Big League Censorship? Michigan Attorney General Threatens Criminal Prosecution Over Posting Of Video Alleging Voter Fraud

I have been commenting on the ongoing challenges to the presidential election. While I have not seen evidence of systemic voter fraud, there are hundreds of affidavits alleging localized fraud, including cases of deceased persons voting. The challenges should be heard and the evidence should be examined. However, the most worrisome response came out of Michigan this week where Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Office of Public Information threatened a website, Big League Politics, with criminal prosecution if it did not take down a video of alleged voting fraud. The video may indeed be misleading or false. However, the threat of criminal prosecution by the Michigan Attorney General’s office is a chilling escalation of the crackdown on free speech in this country and the calls for censorship on the Internet.

We have been discussing the calls from top Democrats for increased private censorship on social media and the Internet.  President-elect Joe Biden has himself called for such censorship, including blocking President Donald Trump’s criticism of mail-in voting. Recently, Bill Russo, a deputy communications director on Biden’s campaign press team, tweeted that Facebook “is shredding the fabric of our democracy” by allowing such views to be shared freely.

The calls mirror the trend in Europe where countries like France, Germany, and England have criminalized speech with ever expanding examples of prohibited expressions and views.

The Cease and Desist letter instructs the site to remove all posts, links, and anything similar immediately which correspond with #LeakDetroit.” Assistant Attorney General Danielle Hagaman-Clark states that “failure to comply will result in criminal prosecution.” There is no citation for the penal code provision that makes such an allegation or posting a crime, a standard element in such notice letters.

The letter refers to  false information about how poll workers counted challenged votes prior to 2020 and whether challenged ballots could be taken out of the official count. Again, the claims could well be misleading or false, but I fail to see the ability of Nessel to criminalize such assertions. Political campaigns are often replete with exaggerated claims on both sides.

As have previously discussed how the Supreme Court in cases like United States v. Alvarez has repeatedly found such criminalization of alleged speech to be unconstitutional. The position reminds me of the English view that speaking ill of the government must be prohibited. As the Court held in Alvarez:

The theory of our Constitution is “that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market,” Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting). The First Amendment itself ensures the right to respond to speech we do not like, and for good reason. Freedom of speech and thought flows not from the beneficence of the state but from the inalienable rights of the person. And suppression of speech by the government can make exposure of falsity more difficult, not less so. Society has the right and civic duty to engage in open, dynamic, rational discourse. These ends are not well served when the government seeks to orchestrate public discussion through content-based mandates.

Justice Breyer noted in his concurrence in Alvarez that our constitutional protections comport with “the common understanding that some false statements are inevitable if there is to be an open and vigorous expression of views in public and private conversation, expression the First Amendment seeks to guarantee.” Likewise, in New York Times v. Sullivan, the Court noted that “[the] erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate.”.

Lord Chief Justice John Holt, in a 1704 sedition trial, said it was absurd that speakers and writers “should not be called to account for possessing the people with an ill-opinion of the government, no government can subsist.  For it is very necessary for all governments that the people should have a good opinion of it.”

The calls for censorship and criminalization of speech have become a rallying cry for liberals in the United States. Even academics now embrace speech codes and censorship. The erosion of free speech on social media and the Internet includes calls from leading Democratic leaders for years to implement private censorship of political speech, a view supported by academics who have declared that “China was right” about censorship.  The concerns over Nessel’s threat are magnified by the fact that the allegation challenges the results of the elections favoring her own party and political allies. If such a posting is a crime, what would stop Nessel from prosecuting the New York Times or Fox News for such videos or alleged whistleblower evidence?

The threat of criminal prosecution should be immediately withdrawn by Nessel and her office.

