Michigan

Gross Incompetence or Corrupt Lawman?

While Gov. Rick Snyder’s Relentless Poisonous Actions are discovered to be increasingly insidious, he’s not the only political cockroach running for cover when the disinfecting light of day occasionally penetrates the dark, dank recesses of the Lansing oligarchy.

The Michigan Attorney General’s duties are clearly mandated, and he is REQUIRED to represent the best interests of the citizens of Michigan, and to uphold the State and US Constitutions- not the Governor or his wants and needs.

Sadly, five years worth of opportunities to choose right over wrong has shown us a disturbing pattern of bad choices made by Michigan Atty General Bill Schuette.

You Betcha! (17)Nuh Uh.(0)

Michigan’s 1st Incarcerated State Senator?

So much for the plea?

Gosh.

Senator Virgil Smith is headed to the hokey pokey.  Not removed PRIOR to being criminally charged, Smith is now heading to jail with full pay and bennies?

And he actually endangered people.

Smith was allowed to plead guilty to malicious destruction of property greater than $20,000 for allegedly firing shots at his ex-wife’s Mercedes Benz in May 2015. The charge, a felony, carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Guess he never threatened THESE GUYS, right?

Whatever.

You Betcha! (8)Nuh Uh.(0)

Why Are We Bailing Out DPS Again?

Detroit is flush with taxpayer cash.

Not its own taxpayers mind you, but nevertheless, it has a spigot it can apparently turn on at will. A Granholm era program that somehow still exists and ‘guarantees Detroit HS graduates two years of college will apparently come out of the taxes collected for schools.  Even after getting the State bailout money going forward?

Duggan on Tuesday said that in the 2018-19 tax year tax dollars from the growth of the city will start to go into the scholarship fund.

“What the chamber has done is raise the money to create a bridge for that,” he said. “We can’t expect the chamber to raise scholarship money forever. This is the way that it was intended to work. They’ve done a wonderful job in the short-run. We will have funding out of the education tax in the long-run.”

The city forecasts the tax capture, once effective, would provide funding for the next two decades, ranging from $1 million per year up to $4.5 million projected in 2035, according to property value estimates rooted in the city’s bankruptcy Plan of Adjustment.

Money is fungible.

Check.

Ask your legislator how they could allow this to go on.

H/T 10x25MM

You Betcha! (16)Nuh Uh.(0)

Abysmal Oakland County GOP Leadership Embodies Nationwide Epidemic of Failure

Pictured: The modern-day GOP in its present state.

It seems as if we cannot go a day without the Republican Party, for one reason or another, disgracing itself in shameful, infuriating fashion. That has certainly been the case with the latest Oakland County GOP Executive Committee meeting, which was canceled and then scheduled mere minutes before important county convention proceedings.

Although Oakland GOP Chairwoman Theresa Mungioli will surely say she had nothing but the purest of intentions scheduling the Executive Committee meeting 20 minutes before a county convention, that is nothing but bunk. This is apart of a long trend of despicable maneuvers to disenfranchise, subjugate and demean the individuals she is meant to be representing. This is no isolated incident, far from it.

This is a palpable, conniving maneuver to sweep a great deal of urgent business under the rug. There are resolutions on the key issues that face our nation that need to be considered. GOP activists are leading the charge on these fronts. They are trying to lead the party by doing yeoman’s work promoting the solutions that will actually restore the republic. However, the country club establishment elite won’t even acknowledge these individuals, much less devote time, energy and resources toward their efforts. Instead, villainous party ‘leaders’ who poisoned an entire town’s water supply and caused national infamy are championed.

The controversy over Chairwoman Mungioli and Secretary Williams’ egregious power-play over the vacancy in the 8th district is still raging as well. Last December, the duly-elected county executive committee members called a lawful meeting to attend to pressing business. Because Chairwoman Mungioli goes out of her way to have as few meetings as possible, we were unable to take care of business so we had to take matters into our own hands. The rogue leadership responded by arbitrarily and illegally canceling our meeting. We didn’t respond to their petty, divisive tactics and held our meeting anyway. This entire fiasco was meant to be addressed during the next Executive Committee meeting, but it’s hard to imagine we will even be able to touch upon it in 20 minutes.

It is always a shell game with Mungioli. We can never get a fair shake. We are never treated like we are members of a party whose input is respected and considered, but rather subordinates groveling beneath a dictator.  It is not just a local problem. This is endemic of the GOP as a whole. The establishment gang never seems to quit, no matter how many times they are disgraced. Remember that they have entire teams filled with golim, funded with taxpayer money of course, working overtime to take away your rights. There is no limit to the tricks they have up their sleeves.

