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  • Michigan lawmakers introduce resolutions urging Congress to block arms to Israel and aid Gaza – Detroit Metro Times

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    Michigan House Democrats are calling on Congress to halt weapons transfers to Israel and increase humanitarian aid to Gaza, pointing to the increasing civilian death toll and the impact the war has had on Palestinian families in the state.

    Reps. Dylan Wegela of Garden City, Alabas Farhat of Dearborn, and Erin Byrnes of Dearborn on Wednesday introduced House Resolution 223, which urges Michigan’s congressional delegation to stop sending U.S. arms to Israel, restore revoked visas for Palestinians seeking medical travel, and support an emergency surge of humanitarian assistance.

    “For more than two years, the world has watched a livestreamed genocide,” Wegela said. “Even after repeated ceasefire deals, Israel continues their escalation of their campaign to eliminate the Palestinian people. What makes that possible is American-supplied weapons.”

    The resolution was co-sponsored by 10 other Democrats: Emily Dievendorf of Lansing, Mike McFall of Hazel Park, Jimmie Wilson Jr. of Ypsilanti, Donavan McKinney of Detroit, Reggie Miller of Van Buren Township, Laurie Pohutsky of Livonia, Tonya Myers-Phillips of Detroit, Tyrone Carter of Detroit, Betsy Coffia of Traverse City, Carrie Rheingans of Ann Arbor, and Tullio Liberati of Allen Park. 

    The resolution comes after more than two years of Israeli airstrikes, ground operations, and a blockade that international aid groups say has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades. More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 2023, according to Gaza health officials, and most of the dead are women and children. UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, and the United Nations have warned that widespread hunger, medical shortages, and the destruction of hospitals have left the population facing mass starvation. 

    Michigan’s large Arab American population, including the country’s highest concentration of residents with Lebanese and Palestinian heritage, has watched the war with grief and panic as relatives in Gaza and southern Lebanon have been killed or displaced. Dearborn, where Farhat and Byrnes represent major sections of the city, has held regular demonstrations calling for a ceasefire and an end to U.S. military support.

    “For many families in my district, this is not abstract, people are losing loved ones in Gaza and in South Lebanon, and they’re watching it happen with their own taxpayer dollars,” Farhat said. “Imagine knowing that your hard earned money is being used to kill your relatives. This resolution reflects our community’s moral and democratic mandate: stop funding weapons that are killing civilians. Our communities want peace, accountability, and policy that values human life and this resolution moves us in that direction.”

    Farhat also pointed to polls that have “clearly shown that most Americans want our government to stop fueling the suffering in Gaza and to take real steps toward ending this war.”

    U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib delivered a speech in Dearborn in February, 2024, urging Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the presidential primary election to protest President Joe Biden’s support of Israel. Credit: Shutterstock

    Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who was born in Detroit to Palestinian immigrants and is the only Palestinian American member of Congress, introduced a resolution Friday that “officially recognizes that the Israeli government has committed the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.” The resolution also urges the U.S. to fulfill its obligations under the Genocide Convention to intervene and seek accountability.  

    “The Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza has not ended, and it will not end until we act,” Tlaib, D-Detroit, said. “Since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ was announced, Israeli forces haven’t stopped killing Palestinians. Impunity only enables more atrocity. As our government continues to send a blank check for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, Palestinian children’s smiles are extinguished by bombs and bullets that say made in the U.S.A. To end this horror, we must reject genocide denial and follow our binding legal obligations under the Genocide Convention to take immediate action to pursue justice and accountability to prevent and punish the crime of genocide.”

    Michigan taxpayers have contributed more than $420 million toward U.S. military aid to Israel since 2023, Wegela said, noting the money could instead fund rent assistance, groceries for low-income households, teacher salaries, children’s health care, or student loan relief. 

    “Instead of using tax dollars to help improve lives here, our federal government is funding a Genocide on the other side of the world. It is our moral obligation to oppose funding the mass murder of civilians,” Wegela said.

    Byrnes condemned the high civilian casualty rate in Gaza, which is estimated to be roughly 83% of those killed, and criticized Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s move to suspend medical visas for Palestinians injured in the conflict. 

    “Michigan cannot remain silent while our tax dollars are used to fund genocide,” Byrnes said.