 

298 thoughts on “Big League Censorship? Michigan Attorney General Threatens Criminal Prosecution Over Posting Of Video Alleging Voter Fraud”

  1. Wayne County Michigan 2 million

    Ballots were counted even though the voter’s name did not appear in the official voter rolls.
    Election workers were ordered to not verify voters’ signatures on absentee ballots, to backdate absentee ballots, and to process such ballots regardless of their validity.
    Election workers processed ballots that appeared after the election deadline and falsely reported that those ballots had been received prior to November 3, 2020 deadline.
    Defendants used false information to process ballots, such as using incorrect or false birthdays. Many times, the election workers inserted new names into the QVF and recorded these new voters as having a birthdate of 1/1/1900.
    Defendants coached voters to vote for Joe Biden and the Democrat party. Election workers would go to the voting booths with voters to watch them vote and coach them for whom to vote.
    Unsecured ballots arrived at the TCF Center loading garage, not in sealed ballot boxes, without any chain of custody, and without envelopes.
    Defendants refused to record challenges to their processes and removed challengers from the site if they politely voiced a challenge.

    1. Everyone who cares about free speech should overload her office email,office phone,homephone if you can get it,the office avalanche of emails,phonecalls,tweets,videos of votefraud/crimes,massive snailmail avalanche.ACLU and EFF should be contacted by site operator.This is Illegal.Also,Massive FOIA requests involving her and whitmet on any relevant material pertaining to covd,looter arrests,anything!!Campaign funding is Always Ripe for research using FOIA.Pressure their fundingbase saying you will not support marxist,liars,dictators,and freespeech haters.Whitmer wanted to make buying seeds Illegal,but mandatory tracking chips implanted in her constituents Legal-truth,look it up!!!!

  2. Seems downright strange that these women believe they are able to act as Tyrannical Patriarchs simply because they are women instead of men. It does not work that way. Is anyone going to tell them? Most women I know are intelligent enough to understand that without being told. But these are the dark days of stupidity and corruption carried out by the DEMOCRATS.

  3. Welcome to the New “Banana Republic of the United States of America”. Wait for the next round with police.

  4. JT – it is false to assert that there are no claims of systemic rather than localized fraud.

    There are plenty of claims of systemic fraud.

    In a different post you noted that it is rare for recounts to change sufficient votes to alter the outcome of an election.

    That is true.

    It is also so rare it has never happened before for there to swings from election night to election morning of over a million votes nationwide.

    This and myriads of other FACTS – are not at this point proof of fraud – systemic or otherwise.

    But they are absolute proof that there are very legitimate questions.

    They are also proof of something much more important – that you are mostly on the wrong side of.

    We need much more secure elections. This has not been the first election decided on a razor’s edge and it will not be the last.

    The closer elections get the more important it is that we can trust the results.

    You write about your participation in election legal challenges as if we should all be reassured. We should not be.

    The standard for elections is not the absence of proveable fraud. It is the absence of possible fraud.

    We have the means to conduct elections such that the results can be trusted.

    To a small extent republicans – and to a large extent democrats have FOUGHT efforts to make elections more trustworthy.

    We knew that problems were coming with Mailin ballots and we did it anyway. Worse we deliberately weakened the few rules that constrained SOME of the fraud vectors for mail in ballots.

    Outside of the evidence of Project Vertitas regarding buying mailin votes in the Rep. Omar campaign, we have no other direct evidence of vote buying. At the same time mailin voting is designed to make buying votes trivial, impossible to correct and nearly impossible to detect.

    Even if buying votes did not occur in this election – we should be deathly afraid of the mere possibility and NEVER hold a mailin election again.

    Mailin elections are indefensibly insecure.

    One of the problems that the court is ultimately going to fact with this election is the same as with Bush V Gore.

    Elections are essentially a supra constitutional issue. While the constitution contains rules, the most important issue is that the losers of an election – though they disagree with the result, must beleive the election was conducted following the rules, and that those rules prevent fraud.

    Post 2016 the left challenged the legitimacy of the election – as we are all entitled to.

    They challenged the disconnect between the electoral college result and the popular vote result.
    We can debate the importance of that. Regardless a legitimate remedy exists – change the constitution and change the rules.
    There is no claim that Fraud was involved. Trump and the republican party did not create the electoral collage.