The GOP establishment must think that their cheap parlor tricks are fooling anyone. Hello?!?!? Look at who the front runner for the President is. It has never been more apparent that the ‘Emperor Wears No Clothes’ moment has arrived for these gonifs. What will it take for these tone-deaf, arrogant cretins to get the picture? Will it need to involve pitchforks and torches? Will it need to be blood on the streets? What is the end game here?

You Betcha! (19)Nuh Uh.(7)

Proportional Backfill

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.

You Betcha! (12)Nuh Uh.(3)

Too Big To Fail

The stage is set for more mis-'appropriations' ..

malfeasanceHow on earth could any legislator demand accountability after voting to pay for the ongoing malfeasance of the DPS?

With a vote of 104-5, the Michigan House of Representatives cleared the deck for the ultimate prize of over $700 Million for continued operations.

Passed 104 to 5 in the House on March 17, 2016, to appropriate $48.7 million to keep the insolvent Detroit school district afloat until the end of the current school year. This is essentially a “down-payment” on a larger bailout package whose details have yet to find a consensus (the House majority wants more education reforms). The bill essentially “borrows” the money from a state account used to pay for college scholarships, and also places the Detroit school district under the same state oversight commission created to oversee the city after its 2014 bailout(see House Bill 5385).
Who Voted “Yes” and Who Voted “No”

we just need to get em to the end of the school year,” right?

Anyone who thinks there will be a plan from the current legislative slurry to fix the fundamental problems with the DPS is lying to themselves.

Even worse, they are lying to the kids who suffer under the inability of the DPS to teach.

You Betcha! (14)Nuh Uh.(0)

Free Speech?

Beware the unintended consequence of shallow thinking.

sexy2Sometimes, folks want to have an impact in their communities.

They might oppose a millage, pass out literature and information about proposed spending by their local governments. Some might simply try to engage their neighbors in a campaign process through simple means.  They might try to encourage certain priorities as well, and may do so by only spending a few bucks at the local copy mart.

All of this free speech is protected, right? In fact, such expression is legally permissible without a legal regimen, allowing up to $1000 to be spent currently.  Candidates for public office, as well as ballot advocacy groups can opt out of reporting requirements if they do not reach that $1000 spending threshold.

However, as long as there are men occupying government, this too can change.

You Betcha! (13)Nuh Uh.(2)

Whoopie Ti Yi Yo, Git Along Little Dogies

Cattle Roundup Image 1

Whoopee Ti Yi Yo, Git Along Little Dogies

Some boys goes up the trail for pleasure,
But that’s where you get it most awfully wrong;
For you haven’t any idea the trouble they give us
While we go driving them all along.

Whoopee Ti Yi Yo, Git Along Little Dogies

When the night comes on and we hold them on the bedground,
These little dogies that roll on so slow;
Roll up the herd and cut out the strays,
And roll the little dogies that never rolled before.

Whoopee Ti Yi Yo, Git Along Little Dogies

Traditional 19th Century American Cowboy Cattle Drive Song

Rhodes Image 1aMichigan’s tax-and-spend establishment continues to demonstrate world class tactical flexibility as they pursue their dubious ends. Their latest tour de force is the setup for the impending Detroit Public Schools bailout. Michigan’s legislators are being driven like cattle.

The new state appointed emergency transition manager of the Detroit Public Schools, retired U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Steven W. Rhodes, announced that the district would shut down on April 8th due to a lack of funds. This chilling announcement came a week after Governor Snyder appointed him to replace Darnell Early, who resigned at the end of February. Darnell Early, for some reason, failed to inform Michigan of the April 8th drop dead date. Judge Rhodes made his announcement four weeks in advance of the projected shutdown in a full court press to get a bailout from our State Legislature.

Detroit Public Schools LogoThe first problem here is the State Legislature is scheduled to take two weeks off in the four weeks leading up to April 8th. The last week of March and the first week of April. Judge Rhodes certainly knew this, so the dilatory announcement is unquestionably a deliberate effort to stampede the Michigan Legislature into immediately delivering $ 50 – 70 million to DPS, no questions asked. Two weeks is not a reasonable legislative time frame, rather it is herding legislators like cattle on a two week drive. An echo of the tactics used by Judge Rhodes to ram through the bungled Detroit bankruptcy.

Governor Snyder has been floating an inchoate plan to rescue the Detroit Public Schools since the middle of last year; one which originally envisioned the creation of a ‘bad debt’ shell district and a new, debt free district by cellular division. Wasn’t really well received anywhere, even after he added dissolution of the much hated Education Achievement Authority. As his problems in the Flint water fiasco have mounted, Governor Snyder decided to wash his hands of the DPS situation by throwing $ 700 million at them to extinguish their ‘operating’ debt and return control to the next generation of local thieves elected school board members.

You Betcha! (14)Nuh Uh.(0)