    The resolution also points to growing documentation from humanitarian groups and international law experts alleging that Israel’s blockade, bombing campaign, and forced displacement of civilians may violate the Genocide Convention. 

    Michigan organizers praised the lawmakers’ resolution. Layla Elabed, a well-known community organizer from Dearborn and sister of Tlaib, said the resolution represents “a multifaith, multicultural, multigenerational coalition refusing to let Michigan be complicit in genocide.”

    Barbara Weinberg Barefield of Jewish Voice for Peace–Detroit said the suffering in Gaza contradicts the core Jewish teaching that “whoever saves a single life is considered to have saved the whole world.”

    “The fact that a genocide is being perpetrated by the government of Israel on the Palestinian people is horrifying to me as a human being and as a Jew who was taught the intrinsic value of every life,” she said. “I will not stand by and let thousands of lives extinguished in my name go unchallenged.”

    The resolution is nonbinding but adds pressure to Michigan members of Congress, several of whom have faced protests over U.S. military aid. It cites longstanding federal laws prohibiting arms transfers to countries committing human rights violations and calls on Washington to “use every tool available” to stop the killing and ensure aid reaches civilians.

    Wegela, Farhat, and Byrnes said they plan to continue working with local advocacy groups, including those representing Palestinian, Arab American, Jewish, and peace coalitions, as the measure moves through the House.


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    Steve Neavling

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  • Hot Mulligan’s post-emo magic

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    Homegrown heroes Hot Mulligan have been a mainstay in the alternative scene for almost a decade, pushing boundaries and garnering praise with their brand of emo music. The band released its fourth record, The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still, last week, and are gearing up for a 26-date headlining tour which includes a Dec. 6 stop at the Fillmore in Detroit. Metro Times caught up with guitarist Ryan Malicsi to talk about the new release, the upcoming tour, and the potential for a Tigers’ appearance in the World Series.

    In 2014, Hot Mulligan emerged from Lansing and started taking the emo scene by storm, with their tongue-in-cheek track titles and exciting approach to the genre. After releasing two EPs, Fenton and Honest &Cunning, they were signed to No Sleep Records, where they have remained — continuing to release albums, touring through the U.S. and Europe, and writing the entrance theme song for the All Elite Wrestling professional wrestler Kyle Fletcher.

    Malicsi explains lead singer Nathan Sanville took inspiration from the song lyrics. “We love pulling names from lyrics on the record, lyrics from the songs,” he says. “And we had such a list of just like one-liners off the record that that sounded like maybe they encapsulate like, themes or feelings, or just really get a good grasp of what it’s all about.” He continues, “I think that’s just what we landed on was, you know, it kind of pushes the message that he was trying to get across in the songs and the themes that kind of encompass all of them. And I think we just landed on something that sounded good, wraps it all up in one line.”

    The lead single “And a Big Load” has reached more than one million streams since its release, Malicsi says. It’s something to celebrate, and while the band doesn’t get too wrapped up in the numbers, there is excitement for the album release. “I’m just happy to see it do well, and excited to see how the rest of the record turns out,” he says. “I don’t want to say that I’m anticipating one thing or the other, but I’m just excited to see how people like it.”

    As emo music continues to evolve, Hot Mulligan coined the term “post-emo” as a joke, but the genre has adopted it. “Other bands are saying it, so that means it’s real,” Malisci says. “I would say that post-emo just means that your core influences live in emo, whether it’s like, you know, American Football emo, whatever wave that is — you cannot pay me enough to dig into the politics of emo.” Malisci explains that the DIY ethos contributes to the foundation of post-emo, along with pop influences that create a crossroads of interest. “I’m sure if you ask the five of us, all five of us would have different answers,” he says. “Or, you know, if there’s ever to be a real definition of it, I’m not sure, but I guess to me, that’s where the post-emo magic lies.”

    The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still came together after a tour of the U.K. and Europe, and while Malisci doesn’t cite returning home as the inspiration for the record, coming back allowed the band to set their sights and attention to writing and working together. “We just got in a room together, and we all picked up our instruments and we just jammed like we just got it, and we weren’t going in with the intention of, you know, we’re going to write our most emo record, or we’re going to write our most pop-punk record, or we’re going to write our catchiest one,” Malisci says. “It was just, let’s get in the room. Let’s play music that feels good. If we land on stuff, we land on stuff.” According to Malisci, after a decade of playing together, the music comes naturally, calling it a “return to form.”