    They also made this russian interferance claim. That claim if true was NOT that Russia changed ballots but that they persuaded people to vote for Trump or against Clinton. There is no remedy for that even if Russia was actually effective, which they were not. Elections are about persuading voters,. Absent sticking a gun to their heads all forms of persuasion are legitimate.

    The mailin voting in 2020 poses a different problem. The means do not exist to assure voters that all legitimate ballots were counted and ONLY legitimate ballots. That no one bought votes, that no one voted for dead people, people from out of state or just people who chose not to vote. We can not know whether that occured – not now, and not in future elections.

    As the courts look at this they face a supra constitutional problem. The problem is bigger that whether the rules were followed. It is bigger than whether the law was followed. The fundimental issues is did our governors and in some cases legislatures impose on us elections that can not be trusted. That is not a problem that voters can correct. We can not amend the constitution, we can not vote in new govenors, we can not change the legislature – if we can not trust elections.

  5. The more the left idiotically tries to protect the election from scrutiny, the more norms and laws are violated or ignored – the more certain we should all be that the results are fraudulent.

    1. Sadly, You are right, the main stream media has perhaps irreversibly driven a schism in America four at least 4 YEARS! The best teaching book I have read to my children when they were young was “THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF” I guess the so called Journalists never read the book! I am afraid I don’t believe ANYTHING they report at all. When our freedoms are abused, provided by the Constitution, we will inevitably lose them. That’s what is unfolding before our eyes!

  6. Does Turley, the Democratic voter who is so easily offended by Democrats, ever get tired of being wrong? Jon, just get the Fox show you always wanted. You’re already sold your integrity to the right wing zealots ruining America

    1. Forget about the election, its time for revolution. And its long overdue. We are being played by both sides who continue the same agenda. Treasonous Obama deported twice as many as Trump. We are being scammed.
      Revolt you morons before country is destroyed by New World Odor, Military Industrial Complex, and millions of illegal aliens, criminals, rapists, and murderers.
      WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, SO TAKE OFF THE MASKS.

    2. You obviously don’t know that right wing zealots founded this country. Lol on you!

    3. In what way Lightening Dog 507 has America ever been ruined by our Constitution?

  7. “WASHINGTON — Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that a voting machine system “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,” he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election “was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence” any voting systems were compromised.

    The rebuke, in a statement by a coordinating council overseeing the voting systems used around the country, never mentioned Mr. Trump by name. But it amounted to a remarkable corrective to a wave of disinformation that Mr. Trump has been pushing across his Twitter feed.

    The statement was distributed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is responsible for helping states secure the voting process. Coming directly from one of Mr. Trump’s own cabinet agencies, it further isolated the president in his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election….”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/us/politics/election-officials-contradict-trump.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

    1. Dear Mr. Friday:

      On behalf of the Party, please allow me to salute you for your tireless efforts to combat the spread of dangerous disinformation. Reactionary elements seeking to undermine Party unity and prevent lasting change must be held accountable. Your commitment to Truth and Reconciliation is an inspiration to Party members everywhere.

      1. Party, the report above is about the Trump Administrations own DHS Cybersecurity judgement that there was no fraud in the recent election, so I’m not sure what ‘Party” you refer to. By the way, they join every GOP election official across the states who has commented in that judgement.

        1. Joe, please provide a reputable source. As you comrade Svelaz would say, you need to get out of your left wing bubble. Sulzberger, Bezos, et al published rags not even suited for your wife’s mattress protection pad

        2. Dear Mr. Friday:

          Again, the Party would like to commend you for your efforts. By redirecting vulnerable populations to Approved information channels you are an inspirational leader for disseminating Truth. We caution you against statements such as the one in your comment above that question the role of the Party in promoting national unity. Reactionary elements will exploit careless statements to sow division in our ranks. Please continue your good work. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed.

      1. Dear Commit to Honest Discussion:

        On behalf of the Party, please allow me to commend you on your tireless efforts to promote Truth and Unity. Redirecting vulnerable populations to Approved Information Channels is an effective tool for disseminating Truth. Through solidarity among our cadres, we will overcome the dangerous disinformation spread by those who seek to undermine Party unity. Together we will succeed in our goal of achieving Truth and Reconciliation. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed. Thank you.

