Support my independent journalism by sharing this newsletter to your friends.

Become a Supporter

 

 

Before and after: A look at Whitmer’s legacy

By most metrics, Michiganders have fared poorly under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s policies. From the economy to education, the state has experienced significant declines in economic growth and education while seeing energy prices, gas taxes, and car insurance costs increase at higher rates than in neighboring states.

Whitmer took office in January 2019. The state increased its poverty rate from 13% in 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, to 13.4% in 2024, with 1.3 million living below the poverty line.

The state has acknowledged this weak performance. “Michigan’s poverty rate was 13.4 percent in 2024, not statistically different from the 13.5 percent reported in 2023,” the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics reported in 2025. “During this time, the national poverty rate experienced a statistically significant decline, from 12.5 percent in 2023 to 12.1 percent in 2024. In 2024, the poverty rate in the United States, unlike Michigan, appears to have dropped below levels in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.” Click here to read more.

 

We can’t wait for a blackout to fix Michigan’s power problem

What happened the last time you flipped a light switch? The lights came on, right?

One of the electricity grid managers responsible for keeping the lights on has an urgent message: Current and future demand for electricity will eclipse our ability to generate power. This could lead to “catastrophic failure.” Michigan policymakers should take note.

PJM is the country’s oldest and largest regional transmission organization. It coordinates the movement of electricity for 67 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia. Most of Michigan is served by a different regional grid operator, but PJM’s warning illustrates the problem facing electric grids across the country.

Getting electricity to your home involves many actors, including generators, regulators and utilities. It also involves a complex system of power plants, transmission lines and storage. Click here to read more.

Stay in contact with family with push to talk nationwide waterproof walkie talkies. Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d2ea9316-1358-4bd7-97b5-7a04f92a0b2a_1100x100.png (1100×100)","title":null,"type":null,"href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":false,"internal

 

ACLU files lawsuit to prevent voter-approved girls’ sports initiative from becoming law

ACLU-WA and Pacifica Law Group filed a lawsuit to prevent IL-638 from going into effect. Voters approved the initiative last week by 11 points.

If the law is not struck down or put on hold by a judge, it will go into effect Dec. 3. The measure will mean all girls who want to play on a team designated for girls only must prove their sex assigned at birth, as part of a routine sports physical, via reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.

“Every girl in Washington state deserves a safe place to play sports,” Diane Bedwell, co-chair of No Hate in WA State, said election night. Click here to read more.

Islamist Pilots Pose ‘Insider Threat,’ Warn Security Experts

When the Federal Aviation Administration reinforced cockpit doors after the 9/11 hijackings, it turned flight decks into fortresses to lock out terrorists. But what if a terrorist is already inside?

That question has new urgency following the harrowing Sept. 30 attack aboard a FlyDubai flight in which a Muslim extremist (Islamist) pilot was forcefully stopped by a heroic pilot and brave passengers from crashing a plane bound for Israel.

Former aviation security officials say the FAA needs to reassess threats inside cockpits and the measures intended to counter them. They say this review is especially urgent because the agency has made insider threats to the cockpit more likely by recently forcing airlines to add a secondary barrier to the cockpit in the form of a metal gate on new planes. Click here to read more.

 

Communist Getaways On Whose Dime? What Democratic Socialists Must Hand Over

Florida Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a subpoena to the Democratic Socialists of America on Tuesday, demanding records as his office investigates whether the group accepted money or other support from foreign adversaries, including Cuba and China.

Uthmeier said the inquiry focuses on foreign contributions tied to DSA delegations and travel fundraising, as well as whether the organization complied with Florida’s fundraising laws. The subpoena was issued under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

“Floridians who give to organizations operating in our state have a right to know where that money comes from, and how it is used,” Uthmeier said in a video. Click here to read more.

Support my independent journalism by sharing this newsletter to your friends.

Become a Supporter

 

 

Some ways new Michigan leadership can encourage more housing

Demand for housing in Michigan has outstripped supply and led to higher prices. The solution to this is simple: Build more. But it is difficult because of government and market obstacles.

And despite massive government subsidies for more apartments, housing construction has barely budged for years. And we don’t build nearly as much as we did even in the 1990s.

The government isn’t particularly good at knowing how much or what types of housing needs to be built. But the market is good at it. It is unfortunate that so many rules and regulations have arisen that make it effectively illegal even to build much of the housing people in Michigan are currently living in. Click here to read more.

 

Judge denies motion to dismiss charges against Lindsay Clancy

The judge in the Lindsay Clancy case on Monday denied three motions that were argued last week.

Clancy is the Duxbury, Massachusetts, woman accused of killing her three children. Her trial ended in a hung jury in September.

Judge William Sullivan denied Clancy’s motion to dismiss the case against her on double-jeopardy grounds.

The judge found there was a “manifest necessity” for the mistrial because the jury remained deadlocked after extensive deliberations. He said questioning the holdout juror about his doubts or the substance of deliberations risked intruding into jury deliberations and coercing a verdict. Click here to read more.

Stay in contact with family with push to talk nationwide waterproof walkie talkies. Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

 

Pritzker could unlock over $2 billion for Illinois students by opting into federal tax credit program

Illinois taxpayers could direct more than $2 billion in donated money to students in the state if Gov. J.B. Pritzker opts Illinois into the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program.

The program, also known as the Education Freedom Tax Credit, provides a 1:1 tax credit for qualified donations to scholarship-granting organizations. Students in both public and private schools can use the money for education expenses such as tutoring, services for students with disabilities, tuition or school fees and books or supplies.

