In a test of the pen being mightier than the sword Michigan state lawmaker Matt Maddock wants to create a government registry of fact-checkers while reportedly eliminating the government’s requirement to obtain a permit to carry a handgun, something Second Amendment extremists call “gun registries.”
Rep. Maddock in 2019 filed a bill to abolish the state law that requires handgun purchasers to obtain a permit before buying a firearm. One right-wing gun group called Michigan’s requirement for a handgun permit a “draconian handgun registration scheme.”
On his campaign website Maddock calls himself a “Trump Republican,” and promises to “reduce the size and scope of government.”
“Over the last few years, conservative Republicans all over the nation have chosen the new principled ‘Trump’ conservative voices over the elite Republican establishment. I’m a Trump Republican.”
Maddock’s bill would require fact-checkers to register with the government, obtain $1 million in insurance coverage, and be subjected to $1000 per day fines if their rulings are wrong. State judges would decide if a disputed fact-check is inaccurate and if it has caused “demonstrable harm,” The Detroit News reports.
“Who are these mysterious hidden Fact Checkers messing with our First Amendment?” Maddock wrote on Facebook Tuesday, in a clearly ignorant interpretation of the First Amendment. “Are they people? Computers? Algorithms? Artificial Intelligence? What (who’s) standards do they use? Are they democrats? Republicans? Nonpartisan? Where do they live? Are they Americans? Are they from China? It’s about time we find out. And another thing…why don’t they Fact Check the Fake News?”
“There are tens of thousands of [fact checkers] spying on us,” he claimed in a separate post:
The Washington Post adds that “Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”
Maddock is a supporter of the “Big Lie” and signed on to a letter urging Vice President Pence to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which would have been an act of sedition and is something he did not have the constitutional authority to do.
In January ClickOnDetroit reported Maddock and his wife were among the first to join a “Facebook group with violent rhetoric and conspiracy theories.”
“The page is filled with conspiracies, far-right memes and open discussions of martial law and civil war.”
Also in January ABC affiliate WXYZ described Matt and Meshawn Maddock as a “Michigan couple with Trump ties” who use “conspiracies to fuel” their rise in the state GOP.
Meshawn Maddock has often battled “to keep protections for gay people out of the party platform,”
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