Michigan

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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Conservative News, Cronyism, Elections, Fees, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature

Political Self Perpetuation

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Making The Democratic Process In Michigan Just A Little Bit Less Democratic With A 21st Century Poll Tax

Representatives Steve Marino, Tommy Brann, Julie Calley, Kimberly LaSata, and Jim Lilly have just introduced six bills, HB 4745 to HB 4750, to increase filing fees for various down ballot political offices across the State of Michigan by 50% to 300%.  These are the fees prospective candidates can pay to get on the ballot in lieu of filing nominating petitions.

As you might expect, the highest (300%) filing fee increase proposed applies to candidates for State Representative (and Senator).

The kicker here? The filing fee is also no longer refunded to the runner up.  So running for political office in Michigan just became more expensive exclusive.

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Michigan

Proud?

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Public safety is no longer the business of this government.

Sometimes we just have to stop and shake our heads.

Should visitors to Traverse City feel comfortable any longer  about the safety of their families/children in our public restrooms?  Not because of dysfunctional little boys who think they are girls, or ..the other way around.  Not because of a special rights law, or ordinance that the Traverse City government is forcing upon business owners. (which is already being done in other ways)

But because there is now there is being broadcast, by official proclamation, a sense that a gender neutral bathroom scheme is the thing to do in our newly enlightened culture; that there is a need to allow men and women, women and boys, men and girls to take care of nature’s business and perhaps discuss the issues of the day in a unique side-by-side.

From the Ticker:

Commissioners unanimously adopted a resolution Monday stating Traverse City will make an effort to provide gender-neutral bathrooms within city buildings and encourage other community businesses or organizations to provide at least one gender-neutral restroom in their place of business.

…

Mayor Jim Carruthers noted the resolution was referring to “single-stall occupancy, lockable bathrooms,” which could accommodate a wide range of users, including single parents with opposite-sex children and individuals with disabilities. “We’re not talking about talking a public restroom that has multiple stalls and just all of the sudden letting mixed genders go into that,” Carruthers said. Werner confirmed, however, with City Attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht that the resolution allows individuals to use public restrooms based on their personal gender identity or expression, which Trible-Laucht affirmed.

Confirmed.

Read the rest, (it’s short) and then check back on the comments often.  Already there are folks who are “Proud” of this commission’s actions.  They are “proud.”  Let that sink in.

In the meantime, we’ll just let the authorities sort out the expression of the day, OK?

Oh, and maybe let visitors guess which of our local bathrooms might contain a ‘surprise’ guest.

You Betcha! (10)Nuh Uh.(0)

Conservative News, Detroit, Michigan, Michigan Politics

Not Any Time Soon

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Will common sense ever return to our state?

I believe the power of stupid people in large numbers is reaching a climax.

Michigan has its share of both (people and numbers) in all corners of the state.  In Traverse City, it might be the new cause-du-jour ‘sanctuary city’ effort, gender fluid/creative/neutral bathrooms‘ or our political class simply not seeing the forest for the trees.

Funny thing about that last.  One of the commissioners cannot accept a sale of county property for an amount less than it is worth. But as things always seem to bear out, political classic and commissioner Cheryl Gore Follette was for it – before she was against it.

“There is frustration, but as I’m learning, it’s government,” says Clous. “Government can’t make a decision and stay with a decision and live with it.” He says he’s at “a loss for words” over Gore Follette’s “making an issue out of selling property for less than market value, or making the assumption that we are” after the board accepted a below-market bid for 160 acres of Whitewater Township property last week.

Yes, ‘cognitive dissonance’ is a real thing.

But the hinterlands is not alone in such net-less mental acrobatics. On the opposite corner of the mitten, we have even more willful ignorance.  MI Dems were introducing bills to make the world safe for ISIS terrorists last week, the feds arrested a naturalized resident of Dearbornistan for:

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Government Incompetence, Michigan, Opinion

This Is What We Are Paying For.

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University paper editorial is window into the failure of higher education.

Allow me to plug your ink nozzles please.

Or perhaps DOS your web service so that the minds full of mush cannot surf your seas of stupidity.  This is the equivalent of the argument that there is a right to shout down free and open discussion, as argued  by the student (not fit for toilet) paper at U of M.

Break out the comfort puppies and crayons, the tantrums are about to erupt.  All of a sudden, whomever is loudest and most violent has the most bestest right to the 1st amendment protections according to a recent editorial. From Cap Con today:

” The University of Michigan’s main student newspaper, the Michigan Daily, published an editorial criticizing recently introduced legislation dealing with campus speech.  ”

Apparently protecting free speech is anti free speech.

Tell me why we give this institution of indoctrination $400+ million of our taxes yearly?

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Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Pensions & Retirement Benefits, Taxes

The Forest For The Trees

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Grand Traverse County Commissioners don't even understand why the county is broke.

We all like nice things.

Sometimes we have to choose which nice things we want however.  As a community, the pie is only big enough for so many parks, so many police officers, and some of the other necessary ‘amenities’ to make it all happen.  One thing it requires is choices and priorities.

Attending a board of commissioners meeting tonight, one participant noted that our Northern Michigan county had the worst pension funding situation in the state.  While probably true, the rest of the commissioners in their own ways acknowledged it, and then moved on to prove in no uncertain terms why it is unlikely to change.

In an effort to raise money to cover the ballooning pension liabilities, Grand Traverse County Commissioners voted 6-1 to sell a county property for nearly $100K less than the highest bid for the property.   They were convinced by a number of hikers, bikers, and cross country skiers, that letting the property in question into ‘private’ hands would make our slice of heaven intolerable.

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Firearms, Government Incompetence, Liberty, Michigan

I wasn’t aware that there was a court imposed exemption to a Constitutional Right?

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On the plus side, I've just found a sizable down payment for that Michigan Income Tax cut.

Can anyone find an exemption for “sensitive places” in either the Michigan or US Constitutions?

I cannot.

And just who makes the asinine argument for “sensitive places”?

{Click below to find out.}

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Conservative News, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics

Adverse City

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Traverse City Adhoc Committee faces proper and righteous indignation over direction toward sanctuary status.

The left, in its unbridled pursuit of one world lunacy, is fully embedded in Traverse City, Michigan.

Considering a sanctuary city policy that ties the hands of local law enforcement, an adhoc committee of the Traverse City Human Rights Commission (the most concentrated batch of lefties and progressive lunatics in the north) held a public meeting at the Grand Traverse County building yesterday.  The meeting was met with (perhaps unexpectedly intense) opposition to the idea of a sanctuary policy from residents in, and out of Traverse City proper.

Outside the county building a couple hundred protesters gathered prior to the meeting to let the HRC know where they stand on the issue.  Many had apparently never been moved to protest till this point, and others were regular guardians of good government, and our constitution.

By the time it began, the meeting had to be moved to the larger County chambers venue because of the sheer number of people who showed.  The ratio of folks opposing the ‘sanctuary’ nonsense was about 10:1 to those who demonstrated support.

Interestingly, there were those who work with the migrant community as well who were in opposition to the sanctuary policy, because they feared increased ICE activity in the region as a result.  Even those who carried the signs protesting the protesters of this may have had some second thoughts after the commenting was finished.

Misunderstanding the difference between migrants and illegal aliens is apparently too easy.

The HRC will make a recommendation to the Traverse City Commission, which will then vote on whether to advocate lawlessness, and neuter it’s police force fully.

Stay tuned for updates.

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