Jason

So Why The Change Of Heart?

Judge Out-Of-The-Blue Change of heart raises eyebrows.

I cannot stand DDAs.

They operate surreptitiously, are usually populated with egotistical good-of-the-community jerks, and have little regard for process or the rights of taxpayers. I know, its just my opinion.  I just don’t think its too much to ask for some better accountability.

One Judge pretty much agreed .. Until he didn’t.   Nothing to see here:

“Exactly why Gillis changed his mind was not clear today. Paperwork filed Monday cancelling last week’s order cited “reasons state on the record” at a hearing on Friday. The hearing was about the DDA’s objection to Davis’ latest complaint. Davis said neither he nor his attorney were notified of the hearing and, therefore, didn’t know Gillis’ reasons. A receptionist for Gillis said the judge was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Davis wasn’t even invited to a hearing about his complaint?

H/T Sue Schwartz

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Traverse City March 4 Trump

Maybe not a 'march,' but a rally on a beautiful day!

About 150 turned out for the Traverse City Trump rally today.

At the time we had decided to hold it, the weather forecast looked bleak.  Instead of the predicted rainy day, it was sunny and in the upper 20s to low 30s by the time we started the noon event. We were blessed with as perfect weather as we could ask for in early March.

Opening with a prayer and song, attendees were rallied to support the president and mix it up with others who share their values.  The coffee and donuts provided by Daylight Donuts took care of the chill and munchie aspect.

One thing missing from our rally which we had actually expected was the lefty protests.  Apparently they decided to hold their event and not try to interfere with ours as we had heard in the grape vine.  Their event turned up 20 folks or so according to latecomers who passed them on the way in.

Local news station 7 & 4 streamed the first fifteen minutes of the event, and then went to spend five minutes at the ‘we hate life’ rally mentioned above.

Pictures below the fold.

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Dan Gilbert Begging For Taxpayer Money Capture – Detroit News Says Please Give.

Imagine if all industries were subsidized with capture process.

Set the example, right?

Cronyism is still alive and well, and Detroit interests still have their hands out. And maybe it’s not JUST the developers? Detroit’s high taxes, and expensive operating environment has created impediments to natural growth.

Years after Dan Gilbert took money from taxpayers to move his employees into Detroit where they would pay a new income tax, and endure travel challenges, he want to see more of the bottom of the taxpayer purse through capture strategies. And he has cheerleaders.

The Detroit News has opined in favor of taking money from Michigan families and giving it to big developers to subsidize otherwise unprofitable real estate projects. The News wrote:

“In Detroit and other older Michigan cities, rents are still not high enough to fully offset construction costs without incentive packages.”

If the News extended the same logic to its own situation, we might see something like this in a future editorial:

“In Detroit and other old two-newspaper towns, subscription and ad rates are still not high enough to fully offset continuing operations without incentive packages.  If we were to get subsidies captured from the taxes paid from our employees, our success would be guaranteed, and [those] taxes would increase!”

Just think of the page rent decreases it could offset!

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Absolvendi Officium

"Public-Private Partnerships" Are bad business for government.

SB 97 passed 32-4 last Friday.

Seriously flawed in it’s very concept, the bill grants private operators the ability to operate as-if they are the chartering government itself, sans the payback at the voting booth.  Contracts could extend far beyond term limitations, and the ‘authorities’ created would be of a new design.

It will place those who fail to pay the private concern as immediately liable for fees as-if it were a government entity. It also brings back the spectre of eminent domain, and abuse of authority.

It also grants special rights to those who profit from such projects as described in the bill from paying property, sales or use taxes taxes.

Read it here.

Tell me I am wrong.

Please.

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So Michigan Republicans Don’t Like Lower Taxes

Apparently the Michigan GOP house has Republicans who want to keep higher taxes and higher spending.

At least some of them anyhow.

Sometimes you gotta just wonder why, when given the chance, some Republican lawmakers refused to consider the amount collected from the working class as too high. Especially given they operate under the banner which says:

I BELIEVE government must practice fiscal responsibility and allow individuals to keep more of the money they earn.

By golly, that seems simple enough.

This is truly “the money they earn.”  Oh yeah, I suppose the “fiscal responsibility” component of that oft ignored screed might well provide an ‘out’ for any ausgespielt fiscal-moral compass by a GOP type, but its not as-if the state budget is going down, right?

The following HOUSE REPUBLICANS may be using the excuse that they wanted to see cuts in spending first, but given the insignificant amount of taxes being reduced upfront, doesn’t that itself reveal the expectation that they will not?

Afendoulis (R) Calley (R) Crawford (R) Garcia (R) Inman (R)
Lilly (R) Maturen (R) McCready (R) Pagel (R) Roberts (R)
Sheppard (R) VanSingel (R)

Sad.

