There were 1,500 souls in Garfield County, but 1,800 votes.

There was “no widespread proof of voter fraud,” just enough to trigger a thorough recount that flipped the election results.

The 1990s classic, “Black Sheep,” starring Chris Farley as the ne’er-do-well younger brother of a candidate for governor of Washington State, anticipated Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and the 2026 election.

The fictional two-term governor, played by Christine Ebersole, feels her hold on power slipping away. Farley’s character is a good punching bag, and his many public missteps keep the race close.

But the governor has one more lever to pull. She can’t raise the dead, exactly, but she can stuff the ballot box with their votes.

If there is a moral to the story, it’s that voter rolls matter. Bloated voter rolls lead to bloated vote tallies, stretched beyond possibility.

In the movies, kernels of proof lead to statewide recounts. But when is the last time you’ve seen that happen in Michigan? The best time—the only time—to catch voter fraud is before it happens. And the best way is by thinning the bloated voter rolls that fraud thrives on. The ecosystem for fraud must be killed off.

As Michigan approaches a 2026 election that Benson will administer while appearing at the top of the ballot, Sen. Aric Nesbitt, a Republican contender for the governor’s office, has asked the feds to take over.

That request comes at the perfect time. Going into Election Day 2024, Benson had 500,000 more people registered to vote in Michigan than Michigan has voting-age adults. It’s only gotten worse in recent months.

Enjoyer colleague Anna Hoffman reports that Michigan’s voter rolls have grown nearly 10% in four months, just between July and October.

For a state of 10 million that’s either growing slowly or shrinking, where did Jocelyn Benson find 750,000 new voters in just four months?

History says that answer traces back to ERIC, the Electronic Registration Information Center. Benson enrolled Michigan in ERIC her first week in office, and pays it $20,000 of taxpayer money every year to take our voter rolls.

ERIC’s cover story is that the multi-state voter roll-sharing effort helps states cull their rolls by removing duplicates.

But that’s only a fraction of ERIC’s focus. ERIC spends most of its energy identifying “eligible but unregistered” voters in member states. Once identified, ERIC member states are required to reach out to these people.

On the brink of the 2020 election, Benson said ERIC identified 700,000 eligible but unregistered voters.

That’s nearly 10% of the 2020 vote tally in Michigan, found on the eve of Election Day.

“The postcard to eligible but unregistered voters is being sent in coordination with the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which is used by states across the country to ensure the accuracy of their voter registration lists,” Benson wrote in a Sept. 2020 press release.

That release included a quote from ERIC founder David Becker, which praised Benson for “following best practices utilized in both red and blue states.”

It noted that Becker now led the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

The very next month, Becker’s center gave $12 million to Benson’s nonprofit. Benson used it to buy commercials featuring herself.

Over the years, Benson has felt no need to address the appearance of impropriety between herself and Becker. Nobody in the Lansing media has bothered to ask about it.

Lawmakers considered pulling the funding for ERIC in the 2026 budget, but Republicans did not ultimately have the votes.

As Election Day 2026 approaches, lawmakers should relitigate the condition of its voter rolls and its relationship with ERIC.

If ERIC is supposed to thin Michigan’s voter rolls, why are they so fat?

James David Dickson is host of the James Dickson Podcast and an enjoyer of Michigan. Join him in conversation on X at@downi75.

This week, Coach Sherrone Moore was fired for an “inappropriate relationship” with a woman who worked for him.

Then there were (allegedly) knives, and threats, and a multi-day stay for Moore in the Washtenaw County Jail. In the 146 years of Michigan Football, Sherrone Moore is the undisputed crashout king.

Thirty years ago, Michigan faced a similar embarrassment.

In April 1995, Coach Gary Moeller and his wife were at a Southfield restaurant when the coach had too many drinks. When the Southfield police showed up, he punched a cop in the chest.

Moeller was arrested and had a brief stay at Oakland County Jail.

