The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency announced on Thursday it will forgive an additional $55.6 million in overpayments.
This round of waivers pertains to nearly 7,300 jobless claims the agency erroneously issued during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as $2.4 million of refunds for claimants paying back benefits or applied toward overpayments.
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Michigan GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Tudor Dixon attacked Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as “vindictive” and unresponsive during an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Dixon, who leads the pack of Republicans running for governor, is a conservative media personality, manufacturing businesswoman and mother. Dixon told the DCNF that Whitmer has not listened to the needs of the people.
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Michigan fish hatcheries will receive $34 million in the 2023 budget for infrastructure repairs and replacement of a 54-year-old survey vessel.
“Michigan’s fish and aquatic habitats are among our state’s greatest natural, recreational and economic assets, and we must continue working together to protect them for future generations,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement. “Together with the historic, $450 million investments in our parks and public lands under the Building Michigan Together Plan I signed earlier this year, our bipartisan budget represents a once-in-a-generation investment that will help us continue safeguarding our most precious natural resources.”
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Republican gubernatorial candidates support Line 5 as it exists and champion the proposed $500 million tunnel to house the pipeline 100-feet beneath the Straits of Mackinac.
Their Democrat opponent, incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, has been attempting to shut down the pipeline as well as prevent construction of the five-mile conduit, which would be buried beneath the lakebed of the Straits.
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A coalition of 20 state attorneys general, all Democrats, are backing a federal gun rule in court.
The Final Rule, as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives named it, would enable law enforcement officials to trace any homemade guns used in crimes. In addition, the rule limits trafficking the weaponry.
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Whether a Michigander woman can get an abortion without being criminally charged under a 1931 law might depend on the county prosecutor.
Confusion now abounds, which is why Gov. Gretchen Whitmer again urged the Michigan Supreme Court to hear her lawsuit to strike the 1931 law triggered by the United States Supreme Court overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
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Nearly 38,000 Michigan child care professionals will receive a $500 or a $1,000 bonus as part of a bipartisan budget plan.
About $368 million in grants will fund more than 5,500 childcare programs through the second round of the Child Care Stabilization Grant for business, providing $1,000 bonuses for full-time staff and $500 to part-time staff.
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State and local Republican parties are calling for new investigations into the 2020 election as a lawsuit regarding election fraud in Pennsylvania moves forward.
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Michigan will receive $14.45 million from a federal pharmaceutical fraud settlement.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel joined 49 other states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the federal government to settle a lawsuit for $233.7 million, plus interest, to be paid over seven years by Mallinckrodt ARD, LLC.
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The state of Michigan will spend nearly $300,000 subsidizing two private companies in Cadillac and Fenton, claiming the subsidies will create a $7.3 million investment and create 68 jobs.
“Today’s investments by American Recreational Products and Rexair will create a combined 68 good-paying jobs for Michiganders as we continue growing Michigan’s economy and investing in every region of the state,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement.
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The state of Michigan could invest up to $135 million in new auto and electric vehicle (EV) plants for Ford Motor Company.
The news follows Stellantis NV choosing Kokomo, Ind., as the site for a $2.5 billion EV battery manufacturing plant that could employ 1,400 people, passing over locations around the Motor City.
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Approximately $9.1 million in taxpayer-funded grants for business projects in Michigan expected to create 420 jobs are in three business expansions and a new semiconductor apprenticeship program.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday announced the economic development, saying it would “build on our leadership in key industries, and support vibrant communities across Michigan.”
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The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency failed to perform employee background checks or sever timely ex-employee access to a system that processed more than $36 billion in claims, an auditor general report found.
Auditor General Doug Ringler said the UIA spent $60.8 million on the Michigan Integrated Data Automated System but didn’t take other safeguards to prevent unemployment fraud.
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Controversy is swirling around Michigan Second District Court of Appeals Chief Judge Elizabeth L. Gleicher issuing a preliminary injunction Tuesday afternoon against the state’s moribund 1931 law criminalizing abortions.
