally Donald Trump's presidential bids.

Following the news that Ford had cancelled its planned $1.6 billion auto assembly plant in Mexico, Mexican officials are concerned about the impact this will have on their economy. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Ford Motor Co.’s decision to cancel a planned $1.6 billion assembly plant in the Mexican industrial city of San Luis Potosí caught the nation’s elected officials off guard and represents a major blow to one of the main engines of Mexico’s economy.

Plastic bag bans are all the rage in progressive locals like Austin and Portland, and the entire state of California, but Michigan is having none of it. Lt. Gov. Brian Calley recently signed a bill that banned plastic bag bans, along with any local ordinance that would restrict the use of certain types of disposable containers and packaging.

Ford has announced the company will cancel the $1.6 million plant it planned to build in Mexico. Instead, the company will invest $700 million in Michigan:
Ford (F) CEO Mark Fields said the investment is a "vote of confidence" in the pro-business environment president-elect Donald Trump is creating. However, he stressed Ford did not do any sort of special deal with Trump. "We didn't cut a deal with Trump. We did it for our business," Fields told CNN's Poppy Harlow in an exclusive interview Tuesday.

So the Michigan vote recount revealed corruption and fraud..just not what Jill Stein and Hillary Clinton hoped for. Instead, the recount showed that too many people voted in the Detroit precincts, areas that Hillary won by a large majority. The Detroit News reported:
Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during last month’s presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News. Detailed reports from the office of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett show optical scanners at 248 of the city’s 662 precincts, or 37 percent, tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books. Voting irregularities in Detroit have spurred plans for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office, Elections Director Chris Thomas said Monday.

Is it finally "over over" in Jill Stein's impossible dream to recount votes in Michigan? Here's hoping so. After the Michigan mid-level appellate court ruled against her, and a federal judge dissolved an injunction that had kept the recount alive, Stein's only hope was that the state Supreme Court would rule in her favor. But first, the state Supreme Court had to agree to hear the case. And it just declined to do so. The Detroit News reports:

UPDATE (by WAJ): At about 7:45 p.m. tonight the District Court dissolved the TRO that kept the recount going, effectively ending the Michigan Recount since the state court ordered a halt. Full Order at bottom of post:
.... Because there is no basis for this Court to ignore the Michigan court’s ruling and make an independent judgment regarding what the Michigan Legislature intended by the term “aggrieved,” Plaintiffs have not shown an entitlement to a recount under Michigan’s statutory scheme....