What's amazing here is not what they tell you, but what they don't...
Well, the children in Detroit are at it again.
And is there any wonder why there is so much blow-back from Gov. Snyder’s latest excuse to waste Michigan Taxpayer money on Detroit?
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(6)Nuh Uh.
(0)Part I - No, The Richmond USD Case Did Not Challenge U.S. Bankruptcy Court Authority
Governor Snyder browbeat the Michigan Legislature to approve the $ 617 million bailout of Detroit Public Schools which he signed today by regaling them with a parade of horribles which would occur if the bailout was defeated and DPS was forced to file for bankruptcy. Daniel Howes regurgitated Governor Snyder’s compelling tales of impending doom delivered behind closed doors in a Detroit News article, but was any of it true?
Right at the top of Governor Snyder’s parade of horribles was the Federal bankruptcy filing of the Richmond [California] Unified School District on April 19, 1991 . Governor Snyder portrayed the outcome of this action as the U.S. Bankruptcy Court denying the petition and ordering the State of California to financially bail out the district. From Daniel Howes’ article:
There is scant precedence for school districts filing for bankruptcy, the Snyder administration found. In 1990, according to an administration letter to state Rep. Laura Cox, R-Livonia, the Richmond Unified School District in Northern California filed for bankruptcy because of $42.5 million in debt. The judge ruled the district could not be protected by the court in bankruptcy and ordered the state to provide the district with operating funds.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
(8)Nuh Uh.(0)Gov. Snyder, Sen. Meekhof and Sperker Cotter demonstrating their best use for Michigan Taxpayer dollars.
With that conveniently (and consistently) “overlooked” $3.5-billion in debt, the Mi(a)GOP just handed the Michigan House to the democrats in the fall.
Here’s a not-so-subtle hint.
More to follow…
(5)Nuh Uh.(2)Donald Trump isn’t the republican nominee, and Ted Cruz hasn’t been mathematically eliminated . . . yet.
At roughly noon on May 4th, after running fourth in a three-man race for seven consecutive weeks, John Kasich finally suspended his presidential nomination campaign (raising the obvious question of, “What the hell took so long?”), leaving Donald Trump as the “sole survivor” of what was originally an eighteen-candidate republican field. And, go figure, before Cinco de Mayo was in the books, various talking heads and keyboard pundits were acknowledging, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, that The Donald was now the presumptive republican nominee. However, to channel L. P. Berra, this campaign ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and despite a certain well-circulated AP report, a certain critical milestone hasn’t yet been tallied into Trump’s column, and so June 7th is still going to matter . . . very much.
(7)Nuh Uh.(5)RTA Funding Could Buy All Their New Riders New Cars, And Pay For Their Fuel and Insurance To Boot!
The new Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan is out today with their transportation master plan to soak taxpayers in Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne Counties for another $ 3.3 billion in property taxes over a 20 year period.
RTA CEO Michael Ford released the regional mass transit plan RTA will submit to voters on November 8th under PA 387 of 2012. A 1.2 mill property tax increase and $ 1.7 billion in new Federal & State subsidies will provide four new bus rapid transit lines, 11 cross county connector lines, one regional rail line, and some extended/intensified local service.
Let’s have some fun by subjecting the new RTA regional mass transit plan to some real, pre Common Core, mathematics.
(16)Nuh Uh.(0)Take a good look at the picture below.
He’s going to factor heavily in this post (and more importantly, what YOU can do to protect your pocketbook).
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(16)Nuh Uh.(0)
Yesterday, the Oakland County GOP Executive Committee (EC) met for the first time since the delegate allocation count was slaughtered by the arbitrary dictate of Chairwoman Theresa Mungioli. This meant that 503 spots were cut for the August 2016 election, and now hundreds of engaged delegates are going to be disenfranchised during an important Presidential election year. The people who will be tasked with ensuring Republican victory in November have been effectively slapped in the face.
(13)Nuh Uh.(11)Hold onto your wallets because the fun is set to begin again tomorrow.
Last week the Michigan House, in response to the temper tantrum thrown by the Detroit Federation of Teachers (which to be fair, was in response to the gross ineptitude of one Judge Steven Rhodes), passed yet another in a long line of “life preservers” to the failed Detroit Public School district.
Despite having been “locked out” by administration (seriously, that is what the DFT was using as a speaking point on every local talking head show last weekend), things went back to normal by Wednesday.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept of how calling in sick en masse is somehow the equivalent of being “locked out” from your place of employment…but I digress.
Unlike the bailout proposed by the Michigan Senate, the House package is about $200-million lighter than the Senate’s, and is choked so full of poison-pill provisions that it is guaranteed to cause even more problems.
“Not to worry! With a little elbow grease and some friendly verbal persuasion, we’ll have you upright and humming along the road in no time,” our relentlessly positive Gov Snyder allegedly remarked about the latest DPS bailout.
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(10)Nuh Uh.(0)i·ro·ny (ī′rə-nē, ī′ər-) Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity.
Michigan House Speaker Cotter just lost a round in the Courser/Gamrat felony criminal case preliminaries. Ingham County District Court 54-A Judge Hugh B. Clarke Jr. ruled Friday it would be “patently unfair” for Gamrat’s and Courser’s attorneys to not have an opportunity to question Cotter in their defense:
“Without answers to these questions, the Court cannot adequately balance the rights of the Defendants against the right of the Speaker to be free from being compelled to testify,” the order states.
“To make this decision, the Court believes an in camera hearing with counsel for the Defendants, Speaker Cotter and his attorney is warranted. This procedure would allow the court to properly balance the interests of the Defendants against the privilege sought to be accorded Speaker Cotter.”
Speaker Cotter has been claiming immunity under Public Act 27 of 1984 in Judge Clarke’s courtroom:
“AN ACT to provide immunity from civil action to members of the legislature of this state for acts done pursuant to duty as legislators; to prohibit members of the legislature of this state from being made parties to contested cases or other administrative proceedings for acts done pursuant to duty as legislators; and to provide for certain exemptions from subpoenas.”
Specifically Speaker Cotter is claiming immunity from a subpoena ad testificandum under the third section of PA 27 of 1984
MCL 4.553
Subpoena as to statements made by legislator
Sec. 3.
A member of the legislature shall not be subject to a subpoena for any matter involving statements made by the legislator pursuant to his or her duty as a legislator.
The issue here will be that the legal action against Courser and Gamrat in Ingham County District Court 54-A is a criminal action, specifically a felony action, not a civil action. Speaker Cotter is claiming immunity under a statute which pertains to civil actions, not criminal actions. Michigan’s legislators have no constitutional or statutory relief from subpoenae in felony matters.
(10)Nuh Uh.(0)Proper Prior Political Planning Prevents..............
Our zillionaire Governor is hitting up the Michigan Treasury for $ 1.5 million to cover the cost of really excellent lawyers who are mounting his criminal defense in the Flint water fiasco. Yesterday, he suggested that the two MDEQ employees criminally charged in the Flint water fiasco will no longer receive State paid legal representation. The State had been paying for outside counsel for Stephen Busch and Michael Prysby since AG Schuette stripped them of direct state assistant AG legal counsel in February.
Apparently, the distinction here is actually being criminally charged. Snyder hasn’t been, but Busch and Prysby just got charged.. AG Schuette could not resist piling on with the same common law misconduct in office felony charge used against Courser and Gamrat, but the actual substance of the statutory charges here are lying and tampering with evidence.
(13)Nuh Uh.(0)
