Week in Review: the Rise of Dog Supremacy

"Parents now have to be concerned about their children in the neighborhood."

Week in Review

County Commissioners, January 23

The meeting this week was cancelled due to winter. A related story, however, takes us a bit beyond the scope of the County.

It turns out that County Commissioner Brent Leininger, who sued the America First! Hillsdale County Republicans on behalf of the now-Hillsdale County Republican Party,¹ is a client of Warner Norcross + Judd, the Lansing law firm that registered as a “foreign agent” to represent the Chinese battery company, Gotion. The company, which recently acquired property in Mecosta County, Michigan, is run out of Hefei, China.

By way of some background, Gotion agreed in the fall of 2022 to invest $2.4 billion in two 550,000-square-foot production plants across 260 acres in Mecosta County. Soon thereafter, a Democrat-led Michigan Senate panel granted Gotion an additional $175 million from the state.² Concerned Mecosta residents resisted, but it was far too little, far too late; township boards crumbled under the pressures of international financiers. Decisions like this may face Hillsdale County boards soon enough.³

In any case, Warner Norcross + Judd also donates to Democrat campaigns in Michigan, including contributions to the waxy-faced Gov. Whitmer, her sister, Liz Gereghty, and Detroit Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin. Whether the good commissioner is aware of such connections or not—and we make no pretensions to know—one begins to suspect that Democrats are gleefully hashing out the future of the Michigan Republican Party.

Return of the Mongrels, January 26

The Raw Mongrels of Hillsdale are back in action, supported by their stunning advocates and brave allies. Last year our local Dog Supremacists tried to rally for the right of dogs to poop in graveyards. Now, engaged in Facebook “spiritual warfare,” they attempt to exonerate dogs that run at large through the town attacking animals and threatening people—a shockingly regular occurrence.

Last winter, for instance, Hillsdale resident Jeff Fazekas was forced to defend himself and his daughters from two aggressive huskies, which would go on to kill or maim several livestock.

“His vicious dogs came at me,” Fazekas said of the incident. “Parents now have to be concerned about their children in the neighborhood.”

The same mongrel owners would soon enough acquire new huskies and then allow those dogs to escape on multiple occasions, including Friday morning. For the second time in less than a year, the very same owners’ dogs have damaged Fazekas’ property and attacked his animals.

On behalf of the community, Fazekas “what the crazed animals of negligent owners could continue to do.”

This local patriot, however, has the law on his side, even if he is opposed by the area’s rather vocal dog moms. The Hillsdale municipal code has the following to say about “dogs at large”:

No person owning any dog, four months of age or over, shall permit such dog to be at large at any time in the city in violation of any of the following restrictions:

(1) No person shall permit any vicious dog of which he is the owner to be unconfined unless securely muzzled and led by a leash. Any dog shall be deemed vicious which has bitten a person or domestic animal without molestation, or which by its actions gives indication that it is liable to bite any person or domestic animal without molestation. . .

(3) No person who is the owner of any dog shall permit it to be unconfined unless under the reasonable control of some person. . .⁴

External Links

• “Jennifer Wortz, 44, is the latest candidate to qualify for the 2024 race for state representative for the 35th District. . . . Wortz comes from a political family. Her father, Gary Leininger, served for 36 years as Hillsdale County treasurer. Her brother Brent Leininger is a Hillsdale County commissioner.” The Coldwater Daily Reporter.⁵

• “My mindset at that point was even though I thought it should be over, it isn’t over. It’s kind of a reset but also I have that confidence that I put him to his back, so I can do it again. Might as well just go out there, wrestle harder and stick him this time.” Undefeated Hillsdale HS junior John Petersen.

• “We have a lot of politicians as Commissioners, very few statesman.” Joseph Hendee, appeared on the first episode of “Cowboy Corral,” hosted by “The Adams Times” on YouTube.

• “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now. . . . The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott.⁶

• “Emergency measures adopted in many states to recruit additional teachers during the pandemic provide further evidence for something many analysts have long believed: Many of the current teacher training and licensing requirements have no real benefits, and getting rid of a lot of them would save time and money for various stakeholders and expand the potential supply of teachers, without reducing quality.” Matthew Yglesias.