Anti-abortion advocates, including Right to Life Michigan and the Michigan Catholic Conference, assert Gleicher should have recused herself in the case, Planned Parenthood v. Attorney General Dana Nessel, because Gleicher donates regularly to the organization. Additionally, Gleicher offered free legal services to the American Civil Liberties Union and its client Planned Parenthood in a late 1990s abortion case, Mahaffey v. Attorney General.
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Amid calls from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to remedy a perceived teacher shortage in Michigan, some of the leading policy analysts in the state claim the governor’s “one-size-fits-all approach” is based on faulty premises.
Those premises are echoed in a Monday report in the education journal Chalkbeat Detroit.
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Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Michigan’s Long-Term-Care Ombudsman Program failed to visit most facilities in person, an auditor general report found.
MLTCOP, housed within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, advocates for more than 100,000 long-term care residents statewide, investigates complaints and supports improved policies.
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When Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shut down most of Michigan’s economy in 2020, she promised to return 10% of her $159,300 annual salary to the state in solidarity with more than 1 million Michiganders either out of work or who were soon to be.
“I’m going to lead by example,” Whitmer said on April 20, 2020. “I know that times are tough and that we as a state are going to be confronting a tough budget as a result of the economic shutdown.”
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A new House bill introduced by a Republican legislator aims to amend Michigan’s Revised School Code to grant school boards the authority to share critical incident mapping data to local law enforcement agencies for school safety purposes.
Government Operations Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Mueller, R-Linden, discussed House Bill 6042 before the House GOC on Thursday. Mueller stated his desire to use the state budget process to fund CMI. School safety spending budgeted by the House earlier this week includes $200 million for school safety grants, in addition to $50 million for school resource officers and $8.4 million for each intermediate school district to hire a mental health coordinator and an emergency and safety manager.
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The GOP-dominated Michigan Senate approved 14 budget bills that aim to provide $2 billion in tax relief in the fiscal 2023 budget amid 40-year high record inflation.
Senate Bills 827-843 were welcomed by Senate Appropriations Chair Jim Stamas, R-Midland.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer awarded $1 million to two Children’s Savings Account (CSA) pilot programs, which will provide education money for 1,960 Michigan kids.
Battle Creek Community Foundation and Wayne Metro Community Action Agency will receive a $500K grant to create CSA programs.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wants to spend $60 million on electric vehicles (EV), including electrifying the state’s fleet. However, the production of EVs is beset by a supply chain riddled with shortages in addition to environmental concerns.
Whitmer’s proposed 2023 budget aims to spend $50 million to subsidize new EV sales or a $500 rebate for at-home charging equipment for new or used EVs. Another $10 million would start converting Michigan’s roughly 13,637-vehicle fleet to EV.
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A month and a few days after Sunshine Week, which celebrates government transparency, Michigan’s three highest-ranking public officials won’t answer questions about a possible $1.4 million security protection bid from DK Security.
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Despite continued supply chain struggles, Michigan food, agriculture, and forest exports grew 19% year-over-year in 2021 to eclipse $2.5 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Michigan’s food and agriculture industry is thriving with 19% annual growth and $2.5 billion in exports. It continues to uplift Michigan’s economy and make a local, national and global impact,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement.
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In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is the number one fundraiser in state politics in the 2022 election cycle so far. According to the most recent campaign finance reports made to the Michigan Secretary of State, the governor received $14,281,061 in total contributions and spent $8,625,120 between Jan. 1, 2021 and Dec. 31, 2021. Whitmer is running for re-election in 2022.
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Michigan lawmakers struck a $4.8 billion spending deal later than 10 p.m. on Wednesday with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“These are tough times for families, small businesses, and communities, and this bipartisan supplemental will help grow our economy, create jobs, and invest in every region of our state,” Whitmer said in a statement. “I look forward to signing this supplemental when it reaches my desk and continuing in this spirit of collaboration to pass another balanced, bipartisan budget that delivers on the kitchen-table issues.”
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Michigan lawmakers introduced an ethics reform package during Sunshine Week, a seven-day promotion of government transparency.
The package would require more transparency from lawmakers and bolster the Freedom of Information Act.
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Job recovery in Michigan continues to rank among the worst in the country, according to a recently released report.
