Elections

Cronyism, Detroit, Elections, Michigan, Taxes

Save The Children!

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Are Bailouts The Right Answer for DPS?

school-926213(Reposted from JasonGillman.Com)

The Michigan House just voted to give the Detroit Public Schools a $500 million bailout and the State Senate wants to give $800 million.

104th State Representative and incumbent Larry Inman explains it away as a necessary evil. He suggested on the Ron Jolly radio program Wednesday morning, that lawyers warned house leadership that if they didn’t do something, the courts would take over, and it could be far worse. He referenced the Michigan constitution, and its requirement on the legislature to provide funding for the schools.

My guess is that he did not ask the question of the attorneys advising the house “what might happen if every school district subjected the taxpayers to the same challenge?”

YES, the state is supposed to provide an education. The legislature is supposed to “maintain and support a system of elementary and secondary schools.. ” In fact, From the state constitution:

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

Because giving them even more money has always solved Detroit’s problems.

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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.

 

Bus roll over

“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.

{More below the fold}

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Elections, Michigan, Opinion, Philosophy, Religious Freedom, Republicans

So Its Trump

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Donald Trump has passed through the gauntlet and is the Republican nominee

trump article openerIts been a personal quest to stay out of the presidential contest debate to whatever extent possible.

Now the nominee is clear. Though not surprising today, it was not the person most folks would have predicted in July of 2015.  In fact it was likely that even Donald Trump thought he could roll for a while, be outrageous, and then get back to business as usual.

The more he stretched credibility however, the more he appealed to those looking for the ‘not normal’ in politics.  Many, whom we might describe as angry and disaffected with politics-as-usual, found his antics refreshing and (in some strange way) appealing. They see in him a willingness to confound convention and ‘normalcy’ in the body politic; “normalcy,” being a condition which has proven inadequate for our nation, and has created a slow road to some bizarre and unrecognizable dystopian squalor.

At the same time, those who created this environment through passive aggressive politics and (even worse) outright compromise of principle, have been freaking out.  The #NeverTrump brigade was born and now faces a conundrum with an impending Hillary presidency.  ‘Moderates’ who give in to the liberal agenda frequently, screamed “He’s not a conservative!”

As-if conservatism was ever really important to them.

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80th District Special Election (2015), Conservative News, Democrats, Elections, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature, Republicans

Irony

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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.

Lansing City Hall & Court ComplexMichigan 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:Judge Hugh Clarke, Jr.

“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.

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Elections, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Republicans

Bad Optics = Serious Political Jeopardy

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Proper Prior Political Planning Prevents..............

Snyder ImageOur 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.

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Conservative News, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature, Republicans

21st Century Education Commission

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This Summer's Dog and Pony Shows Commence With A Brazen Common Core Promotion

Dog and Poney Show Image 4Governor Snyder announced his 21st Century Education Commission in Executive Order 2016-6 last week. According to his press release:

“The commission will be responsible for analyzing top performing education systems in the nation, identifying issues impacting Michigan’s academic success, and recommending changes to restructure Michigan’s education system.”

You will be forgiven for harboring suspicions that this is another vehicle to promote Common Core. It is. Same type of political сове́т that did such a fine job promoting Proposal 2015-01.  Remember TAMC?  This playbook is getting old.

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Elections, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics

A Challenge

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An email I received recently mentioned the writer’s inability to reach our current representative.

The fact he would get no response, never heard anything that the incumbent of the 104th was doing, and didn’t know what that incumbent was doing was troubling.  “He just disappeared” was the statement and theme.

And absence from representation is spot on correct.

During a kick off last Tuesday I recorded some video that I will torture the regular readers of this blog with over time.   But I also had some good spots; One in particular in which I issued a challenge that might be useful to any district’s voters.