• “For the third year in a row, Illinois had record-setting growth for adult-use cannabis sales. We’re building the most prosperous and accessible cannabis industry in the nation – taking steps to repair the damage of the past and creating real opportunity for all Illinoisans.” Governor JB Pritzker.

• “While conservatives slept, these policies became a governing ethos in the country, the diversity persuasion. Today, nearly every facet of our society worships the false and pernicious view that diversity is, somehow, our greatest strength.” Ryan Williams and Scott Yenor respond to the New York Times’ attack on the Claremont Institute.

• “For a number of years now pleasant young women (or persons identifying as women, or with female-sounding names) have been contacting me from the university’s diversity office, inviting me to attend sessions to discuss our DEI policies. . . . These sessions are never described as compulsory, but the pleasant young women don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” Harvard professor James Hankins, writing at Law & Liberty.

• “Unhelpful as it may be to foreign-policy makers and their counterparts abroad, the U.S. Constitution schedules quadrennial equivalents of what in the business world would be an attempted hostile takeover.” Graham Allison, writing at Foreign Affairs, laments the inefficiencies of republican government.

• “Because of the fundamental ideology of Biden’s staff. These are Obama people. To them, the United States has no right to the wealth of the world. We must share it with the poor of the world. It is illegitimate to prevent foreigners from coming to the United States and sharing in the wealth. Therefore, any border control is illegitimate.” Lafayette Lee interviews Dr. Edward N. Luttwak.

• “Is the Adirondack Park Agency corrupt? Is the DEC corrupt? Yes, they are. But they are nevertheless successful in protecting the largest swath of true wilderness in the East, the vast majority of which is pristine. Aiming to correct that corruption is valid and noble, but dismantling these agencies in favor of some kind of libertarian ‘free market’ idea would be a disaster on a historical scale.” A.M. Hickman.

• “Britain is not a free country, and it’s worth pondering why this isn’t of greater concern . . . What makes our anarcho-tyranny all the more illiberal is that no one can be entirely sure what exactly are the unfashionable opinions deemed worthy of the state’s interference. In recent years moral norms have changed so quickly that people can find themselves in trouble for saying things that were totally mainstream ten years ago.” Ed West.

• “Digital and biological technologies have reopened dreams of regulating human populations in a way that had been apparently foreclosed after the War. Whilst much of the Left is hysterically vigilant to the threat of a return of fascism, they have proved either indifferent or actively collaborative in the face of Spencerian liberal eugenics.” Sebastian Milbank.

Farewell

Fauxglin’s collective conscience has been pricked by the increasingly schoolmarmish attentions of a former Hillsdale resident, and over the next few issues we would like to clear the air regarding our views of several local dignitaries, beginning with the intrepid

Corey Murray. Our rejuvenated local scribe has done good work recently, but it’s no secret that the Daily News in general—and Murray in particular—have offered little in the way of useful local reporting and analysis in the last couple of years.⁷ Based on the way he covered the late battle of giants concerning precinct delegates, it was easy to assume that he was in the tank for the litigious “Leininger faction.” Based on the way he covered everything else, it was easy to assume that his passionate interest could only be provoked by the vicious incompetence of a minimum-wage drive-thru employee. If our mild jesting had a hand in encouraging him to pick up the phone or click “send” every once in a while, then we can magnanimously forgive ourselves any number of the adjectival parts of speech we’ve typed before his name. If he arrived at this renewed vigor all on his own, then, well, hope springs eternal.

1. Before the Whitmer-appointed honorable Michael Olsaver, presumably of a certain political persuasion and yet deciding the future of the Republican Party in Michigan.

2. Going Green, it seems, means devastating a countryside near you with foreign-owned, poison-producing factories.

3. In related news, a ballot initiative designed to reverse Public Act 233, the recently-passed legislation that allows state regulators “to override local rejections of large wind and solar projects,” has been approved by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers. The petition is the work of Citizens For Local Choice and now moves into the signature-gathering phase.

4. See Chapter 4, Article II. The article also contains the following provision of interest: “No person shall own any dog which by loud, frequent, or habitual barking, yelping, or howling shall cause annoyance to the people in the neighborhood.” If only!

5. More from the Collegian.

6. Check out Tucker Carlson’s interview with the governor.

7. Indeed, it was in this abysmal vacuum that the “grad students” found their all-too-anonymous voice, which now exercises such great power and holds such mighty sway over public opinion in this our county.