Michigan

Michigan, Michigan Politics

The ‘transgender vote”…

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The Flap over the NDAA...

The transgender provision amendment to the NDAA…

When I first joined the Tea Party, and then formed one in Kalkaska County, I often quoted the organization’s 3 main principles:

Constitutionally limited government…

Fiscal responsibility…

and a Free Market economy…

To these I added one of my own:

RESPONSIVE Representation…

After waiting for the chaos surrounding the NDAA amendment defeat to strip funding for transgender surgery/therapy from the Defense Department budget, (which didn’t happen) I sent an e-mail to Congressman Bergman seeking clarification for his NO vote on the amendment…His response was nearly immediate…I received a call from James Hogge around 1 pm yesterday, requesting a dinner meeting with the Congressman in Traverse City…I was told I could extend the invitation to a small, but concerned group of grassroots supporters, which I did…The following is a synopsis of the evening’s events…

After the exchange of social pleasantries and small talk, the Congressman addressed the issue at hand, which was simply Constitutional authority…The Commander in Chief has discretion over the military budget, Congress DOES NOT…The function of Congress concerning the NDAA is to review and approve the DoD budget request for the coming budget cycle, and NOT to dictate how the budget is spent…This budget being debated is still a “Continuing Resolution” budget in order to allow it to proceed to “Reconciliation” needing just 51 votes in the Senate, which it should get…This new budget (if passed) will go into effect on October 1st of this year, and will be available to the DoD on January 1st of 2018…

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Conservative News, Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Republicans, Taxes

Riot, Insurrection, Rebellion, or Uprising?

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A Cure Always Requires a Correct Diagnosis

All Americans alive in 1967, of all races, called Detroit’s five day long spasm of violence, arson, and looting in July 1967 a riot. Some labeled it a race riot, others just a riot. Not for long. Within a year, government and media were plying the public with a long list of racial grievances said to be responsible and an even longer list of expensive liberal programs which promised to cure them.

The Detroit riots were deceitfully recast as an insurrection, rebellion, or an uprising to drive those liberal programs, but ultimately this revisionism just glamorized base criminality, Fifty years later, billions have been doled out in Detroit through those liberal programs and Detroit is in even worse shape by every metric.

Let’s start with some definitions from Merriam-Webster:

Definition of riot

  1. archaic a : profligate behavior : debauchery b : unrestrained revelry c : noise, uproar, or disturbance made by revelers
  2. a : public violence, tumult, or disorder b : a violent public disorder; specifically : a tumultuous disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons assembled together and acting with a common intent
  3. a random or disorderly profusion the woods were a riot of color
  4. one that is wildly amusing the new comedy is a riot

Definition of insurrection

  1. an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government

Definition of rebellion

  1. opposition to one in authority or dominance
  2. a : open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government b : an instance of such defiance or resistance

Definition of uprising

  1. an act or instance of rising up; especially : a usually localized act of popular violence in defiance usually of an established government

Note that the definitions of insurrection, rebellion, and uprising all state that these events are a defiance of established government, while the definition riot does not.

Were the events in Detroit from 23 to 27 July 1967 a defiance of established government?

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Humor in Michigan, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion

They Need More Coloring Books

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Kalkaska Mayor demonstrates common sense by not engaging in unwinnable enterprise.

I just love it.

If someone said “hey come on by for a bit, cause we want to humiliate you, kick your grapes, and pour shame syrup all over you,” the usual response from squishy politicos, would be “can I bring the sprinkles?”  Tis true.   That is essentially what has happened in the past.

It goes like this:

  • 1.  Politico or popular figure says or does something considered politically incorrect, or off-colored.
  • 2. Rage from community, usually driven from those who simply don’t like that politico. Because .. words.
  • 3. News outlets, always looking for the next hand out of humble pie pile on with sensationalized reporting, never taking a position, but carefully framing the events.
  • 4. Politico, feeling pressure from all side caves in, and feeds the beast.

Few can take the onslaught of abuse, usually delivered by the crazy left in a way that would make Saul Alinsky proud.

“Humor is essential to a successful tactician, for the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule.”

We already know the lefties ain’t too humorous up in these here parts.  There isn’t really much else for them.

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Michigan

The One That Brought You

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When you win, act like it.

We have all been surprised at times of the change in our elected class when they assume their elected office.

Our opportunity to witness wholesale change of position, opinion, or the art of ‘nuance’ is only eclipsed by the nagging reality that this has happened before.  Nearly every time we have voted perhaps?

Politicians generally promise much, but fail on delivery nearly as many times as those promises are made.  After an election, our ‘winners’ seem to seek out the losers in some misguided path of reconciliation.  Often whole demeanor changes occur, and the strong willed, conservative, charismatic leader we wanted, becomes a pewling little excuse maker who doesn’t want to be hated.

Screw that.

The left doesn’t care about how we feel about them.  The second hander who wants their government largess doesn’t give a rats ass about their tone, civility, or abusive language. 

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Michigan

A Bad Week For Never Trumpers?