        1. Dear Mx. Anonymous:

          Your views have been noted and will considered by the appropriate Authorities.

    2. It just depends on what the meaning of “is” is. Remember that? All downhill from there. How much fraud is really fraud? The safest election ever, they said. That is just plain crazy or misinformation of the highest degree.

      1. Prosecute her corrupt ass and all the people involved in trying to take away the fundamental right of American citizens!

  8. If they keep repeating it often enough, it will start to seem reasonable that we can’t spend Thanksgiving with our families.

  9. The court in *Alvarez* opined, “Society has the right and civic duty to engage in open, dynamic, rational discourse.“

    The operative word is “rational.” So much of today’s discourse is irrational. While I do not believe government should censor irrational speech, I do believe that people and private universities and any company should not provide a platform for irrational speech, e.g., Q-Anon. Those deranged individuals should be ignored and ridiculed, not listened by sensible people. It is a waste of time and an insult to one’s intelligence. I’m sure Turley would agree.

    Unfortunately, many religious beliefs are similarly irrational, e.g., Creationism, and yet many Evangelicals and I presume Hasidic Jews believe it should be taught in public schools along with Evolution. But saying otherwise is considered intolerant to “people of faith.” No, it is rather intolerance to sheer nonsense which should not be taught as an alternative to science in any school. Because if one can make oneself believe such utter nonsense, there is nothing that one cannot swallow- be it Q-Anon or Trumpism.

    1. “private universities and any company should not provide a platform for irrational speech, e.g., Q-Anon”

      A) Your personal definition of “irrational” is irrelevant to the right of free speech.

      B) If you don’t know that Q Anon is a PsyOp, then you’re just as gullible as anyone else who doesn’t know it is a PsyOp.

      C0 You have clearly demonstrated that you’re a useful idiot.

      1. Rationality is not subjective. Take a course in Logic to understand sound vs bogus arguments. Take a course in Epistemology to learn how to differentiate between facts which are *justified* true beliefs and opinion.

        1. “Rationality is not subjective”

          Rationality is following the evidence anywhere it leads.

          Evidence may be subjective. Therefore rationality also may be subjective.

          Which brings me back to the obvious fact that your personal opinion of what is, and what is not, “irrational”, has no bearing on what constitutes free speech.

          Your mindset is identical to the mindset of the people who accused Galileo of heresy.

          One mans normal is another mans paranormal based on experiential knowledge. So some guy named Jeffrey Silberman doesn’t get to determine what is, or what is not, allowable as free speech.

          1. This guy claiming to be Svelaz is just the local troll. You can tell by the style of writing. It’s childish.

    2. @JS – Agree completely. More examples of irrational- even dangerous – speech that should be deplatformed and the speakers punished:
      1. Calling for the tolerance of religious faith.
      2. Claiming that the wholesale slaughter of mostly unborn children is a fundamental human right.
      3. Asserting that the Obama/Biden administration was the most scandal free administration in history.
      4. Antifa (although that is actual violence, not speech).
      5. Claiming that certain speech is irrational and that the speakers should be deplatformed.
      6. Using the word deplatformed in a sentence.

  10. DHS says no election fraud.

    “WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Election security officials have no evidence that ballots were deleted or lost by voting systems in this month’s U.S. election, two security groups said in a statement released on Thursday by the lead U.S. cybersecurity agency.

    “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” the groups said about the Nov. 3 election won by Joe Biden, a Democrat.

    Republican President Donald Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud and has yet to concede.

    The groups, the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council Executive Committee (GCC) and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC), said the election was the most secure in U.S. history.

    “While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections and you should too,” the groups said in the statement released by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)….”

