People thought that the Republicans might have had an epiphany last week while Michiganians were circling the Capitol Building in Lansing for a better part last Wednesday. Having 10,000 cars blocking traffic all around you and blaring their horns for most of the day does tend to draw attention, but I digress.

During a Friday News Dump, SML Mike Shirkey announced that not only was the legislature disinclined to extend Gov. Witless’ tyranny past May 1st, but that they had a plan, based upon a framework released by the White House on how this will be accomplished.

Outstanding! Now we can get Michigan back to work so that we can start fixing the colossal disaster her incredibly ridiculous “orders” have wrought upon our state.

But did anyone bother reading the fine print?

{Read more about the trouble in Lansing by clicking on the red button below.}

So, the gist of what the Michigan Senate is proposing can be found here.

The plan is broken down into five phases with Phase 1 being the worst-case scenario and Phase 5 being back to “normal”. I placed “normal” in quotes for reasons that I shall get into later.

The White House only provided a framework on what to do, but no guidance on a time table. They left that up to the respective states to enact as they see fit.

I get it. 10A and all, well and good.

But, we also know how, what is the best way to put this…”fickle”, state governors can be when it comes not only supporting their respective oaths they had taken when sworn into office, but how quickly their orders take on an ominous tone.

Gov. Witless told Michigan Citizens that “social distancing” MUST be followed and shut down citizen access to their local government (again). But don’t question why she allows the media to personally attend her daily news conferences. Yes, they carry the water for her and bad mouth anyone who dares questions her “authority”, but gosh darn it, you WILL listen to her!

Kentucky Gov. Beshear obviously “misplaced” his copy of the US Constitution when he ordered churches to close and had local police place nails in the driveway while taking down license plates of scofflaws who had the audacity to attend their own church. Fortunately, U.S. District Judge Justin Walker gave the clueless governor a remedial lesson in the Bill of Rights. Regretably, other state governors (i.e. Kansas, Florida & Louisiana to name but a few), have issued equally asinine “orders”.

New York is having a serious problem with getting people to deliver things into their state.

I cannot imagine why that would be? Why would Truckers NOT want to deliver there, when the local police are ticketing AND towing away truckers who are taking some down time between loads. If autocrat and serial Trump basher NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo wanted the problem to go away, then he should direct his ire at the source of the problem.

This is just a very small sampling. But suffice it to say that Including governors in the planning stages of re-opening their respective state’s economy is a horrible idea.

Getting back to the problem at hand, let me go over why the Michigan Senate’s plan isn’t much better.

Number one on the list: Where is there any reference to our Constitution in this plan?

I, and other on this site, have complained multiple times about the blatant disregard Gov. Witless has to our Constitutional Rights. Her orders this year alone have violated our First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Amendment Rights. NOTHING in the Senate’s Plan even acknowledges that violation.

Any plan under consideration by Senate Republican’s should have that at the top of the items to concentrate on.

Number two; Why isn’t the issue of essential vs non-essential included?

You can smoke grass but cannot cut grass. You cannot go to a dentist, but you can go to an abortion clinic. You can go to a grocery store, but you better not think about buying any seeds. You can throw a paddleboat into the water, but Heaven forbid there is an engine somehow attached to it. Why you may ask yourself? Because the governor feels that one is more important than the other. Can’t you follow her simple to obey orders? She only has 54-pages of FAQ’s to make it easy to comply.

Seriously, you have to nip this one in the bud immediately!

Number three: Why isn’t the GOP questioning why individual citizens violating of the governor’s “orders” are still guilty of misdemeanors?

Go back to problem number one if you wonder why this is here. No elected official, someone who has taken an oath to support the Constitution, can turn around and tell Michigan Citizens that they face a fine and jail time for simply exercising their God-given rights!

We don’t have a benevolent autocracy as our form of government.

Senate Republicans can remedy that issue by removing it from the equation altogether here and now.

Now let me wrap things up by giving you the fourth and final problem with the Michigan Senate’s plan: If you calculate all of the hoops that we need to be jump through before everything goes back to “normal” (phase one through phase five), a maximum of 79 days will have elapsed.

Even with a best-case scenario of the emergency “ending” on May 1 (Mayday?) and the Triumvirate of Terror not attempting to assert Grrl power, that is two and a half months before everything can be ramped by to 100%, that’s a leap of logic that I don’t think that Even Knievel could make.

And that normal in quotes I mentioned above?

From the Michigan Senate’s own plan:

“The time periods in each phase represent the days since the entry of the previous phase.”

Any relapse (or “second wave” of the Huwan Virus and Gov. Witless likes to scare everyone with), the clock can theoretically go back to the beginning.

Does anyone really want to allow her to make an even larger mess of things? I didn’t think so.

I shouldn’t need to remind anyone here about the incredibly large number of Michiganians who are unemployed through ABSOLUTELY no fault of their own. The number of business which are shut down through ABSOLUTELY no fault of their own. This is not a tenable situation for either of them to be in for an extended period of time without causing significant damage to Michigan’s economy..

And what about the damage to local, county and state budgets due to the above?

Five to Seven Billion Dollars is the latest estimate I’ve heard bandied about pertaining to damage to Lansing‘s budget. They’re still crunching numbers, so that number might be on the low side.

Multiple events (i.e. Selfridge Air Show, Cherry Festival, etc.) have been, or are in consideration for being cancelled across Michigan. It shouldn’t be necessary to remind you that those events help the economies is the respective parts of Michigan in which they take place in.

Do you really want to wait AT LEAST 79 days before we’re running on all cylinders again?

Look, it’s good to have a plan, because obviously Gov. Witless clearly did not.

However, Senate Republicans shouldn’t be going out there with this one.

Michiganians can determine for ourselves what is and is not safe behavior. Personal agency is one of the things that sets Real Americans apart from the rest of the world.

The Michigan Legislature isn’t scheduled to meet again until April 30^th.

Contact your elected official here and here and tell them to not only end Gov. Witless’ reign of terror in Michigan on May 1^st, but to come up with a better proposal to restart our economy that places our freedoms first.