“Do you know how embarrassing this is?” Moeller said to the police. “I want to keep this thing from my kids. I don’t want my kids to see me that way.”

We haven’t gotten the transcript from Moore’s crashout, but it will someday emerge.

After Moeller was fired, Lloyd Carr was elevated from assistant to interim head coach.

During the 1995 season, Carr was hired and had the interim label removed. And in 1997, he won the first National Championship at Michigan in 50 years.

Moore does not have such a coach on his staff.

So Michigan will dip into the transfer portal for a replacement. This will entail a buyout and the hiring of a new staff, who will need to keep the 2026 recruiting class together.

Sherrone Moore and Gary Moeller had the whole world in their hands. And a lack of self-control cost them everything.

But on Election Day, Slotkin won by less than 20,000 votes. With that loss, Michigan Republicans hit a dubious and historic mark in 2024 — a 30-year streak since they last elected a Republican senator from Michigan.

Not since Spence Abraham beat Democrat Bob Carr in 1994 has a Republican won a U.S. Senate race. We have had Republicans win governor, attorney general, and Secretary of State in the time since, but not senator.

Not in 10 cycles — 1996, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2020, or 2024. In the 2000 race, Abraham lost his seat to Debbie Stabenow. Not even incumbency was enough of an advantage.

So Rogers is running it back in 2026. And this time everything is different. Especially timing.

Over the Christmas and New Years season, Americans for Prosperity-Michigan will drop a six-figure ad spent touting Rogers’ record. Last year, Americans for Prosperity Action didn’t start helping Rogers until late July.

AFP-Michigan believes that Rogers’ background as a lawmaker recommends him for a return to Washington. They cite his support for tax cuts and for policies that would put a lid on Washington spending and the regulatory state.

“Michigan families work hard,” the 30-second ad begins. “But the harder they work, the more everything costs.”

The ad casts Washington partisanship and government action for stubbornly-high prices that will not budge.

Since joining the U.S. Senate in January, Slotkin has been focused solely on politics. She was last seen telling the U.S. military to disregard “illegal orders” from President Donald Trump, even as she admits no such illegal orders have been given.

Slotkin’s direct-to-camera videos rarely touch on the pocketbook issues affecting Michiganders most, such as high taxes and runaway spending. For Slotkin, it’s been all Trump, all the time.

Rogers is hoping to capitalize on Michigan’s buyer’s remorse for sending Slotkin to Washington.

The Democrat field in 2026 is weak. Abdul El-Sayed once raised the specter of dragging Republicans into the mud and choking them out — not sure how that will lower prices for anyone.

Watching the Watchdogs

Kevin Kijewski didn't start the fire

Abdul El-Sayed calls himself a doctor, even though he never obtained a medical license, and never practiced medicine. The Michigan media used to talk about this years ago, but doesn’t anymore…

Read more

7 months ago · 1 like · James David Dickson

Mallory McMorrow’s entire career owes to one big speech in 2022. When the Democrats gave her a starring role at the 2024 Democrat National Convention, McMorrow’s thirst got the best for her, and her lizard tongue is all anybody remembers.

And Congresswoman Haley Stevens has struggled in every aspect of her Senate campaign.

Stevens was supposed to be the voice of reason in a field of far-leftists. But all she has been is boring.

All signs point to a stronger cycle for Rogers, who believes that if he can get 85% of his vote tally from 2024, he will win.

Where were you?

When a Lego set was used to depict the battleships at Pearl Harbor?

Subscribe now

On Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) was attacked by the Japanese.

This was the last push America’s leaders needed before entering World War II. But there was a problem: News stories told you how bad the attack was, but words only go so far. With every aspect of society upturned by the war, it was helpful to get people riled up about why they were fighting.

America needed something it could see and feel. So the Naval Photographic Center created a reenactment of what the attack looked like.

Two, actually.

One version is copied above. Another simulation, linked from the National Archives, takes things a step further.