Michigan had the sixth-largest number of claims filed last week compared to 2019. The report, published by the personal finance website WalletHub, also ranks Michigan 47th in biggest increase in number of unemployment insurance initial claims in the week of Feb. 28, 2022 compared to the week of March 1, 2020. Only Kentucky (48); New Jersey (49); Kansas (50); and District of Columbia (51) fared worse.
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A new video series has launched in Michigan with the aim to highlight the absurdity of the current Michigan Voter ID law. Restoration Action, a group helping to advance a ballot initiative in Michigan that would require a photo ID to cast a vote, is sponsoring the video series. The second video was released today.
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The Michigan Senate approved a bill that aims to lower the personal and corporate tax rate to 3.9%.
Michigan currently taxes corporations at 6% and Michiganders at a flat 4.25% income tax.
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Former President Donald Trump released a blistering attack Friday afternoon on former Vice President Mike Pence’s claims earlier in the day about the January 6, 2021 Joint Session of Congress over which Pence presided at which Electoral College votes submitted by the states were counted.
In a speech before the Florida Chapter of the Federalist Society in Orlando on Friday, Pence asserted, “There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress, I possessed unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes. And I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election.’ President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.” (emphasis added)
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Wednesday morning on the The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Washington Correspondent Neil McCabe live from Michigan to report on the 21 Day Equity Challenge curriculum instituted by school board members and his take on the status of the Build Back Better agenda.
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Democrats four years ago rode a blue wave to governors’ mansions across the country, flipping Republican-held seats in the Midwest, Northeast and West alike.
Now, however, many of those governors face Republican challengers amid a political environment that looks potentially promising for the GOP, meaning that contentious races may lie ahead in some of the nation’s most pivotal battleground states. Republicans have already had two strong showings in states that lean Democratic, flipping the governor’s seat in Virginia and coming surprisingly close in New Jersey, a state that voted for President Joe Biden by 16 points in 2020.
Governors in less competitive states are also facing primary challengers from the left and right, making for multiple bitter, closely-followed primaries between candidates from different wings of the same party.
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Then-President Donald Trump’s team assembled a 10-day pressure campaign in December 2020 hoping to shame governors and state legislators into officially investigating allegations of Election 2020 irregularities, according to memos newly turned over to Congress by former New York Police Commissioner and Trump confidant Bernard Kerik.
The strategy called for “protests” at governors’ mansions and the homes of politicians ranging from secretaries of states to “weak” congressional members in key battleground states, the memos show.
The documents, turned over Friday night under subpoena to the House’s Jan. 6 commission, are remarkable in part because they show the primary focus of the Trump team leading up to the Jan. 6 certification of the 2020 vote – an event that turned violent when pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol – was to get “support for hearings” to probe allegations of voting irregularities Trump’s team had received but not vetted.
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A Michigan public school district held a “21 Day Equity Challenge” that encouraged student activism, along with a list of microaggressions and a privilege checklist, according to a report from the Young America’s Foundation (YAF).
Farmington Public Schools told students and their families to come up with a “personal action plan” on the 21st day of the challenge, according to the YAF report. Some suggestions including joining “a Black Lives Matter or an affiliated protest” and or donating to “bail efforts supporting people arrested for protesting against injustice.”
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The Ohio Chamber of Commerce recently joined the General Assembly and other groups in Ohio and Michigan in urging the Biden administration to keep open a Michigan pipeline that supplies crude oil to nearly half the region’s refineries.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week the administration is studying the impact of shutting down Enbridge’s Line 5, an oil pipeline that rests on the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac and carries light crude oil, light synthetic crude and natural gas liquids.
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The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration withdrew a fine it levied against the City of Port Huron after the municipality threatened to depose the agency director.
MIOSHA penalized the city $6,300 after the state department claimed the city violated Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) executive orders imposing tight restrictions on residents.
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Can President Trump move the ball in Michigan to get legislators to do a serious investigation into how outside money was spent in the 2020 election? No one else has been able to get legislators to pay attention to the $12 million that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shipped to an obscure supposedly “non-partisan” non-profit to influence voters in Michigan, but gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon hopes that a recent email by Donald Trump will spur action.
