Michigan Politics

Michigan Political considerations.

Michigan Politics

Land Interview

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Terri Lynn Land’s team has not run the best campaign.

There is a group that is appropriately attacking Gary Peters for his alignment with the ACA, Obama and FAILED liberal policies, but sadly, the pandering done by the land campaign has hurt the very real possibility of taking over the US Senate this year. It has also done more to suppress conservative voting in Michigan, and might well have its own negative ‘coattails’ when added to those of the governor, who cannot champion liberal causes fast enough.

There are some bright spots however. The video interview by MLIVE below shows a more energetic Land, though they still cannot get the ‘replace’ part of the ACA repeal process out of her head. From “Ballot Bash” at MLIVE:

Of course, many folks think that short of the miracle of resurrection, this campaign is dead.

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

Limerick Laureate

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From the "no, seriously, we should really, really, really, consider a part-time legislature" files.

pscholkaWhy stop at creating a poet laureate position?

Such important matters to tend to in Lansing.  Would-be candidate for house leadership Al Psholka is the ONLY Republican to co-sponsor HB5853. From Capitol Confidential:

“Now there’s a concept worthy of a poem.

*The measure has 12 Democratic cosponsors and one Republican, Rep. Al Pscholka, who also is maneuvering to be the next Speaker of the House. The Democrats are Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Jon Switalski, Henry Yanez, Scott Dianda, Jeff Irwin, Tim Greimel, Tim Kelly, Marcia Hovey-Wright, Adam Zemke, Sam Singh, Andrew J. Kandrevas and David Rutledge.”

A poem?

Perhaps not.  Maybe instead, a limerick?

There once was a Rep name of Psholka
A champion of liberal Polka
“A Poet” He said,  “Would put me ahead”
For a leadership post, he’s a Joke-a

I want that appointment.

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Michigan Politics

Progressive Bloomberg Promises Cash For Progressive Snyder

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How do jokers like this move their east coast leftist ideology into flyover country?

bloomberg-jokerThe far left Michael Bloomberg has not only endorsed, but now promises to spend $2.3 Million to help elect fellow lefty Rick Snyder.

One might ask why he wouldn’t simply endorse Mark Schauer?  One might miss the point on his pick of Gary Peters, but not selecting the Democrat nominee for Michigan governor. One might also not realize, that to properly destroy conservatives, a well funded progressive ought to destroy from within their institutions.

Hence the Snyder assistance.  From The Detroit News:

“Bloomberg’s Independence USA political action committee this week launched a $2.3 million TV ad buy on behalf of Snyder, said Stu Loeser, a spokesman for Bloomberg — a Democrat turned Republican turned independent.”

What does it take to register as a write-in again?

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Firearms, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Republicans

Rick Snyder on Gun Free Zones

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I wish it weren’t true, I really do, but here’s the thing: the reason we still have gun free zones in this State is Gov. Rick Snyder.

Let’s review the political landscape in Michigan.  Michigan’s legislature is divided into two chambers: A senate and a house.

The Michigan Senate is made up of 38 members (26 Republicans and 12 Democrats – As of this writing).  The Michigan Senate has had this composition since January 1, 2011 and this composition will remain in place until the end of December this year (2014).

The Michigan House is made up of 110 members (59 Republicans, 50 Democrats, and 1 “Independent” Democrat – as of this writing).  The Michigan House has had this composition since January 1, 2013 and this composition will remain in place until the end of December this year (2014).  Between January 1, 2011 and through December, 2012 the composition was 64 Republicans and 46 Democrats — 9 votes short of a supermajority (66%) of Republicans.  The latter amount represents the composition when SB 59 was passed in 2012.

Let’s talk about SB 59, as ultimately passed by the legislature.  SB 59 would have (in brief):

  1. Overhauled the process to get your CPL to make getting your CPL much simpler, with one person (your local Sheriff) being solely responsible for issuing your CPL or facing financial penalties in Court for denying you without a lawful reason (as specified in MCL 28.425b)
  2. Force the CPL Issuer to grant a person who completed a nominal amount of additional training an exemption to the Concealed Pistol Free Zones outlined in MCL 28.425o — nearly eliminating concealed pistol free zones in Michigan.
  3. Made it illegal to open carry a firearm in a location described in MCL 28.425o.

While the third point rightfully posed some controversy in Michigan’s second amendment community, especially open carriers, Michigan’s “Big 3” (Michigan Open Carry, Inc, Michigan Coalition of Responsible Gun Owners, Michigan Gun Owners) Firearm organizations voted (via their Board of Directors) to Support SB 59 as it ultimately passed and urged the Governor to sign it.

