Cronyism

Cronyism, Democrats, Elections, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Part Time Legislature, Republicans, Taxes

10 Years Later

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The 'temporary' tax hike is still with us.

It didn’t go away.

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the signing of Jennifer Granholm’s income tax hike in October 2007.  Liars lie, and we have had our share over the years. On whether a particular democrat would sign on to such a drastic measure as reducing the net income of every single Michiganian?

Which is why it may have been encouraging for job makers and Michigan families when Bieda got the nod. After all, just last fall while campaigning for reelection he told the Detroit News that he was not out to raise taxes on Michigan businesses.

Q: There’s growing talk in Lansing about placing a sales tax on services that are now exempt. Would you support that approach?

A: Generally speaking, I think a tax on services, with perhaps some very limited exceptions, is something that I do not support.

One of a majority signing on to the temporary tax.

It was temporary. It was supposed to be rolled back.  Given GOP has had control of all branches of the state since 2010, and how we have been sold a bill of goods on the (NEW) gas tax, who is it that really needs a kick in the ‘ass?’

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All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Detroit, Michigan, Opinion, Philosophy

Boycott NFL Detroit

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From my inbox (and continuing with an earlier post).

Despite the attempts from team owners to play nice for the fans (Martha Ford even offered a bribe, er, I mean donation to the cause..exactly what that is, is anyone’s guess), NFL Players continue to act like ignorant tone-deaf buffoons.

Stadium seats aren’t selling. Advertisers are pulling out. People are turning off their TV’s.

Why not help to drive the point home?

This coming Sunday, October 8th, starting at 10:30am at the Main Entrance, there will be a Boycott Protest in front of Ford Field, organized by Michigan Freedom to Work spokesman Brian Pannebecker.

From their Facebook page:

“The National Anthem, in 2017 is a unifying symbol of America, the greatest country in the history of mankind.

These leftist agitators disrespecting the flag are trying to take that away from you by dividing us.

Please don’t let them, – please show your support for the U.S. flag and ‘our’ National Anthem this Sunday, Oct. 8th, outside Ford Field in Detroit.

We will be gathering at 10:30 near the main entrance to Ford Field to encourage fans to boycott the NFL until the league enforces its own rule calling for all players to stand facing the flag during the playing of the National Anthem. We have free “BOYCOTT NFL” t-shirts, and pre-printed signs to hold up as fans walk into the stadium.

Media will be there covering the protest event, so this is YOUR chance to have your voice heard in support of America and the flag that so many have given their life to defend. Please make plans to come, and try to get 2-3 friends to ride down together to share the cost of gas and parking.

We hope you join us this Sunday!“

If you can attend, be sure to RSVP on their FB Page linked above.

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All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Liberty, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy

Grow a spine, Governor!

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You DO know that whole “Freedom of Speech” thing isn’t just limited to only aggrieved community agitators.

After recently engaging in security theater on a grand-scale, I didn’t really have a whole lot of respect for what passes law enforcement here in Michigan.

My thoughts on that issue echo those Benjamin Franklin made over two centuries ago.

And then they(/she) doubles-down on bad decision making.

Yes, this is becoming disappointing.

{Post continues after the fold}

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Cronyism, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Republicans

Gary Glenn Turns Back On Decentralization, Targets Medical Marijuana Industry Approved By Voters

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09/15/2017 4:18PM  – EDITORS NOTE – See Comment below referencing Gary Glenn’s feedback

—   —   —

Rep. Gary Glenn (R-Midland) was seen as one of the shining stars of the tea party movement, and was finally elected to public office after several attempts back in 2012. We all had high hopes for him, but as he ascended into a leadership position, he immediately wilted like so many others.

This becomes incredibly obvious when examining the text of HB4965, a bill designed to punish cities that choose to allow medical marijuana dispensaries. It would cut them off from state funds if their town votes to permit dispensaries within city limits. This is a sinister way to rob localities of their sovereignty as well as an anti-free market measure to punish a growing industry creating more jobs in a state that desperately needs them.

It reads as follows:

THE STATE TREASURER SHALL WITHHOLD ALL OR ANY PART OF ANY PAYMENT THAT A CITY, VILLAGE, TOWNSHIP, OR COUNTY IS ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE UNDER THIS ACT IF THE CITY, VILLAGE, TOWNSHIP, OR COUNTY ADOPTS A MEDICAL MARIHUANA ORDINANCE.

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Cronyism, Michigan, Rent Seeking

So You Want To Be In Government?

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Why would anyone bother getting involved JUST because of a class?

Some folks think that citizen engagement is pitiful, so we are going to have classes on how to be engaged.

Let that sink in.  You are too busy dealing with all of the complications of life (jobs, family, American Idol), added to the complications of government (Taxes, zoning, naming of trail systems), and frankly, you have zero interest in managing the community budget.  Is there time left in your day to fully engage?

Unless Idol is cancelled, your box under the bridge falls apart, family members around you stop going to school, or stop getting married, or never need to go to the hospital, those few extra moments you are blessed with are precious.  That free time is becoming rarer as the more dedicated mini-Stalins take the reigns at all level of government. (yes, I purposefully avoided the ‘Hitler’ word. )

We are over managed by an out-of-control Federal bureaucracy, and our local governments have never been so in-your-face with private property rights deprecation in the history of our ‘conquered’ new world. (Columbus day wasn’t that long ago)  Dealing with what used to be the simplest of issues now requires a council meeting, permission, a check, and a rubber stamp.