    1. The claim of no evidence of voter fraud is not the same as there is no voter fraud. Poll workers, mailman, computer workers have claimed fraud. Votes from dead people were submitted and counted. Also the legal principle Res Ipsa Loquitur (the thing itself speaks) comes into play.. If a pedestrian is struck by a hammer falling from the roof of a construction site, there may be no evidence as to who dropped it but the contractor is liable. Dems have a record of election dishonesty, think Chicago, think of the false attacks from the last election, think of their demand for unsolicited ballots to be mailed with no verification of the identity of the voter.

  11. Arizona called for Biden. Georgia still out there.

    That’s 290 EC votes, a 5 million vote lead nationally, and the biggest take down of an incumbent president by per-centage and vote since FDR beat Hoover(and including Reagan over Carter).

    More GOP senators are calling for Biden to receive Presidential Daily Briefings (Langford, Grassley, Graham, Collins) abd China congratulated President Elect Biden.

    Good times!

  12. Professor Turley, did you say, “Evidence?

    November 12, 2020
    Examining the code, internet geeks conclude ‘Trump’s win was yuuuge’
    By Nick Chase

    Around 1:30 in the morning of Nov. 4, when I went to bed, Trump was leading in the vote count in two Midwest swing states I was closely watching, Wisconsin — about 2%, and Michigan — about 3%, well on his way to an “unexpected” election victory nationwide.

    Around 4:30 A.M., I woke early and decided to catch up on the election results on my iPhone, being careful not to wake my wife. Imagine my surprise to see that, overnight, Trump’s lead had shrunk to less than 1% in Wisconsin and about 1.5% in Michigan. But what really startled me was that Biden’s raw vote total had increased substantially in both states, and Trump’s raw vote total had not changed at all!

    That is an enormous red flag for fraud being committed, and I knew right away that the Democrats, who had failed at dislodging Trump from office by impeachment, were now going to deny him victory by stealing the election. Further confirmation came when I saw the pictures and video of mystery bags and boxes being dragged into Detroit’s TCF Center at 4 A.M., followed by the windows in the room being boarded up and by the ejection of Republican poll-watchers.

    Well, the election theft appears to be complete, with the corrupt media declaring Biden president-elect, and lefties dancing in the streets (unmasked!) with joy.

    So I asked myself, by how much did Trump actually win this election if the fraudulent votes are not included?

    Fortunately, the internet geeks have been busy massaging the election data for statistical anomalies, and today (Nov. 11), I got my answer (partly) from information posted via The Gateway Pundit by blogger “PedeInspector” (whom I will refer to as “Pede”).

    Perhaps you saw the video of a network Election Night broadcast made by a person (not identified), also posted on The Gateway Pundit, which showed a sudden switch of votes from Trump to Biden in Pennsylvania the night of Nov. 3. I took two screen shots from that video. Before the switch:

    After:

    You can see that, almost instantly, 19,958 votes were stolen from Trump, and 19,958 votes were added to Biden’s total. The timestamp on the video (not shown in my pictures) is 10:23 P.M. (CST).

    Well, this video also intrigued “Pede,” and he (or she) went to work. Pennsylvania uses Dominion voting systems, which forward their data to Edison Research, which then Javascript-encodes it and sends it on to the New York Times and the networks. So “Pede” downloaded the Edison data for Pennsylvania from the New York Times at this address and analyzed it to locate all similar vote switches, as well as for votes that just went missing. (Although I’ve given you the link, I wouldn’t bother opening it, because it’s just a big pile of Javascript code that’s incomprehensible to the naked eye unless you know your Javascript.) In the Javascript code, “Pede” located the specific code that changed the voting percentages for Trump and Biden:

    Even if you’re not a computer programmer, you can still see that the code changed the percentages shown in my pictures from Trump 56.6%, Biden 42.0% to Trump 56.0%, Biden 42.6%. (The code that caused the switch of 19,958 votes is buried elsewhere in the Javascript code. The “votes” shown are total votes cast, including for minor parties, and are not useful information here.) The timestamp on these events is Nov. 4, 4:07 A.M. GMT (10:07 P.M. CST Nov. 3) and Nov. 4, 4:08 A.M. GMT (10:08 P.M. CST Nov. 3). The 15-minute gap before this switch showed up on the TV is likely due to a delay in updating the Pennsylvania info at the network.