As the Archives explain: “Fires and explosions are seen on scale models of the battleship and airplanes, sailors and bomb trucks are shown as they moved near the smoke and debris, two aircraft are seen in flight, and the wing of a Japanese airplane is shown as it burned.”

Yes, they used scale models.

As we debate the appropriate use of Artificial Intelligence, let this be a reminder: AI is only trying to approximate the cleverness of the human mind.

Before Sam Altman and Elon Musk created make-believe with computers, the U.S. military created make-believe by playing with Lego versions of “battleships, airplanes, sailors and bomb trucks.”

There is nothing new under the sun.

Watch the Lego simulation here:

Actual footage of the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, taken the day after the attack, does exist.

Check it out here.

This morning, a dear friend asked me: Ohio State or Indiana? She was referring to the Big Ten Championship Game tonight between the Buckeyes and the Hoosiers.

As a Michigan man — and as an historian — there is only one right answer here: Indiana.

In 1805, the Michigan Territory was crafted from Indiana’s rib. We’re the Eve to its Adam.

Thirty years later, in 1835, Michigan and Ohio went to the brink of war over the Toledo Strip. Things got so heated that a Michigan sheriff was stabbed, Territorial Governor Stevens T. Mason was fired by President Andrew Jackson, and Michigan’s bid for statehood wasn’t granted until 1837.

The Wolverines and Buckeyes started competing in football 60 years after Michigan statehood, and have never stopped. (And as we learned last week, the Wolverine, Buckeye and Hoosier nicknames predate college sports by decades.)

This choice is an easy one for any Michigan fan, or even a Michigan State fan.

One state, Indiana, is our Adam.

The other state, Ohio, is our bitter rival.

When Ohio State and Indiana play, there can be only one rooting option. Give me the Hoosiers any day. And twice on Saturday.

A July 1835 story in the Cleveland Herald shows that the nicknames of several Big Ten schools also have ancient roots.

Ohio went by the Buckeyes. Indiana by the Hoosiers (spelled Hoshers by that editor), and Michigan by the Wolverines.

In Sept. 1836, the Greene County Gazette in Ohio reprinted a report from the Chicago American:

“The ladies of Wisconsin have determined and decreed that now and ever hereafter they will be known as “Hawk Eyes!’ Look out for your chickens, neighbor ‘Wolverines.’ The ‘Suckers’, ‘Hoosiers’ and ‘Buckeyes’ must also be on the alert.

Wisconsin shares a border with Iowa, whose football team goes by the Hawkeyes.

The editor of the Milwaukee Advertiser rejected the Hawkeyes moniker for Wisconsin, and preferred its ancestral nickname: Badgers.

According to Football Stassen, the Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Wisconsin Badgers football game dates back to 1906, and has been played annually since 1937.

The Michigan Wolverines nickname owes to the Toledo War of 1835. Michigan and Ohio newspapers both make several mentions of the Michigan Wolverines and their ferocity as a militia.

When we refer to the Michigan Wolverines, that’s a nickname for the strength and stridency of the militia raised to protect the Toledo Strip from Ohio’s encroachments.

After some skirmishes, and bloodshed from a Monroe County Sheriff Joseph Wood, Washington intervened and ended the conflict. But war wounds linger.

A Jan. 1836 report in the Greene County Gazette hailed the creation of a new Toledo newspaper, the Toledo Blade.

“It is anti-wolverine up to the gage, and it is no matter of surprise that it should be so,” wrote the Gazette.

It’s common for Ohio State football players, and Ohio State fans, to sing “We don’t give a damn for the whole state of Michigan.”

That sentiment is nearly 200 years old, and owes to the Toledo War. Before it involved pigskin, it involved men with pens. Before it involved men with pens, it involved men with guns.

“We wish the proprietors of the Blade every success — and that, in defending the interests of Ohio in particular, and our common country in general—that

Their Toledo trusty,

For want of fighting may not grow rusty.”

