Dr. Becky Behrends, one of Michigan’s finest patriots, brilliantly fact-checks Clara Hendrickson, a leftist Detroit Free Press “fact-checker” who earns a living by discrediting individuals or groups that challenge her team’s integrity.
And now, it’s time to fact-check the “so-called” fact checkers, specifically Clara Hendrickson of the Detroit Free Press…
Hendrickson published a piece in the Detroit Free Press on July 27, 2022, entitled, “Detroit prepares for the first statewide election after the city found itself in 2020 spotlight”. In this piece, she specifically mentioned me (Becky Behrends) as belonging to the Michigan Citizens for Election Integrity or MC4EI group, which has “spread misinformation about the 2020 election.”
Let’s address the misinformation that Hendrickson and the Detroit Free Press are spreading.
As Paul Harvey used to say: “Here’s the rest of the story.”
She related the story of Edith Lee-Payne, an election worker in the 2020 election, who claimed she had to grab a letter opener when a Republican observer demanded that she stop the count. She claimed the observer was “just belligerent,” and she was unsure if he was armed. She was thankful that she didn’t need to use the letter opener.
A GOP affiant, Janice Hermann, disagrees with this interpretation. She stated (p. 47) in an affidavit: “I saw a woman wield a letter opener as a weapon to make sure an observer was not close enough to see what she was doing as she duplicated ballots. Herman claims she has several other witnesses who observed this.
”When the GOP challengers were being ignored in their challenges to illegal and fraudulent election inspector behavior and the refusal of election supervisors to record their challenges in log books, what were they supposed to do? If they raised their voices to get attention (heaven forbid, such aggressiveness!), they were judged as being belligerent and a threat. Who wielded a potential weapon? Not the Republican, but the presumed Democrat election inspector worker! Let’s be clear about that!! Detroit election officials later claimed the GOP challengers were “sour grapes” after their guy Trump lost because they filed no challenges during the election! A clever bit of deception that mainstream media swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
As Ben Franklin once said, “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don’t have brains enough, to be honest.”
If Hendrickson were a legitimate investigative journalist, she would have presented both sides of the story and let the public draw their own conclusions. As Becket Adams of the National Journalism Center once said in an LA Times article:
“News journalists need to focus on providing audiences with just the facts, rather than nudging them in the direction of a preferred viewpoint. This means reporting fairly and impartially on both sides of a debate and respecting audiences enough to interpret and analyze the information for themselves. They’re not children. If newsrooms want to speak out forcefully on certain issues, they always have the opinion section.”
Hendrickson claimed that a flood of challengers descended on the counting room in 2020 in Detroit who “mistook standard processes for fraud while others outside the room banged on the windows.” This is truly laughable if it wasn’t such a serious matter that the press can be so biased and dangerous in the misleading information they peddle out to the public as “facts.”
There was nothing “standard” about such practices as:
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- Adjudicating ballots rejected by the tabulators without a Republican present using inflated numbers to exclude credentialed Republican challengers
- Refusing re-entry to GOP challengers trying to return from lunch breaks while allowing Democrats to have lunch and meetings inside or adjoining the counting board room.
- Accepting ballots by the thousands that did not appear in the electronic poll books or supplemental lists
- Allowing a late-night ballot drop many hours after the close of polls (Oakland County, the second largest in Michigan, finished at their counting boards around 9 pm. What is the excuse for Wayne County?)
- Failing to prevent tabulator operators from re-running ballot batches without zeroing out the count, failing to provide challengers with meaningful access to view the computer screens of the election inspectors, thus refusing to comply with a court ruling that stipulated this.
- Failing to provide challengers with meaningful access to view the computer screens of the election inspectors, thus refusing to comply with a court ruling that stipulated this.
- Using inflated numbers to exclude credentialed Republican challengers.
These are just a few of the non-standard, fraudulent, illegal, and illegitimate behaviors that occurred at the TCF center in the Detroit 2020 General Election. Many more examples could be given.
And banging on the windows? As GOP challengers were worn down by attrition, thrown out and dismissed, and pizza boxes taped up on windows, common sense would tell you this was no way to inspire the confidence or trust of the Republicans, let alone the public. Their indignation and anger was totally justified.
Hendrickson presented just one side of the events at the TCF center in her portrayal of the hard-working election inspectors having been so abused, threatened, and intimidated by the GOP challengers when in fact, it was the GOP poll challengers who were being intimidated and threatened. These challengers filed over 200 affidavits attesting that the abuse came from the Democrats and was so blatant as to be unbelievable to many Republicans who had not previously been exposed to such treatment. Classic gaslighting manipulation technique- accuse others of behaviors which they themselves are engaging in.
As for the so-called “fake certificate of electors” that existed to potentially award the states’ Electoral College votes to Trump, this is again another bogus Democrat talking point to go after any pro-Trump supporters. It is their way of saying, “don’t even think of trying this again, or we will go after you with our weaponized law enforcement and intelligence agencies.” Right out of a Chinese communist playbook on how to silence your opposition. Choosing an alternate slate of electors is not unknown and was never considered “fraud” in the past. Just check out what happened in Hawaii in the 1960 Nixon vs. Kennedy presidential election.
This free press reporter also stated, “The process is prescribed and methodical. There are multiple eyes watching ballots at every step. It’s a system that both undercuts 2020 fraud claims, but also prevents any meddling officials say they’ve prepared to confront this year.” Watching ballots at every step??? Except for the Republican challengers, who were often barred from watching and observing. And except for the total lack of bipartisan involvement and a chain of custody in the transferring of ballots to the TCF center for counting. But the Democrats couldn’t be bothered with these “minor details.”
As for the lawsuits claiming a stolen election that “failed in court,” this is an attempt to convince the public that the Trump position must, therefore, be bogus and totally without merit. Not surprising that these lawsuits didn’t get their day in court. In fact, most of them never received an “evidentiary hearing.” What else would we expect when liberal judges dominate the judiciary at all levels? For example, if one looks at the federal circuit court system, one concludes that Democrat judges function as reliable liberals, but Republican judges do not always equal reliable conservatives. Over time, a certain percentage of these Republican judges drift to the left. So, grass root conservatives cannot depend on a judge having an R next to his name as one who will uphold the rule of law instead of their own ideological bent.
And so it goes. Ms. Hendrickson is the town crier merely parroting the term “election denier” to those who question the 2020 election.
George Orwell had it right when he said:
“(True) Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
It appears that parrots and lemmings are back in full force, marching to the beat of the legacy media. Remember the
definition of legacy media? Supposedly, it is old or traditional media news outlets that believe they are the final word on any topic. They are centralized media institutions. Old and outdated and controlled by liberals and leftists for the purpose of “public relations,” which is code for indoctrinating the public to their points of view.
And for anyone who opposes, again, Orwell had a comment on this: “Truth, it’s the new hate speech. During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
Don’t expect truth from the Detroit Free Press or its tax-payer subsidized minions who purport to be honest reporters and journalists.
