Tag: Cherry

If I don't know how to operate something, have little experience with a product, or do not feel as though I could sufficiently support (technically) an item I sell, I will try to let my customer know.  By doing so, that customer usually does one of the following:

a.Walks away, and finds someone else who offers better support.
b.Continues to deal with me on the products of which I have more experience.
c.Takes a chance and buys all the products from me KNOWING I may not be able to help technically.

Anyone with the stomach for regular reading in the regressisphere or the ability to listen to news reports featuring state Democrats without throwing shoes at the television has probably noticed a regular theme that looks to make excuses for the party in power by telling us things really aren't that bad.  The line you hear and read most often typically goes something like this- `Michigan is currently in the middle of the pack when it comes to tax burden...it's all John Engler's fault.'

We even got an unhealthy (and somewhat sneakily delivered) dose of that nonsense over the weekend from Booth's Peter Luke.  In an article ostensibly written to chide Liberals like Rick Snyder and Mark Brewer over their penchant for hyperbole in place of common sense reform, the author furthers the Lefty meme that A) taxes really aren't that high and B) it is all John Engler's fault.  

...Current economic policy, to the extent there can be one at the state level, isn't much different than the policy in the 1990s that saw record growth... In 2000, state tax collections equaled 9.5 percent of personal income. In 2010, it'll be 7 percent.

Now, adjust that rate for inflation and then consider the fact that the statistic is abso-freaking-worthless to begin with and we'll be halfway to an honest conversation about Michigan's economy.

See, the thing about 2000... Michigan's unemployment rate was hovering in the 3 to 4 percent range.  In other words, "a whole lot of people" were working then who aren't now and those people paid taxes.  The state was taking in more adjusted dollars from a significantly larger pool of taxpayers.  Fast forward to 2010 and we've got fewer people working fewer jobs for a less valuable dollar and enduring higher tax rates.  There's also "a whole lot of (jobless) people" taking in "personal income" directly from the state.  

Even if one bought the Lefty lie that the state's tax policy isn't onerous and isn't a problem, the argument that there's no difference between Granholm and Engler economic policy is ridiculous on it's face.  The last six-plus years in Lansing have been perhaps the most antagonistic towards job makers in the history of the state of Michigan and in direct contrast to the first ten years of the previous administration.  

Not that you have to take my word for it.  Ask one of the thousands of former Michigan small business owners now pulling down profits instead in other states.

Read on...

How are each of you on this magnificent morning?  I woke up with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. (It was the theme song for Perfect Strangers, if you were wondering.)  Toss in the fact that the Tigers play two today against the hated Chicago White Sox complete with a chance to expand the percentage-points division lead and how could anyone complain on a day like today?

Well, I mean, I know HOW folks could complain.  But if that's all you want to do then you're going to have to take that noise somewhere else.  Nobody's brining the rest of us down on a Happy Friday.  Now... to the news!

Let's start in the Ivory Tower, which scored an encouraging exclusive interview with Detroit Mayor Dave Bing.  During their private sit-down Bing announced that he'd seen the light and better, he's ready to act on the Motor City's financial troubles:

After spending most of his first two months in office poring over Detroit's financial books and organizational structure, Bing said the city is so deeply in the red that the following measures must be taken to avoid bankruptcy:

• The consolidation and elimination of some city departments.

• A reduction in nonessential city services.

• Concessions by city employees, including job losses in some cases.

• The hiring of an outside emergency collection agency to help recoup some of the debt owed to the city.

Bonus for Detroiters... not a new tax hike on the list.  Remember, Bing is a Democrat in a 100% Democratic City but he's also a successful businessman who knows exactly what tax increases do to current and potential job makers. The fact that he's looking to plug a $25 million deficit by right-sizing government should be enough to get every Detroiter jumping up and down. Except, maybe, for some of the over-priced bureaucrats whose jobs are suddenly in danger.  (And yes... that counts as happy news, too.)