Ever since The War That Wasn’t, Ohioans have been spoiling for the rematch.

Football is war by other means, and The Game is the Toledo War by other means.

Which is to say: Go Blue, Beat Ohio. For the 5th straight time.

History was made this week when the U.S. Treasury printed the last penny.

The penny was the first currency printed by the U.S. Mint in 1793. President Abraham Lincoln has been the face of the penny since 1909.

But as the U.S. Mint explains, pennies aren’t cheap. The Mint claims there are 300 billion pennies still in circulation, more than enough to meet the needs of commerce.

“Over the past decade, the cost of producing each penny has risen from 1.42 cents to 3.69 cents per penny,” the Mint says.

And now, it’s all over.

Lincoln’s face is still on the $5 bill.

Is the end of the penny the beginning of the end of hard money?

HERE RESTS IN

HONORED GLORY

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER

KNOWN BUT TO GOD

—The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 1921

On Nov. 11, 1921, the funeral was held for the Unknown Soldier of World War I. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated that day, and has been honored every Veterans Day since.

We tend to think that the world we grew up with has existed forever. Let this footage remind you that there was a day before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier existed — it was Nov. 10, 1921.

May we do our part to not add to his number.

Subscribe now

On this day in 1901, Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of President William McKinley, was put to death in the electric chair.

Czolgosz, who was born in Detroit and attended Detroit Public Schools, became a household name on Sept. 6 when he shot McKinley at the Pan-Am Expedition in Buffalo.

McKinley died about a week later after the wound got infected.

Justice came swift. After a brief trial, Czolgosz was sentenced to death by electrocution.

Few people get to witness government executions. But after the assassination of its president, the American people wanted to see it.

Inventor Thomas Edison answered the public’s curiosity. He honored America’s need to see Leon Czolgosz fry for what he did. The eye-for-an-eye of it serves an ancient and psychic need within us.

We are not above it, all these years later. Consider the celebrations in May 2011, when Osama bin Laden was killed for 9/11.

In partnership with Michigan Enjoyer, I am proud to present the definitive account of how the 2020 election was fortified in Michigan for Joe Biden. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson plays a starring role.

If you’ve ever wondered how Donald Trump lost to a man who rarely left his basement, here’s how. Read the full story at the Michigan Enjoyer. But here’s the Cliff Notes version.

• Democrat turnout machine supercharged by $12M in Zuckerbucks for Benson’s non-profit. This is used to buy ads featuring Benson’s face, telling voters of their options to vote by mail.

• Benson sends absentee ballot applications to every registered voter in Michigan, not just the active voters. That would be a much smaller list. In 2024, Michigan had 500,000 more registered voters than it did citizens of voting age. Benson keeps bloated rolls purposely inflated.

• Benson’s edict to election clerks: Presume that absentee ballots are valid, whether or not the signatures match. Count every vote. Whether or not it came from a real person. If it comes in, count it. Don’t verify, just certify.

  History of Michigan Politics is supported by readers like you. Consider a paid subscription. And if you like what you read, please share it with a friend.

The Michigan politician got snubbed that day, because of course he did.

Sen. Phil Hart’s name graced the immigration reform bill that would change America forever. But President Lyndon Johnson never mentioned him at the Oct. 3, 1964 bill signing of Hart-Celler.

On this podcast, I will give the late Sen. Hart the credit that LBJ did not, by talking about his role in the making of modern Dearborn.

I’ll also discuss LBJ’s role in the breakdown of modern Detroit. The family is the first institution God created.

How did the black family go from a source of strength in the 1950s to a tragic tale in the 1960s? Stay tuned. In 15 minutes I go from A to Z and break it all down.

This episode is the first of a series called “Nation of Strangers.”