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After a two-hour delay caused by an emailed death threat, the Michigan Independent Citizen’s Redistricting Committee (MICRC) shortened public comment to 30 seconds and entered a closed-door session for longer than an hour, which critics from both sides of the political spectrum say violated the Constitution.
MICRC spokesman Edward Woods III said in a statement released Wednesday: “At 1:06 p.m. today, the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission received notification of a death threat received through email. We alerted law enforcement and they opened an investigation. As of now, the Commission meeting is suspended until further notice.”
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) was silent after agitators tampered with an Enbridge pipeline following her public calls to shut it down.
Anti-energy activists appeared to trespass on Enbridge property in Tuscola County to use a pipe wrench on an emergency shutoff valve Tuesday:
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Across the political spectrum, Americans are recognizing the importance not just of school choice but of what students actually learn in schools. Elected representatives have finally taken notice as well. In Michigan, the state legislature has proposed two bills that seek to address how American history and civics are taught.
Unfortunately, some want teachers to tell students that they should understand American history primarily by looking for racism, injustice, and oppression. The phrase “critical race theory” (CRT) has been used mainly in academia to describe this filter on history and civic instruction.
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The Michigan Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a sweeping school choice plan that funds student learning through education savings accounts.
Called Michigan Student Opportunity Accounts, the legislation would allow parents to utilize state dollars as they see fit, by either staying in the traditional government system, enrolling in another option such as a private or virtual school, or receiving additional tutoring or other support.
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A bill introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives would allow barbers-to-be to obtain the 1,800 hours of training as an apprenticeship rather than a classroom.
The Mackinac Center reported:
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) may be forced to return millions in campaign contributions that exceeded individual donation limits, a court filing hinted this week.
Whitmer recently collected some donations as high as $250,000 — blowing past the $7,150 individual limit — by claiming she was under threat of recall. No real recall threat ever materialized. In fact, the chief proponent, Chad Baase, recently revealed that he moved to California.
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A proposal to force Michigan’s presidential electors to cast ballots for the national popular vote winner — regardless of the results in the state — is meeting opposition from a majority of Republican legislators.
State Sen. Aric Nesbitt (R-Lawton) and state Rep. Matt Hall (R-Marshall) spearheaded the effort to collect 57 signatures from legislators opposed to the idea. According to the Detroit News, 17 of the 20 Republican senators and 40 of the 57 Republican representatives signed on in opposition.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is scrambling to contain a growing scandal after she promised to remove lead from drinking water in Benton Harbor within five years.
Benton Harbor, a depressed community of about 9,600 residents in southwest Michigan, has been struggling to deal with the poison in the water, and after negative national media attention, Whitmer this week vowed an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to dealing with the problem.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is reorganizing agencies providing services to the elderly, as an auditor general report on coronavirus-related nursing home deaths looms.
The new Health and Aging Services Administration will reportedly provide better communication between agencies with the goal of increasing efficiency.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has vowed to veto an election integrity bill that would require a voter casting an absentee ballot to prove their identity.
Senate Bills 303 and 304, approved by the Michigan House of Representatives, would “require anyone who casts an absentee ballot or votes in person on Election Day to provide identification.” A related piece of legislation, House Bill 5007 removes the current $10 fee to obtain a state ID
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Three Michigan residents have been charged with voter fraud involving absentee ballots by state officials, which follows a concerning trend over the past decade.
State Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) alleges Trenae Myesha Rainey submitted two dozen absentee voter applications on behalf of an unknowing Father Murray Nursing Home resident in Macomb County. According to prosecutors, the Centerline clerk “noticed the application signatures didn’t match those in the Qualified Voter File,” WWMT reported.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) kept up the victim routine in her latest campaign fundraising email, claiming Betsy DeVos has it out for her.
This summer, Whitmer made false claims in another email, asserting DeVos was planning a run against her, forcing DeVos to deny such a plan.
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A statewide coalition is backing a spending schedule of $6 billion of federal government money from the American Rescue Plan (ARP).
The Coalition for a Strong and Prosperous Michigan represents businesses, government organizations, local elected leaders, and statewide associations. They aim to detail strategic ways to invest Michigan’s ARP funding for future growth and prosperity.
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