Ultimately, Gov. Rick Snyder decided to veto SB 59.  He didn’t veto it because he’s so pro-gun he opposed making it illegal to open carry in a 28.425o zone, no…not at all.  In fact, that language was added to the legislation at the Governor’s insistence.  Rather, the Governor opposed SB 59 because (according to his veto letter) he wanted to weaken preemption:

“While we must vigilantly protect the rights of law-abiding firearm owners, we also must ensure the right of designated public entities to exercise their best discretion in matters of safety and security,” he said. “These public venues need clear legal authority to ban firearms on their premises if they see fit to do so.“

So all those publicly owned pistol free zones described in MCL 28.425o?  Snyder wanted them to be able to ban guns, contrary to the State’s preemption law outlined in MCL 123.1102.  Senator Mike Green, lead sponsor of SB 59, refused to cave into this final demand of the Governor to weaken preemption, so the bill passed as it did and the rest is (as they say) history.

Senator Mike Green Later reintroduced SB 59 in the next (current) session as SB 213.  Sadly, SB 213 has gone nowhere because the Governor doesn’t want to address/eliminate Pistol Free Zones.  Since the Governor is a Republican (like a majority of the State House and Senate) the Republican majorities won’t take up the issue.  After all, many of the members do not want to further embarrass/alienate their parties Governor on the matter prior to an election.  Many of these members are counting on their Governor’s support during the election season (both the Primaries and the General Election) to help them get re-elected.  Fearing the Governor will withdraw his support from fellow Republican members who pass legislation supporting the elimination of 28..425o zones, the legislature has sat on SB 213.  Would this be the same if the Governor didn’t belong to the same party as a majority of the state legislature?

To answer that question, let’s look at history of previous legislature and Governor.  In 2006 the legislature passed Michigan’s version of “Stand your Ground”, the Self Defense Act of 2006.  Not wanting to alienate gun owners prior to the November election of 2006, Governor Granholm signed the law in July of 2006.

This political situation aside, it’s possible SB 59’s veto would have been overridden.  SB 59 passed on final passage with the following support, House: Yeas 68 Nays 41; Senate: Yeas 27 Nays 11.  In the Senate a 2/3’s majority to over-ride a veto is 26 votes.  In the House it is 74 votes.  In other words, the Senate had enough votes and the House would have only needed to flip 3 votes.  Of course, given fear of losing support of the Govenor, the legislature wouldn’t over-ride the Governor’s veto even if the votes were there.  This recently happened in Missouri where the Republican Legislature overrode the Democrat Governor’s veto on pro-gun legislation.

In fact, even the Liberal Huffington posts seem to suggest gun free zones are a bad idea.

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Michigan Politics

Where We Reach

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sessionsNo doubt about it, Right Michigan’s numbers have been consistent; recently averaging 200 sessions a day from the wolverine state alone.

This RightMi.com snapshot (at right) of the past 30 days reflects about 85% of the traffic coming in from all over Michigan.  Wisconsin, Oregon, California, Texas, Viginia Illinois, Ohio and Florida coming in with the next highest numbers.

sessions-miThough the actual page views are up and visits are longer, the actual session numbers are off slightly this month, since reaching an average of 308 sessions per day in Michigan for the month of August.  The high locale in Michigan for August was Traverse City followed by Ann Arbor Lansing and Grand Rapids.

The graphic at left shows a breakout of the rest of the state for the August totals, which as an aggregate hit 9241

I thought it might be interesting to those who wonder where RightMi.com’s readership is primarily from.

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Conservative News, Democrats, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Republicans

CATO: Michigan Gets A “D”

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Rick Snyder's tax policies earned the state a 44 out of 100 score in CATO's recent 'Fiscal Policy Report Card'

The average score for Democrat Governors according to CATO’s recent fiscal report card is 46 of 100.

Rick Snyder Came in at 44.  Though RTW and the MBT repeal was applauded, the push for higher gas taxes and the bloated overall budget, as well as the long term cost of Medicaid expansion to taxpayers walloped his GPA.  Along with charts, comparisons, and analysis, Cato writes:

MICHIGAN Legislature: Republican
Rick Snyder, Republican Took office January 2011
Grade: D
Due to political correctness, the word 'dun**' is no longer allowed on head dressings.

Due to political correctness, the word ‘dun**’ is no longer allowed on head dressings.

After a successful business career, Governor Snyder came into office eager to help solve Michigan’s deep-seated economic problems. He has pursued many important reforms, such as spearheading the restructuring of Detroit’s finances and signing into law right-to-work legisla­tion. He repealed the damaging Michigan Business Tax and replaced it with a less harmful cor­porate income tax. In 2014 pushed through a phased-in elimination of property taxes on busi­ness equipment, which will help spur capital investment. The cut was approved by Michigan voters in August 2014.67

However, Snyder received a low grade on this year’s report card largely because he is support­ing a $1.2 billion-a-year fuel tax increase. That would be a huge hike, pushing up overall state tax revenues by nearly 5 percent.

He also scores fairly low on spending. The general fund budget increased 7.3 percent in 2013 and an estimated 7.8 percent in 2014. The governor also supported Medicaid expansion under the ACA, which will be a costly burden on Michigan taxpayers down the road.

Surprised?

While there can be absolutely ZERO expectation that Mark Schauer would fare any better, the expectation of fuel taxes increasing is realistic as Rick Snyder has said he wants to Increase revenue from fuel sales .