Other episodes in the “Nation of Strangers” series will include:

• Ronald Reagan believed in ‘immigrant exceptionalism,’ and gave us amnesty

• The two white guys who made Dearborn an Arab city: Hart, and longtime Dearborn mayor Orville Hubbard. Hart was a Democrat and Hubbard was a Republican. They were different men, with different aims. But both played a hand in the changing face of Dearborn from the whites-only city was in 1965 to the Arab-dominated city it is in 2025.

• Great Replacement Weary: How the rise of illegal immigration owes to Hart-Cellar

• Fear of a Black Family: How LBJ broke up the black family while reuniting foreign families. Coupled with the rise of abortion, this moves Replacement from conspiracy theory to tragic reality. Replacement is a policy objective of the Democrat Party. If Replacement stops or fails, there will not be a Democrat Party.

Over at Michigan Enjoyer, my friend and colleague Anna Hoffman considers the plight of modern Michigan: “How Michigan’s Rebrand as a Marijuana Capital Hurts Families.”

Hoffman writes:

In 2018, Michigan voted to legalize marijuana. The first recreational dispensaries opened in 2019, just before Covid.

We didn’t know it then, but not only would our state be shut down and slowly reopened over the next year, but that among other cultural changes, Michigan would rebrand as a dystopian weed farm.

One of the many hidden consequences of lockdowns was a rapid influx of cash to growers and a quick proliferation of dispensaries.

Somehow, in the 2020s, humble Michigan has come to resemble Humboldt, California. Somehow, Michigan has become the state most affiliated with legal marijuana.

Things have gotten so out of hand that Detroit banned pot billboards within eyeshot of schools. Things have gotten so bad that Indiana banned pot billboards at its border with Michigan.

Michigan consumes more pot per capita than California, if you can imagine it. You can’t hardly drive a freeway in Michigan without seeing advertisements for impossibly low-priced weed.

If you want to find a $49 ounce, drive down I-94.

Michiganders are unpredictable in our politics. In the first two presidential elections where Michigan could vote, the same two men appeared on the ballot. We supported Democrat Martin Van Buren in 1836, and Whig William Henry Harrison in 1840.

FDR won the presidency four times, but only won Michigan three times. Donald Trump ran for president three times. The two times he won, he won Michigan. The one time he lost, he lost Michigan.

In Michigan, our politics are like our weather: Wait five minutes and they will change.

You might know that Michigan was an early adopter of alcohol prohibition.

Our booze ban predates the 18th Amendment, and started on May 1, 1918.

Michigan was also the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment.

But did you know that Michigan has tried the “noble experiment” twice, and that the first attempt pre-dates the Civil War?

In Jan. 1855, not yet 20 years into statehood, Michigan banned booze. That lasted through June 1875.

Though Michigan’s first prohibition was widely considered a flop, we tried it again 43 years after repeal. These are the hazards of failing to learn from history — you tend to repeat the mistakes of old.

It’s the height of irony that 100 years after Michigan banned booze, we legalized pot.

A modest rollback in our attitude has already come. Not just from stories like Anna’s, and not just from the many complaints about stores and playgrounds that smell skunky.

But in policy, too.

This month, Michigan lawmakers passed and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the 2026 budget. It includes a 24% tax on wholesale marijuana — B2B sales between growers and dispensaries. This is not the same as a retail tax hike, which customers would feel. But it might mean that the days of the $49 ounce are numbered.

What’s your read on Michigan’s wishy-washy history of prohibition? How did Michigan go from ‘twice dry’ to always high?

Where prohibition is concerned, why do the people of Michigan not let their yea be yea, and their nay be nay?

Beware what you accept as temporary, during an emergency.

Temporary circumstances have a habit of lasting forever. New Normals pop up while we are distracted and fearful due to emergencies.

I say that to say: Did you know that the Michigan State Police were supposed to be temporary?

Prior to America’s entry into World War I in April 1917, the closest thing Michigan had to state troops was the Michigan National Guard.

But with a Great War on, the Michigan guard was called into service. This created problem and an opportunity: Who would protect Michigan?