But MSU extension has the fix.  Lets teach more dunderheads how to rule effectively!  The TC Ticker lays it out:

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Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Rent Seeking

Crony Capitalism: Not Just For Companies And Politicians!

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'Scandal Free' Obama Administration AG Eric Holder Spiked Criminal Charges Against UAW VP General Holiefield Sometime In 2014.

Detroit is atwitter over the criminal indictments that dropped on 26 July against former FCA (Chrysler) labor negotiator Alphons Iacobelli, UAW VP General Holiefield’s widow, Monica Morgan, and FCA financial analyst Jerome Durden. They looted the the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center (NTC) and bought a lot of bling with the proceeds, which were laundered through a charity called Leave the Light On Foundation created by General Holiefield.  Criminal use of bogus charities is a whole story in itself best left to another day.

Prior to this little imbroglio, General R. Holiefield and his wife Monica Morgan are fondly remembered for a ‘gun cleaning accident’ on 30 December 2013. In light of last week’s indictments, that event is now probably subject to some reinterpretation.

Were they battling over ill-gotten lucre?

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Cronyism, Democrats, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Republicans, Taxes

Fox Conned

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Go Big, Or Go Home

Just as Governor Snyder signed the SB 242 – 244 ‘Good Jobs’ subsidy package yesterday, Foxconn announced that they accepted Wisconsin’s insane subsidies. The new Foxconn industrial campus will be built in the Badger State, not Michigan. The Foxconn competition, however, was the bait used to stampede the Michigan Legislature into passing the ‘Good Jobs’ package much sought by Michigan’s government and business establishments.

Wisconsin is going to lavish $ 3 billion in subsidies on Foxconn for somewhere between 3,000 and 13,000 new jobs. That works out to somewhere between $ 1 million and $ 230,769 in subsidies per job. Amortized over a 10 year period, the state of Wisconsin will be paying somewhere between $ 48.00 and $ 11.09 per labor-hour of every Foxconn worker’s wages using taxes extracted from other less fortunate Wisconsin workers. Subtract these per labor-hour subsidies from the headline wages touted for the future Foxconn workers and their ‘Good Jobs’ don’t look quite so good. Gussied up minimum wage jobs at best, wage theft at worst.

The little pig gets to feed at the trough, the hog gets taken to market and slaughtered.

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Republicans

Why Riot?

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What causes a riot in urban America?

The news media, social scientists, and political scientists are eager to offer up the usual stale left wing bromides on urban riots, but at best those bromides are based upon a lot of anecdotes rather than hard data. The plural of anecdote is not data. The disingenuousness of their bromides arises from the clash of facts with their committed leftist politics.  Economists were far less political, at least 25 years ago.

A pair of economists working under the aegis of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) applied linear regression computation modeling to various community statistics from a broad range of cities to determine which underlying issues cause riots and, further, to determine their intensity. Their results are a real eye opener and run contrary to the drivel being peddled by the media and academics on this 50th anniversary of the Detroit riots.

The National Bureau of Economic Research is a private nonprofit research organization which distributes its work product to financial officials and the public around the world. NBER is best known as the official arbiter of the start and end dates of economic recessions in the United States, a not uncontroversial subject. Its economists have run the gamut from the good (Milton Friedman, Wassily Leontief), to the bad (Austan Goolsbee), to the ugly (Paul Krugman). As a fun side note, it is comforting to know that an economists’ organization as august as NBER can lose money on their financial portfolio. No crony capitalists there!

The NBER divides its research into 20 programs; one of which is ‘Labor Studies’. Denise DiPasquale and Edward L. Glaeser produced NBER Working Paper 5456, The L.A. Riot and the Economics of Urban Unrest on behalf of the NBER Labor Studies Program. This paper was written after the Los Angeles riots of 1992, but its research reaches back into the 1960’s and across the world to construct its data base.

The DiPasquale/Glaeser study has two major components: a cross-national study which covers urban rioting around the world (including the U.S.), and a cross-city study which covers urban rioting across just the U.S. They assembled data sets on a large number of cities which included dependent variables representing the frequency of riots and the intensity of riots, along with many independent variables suggested by previous studies as being responsible for the frequency and intensity of those riots – poverty, unemployment, ethnic composition, and so on.

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All the Other Stuff, Conservative News, Cronyism, Opinion

Is the media finally acknowledging something (without actually coming flat-out and saying it)?

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So over the weekend, I’m catching up on some odds and ends like chores around the house, reading several websites and more than few e-mails.

Guess which order I tackled that list in?

Some of them I would categorize as the social ones with jokes and “gotta see this” images &video. Some of them asking me for my $0.02 on goings on. But one of them that stood out was a little bit of both.

A friend of mine sent me a link to President Trump’s Twitter feed where he posted a video of himself clotheslining “CNN”.

If you haven’t seen it yet, all it was, was a quickly done re-edit from Wrestlemania 23’s “The Battle of the Billionaires” which featured a pre-President Trump at the top of the card.

It was a short clip where, after the various “interferences” leading up to it, Trump clotheslines & pummels “CNN” in typical professional wrestling fashion and then just simply walks away.

I smiled, took it for what it was, replied to my friend and went about the rest of my day.

What surprised me, though, was how often I would come across that very same clip again and again, and again, and again…

{Continued below}

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