    After 10 years, Hot Mulligan has matured in sound. Malisci specifies the band has improved on writing vocal melodies, with its latest release showcasing its players’ natural growth. “We’re like a different band now, but I think when you listen to it, you can kind of tell that we’ve all gotten better at what we do,” he says. “We’ve all gotten better as a team and as a group, and that’s a huge part of it, too. Making a record is an exercise in teamwork and trusting the people around you, and trusting their tastes and their opinions as much as you trust your own.”

    He continues, “We’ve been a team for so long. We know how we think, and we know how each other is going to react, and we trust each other’s tastes and opinions, and it just works out. It’s a push forward for us.”

    Malicsi happened to be wearing a Tigers hat during the interview, and Metro Times needed to know if Hot Mulligan believes the Tigers can make it to the World Series. The band’s official statement: “Hot Mulligan believes we’re making the World Series. Hot Mulligan believes that we’re going to start swinging the bat in the following weeks. And if we could do that, we’ll see you out there.”

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    Konstantina Buhalis

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  • 2 Chainz to headline Pure Options block party in Lansing

    2 Chainz to headline Pure Options block party in Lansing

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    Michigan cannabis chain Pure Options just announced that rapper 2 Chainz will be the headlining performer at its Back 2 School Block Party on September 7.

    The event will take place in the parking lot of Pure Options at 203 N. Clippert St. in Lansing, celebrating cannabis, culture, and community through music, food, games, and various activities. In addition to 2 Chainz, the event will feature live music from local artists. For the sports fans, the Michigan State vs. Maryland college football game will be shown on a big screen.

    Attendees will have the opportunity to explore a variety of cannabis products from different vendors, with special deals and promotions available only at the event. On-site cannabis consumption will be permitted for people who are 21 and older.

    To fulfill the inevitable munchies, local food trucks will provide a range of options to satisfy cravings throughout the day, alongside games and activities to keep people entertained.

    Previous events hosted by Pure Options, such as the 420 Block Party in April, drew large crowds and featured performances by artists like Sean Kingston. The success of these events prompted the Back 2 School Block Party, which is intended to be the first in a series of festival-style events aimed at bringing the community together.

    General admission tickets, on sale for $20, will provide access to all event areas, including the vendor showcase, live performances, and food trucks. A limited number of VIP tickets, priced at $200, will offer extra perks such as access to private seating areas and a premium goody bag with cannabis products from various vendors.

    Based in Michigan, Pure Options has three locations in Lansing and three others across the state in Detroit, Muskegon, and Mt. Pleasant.

    For more information on the cannabis retailer and to purchase tickets for the block party, visit pureoptions.com.

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    Layla McMurtrie

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  • Election conspiracist to lead Michigan GOP through 2024

    Election conspiracist to lead Michigan GOP through 2024

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    LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Election conspiracist Kristina Karamo, who was overwhelmingly defeated in her bid to become Michigan’s secretary of state, was chosen Saturday to lead the state’s Republican Party for the next two years.

    Karamo defeated a 10-candidate field dominated by far-right candidates to win the Michigan GOP chair position after a state convention that lasted nearly 11 hours. A former community college professor, she lost her secretary of state race in the 2022 midterms by 14 percentage points after mounting a campaign filled with election conspiracies.

    Karamo inherits a state party torn by infighting and millions in debt. She will be tasked with helping win back control of the Legislature and flipping one of the nation’s most competitive Senate seats, while attempting to help a presidential candidate win the battleground state.

    Addressing delegates before the vote, Karamo said that “our party is dying” and it needs to be rebuilt into “a political machine that strikes fear in the heart of Democrats.”

    Karamo rose to prominence following the 2020 presidential election when she began appearing on conservative talk shows saying that as a poll challenger in Detroit, she saw “ballots being dropped off in the middle of the night, thousands of them.”

    The decision to elect Karamo, who will lead through the 2024 elections, solidifies the hold that far-right activists have on the state party after Michigan Republicans suffered sweeping electoral losses last year.

    It took three rounds of voting at the convention in Lansing for locally elected delegates to pick Karamo over former attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno, who had been endorsed by Trump in the race.