As an Associated Press report (copied above) explains:

“Plans have been perfected for the organization of the Michigan state troops whose duty it will be to take the place of the militia during the period of the war and act as a state patrol to preserve order and protect property within the state while the national guardsmen are serving their country elsewhere.”

The state troops were meant to take the place of the Michigan National Guard “during the period of the war.”

But their mission was expanded from the guard’s old job. They would also “act as a state patrol to preserve order and protect property within the state.”

An attempt was made in 1919 to end the duty of the temporary Michigan state troops, but it failed.

In March 1919, two years after the Michigan state troops were sworn in as a temporary measure, they were fortified into a permanent organization.

Once again, there was mission creep — now the state police would be Michigan’s prohibition patrol.

Michigan’s second attempt at prohibition kicked off on May 1, 1918.

“Its biggest job has been enforcing the prohibition law,” reported the AP.

In just under two years, Michigan State Police went from a temporary, wartime Band-Aid to a permanent police force controlled by the governor.

Col. Roy Vandercook, who conceived the temporary force and then led it, was tapped to lead the Michigan State Police. See the story copied below.

And that’s how quickly the temporary becomes permanent. All it takes a combination of emergency circumstance, political ambition, and fear.

Beware next time you hear those words, “temporary” and “emergency.”

On this day in 1910 — 115 years ago — the Italians of Detroit placed a bust of Christopher Columbus downtown.

418 years earlier, in 1492, Oct. 12 is when Columbus reached the New World. As you may have learned from watching The Sopranos, they still take their Columbus pride seriously.

Nobody had much of a problem with Columbus until the Black Lives Matter movement started in the 2010s. It died for a few years, but was revived after George Floyd overdosed in police custody on May 25, 2020. Memorial Day.

Overnight, protests popped up all across America, in a fashion too organized and too uniform to be organic. Detroit got them too.

A month after Floyd’s death, Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, pulled down the bust of Christopher Columbus. He said he was uncomfortable with its prominence, being so close to Detroit City Hall.

In reality, Duggan was bending to activist pressure — the same pressures that led Massachusetts to the brink of changing its state flag.

A chief executive should be a steady hand. He should be a guardian of history. He should not act in the heat of the moment.

Mike Duggan should have enough sense to be embarrassed to let George Floyd’s overdose lead to the eviction of Christopher Columbus. If History of Michigan Politics existed in 2020, this incident would have qualified for a History Intervention.

In June 2020, Duggan proved he’s not a guardian of anything, except his own electoral prospects. Turns out he’s just another self-interested politician.

And now he’s running to be governor of Michigan.

This 1939 film is called “Discover Michigan this year: World’s Finest Playground.”

Ford Motor Company produced the 7-minute film, which I found at the National Archives. I am proud to report that Michigan looks as gorgeous on black-and-white film as it does in technicolor.

Enjoy.

Here is how the video and its elements are were described:

“Dynamic Detroit is the gateway to Michigan for 60% of all visitors entering the state.”

Aerial views of countryside, Detroit, River Rouge, and Detroit River.

“Greenfield village and the Ford Rotunda are visited by almost 1,500,000 tourists every year.”

Aerial panorama of Greenfield Village - horse-drawn carriage driving down street in Greenfield Village - stopping, footman helping women out of carriage - aerial view of Ford Rotunda.

“The southern peninsula of Michigan, a gigantic mitten, rises above the blue waters of three of the Great Lakes. Here are thousands of inland lakes and miles of crystal streams; a western guard of yellow dunes that softens the winds of Lake Michigan; forests of the hardwoods and pine, the homes of innumerable wild creatures -- all of these at the doorstep of great metropolitan areas.”

People on ferry crossing stream - panorama of hilly forest area - panorama of bathing beach - forest scenery - people on bridge in woods - boys walking toward stream - sitting on bank fishing. “Michigan’s northern peninsula, flanked by the largest of the Great Lakes, Michigan, Superior, and Huron, is a wonderland of legend and awesome beauty - mountains, crystal lakes, virgin forests tumbling waterfalls, gigantic dunes, towering cliffs…these make up the Land of Hiawatha.”