Posted on Facebook, the challenge was posted with this:

“Everyone reading this has the ability to find that legislation sponsored by our current incumbent, which enhances our liberty, creates new efficiency in government, or fixes our infrastructure. HB5152 is close, but even having 14 co-sponsors cannot make it out of committee. Anything else???

Challenge your legislators too perhaps?

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80th District Special Election (2015), Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature, Proposal 15-1, Republicans, Taxes

RICO !!!

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It's Spring and Lawsuits Are Busting Out All Over

Blind Justice Image 3Just a few short weeks ago, it appeared that the Presidential race and State House elections would dominate political news in Michigan for the rest of the year. Now it appears that courtrooms in Detroit and Lansing will provide compelling political drama as well. Drama which is going to cost Michigan taxpayers a bunch of money.

There have been a number of lawsuits filed over the Flint water fiasco (over 71!), but yesterday a consortium of law firms filed a Federal class action lawsuit on behalf of Flint residents using the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This represents a whole new level of legal pain. Civil RICO provides for treble damages when a pattern of racketeering is proven to have occurred over time. It also guarantees the plaintiffs’ lawyers fees, a small fact which assures that civil RICO lawsuits will be pursued with enthusiasm to the bitter end. Conviction applies the stigma of typical previous RICO defendants, such as mobsters and drug kingpins, to a losing defendant. Michigan, at large, is a defendant in this suit. Capisce?

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Conservative News, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy, Republicans

Proportional Backfill

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Did the Michigan Republican Party pull another fast one with RNC delegate allocation?

Those of us who’ve been hanging around RightMichigan since prior to 2014 likely remember well the Michigan Dele-Gate Fiasco of 2012. As a quick refresher, on Tuesday, February 28th of that year, Mitt Romney defeated Rick Santorum in the statewide popular vote, 41.10% to 37.87%. However, because 28 of Michigan’s 30 post-penalty delegates were awarded on a district-by-district basis (Romney and Santorum splitting the state at 7 districts each), and because the statewide vote totals were so close (requiring the two at-large delegates to be split one each), the resulting 15-15 delegate tie didn’t exactly square with the RNC/GOPe’s preferred media narrative that Romney won his native state. Thus, in the telephonic equivalent of a late-night, backroom deal, the MIGOP Credentials Committee (then consisting of Bobby Schostak, Sharon Wise, Saul Anuzis, Holly Hughes, Bill Runco, Mike Cox, and Eric Doster) voted 4-2 – Hughes was not present at the meeting – to creatively interpret State Party Rule 19C, and award both at-large delegates to Romney. The resulting backlash fueled an eleven-week effort that culminated in a two-day Showdown in Motown, with the end result being the ballot box blowout ouster of the national committeeman regarded as the chief engineer of the ex post facto railroad job.

It’s probably not going to draw much attention (likely because damn near no one noticed), but the potential for a Grand Theft Delegate con job similar to the Michigan Dele-Gate Fiasco of 2012 was averted, largely due to one person explaining a key state party rule in a way that eliminated the possibility of applying that rule by political discretion, and instead imposed a resolution rubric according to plain mathematics.

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Elections, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Republicans

An Ill Portent From Michigan’s Presidential Primary

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Massive Democratic Turnout on March 8th Puts Control of the Michigan House in Play

Dead Elephant Image 4aYesterday’s Presidential primary in Michigan broke the participation record set back in 1972’s Presidential primary – both in absolute terms and as a percentage of registered voters participating. While the League of Women Voters types will laud this, the establishments in both the Republican and Democratic Parties are flummoxed. Donald Trump crushed John Kasich and Bernie Sanders beat Hillary. Establishment candidates failed. Both party establishments are scrambling to finesse the insubordination of their voters.

Pundits figure that the Democratic Party establishment can bring their obstreperous base to heel, but few figure the Republican Party establishment will have any corresponding success. The prospective success or failure of their counterinsurgency warfare, and its effect upon November, fixates the press and both establishments.

But there is a less obvious, very ill portent here for Michigan Republicans.

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