“Increasing revenue” as most reasonable folks know is code for higher taxes.

Call Rick Snyder TODAY and ask him why he wants to raise our taxes. (<- no number – see? we learn from those TV ads and postcards)

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Firearms, Michigan Politics

Transparency? Nahh, we don’t need that.

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Yes, it’s long, but I highly recommend watching the whole thing (well, you can probably skip the part that the 10A guy starts talking, he was missing the mark all over the place).

Yesterday (1 October 14), the House Criminal Justice Committee finally heard testimony on Rep. Tom McMillin’s HB4914 (introduced back in July 2013). This legislation would require that law enforcement agencies report every six months on the usage of their SWAT teams.

From the language of the bill:

Sec. 3. Beginning October 1, 2013, and every 6 months after

that date, any law enforcement agency that maintains a SWAT team

shall report all of the following information to the office of the

attorney general using the format developed under section 4:

(a) The number of times the SWAT team was activated and

deployed by the law enforcement agency in the previous 6 months.

(b) Without identifying an exact address, the approximate

location within or outside of the jurisdiction of the law

enforcement agency to which the SWAT team was deployed, including

the name of the county and the city, village, or township, and the

zip code.

(c) The reason for each activation and deployment of the SWAT

team.

(d) The legal authority, including type of warrant, if any,

for each activation and deployment of the SWAT team.

(e) The result of each activation and deployment of the SWAT

team, including all of the following:

(i) The number of arrests made, if any.

(ii) The type of evidence seized, and whether property was

seized.

(iii) Whether a forcible entry was made.

(iv) Whether a weapon was discharged by a SWAT team member.

(v) Whether a person or domestic animal was injured or killed

by a SWAT team member.

But we don’t need reporting for these sorts of things though, right? I mean, bad raids never happen in Michigan!

Well, apparently the Republicans on the committee think otherwise. For example, Rep. Joseph Graves finds it worrisome that the officers would have to go back and justify their actions (7:20 in the clip). Heaven forbid a SWAT deployment be justified, or even just tracked! Further he goes on to say that filing a report of the incident doesn’t take it away (8:58). Really? I didn’t think about that.

However, that’s just one of the many gems coming out of Team-R in this hearing. The amount of stupid coming from them just boggles the mind.

Yup, just shows Team-R is all for transparency!

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Michigan Politics

Heretic-The conservative case for voting “democrat”.

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Will conservative Republicans continue to fall for the football pulled out routine of the past?

thCross posted from Muskegon Pundit

(Note-This discussion does not include the Presidency or national candidates. Because of unique Presidential powers, “best of the worst” is our only option)

In August of this year, the MSM reported the death of longtime democrat Senator Jim Jeffords. Coincidentally, his death was one week before the Florida primary election which elected Charlie Crist as the democrat nominee for governor.

It occurred to me that, not long ago, both men were respected republicans. A review of their political activities shows they were not just turncoats. They were hardly even moderates. They were liberals hiding under the cloak of the republican party.

And it worked…for them.

How’d that work out for us republicans?

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Michigan Politics

Weekend Reader

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logo-sphereBill Johnson – Chasing Redevelopment Rainbows Without a change in the way Detroit leadership thinks, ‘promise zone’ funding is throwing resources away.

AFP Michigan – ‘Frugal Ads’ Factually questionable.

RTLMI Blog – Filthy Abortionist Actually I thought My title was better.

Spellchek – Islamist Terrorism Strikes The Heartland of America  Two things: Radical Islam = BAD, Armed folks = GOOD.

FedUp USA – Classical Capitalism turned Crony Capitalism Given our state has more than its share of cronyists., well..

Watchdog Wire – Talk Like a Pirate Day? – Part Time legislature anyone?

The Shekel – Post Office Does It Again – And we wonder why they are perpetually in the red? (no really we don’t)

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Michigan Politics

Sacking Tea

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Is the handwriting on the wall for the tea party movement in Michigan?

The saying “the handwriting is on the wall” has as its source an incident in 539 BC, recorded for posterity in Daniel 5, in which King Belshazzar of Babylon is plainly told that he has been weighed in the divine balance and found wanting, that the days of both his kingdom and his life have been numbered and brought to an end, and that his empire will be divided between the Medes and Persians then advancing on the city. The concept survives in modern English idiomology to imply that circumstances are such for a person or organization that it is now clear that their ultimate failure is to be expected, or at best will be effectively impossible to avert.

Given the thorough pasting that the constitutionalist insurgency endured in Michigan last month, as a statewide aggregate, it wasn’t exactly a leap for reporters and pundits (likely working from a coordinated set of talking points courtesy of the Michigan Republican Party old guard) to insert dramatic prophecies of impending doom for the tea party movement into their headlines and opinion pieces. David’s missive and Jason’s observation notwithstanding, I don’t think it unreasonable to ask the question: Given the significant events of last August, let alone the past 5-1/2 years, is the tea party movement on the verge of becoming just another footnote in Michigan political history?

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