    With a field dominated by grassroots activist candidates running on far-right messaging, many longtime Michigan Republicans had given up on a state party before Saturday’s vote even took place.

    “We lost the entire statehouse for the first time in 40 years, in large part, because of the top of the ticket. All deniers. It turned off a lot of voters,” former longtime Republican U.S. Rep. Fred Upton said last week. “As I look at the state convention, it looks like it could well be more of the same.”

    The party may take “a cycle or two to correct itself and to get out of the ditch that we’ve been in for the last couple of years,” Upton told The Associated Press.

    The state party previously has been led by former U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and current national Republican Party Chair Ronna McDaniel. The party built a large volunteer base of grassroots activists, former Chair Bobby Schostak said, while also raising “$30 to $35 million each cycle.”

    In Schostak’s time as chair from 2011 to 2015, Republicans maintained control of the Legislature and Rick Snyder, a Republican, was reelected as governor. Trump won the state in the 2016 presidential election.

    Democrats now control all levels of power in the state for the first time since the 1980s. They won control of both houses of the Legislature and defeated Republicans by significant margins for governor, attorney general and secretary of state in the 2022 midterms.

    Longtime donors withheld millions in donations as the Republican party grew increasingly loyal to Trump, nominating his handpicked candidates, DePerno and Karamo. Tudor Dixon, who lost her race for governor to Whitmer, said her campaign was hurt by the state party not having as much money as in the past.

    “I’d love to say that it is just a movement of going and knocking doors. But you’ve got to be able to put the money behind it,” Dixon said.

    Following the midterms, Michigan GOP Chair Ron Weiser and co-Chair Meshawn Maddock said they would not seek reelection.

    Prior to the vote Saturday, Schostak, now a major donor in the state, said the next leader will need to prove “they have the capability to be good stewards of the donor money.”

    If donors once again decide in large numbers not to give to the state party, they will need to find other ways of helping candidates ahead of a 2024 presidential election in which Republicans will look to flip the state House and win a U.S. Senate seat for the first time in more than two decades.

    “The state party’s a little bit weaker, and they’re not going to have the influence in races that they had before,” state House Republican Floor Leader Bryan Posthumus noted. “That being said, there are a lot of other avenues to pick up that slack and to make sure that we are still effective with or without the party.”

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  • Whitmer abduction plot co-leader sentenced to 16 years in federal prison

    Whitmer abduction plot co-leader sentenced to 16 years in federal prison

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    GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The co-leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison for conspiring to abduct the Democrat and blow up a bridge to ease an escape.

    Adam Fox returned to federal court Tuesday, four months after he and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids, Mich.

    They were accused of being at the helm of a wild plot to whip up anti-government extremists just before the 2020 presidential election. Their arrest, as well as the capture of 12 others, was a stunning coda to a tumultuous year of racial strife and political turmoil in the U.S.

    The government had pushed for a life sentence, saying Croft offered bomb-making skills and ideology while Fox was the “driving force urging their recruits to take up arms, kidnap the governor and kill those who stood in their way.”

    But Judge Robert J. Jonker said that while Fox’s sentence was needed as a punishment and deterrent to future similar acts, the government’s request for life in prison is “not necessary to achieve those purposes.”

    See: ‘I love state government’: Michigan’s re-elected Democratic governor throws cold water on talk of national prospects

    “It’s too much. Something less than life gets the job done in this case,” Jonker said, later adding that 16 years in prison “is still in my mind a very long time.”

    In addition to the 16-year prison sentence, Fox will have to serve five years of supervised release.

    Fox and Croft were convicted at a second trial in August, months after a different jury in Grand Rapids couldn’t reach a verdict but acquitted two other men. Croft, a trucker from Bear, Del., will be sentenced Wednesday.

    Fox and Croft in 2020 met with like-minded provocateurs at a summit in Ohio, trained with weapons in Michigan and Wisconsin and took a ride to “put eyes” on Whitmer’s vacation home with night-vision goggles, according to evidence.

    “People need to stop with the misplaced anger and place the anger where it should go, and that’s against our tyrannical … government,” Fox declared that spring, boiling over COVID-19 restrictions and perceived threats to gun ownership.