    Now, I know nothing about “Pede,” but as you can see, the vote switch was shown on TV, and “Pede” located that percentage switch in the code, which means that “Pede” is working with real data and has the skills needed to identify the code and expose the anomalies. My experience has been that geeky internet bloggers are a hell of a lot more honest than most any politician, and I think we can safely proceed on the assumption that the research “Pede” has done is offered in good faith. (The only clue to “Pede’s” identity is that “Pede” refers to the events as “Nr. 187” and “Nr. 188”, using the European abbreviation for “number” instead of the American “No.” which suggests that “Pede” was born or educated overseas.)

    As “Pede” puts it, “I made a script to run through the data and gather all instances where votes switched from Trump to Biden. ‘Lost Votes’ means that the total amount of votes counted decreased by that amount throughout the counting.”

    Here are the results “Pede” found for the swing states:

    Pennsylvania: Switched, 220,883; Lost Votes, 941,248

    Florida: Switched, 21,422; Lost Votes, 456

    Michigan: Switched, 20,213; Lost Votes, 21,882

    Georgia: Switched, 17,407; Lost Votes, 33,574

    Wisconsin: Switched, 2,078; Lost Votes, 3,408

    North Carolina: Switched, 0; Lost Votes, 15

    Also:

    Arizona: Switched, 4,492; Lost Votes, 0

    Minnesota: Switched, 2,766; Lost Votes, 195,650

    Colorado: Switched, 1,809; Lost Votes, 0

    Nevada: Switched, 0 Lost Votes, 0

    Remember, these numbers are for electronic fraud, above and beyond the paper-ballot fraud also committed and which is slowly being uncovered and documented.

    Here’s what I think happened:

    The crooked Democrats actually believed their own propaganda — that Biden would win easily or that, at worst, it would be a tight race. So they created enough fraudulent paper ballots to be inserted into the counting to overcome any worst-case situation for them, which would be a “squeaker” Trump win. But Trump still led in the upper Midwest, even with the paper-ballot fraud, so they had to switch or destroy enough votes electronically to give Biden a “squeaker” win.

    But as the votes were being counted on Election Night, it was quickly clear that Trump had a blowout win in Pennsylvania, far more than could be fraudulently papered over, so electronic fraud there went into overdrive, allowing it to be easily detected. (Although “lost votes” apply to the total vote count, forgive me if I suspect that most of them are Trump votes being thrown away.)

    As of midnight on Nov. 11, the candidates’ vote totals, corrected for “Pede”-detected vote switches, are as follows:

    Pennsylvania: Trump 3,550,163; Biden 3,159,698. Trump wins (55.5% to 44.5%).

    Michigan: Trump 2,668,046; Biden 2,774,61.

    Georgia: Trump 2,475,263; Biden 2,454,538. Trump wins (50.5% to 49.5%).

  13. “On Thursday, six American service members were killed in a helicopter crash during a peacekeeping mission in Egypt. Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in North Florida, contributing to severe flooding. The number of Americans infected with the novel coronavirus continued at a record-setting pace, sending the stock market tumbling.

    Follow the latest on Election 2020
    At the White House, President Trump spent the day as he has most others this week — sequestered from public view, tweeting grievances, falsehoods and misinformation about the election results and about Fox News’s coverage of him.

    Neither he nor his aides briefed reporters on the news of the day or reacted to Democratic leaders who accused Republicans of imperiling the pandemic response by “refusing to accept reality” over the election results.

    The contrast between the nation grappling with an ongoing global crisis and a president consumed with his own political problems highlighted a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Trump’s assault on the integrity of the U.S. election system: He is leveraging the power of his office in a long-shot bid to stay in the job while ignoring many of the public duties that come with it…..”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-ignores-duties/2020/11/12/02bfbc36-2507-11eb-a688-5298ad5d580a_story.html

    1. Joke Friedhay, you, Needs To Be Committed and all your various and sundry minions seem a bit frantic?

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