Bing's apparent leadership on the whole deficit issue looks even sunnier when compared to his Party's leaders in Lansing.  

The Granholm-Cherry administration took precisely the opposite approach yesterday during their own discussions about pools of red ink but even that provided some of the better news conservatives have had in a long, long time!

(There's a bright, shiny silver lining if you read on...)

With a state budget $1.8 billion in the red and federal stimulus cash disappearing faster than Vanilla Ice (and leaving just as unpleasant a memory) I'm willing to listen to just about any kind of plan to shake up the status quo in Lansing.  

When the Michigan Education Association lambasted Dillon I was that much more prone to agree with the man.  When Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Cox several days ago supportively praised Dillon's concept I became that much more encouraged by the possibility of bipartisan cooperation and real "change."

This morning, personally, I'm chalking up one more notch on the PRO side of the ledger... spite.  Pure, unadulterated, spite.  

Booth Newspapers reported late yesterday that Governor Jennifer Granholm hates Dillon's idea because, apparently, it is a difficult political issue.  And if that doesn't make you want to find the nearest Granholm apologist and shake him firmly you're a better, more balanced person than me.

"The concern that I have is that this plan is not something that would save money in the budget year we are negotiating or the budget year afterward," Granholm said. "The timing of this is challenging."

Um, hello?  McFly?  McFlyyyy?  Anybody home McFly?  A $1.8 billion CHRONIC budget deficit, a nation's worst 15.2 percent unemployment rate and already a half-million one-time-residents exported to other states... those issues are challenging.  "Timing" has got freaking nothing on the economy the Governor, her number two John Cherry and Dillon himself have done their best over the last half-decade to permanently cripple.  

The "timing is challenging?"  Are you kidding me?  Madame Governor... look around this state!  You're worried that the timing is challenging?  The timing is challenging.  Lamest excuses in the history of lame excuses.  Add that one to the lame excuse hall of fame right alongside "the dog ate my homework" and "I have to wash my hair."

Read on...

That is all.

Alas, we're not that lucky.  We're stuck for the next year and a half with Jennifer Granholm and John Cherry's particular brand of executive performance and if we're not on our toes, tossing everything we've got behind an alternative... ANY freaking alternative this election cycle, we'll be getting another four years of stories like these...

The Detroit News really knows how to be an encouragement on a Monday morning as it quantifies factory job losses during the Granholm-Cherry administration's control of Lansing, and it's a staggering number to boot.  Try 950,000.  Between late 2000 and 2010 almost 1 million blue collar jobs are expected to have disappeared.  

The national recession, folks in other states remember better than us, actually started in 2007.  In other words, Lansing had this state in the ICU before the rest of the Country caught a sniffle.

Read on...

An early contender for the "most patently ridiculous quote of the year," Warren's embarrassing  attempt at quasi-ethical faux-reason was, apparently, an attempt to rationalize her support for House Bill 5164, legislation that ignores longstanding, bipartisan state and national standards and legally forces pharmacists to fill prescriptions for the "abortion pill" despite personal, moral or religious objections.

The bill is cosponsored by twenty-three other House Democrats.

Currently, health care workers, including the good folks who after a badly skinned knee fill the prescription for your child's antibiotics, are legally entitled to refuse to participate in procedures they object to ethically.  Like, say, killing kids.

That's not sitting "in judgment" of a doctor and a patient.  That's sitting in judgment of one's own conscience and actions, Representative.  

Unfortunately, that's not even the most insidious legislation just introduced by members of a political Party beholden above everything else to the multi-billion dollar abortion-on-demand industry.

Warren and twenty other House Democrats have also introduced House Bill 5158, effectively designed to drive crisis pregnancy centers out of business. The legislation creates fresh regulation that mandates each and every non-profit CPC in the state provide, in writing, information about where and how to acquire an abortion, including directions showing pregnant women how to get to the abortion clinic.