The U.S. Treasury Department recently confirmed that married taxpayers filing jointly can get the tax credit for up to $3,400 annually in donations while individual filers can get the credit for up to $1,700 annually.

An analysis from the Democrats for Education Reform says it’s plausible that 30% of eligible Illinois taxpayers could donate the full allowed amount. That could raise $2,087,575,860 for students. Click here to read more.

New Details Suggest Joe Biden’s Mental Collapse Was Even Worse Than Previously Known

Former President Joe Biden reportedly forgot that longtime Senate colleague Bob Dole had died and, on another occasion, appeared to believe his late son Beau was still alive, according to an updated edition of Original Sin, the book by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson detailing Biden’s decline.

Biden reportedly forgot Dole’s death despite delivering “a nationally televised, roughly eighteen-minute eulogy for him at the Washington National Cathedral in December 2021.”

“On another occasion, Biden seemed to think his son Beau, who died in 2015, was still alive and fighting cancer,” the authors write.

The updated edition includes new reporting that was not included in the book’s original May 2025 release. Click here to read more.

 

Erika Kirk’s Message For Dave Chappelle After His Chilling Remark About Charlie’s Assassination

Erika Kirk has posted a response to Dave Chappelle’s viral comments about her husband’s assassination.

“To see leftist podcasters, comedians, and commentators laugh about political assassination as though it’s entertainment and the destruction of a human life is a punchline, is beyond disgusting,” the grieving widow shared on X.

“My husband, Charlie Kirk, was killed in an act of political violence, something our two children and I will live with every day for the rest of our lives. A culture that laughs at assassination is one of profound moral decay. It threatens the very foundation of our country and the principles that hold our democracy together.”

“You do not have to agree with someone’s politics to recognize the value of their life. This should not be so hard,” Kirk continued. Click here to read more.

Support my independent journalism by sharing this newsletter to your friends.

Become a Supporter

 

 

Why public schools nationwide are facing a massive drop in student enrollment

LOS ANGELES — Long before the Trump administration started deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many with school-age children, public schools nationwide faced a massive and accelerating drop in student enrollment caused mostly by shrinking families.

“Birth rates here in Los Angeles County have been declining for decades, which means fewer children enrolled in our schools,” said Kelly Gonez, a board member in the LA Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest in the country, which lost more than 300,000 students over the last two decades.

LA isn’t alone. The population of children under age 18 began to fall nationwide after 2010, according to U.S. Census data, dropping by roughly 2.1 million kids through 2025. Click here to read more.

 

How Canada Inflicted Maximum Midterms Pain on Trump

A trade deal was imminent. Top negotiators from the United States and Canada were holed up in a dreary building in southwest D.C., working on the details of an agreement to finally end hostilities that had wreaked havoc on both countries’ economies and a once close diplomatic and military relationship. But then, two hours before the Aug. 22 tariff deadline, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney instructed his negotiators to walk away. That night, the U.S. responded, imposing a 50% tariff on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods like wood pulp, hockey equipment and industrial machinery.

Carney’s government had been watching the trade negotiation deadline with an eye to a different clock ticking down: two months until Trump’s constituents went to the polls. For Canadian leaders who had spent a decade testing strategies to confront an increasingly adversarial neighbor, the electoral calendar was a new source of bargaining power to explore. Click here to read more.

Stay in contact with family with push to talk nationwide waterproof walkie talkies. Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

Click here to learn more and get an extra 10% off.

https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d2ea9316-1358-4bd7-97b5-7a04f92a0b2a_1100x100.png (1100×100)","title":null,"type":null,"href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":false,"internal

 

Do Opportunity Zones lift up lower-income residents?

Illinois is about to lock in a new map of tax-favored neighborhoods for the next decade.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration has until Oct. 28 to identify which areas it will propose to become part of the federal Opportunity Zones 2.0 initiative. Approved areas will qualify for a federal program that allows investors to defer taxes in exchange for investing in economically distressed areas.

Congress created Opportunity Zones in 2017 to draw private money into low-income neighborhoods. Investors who sell stocks, real estate or other assets at a profit can put that money into a fund that invests in a zone. In return, they can delay paying tax on the original profit, and if they hold the investment for at least 10 years they owe no federal tax on what the new investment earns.

The new zones take effect Jan. 1, 2027, and last 10 years. Click here to read more.

Hakeem Jeffries: I’m a ‘Hard Yes’ on the Hegseth Impeachment Resolution

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said he is a “hard yes” on impeaching Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Host Jonathan Karl said, “Let me ask you about Pete Hegseth, because Thomas Massie, of course, a Republican, tells me that he intends to introduce a resolution of impeachment of Hegseth as defense secretary as soon as tomorrow. Are you going to support that? Will Democrats vote in favor of that impeachment resolution?”

Jeffries said, “I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution. The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermine our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe. Pete Hegseth has got to go. ” Click here to read more.

 

President Trump, UFC President Dana White to discuss press secretary job Monday

President Donald Trump let the world know Saturday who he wanted to be the next White House spokesperson.

What we know:

The president posted that he offered the press secretary role to Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White but did not say if the man whose current job is running the world’s largest mixed martial arts promotion had accepted. Trump’s post also included a list of names of people the president would like White to bring with him.

Will Dana White be press secretary?

What we don’t know:

Whether White becomes the next face of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. may not be known for at least a couple of days. White is currently in London for a boxing event. He told reporters during a news conference that he would be flying to Washington for a Monday meeting with Trump. Click here to read more.