If you’ve been enjoying ad-free PRESS RUN since its launch, or just recently became a reader, please consider subscribing for $6 a month to support fearless media commentary. Thanks!
Stay healthy.
Be kind.
Concluding a months-long investigation into an avalanche of dubious voter fraud and tampering allegations, Michigan’s Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee released its findings this week. The report obliterates each and every “stolen” election claim that Trump and Fox News have been peddling about Michigan since last November. Not surprisingly, the right-wing cable network has made no mention of the GOP conclusions from Michigan’s state capitol, flushing the inconvenient, 35-page report down the memory hole.
Debunking claims with ease, the report announced, “There is no evidence presented at this time to prove either significant acts of fraud or that an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity was perpetrated in order to subvert the will of Michigan voters.”
"Our clear finding is that citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan," the report concluded. “The committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain.”
Additionally, “The report concludes there is no proof of dead voters or “fractional voting,” no evidence of a fraudulent “ballot dump” in Detroit and no proof any Michigan precincts had more than 100 percent voter turnout,” as Bridge Michigan reported.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee actually urge the state’s attorney general to investigate groups and individuals that spread wild conspiracies about Michigan voter tampering in order to fraudulently fundraise off claims that were “demonstrably false and based on misleading information and illogical conclusions.”
The GOP-led committee took nearly 30 hours of testimony from 90 individuals over the course of nine committee hearings, and also subpoenaed thousands of pages of documents.
The withering Michigan rebuke is reminiscent of Arizona Republican election officials who have strenuously denounced the charade “audit” that Trump conspiracists have been conducting for months there with no end in sight. (Most recently, they transported Arizona voting system data to a secret hideout in Montana.)
"This is insane just from a competence standpoint,” Arizona Republican Stephen Richer recently told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. "I mean, there is no good reason for doing this.” Added former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R): “I think they should maybe just call it quits. I don’t think that it’s going to serve any purpose. It’s not going to change the election.”
The sweeping Michigan conclusions this week come as Trump loyalists there push for an Arizona-style ballot review.
Michigan became a hotbed of moronic, baseless elections claims just days after Trump lost the crucial state by more than 150,000 votes: Absentee ballots were sent out illegally! Dead people cast votes all over the state! Biden mysteriously won 100,000 votes the morning after the election! Poll watchers were blocked from watching absentee voter counting! Video proved absentee ballots were smuggled into the Detroit counting center!
All of those claims were quickly debunked and Trump never stood a chance of overturning Biden’s comfortable margin of victory. Yet Trump persisted, pressing the Michigan Republican Party to delay the state’s certification of Biden’s obvious win, simply as a way to muddy the waters and raise doubts about voter integrity nationwide. The destructive delay strategy almost worked. But then Aaron Van Langevelde, a Republican serving on Michigan’s board of canvassers, refused to go along with the bullying and voted to certify Biden’s win. “We must not attempt to exercise power we simply don’t have,” Van Langevelde said.
Today, the last thing Fox News wants to report on are detailed findings from Republicans who dismiss the “stolen” election programming that Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda network has been churning out for months. In fact, “In the two weeks after Fox News called the election for Biden, Fox News cast doubt on the results of the election at least 774 times,” according to Media Matters. “The network’s most prominent figures relentlessly attempted to subvert democracy by fueling conspiracy theories and spreading misinformation, rhetoric for which the network has refused to hold them accountable.”
And it continues to this day. Tucker Carlson recently insisted, “So many people are lying at such high volume about the 2020 election, it's hard to know exactly what happened.” Not surprisingly, nearly nine-in-ten Republicans who trust Fox News the most overwhelmingly support the stolen election conspiracy theory.
Don’t look for Michigan Oversight Committee Republicans to be invited on Tucker Carlson’s show anytime soon.
🪖GOOD STUFF:
From a Congressional hearing yesterday:
❤️ FUN STUFF — BECAUSE WE ALL NEED A BREAK
Jackson Browne, “My Cleveland Heart”
49 years (!) after his debut album, Jackson releases a new album next month, and this wonderful, catchy rock sing-along is one of the first singles. It’s also one of Browne’s best in many years. And yes, it makes sense for a man his age to be singing about heart replacements. The whole thing is a hoot, complete with the music video featuring a cameo from Phoebe Bridgers, who’s been featured on PRESS RUN.
I'm going to make a few changes right away
The way I leap and the way I fall
The way I need somebody else's eyes to see me
The way I need anyone at all
But I expect the real changes to start
When I finally get my Cleveland Heart
They're made to take a bashing
And never lose their passion
🎙 Click here to listen to the music that’s been featured on PRESS RUN, via a Spotify playlist.
Click hereto listen via Apple Music.
Share this post