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Money Well Spent

Michigan students at the bottom of the educational assessment list.

V.I. Lenin: Our National Dream Realized!
USSR Education Poster, 1950

Michigan schools are demonstrating unbelievable performance levels.

perhaps not in the way one might like, however.  From the Freep:

“A new analysis of results of a national educational test shows Michigan students have continually made the least improvement nationally of scores since 2003.  

..

That analysis comes less than six months after the release of the Michigan’s Talent Crisis report by Education Trust-Midwest that found Michigan’s students are falling far behind their peers across the nation. The ETM report found that Michigan is in the bottom 10 states for key subjects and grades, including early literacy. “

Surprising?

Oh wait, they probably need more money.  Everyone knows that the amount of money spent per child is closely linked to student performance. More from the article:

” Jacob, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said there is no single explanation of the Michigan rankings.

“I believe that there are a number of factors responsible for Michigan’s weak performance: a lack of adequate state and local funding for schools, the highly decentralized nature of governance that makes it difficult for the state Department of Education to develop coordinated reforms, the lack of regulation and accountability in the charter sector, and the economic and political instability that have plagued Detroit and other urban areas in the state,” he said. “

Whoop, there it is.

With a bonus.  Bigger control from centralized government, ignore the failing ‘regular’ schools, and put the hammer on the charter schools..

Comrade.

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POLITICAL LEADERSHIP SCHOOL in TC – Date & Location Change!

Unless you are politically feared you will never be politically respected

Traverse Bay 9/12 and N.M.C.N. Presents

TRAVERSE CITY MI POLITICAL LEADERSHIP SCHOOL

LaSeniorita 1245 S. Garfield Road, Traverse City MI 49686

Saturday May 6, 2017 | 10am – 6:30pm

You owe it to the principles you stand for to learn how to become the most effective activist you can be.

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ICYMI – The Presser Of All Pressers

Bad press! Bad press! .. Whack.

Not Michigan related directly, but I found something that happened yesterday to be too fun to be ignored.

Talk about taking a rolled up newspaper and tapping a few mongrels on the nose.

Donald Trump remained calm as he laid out the case (from the start) that main stream media has done our country a disservice.  By the end of the hour plus woodshed visit, the spirit of those labeled so easily as “very fake news” wash nowhere to be found.

I don’t think I have ever seen a press conference like this, and enjoyed every minute.

I hope you all will as well.

The transcript is below the fold.

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Jihad Better Believe It!

Washtenaw County fails in its mission to equally apply the law.

Stupidity must be painful or it continues.

Unfortunately, it continues.  From Jihad Watch:

Back in November, a University of Michigan Muslim student reported that she was “accosted by a white man who told her to remove her hijab or he would set her ablaze with a cigarette lighter.”

So eager was she to be the face of an “Islamophobic” attack by a white supremacist that she invented the whole story about this “white man.” Yet rather than be held accountable, “the Washtenaw County Prosecutors Office is not proceeding with any legal action,” perhaps because they don’t want to appear “Islamophobic.”

At the time of her fabricated report, the university’s public safety and security division flew into emergency mode and rushed to “call the incident an act of ‘hate and intimidation’ and ‘ethnic intimidation’”.

Michigan penal code 750.411a says “not so fast”

Sec. 411a.

(1) Except as otherwise provided in subsections (2) and (3), a person who intentionally makes a false report of the commission of a crime, or intentionally causes a false report of the commission of a crime to be made, to a peace officer, police agency of this state or of a local unit of government, 9-1-1 operator, or any other governmental employee or contractor or employee of a contractor who is authorized to receive reports of a crime, knowing the report is false, is guilty of a crime as follows:

And while the prosecutor has a degree of latitude as to whether this crime is prosecuted, the lack of prosecution in this case clearly defines ‘unequal treatment’ under the law.

The law is NOT equally enforced in Washtenaw is it?   In a ten year period Washtenaw prosecutors stuck it to 197 felony false reporters, and 139 misdemeanor false reporters.

FAIL.

 

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Moderation

Post, Comment, Whine. this isn't Facebook.

Sometimes you gotta make the call.

Usually I prefer to let things lay.  If someone posts a comment that is especially rude, it may come down, but there is a high threshold.  Sometimes an article is a little too ‘titillating’ to be allowed, at least on RightMi.com.  Again, it takes a pretty bad piece for me to kick in website survival mode.

Some contributors have no such survival instincts however.  They could care less about the their own reputation, much less that of this site.  And for a conservative web log, the liberal practice of allowing random postings for self (or specialized) promotion has been allowed to continue.

But if your only post is to slander another member of the community here, or to whine about how badly you were treated, it goes into the private (members only section)

I’ll let you figure out how to get there.

 

 

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