Views of waterfalls - high cliffs - children walking on beach - cars parked in lot by beach - trout fisherman - man in rowboat fishing - close-up - old man walking into farmyard.

The Bay State is beset by an activist-led, politican-approved effort to change a state flag whose elements date back to 1629. This is wrong and it shouldn’t happen, and I said so, both in the New York Post and on my podcast.

Did you know that Michigan could have made the same mistake — and recently?

In 2023, Ohio native Phil Skaggs, now a Democrat state rep for East Grand Rapids, had a bright idea: Michigan should change its flag and Great Seal, which were designed by Lewis Cass.

Nothing was wrong with the flag that Skaggs or anyone else could articulate. No Native Americans were harmed in the making of this flag, as is the claim in Massachusetts, as was the claim in Minnesota.

There’s no Confederate icons on the flag, like in Mississippi.

“We know how important symbols are. Michigan is a great and unique state, it deserves a great and unique flag,” Skaggs said at the time.

Our flag, and the Great Seal it is based on, is a thing of beauty. It features a bald eagle, a moose, and elk, the water, and a man with a gun.

Here’s how Michigan law describes it:

A flag could hardly get any more Michigan that that. And maybe that was the problem for Phil Skaggs.

Skaggs was born on May Day 1968 in Ohio. As an Ohio man, Skaggs is the last person who should be entrusted with the symbols of our state. He is the last lawmaker who should be consulted on any such change.

Yet there he was, leading the process. Fortunately, by the end of their two years in power, the Lansing Democrats could hardly agree on a lunch order, let alone changing the Great Seal.

When Democrats say there are after “fundamental change,” believe them. They never said things would improve — just that they would change.

There was no need to change Michigan’s flag, and no viable designs resulted from the attempt. This was an exercise in ego.

The only way a Phil Skaggs makes it into the same sentence with a Lewis Cass is if Phil Skaggs rips Lewis Cass’s page out of the history book.

Congrats, Phil: You got the attention you wanted.

But history demands greater stewardship of Michigan’s legacy than any Ohio man can offer. The ruling of this history intervention is that Michigan’s flag is already great.

And if we should change anything, find a way to add a wolverine.

Efforts are afoot to change the state flag, driven by white guilt and activist pressure.

This cannot stand. As owner of History of Michigan Politics, I am staging a History Intervention…

Read more

Czolgosz had little life success and a spotty work history. He saw the killing of McKinley as doing his anarchist duty. Czolgosz did not hear the voice of God in his head. He heard the voice of Emma Goldman, the most infamous anarchist in America at the time.

In Sept. 2025, Charlie Kirk was slain by an assassin named Tyler Robinson. Robinson was raised with God and guns in the Mormon church, but was turned out by queer theory. The training of his youth was perverted to turn him into a killer.

Robinson did not hear the voice of God in his head. He heard the voices of friends who told him that Biblical truth -- “Male and female, He created them” -- was hateful, and those who speak it pose a clear and present danger.

Weakness and softness is the common thread between the two assassins.

This is not just a tale of two Septembers, or two assassins. It’s a tale of two influences -- Emma Goldman, and queer theory.

And it’s a tale of two fathers: Paul Czolgosz, who may have been a killer himself. And Matt Robinson, who turned his murderous son in to authorities.

Parents, your work is not done when your kid hits 18. Fathers, as you hear the stories of Czolgosz and Robinson, you should hear God’s voice asking: “Adam, where are you?”

Experts took a deep dive into his history. In 1902, a doctor named Walter Channing wrote a report called “The Mental Status of Leon Czolgosz.”

Inside is a detail mostly overlooked by history: Leon Czolgosz, the presidential assassin, may have been the son of a killer.