The real irony in all of this is just how patently ANTI-CHOICE each of these bills is.  Eliminating pharmacists' choice on whether or not to physically participate in a procedure they may consider anything from mildly objectionable to a mortal sin, all via government mandate and the threat of force doesn't exactly promote that whole "liberty" concept.

Meanwhile, the Crisis Pregnancy Center legislation is inarguably designed to force pro-life organizations to permanently close their doors, leaving hurting women with only one option... pro-abortion Planned Parenthood.

Each of the bills has been referred to the House Judiciary committee, chaired by Democrat Mark Meadows.  Meadows is the primary sponsor on the anti-CPC bill and a co-sponsor on the pharmacists-as-abortionists mandate.  We know where he stands.

There are two prominent Michigan Democrats whose opinion we still don't know, though.

House Speaker Andy Dillon, a man who has been endorsed by Michigan Right to Life in cycles past and one who is rumored to be considering a run at the Governor's office next year, has not commented publicly on the bills making their way through his chamber.

Similarly, Lieutenant Governor and 2010 Gubernatorial candidate John Cherry has been silent on his party's pro-abortion, anti-choice legislation.  

Michigan voters have a right to know where each of them stand.

Three listings follow.  No excuses.  Please find five minutes today... right now, on your lunch break, on the road in between meetings... whenever... and drop an email and CALL Mark Meadows, John Cherry and Andy Dillon.

Tell them what YOU think about the Democrats' anti-choice legislation, ask Meadows and Dillon to stop the insanity before it reaches the House floor and ask Andy Dillon and John Cherry whether or not they support their Party's shockingly anti-choice legislation, HBs 5158 and 5164.

Then swing back by and let everyone know what they said!

John Cherry

Phone: (517) 853-8050


Email: ltgovcherry@michigan.gov

Andy Dillon

Phone: (888) 737-3455


Email: andydillon@house.mi.gov

Mark Meadows

Phone: (517) 373-1786


Email: markmeadows@house.mi.gov

Casualties of executive order budget cuts from the Granholm-Cherry administration, the troopers this week begin hunting for new jobs and new ways to provide for their families.  

Though it would take a cynic's cynic to argue that the Democratic Governor and Lieutenant Governor explicitly enjoyed firing law enforcement officers it would also take the most stalwart Lefty loyalist to brush aside the majority Party's woefully misplaced spending priorities as anything less than highly questionable.  Especially in light of the fact that major tax dollars are being funneled away from law enforcement and into the pockets of Democrat donor and real estate developer Joel Ferguson.  

At issue now as it was two years ago is the so-called Triangle Project, a new $117 million Michigan State Police Headquarters being constructed in downtown Lansing.  MSP doesn't want the new HQ, a building that is prohibitively smaller than their current base of operations a few miles away (and currently being leased for the paltry sum of $1 a year).  

If anything, it is being argued, the speed and quality of service will actually decrease at the new development thanks in large part to the fact that various operations currently being handled under one roof in East Lansing will have to be split amongst multiple buildings after moving to downtown Lansing.  Then there's the rather large matter of those 100 suddenly unemployed police officers.  The $117 million being wasted on an unwanted, inefficient development represents enough taxpayer appropriations to keep 100 troopers on the street for years.  Or enough taxpayer appropriations to make Ferguson a significantly wealthier man.

Last week the Republican led Senate held a vote to cancel the Triangle Project and protect the law enforcement officers who lost their jobs this week. Senate Democrats objected, voted against the troopers and tried to save Ferguson's money pit.  Plaster and mortar over moms and dads?  The anti-cop move makes very little sense on it's face.  Until you take a bit of time tested advice and "follow the money."

Joel Ferguson has a long and distinguished history of big dollar giving to Democrats and Lefty organizations.  From judicial candidates to the Michigan House Democrat Fund and others, Democrats can often count on thousands of dollars from the developer.  Tens of thousands, even.