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Been very busy moving the business operations, and actually enjoying some of the finer aspects of our region.

In the meantime, I am still reading, and watching what is going on.  Michiganian Shane Trejo has a fun take on the current administration’s adventures from time to time.   From the Liberty Conservative:

This was a week that reminded Trump voters why they pulled the lever for him last November. While Trump voters were welling with pride over his Presidential achievements, his annoying, desperate detractors from the self-serving obsolete “NeverTrump” conservatives to the vicious radicalized America-hating leftists were left with mud on their faces. The buffoon who was supposed to disgrace the United States is doing the exact opposite. Trump is leading with the pro-Western, pro-nationalist message that is desperately needed in a civilization on the brink of destruction. Trump displayed his expertise again yet again, and the unstumpable nature of this leader is something that future generations will marvel upon.

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Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion

Independence

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Maybe it does not mean what we had always thought it should mean.

Happy Independence Day.

Celebrate!  Take the family out, and have a great time.   Wave the flag, blow off some fireworks, But proudly give the finger to big government types everywhere.  And don’t limit that last to just a single day in the middle of summer.

Kids in our public schools are not likely taught the truth of the cause of the revolution, but it was not hard to understand, and was spelled out succinctly in the declaration of independence.  Colonists had enough.  They were done with being pushed around.

The king was a schmuck, the power he claimed over the colonies was not earned, not justified, nor could it be respected. So we flipped him the bird, and wrote him a break up letter.

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Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion

Bill Schuette – Jack Of All Trades

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Michigan's Attorney General joins the pipeline closure drum corps.

You can say one thing about Attorney General Bill Schuette, he has had a lot of different jobs.

The latest is apparently environmental expert and mechanical engineer.  Acting like those cats in the disaster movies who always seem to have the correct and dire warnings that “something really bad is about to happen,” Schuette has now called for the end to line five.  From the Detroit News:

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette on Thursday called for the development of a “specific and definite timetable” to close Enbridge Energy Inc.’s Line 5 dual pipelines under the Straits of Mackinac.

Schuette’s comments came as his office, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Department of Natural Resources and Agency for Energy released a long-awaited Line 5 alternatives assessment conducted by an independent contractor.

The 337-page report states the 64-year-old Line 5 could operate indefinitely, but Schuette said he “strongly” disagreed. One viable alternative, he said, would be to construct a tunnel under the straits that could serve a similar function but allow for continuous visual inspection while creating infrastructure and construction jobs.

I suppose we could add “Tunnel Builder” to the resume as well?

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Liberty, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Part Time Legislature, Philosophy, Republicans

Ad Hoc Ad Interim

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As badly as we need this done, do we care why he’s doing it, or even whether he gets the credit?

“If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” (Winston Churchill, to his private secretary, Jock Colville, on June 21st, 1941, the evening before Operation Barbarossa)

Churchill was well known for being a consistent and vociferous opponent of communism, and had often spoken quite unfavorably about the Soviet Union, and particularly of Joseph Stalin (who was well-known even then as the brutal monster that honest history records). However, in seeking to stop the menace of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Churchill was willing to adopt an ad hoc “enemy of my enemy” approach, and initiated the Anglo-Soviet Agreement for joint action against Germany.

Given much of the recent hullabaloo regarding a badly-needed grassroots initiative having been likely co-opted, by a moderate opportunist apparently seeking a means to advance his political ambitions, and given that I have personally stood directly in the path of those ambitions at least twice in the past seven years, what I’m about to say is going to sound exceedingly strange, but I’m going to say it anyway.

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Rent Seeking, Sports, Taxes

Battles of the Lower Depths in Detroit

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Davis et al v. Detroit Downtown Development Authority et al; U.S Eastern District of Michigan Case Number: 2:17-cv-11742

Eastern District of Michigan U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith ruled on June 19th that Detroit’s Downtown Development Authority can issue $34.5 million in bonds to pay for the relocation of the Detroit Pistons basketball team to the new Little Caesar’s Arena. The Judge’s ruling rejected arguments that the eventual use of school tax money to repay these tax increment finance bonds violates Detroit residents’ constitutional and statutory right to vote on a school tax money diversions.

Judge Goldsmith’s ruling denied Robert Davis‘ and D. Etta Wilcoxon’s motion for a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order in their lawsuit against the Detroit Downtown Development Authority. The Judge said the plaintiffs did not establish the need for an emergency injunction. The Judge politely neglected to mention that Robert Davis was sentenced in the very same Eastern District U.S. District Court to an 18 month Club Fed vacation for stealing $ 200,000 from the Highland Park School District in 2014. Mr. Davis should still be on probation for this minor peccadillo.

One complication here is that the tax monies being diverted are not those of the current Detroit Community Public School District, but rather those of the legacy Detroit Public School District which was reduced to zombie status last year in the DPS bailout. Is the old DPS really a school district today, or just a financial entity? The Detroit Community Public School District is a near bankrupt ward of the State of Michigan that won’t receive any Detroit property tax revenues until the legacy DPS district debts are paid off. No one alive today will live to see that.

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