Channing’s report touches on Leon’s father, Paul Czolgosz. During his review of the family history, Channing notes that while in Rogers City, “a man named Molitor” rode hard on his workers.

That man’s name was Albert Molitor, and he’s a co-founder of Rogers City.

By all accounts, Albert Molitor was a bad guy who made a lot of enemies. As a story on the Presque Isle County Historical Museum site explains:

“Molitor was known to be a bit of a philanderer. Rumors spread that he would target his employees’ wives and daughters, who hesitated to turn down his advances for fear they’d lose the only income supporting their families.”

This was long before we had laws against sex discrimination in America. Stories like this showed why we need them.

In Aug. 1875, Molitor was shot; the historical museum says “fifteen or twenty shot had struck him, fired from at least two different guns.”

Whoever shot Molitor wanted him dead. They got their wish. Molitor died from his injuries at age 33.

Here’s what Channing says about Molitor, and the connection between him and Paul Czolgosz.

“He [Czolgosz] worked at one time in Michigan with many others for a man named Molitor who tyrannized over them. Molitor was finally killed by his workmen. The newspapers have stated that Paul Czolgosz was one of them. The son Waldeck claims that the father was not in Rogers City when Molitor was killed.”

Channing’s report includes a mugshot-style photo of Paul Czolgosz, taken in 1902.

In the front-facing photo, the first thing you notice is Paul’s hands. They’re the hands of a working man, battered by years of labor.

Just right of his tie, on the lapel of his coat, Paul wears a medallion with the image of his son.

You might expect the family of a presidential to distance themselves from the killer. But Leon Czolgosz’s family wore his face around proudly.

Channing writes: “He [Paul] wears this only on his best clothes, but the son Waldeck wears a similar one constantly. I understand that it is customary with the Poles to wear this insignia of mourning.”

What if I told you that Thomas Edison made a film depicting the execution of a presidential assassin? It was one of the earliest films in American history.

When President William McKinley was slain in Sept. 1901, America was sad. And then mad.

How could one man — this man, Leon Czolgosz, of all people — get close enough to the President of the United States to shoot him twice?

When Czolgosz was transported from Buffalo, the scene of the crime, to the state prison in Auburn, New York, a mob of men hoped to intercept the assassin before he could be sentenced to death.

They didn’t get him, and Czolgosz was ultimately zapped on the electric chair.

In pro wrestling there is a rule: If it didn’t happen on TV, it didn’t happen. Kids today say “pics or it didn’t happen.” Both sayings speak to our want for verification, for proof, for something we can see with our own eyes.

An execution in some faraway prison, in a town you’ve never heard of, is not satisfying.

Thomas Edison filled this hole in the market — if not the hole in the American soul — by producing a depiction, a simulation, of Czolgosz’s electric chair execution.

We see the Auburn Prison, large and forboding, with a train running past.

Leon Czolgosz loved to ride the train. The trip from Buffalo to Auburn was his last.

If Czolgosz is the star of the film, the Auburn Prison gets the most lines. Edison spends a good chunk of the 3:30 film showing a panorama view of the prison.

Now we’re inside its brick walls, with a portion of Czolgosz’s cell on the left end of the screen. Four officers march to the cell. One opens the door and the other three stand to its right.

The officer who opened the cell retrieves Czolgosz. He and another man book-end the prisoner, and the other two guards follow.

Now we’re in the execution room, and the electric chair is in the center of the screen. Three prison officials stare at it, in awe.

The four guards enter from right, and the two holding Czolgosz place him in the chair. While one puts the electric helmet on his head, the others strap Czolgosz in.

Two of the men lean forward, as if to say something to the strapped-in Czolgosz. This being a silent film, we can only imagine what they’re saying.

A man with a mustache gives a signal, and another man seems to flip a switch behind a door. Czolgosz heaves and jerks a bit, but this looks more like a man taking deep breaths than an electrocution.

Doctors take Czolgosz’s vitals, and there are none. The presidential assassin is dead.