Props to the Minority Leader.  Shame on the Speaker and the Governor.

Not like there are still problems here at home that need fixing.  I know 500 people who will need a job by the end of the week but didn't when it started here in the Grand Rapids area alone.  The Ivory Tower reports:

A plan to cut 1,000 jobs at Herman Miller Inc. in western Michigan should be completed by the end of the week...

Spokeswoman Susan Koole said Monday the last 500 job cuts should be wrapped up this week. The Grand Rapids Press reported most are at factories in Zeeland, Holland and Spring Lake.

But it isn't until you read this morning's Detroit News that you get a better sense of why the Democrats who've led this state for the last six-plus years might want to spend Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday in the air and on the ground away from the state.

A report was just released indicating that racism isn't just alive and well in Michigan, it is institutionalized in the Democrats' bureaucracy.  Highly recommend you read the entire article linked in the preceding paragraph, but the cliffs notes version goes something like this:

The study was conducted in response to a report, ordered by the Legislature as part of its 2005 budget bill, that found although African-American children represent slightly less than 18 percent of all children in the state, more than half of the children in out-of-home care are African-American, or one of every 50 African-American children in the state.

Decisions often were shaped on the assumption that children would be better off living away from their parents in safer or less impoverished neighborhoods -- a bias "reminiscent of the 19th century child rescue ideology that led to the separation of tribal and immigrant children from their families and communities," the report concluded.

Parents often were ignored or manipulated in planning meetings where decisions were made about placement. In one case cited in the study, a family planning meeting was held in hopes that the mother would show up with her baby, and then workers could take the baby away...

DHS Director Ismael Ahmed released a statement to The Detroit News saying the state is committed to eliminating racial disparity in foster care.

Oh, that's comforting Mr. Ahmed.  Seriously.  Color me freaking comforted.  Probably can't say the same for the African-American moms and dads who've had their children stripped from them because they were black.

The report details a variety of other appalling findings, not least of which is the way black moms were treated as liars and drug users when they claimed to be drug free while white moms were always taken at their word.

The findings in this report are 100% unacceptable.  And not unacceptable in the sense that they are ugly and wrong and we need to hope for change.  They're unacceptable in the sense that heads need to roll and publicly.  

But what are the odds of that?  Democrats never demand accountability from other democrats and even more infrequently weaken or undercut the bureaucracy they work so hard most days to empower.  Besides, racism isn't racism when the fingers point at a lefty.

So if you look at all of today's news stories and the attitudes and actions of the Granholm-Cherry administration, their cronies and appointees and the Democratic hacks and legislative leaders who've journeyed with them to DC it really isn't all that crazy for conservatives to hope for a little change, either.