    Whitmer wasn’t physically harmed. The FBI, which was secretly embedded in the group, broke things up by fall.

    “They had no real plan for what to do with the governor if they actually seized her. Paradoxically, this made them more dangerous, not less,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said in a court filing ahead of the hearing.

    In 2020, Fox, 39, was living in the basement of a Grand Rapids–area vacuum shop, the site of clandestine meetings with members of a paramilitary group and an undercover FBI agent. His lawyer said he was depressed, anxious and smoking marijuana daily.

    Christopher Gibbons said a life sentence would be extreme.

    Fox was regularly exposed to “inflammatory rhetoric” by FBI informants, especially Army veteran Dan Chappel, who “manipulated not only Fox’s sense of ‘patriotism’ but also his need for friendship, acceptance and male approval,” Gibbons said in a court filing.

    He said prosecutors had exaggerated Fox’s capabilities, saying he was poor and lacked the capability to obtain a bomb and carry out the plan.

    Two men who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and testified against Fox and Croft received substantial breaks: Ty Garbin already is free after a 2½-year prison term, while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.

    Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses the media after signing a state budget bill in July.


    AP/Carlos Osorio/File

    In state court, three men recently were given lengthy sentences for assisting Fox earlier in the summer of 2020. Five more are awaiting trial in Antrim County, where Whitmer’s vacation home is located.

    When the plot was extinguished, Whitmer, a Democrat, blamed then-President Donald Trump, saying he had given “comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division.” In August, 19 months after leaving office, Trump said the kidnapping plan was a “fake deal.”

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  • Michigan man gets 70 to 100 years for hammer murders

    Michigan man gets 70 to 100 years for hammer murders

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    LANSING, Mich. — A man charged in the hammer killings of two women after he showed cellphone photos of their beaten bodies to sheriff’s deputies during a traffic stop was sentenced Wednesday to 70 to100 years in prison.

    Kiernan Brown, 30, of Delta Township, was sentenced in Ingham County after pleading guilty but mentally ill to second-degree murder in the deaths of 26-year-old Kaylee Ann Brock of Holt and 32-year-old Julie Ann Mooney of Williamston in May 2019.

    Authorities said at the time that Brown was arrested on Interstate 69, about 108 miles (174 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, after an ex-girlfriend reported that he had been violating a personal protection order by banging on her door and sending disturbing texts. She was not among the victims.

    During his plea hearing, Brown said he killed Brock and Mooney with a hammer.

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  • Lansing man biked over 73,000 miles since being cancer free

    Lansing man biked over 73,000 miles since being cancer free

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    LANSING, Mich. (WILX) – A man who battled cancer is now taking his message on the road. The Lansing man biked more than 73,000 miles, that’s about three times around the world.

    Gar Watson is a cancer survivor and bicyclist. He started biking because of his cancer treatments.

    “I actually had been a couch potato for around for five years before I got this cancer, so that ended up being a wake up call and I started riding to my treatments,” said Watson.

    He rode his bike from his house to his treatments in Lansing, a 14-mile ride roundtrip.

    “My crazy riding started during my radiation treatments, which lasted three weeks.”

    Watson was being treated for stage four Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

    “I was tired,” Watson said. “I had weekly blood draws through all of this, but then all the other doctor’s appointments, I was tired of the roundtrip.”

    The cancer was nearly gone at the time of his radiation.

    “I’ve been very fortunate, very lucky, for the battle I know a lot of people go through in cancer, I got off easy.”

    But, he needed to do something to keep himself busy, so he started biking at 49 years old.

    “Cycling was a knee-jerk reaction to cancer,” Watson said. “When I started out, I was just doing trail rides on the river trail by myself.”

    Watson would go on to ride 1,000 miles each month for the rest of 2014, and a total of roughly 7,000 miles that year.

    “I logged all that stuff for every ride I did, so that’s how, that’s why I know I for the first four years I was averaging 1,000 miles a month.”

    Eight years after being declared cancer free and 73,000 miles later, Gar Watson is still hitting milestones.

    “So I have since 2014, since May or June since whenever I started riding, a little over 73,000 miles.”

    Watson said he did not have a primary care physician for a few years before noticing the back pain, which ended up being a tumor. He still regularly sees a doctor to make sure he is cancer free.

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