Tag: Dillon (page 2)

Randy Andy Dillon and his merry band of legislators (Rep. Rick Hammel, Rep. Bert Johnson, Rep. Chuck Moss, Rep. Dudley Spade, Rep. John Proos, Rep. Shanelle Jackson, Rep. Vincent Gregory, Sen. Mark Jansen and Sen. Randy Richardville) are out on a weeklong lobbyist sponsored boondoggle to Israel while Michigan continues to face a $1.7 billion state budget deficit. Ooh, what kind of freebies will they get!??

They left today from Newark, on a El Al flight to Tel Aviv. Wonder if the lobbyists paying for the junket got first class tickets? A first class ticket on El Al to Tel Aviv is only $4391 each way but with such prosperous times here in Michigan, who cares? After all, with El Al's prestigious First Class cabin and dedicated crew, they'd be guaranteed the finest in in-flight pampering.... and they deserve it! Wonder if Randy Andy is a Ketel One man or if a single-malt scotch would be more to his liking? After all, it's not his money!

After arriving in Tel Aviv, Randy Andy and pals will stay at the plush Sheraton Tiberias, with an average nightly rate of only $441! ( See picture above-way nice) Hope they had an opportunity to take advantage of the on-site masseuse and spa facilities on the lobbyists' dime... even Mark Sanford didn't have it as nice!

What will Randy Andy and his merry band of legislators do tomorrow? A day shopping in Tiberias?? Or just lounging on the Sea of Galilee, resting after completing their work on the state budget?

But you know what they say... the more things change the more they stay the same.  

Lest you lose your footing, your grip on reality or your general intellectual equilibrium, there is evidence in fish-wraps across the state today that things aren't as topsy-turvy as the MEA / Dillon spat might indicate, and what good is a site like Right Michigan if we don't keep you grounded in reality?  

Not that reality is eeeeveryone's strong suit, though, but isn't that about what we've come to expect from paper's like the Ivory Tower?  The state's leading Lefty pub carries an AP story with an interesting headline that proclaims "Teenagers may receive pay raise this week."

Michigan teenagers who have jobs might see a pay raise this week.

Michigan's subminimum wage, a wage paid to employees younger than 18, will jump from $6.55 to $7.25 when the federal minimum wage rises to that rate on Friday.

And they're right, technically, though I couldn't help but be carried away to the bygone days of the Cold War when a two-car automobile race between the Soviets and the United States once produced a Moscow Headline proclaiming- "Soviets finish second, Americans second to last."

Yes.  Some teenagers might get a pay raise this week as the government introduces another bureaucratic regulation on job makers across the country, even here in a state where job makers have become an endangered species. Alas, many teenagers will also get a pretty serious pay reduction this week when their bosses crunch the numbers and decided instead of paying the higher wage they'll do without the seasonal help the rest of the way.

And as teenagers across the state find their jobs no longer exist, their parents back at home suddenly find themselves dealing with skyrocketing prices on their monthly utility bill, thanks in large part to the MEA's whipping boy, Andy Dillon.  The Grand Rapids Press reports on new, and unstoppable, rate hikes headed our way from Consumers and DTE.

Read on...

The same day we learned that Michigan's economy, in the third year of his "leadership" of the state House, has reached a devastating 15.2 percent unemployment rate and that 740,000 Michiganders are officially jobless, the ugliest number since they started keeping the statistic in 1976, Dillon strode to a podium in the Capitol City and told reporters that moms and dads across the state will be forced to endure yet another tax hike.  

Peter Luke reports:

Balancing the state budget in the next 10 weeks will require a combination of cuts as well as revenue, he said.

Never mind the fact that higher tax rates do more harm than good to total tax receipts as they force companies out of business, workers out of jobs and families out of Michigan (remember that "budget-balancing" $1.5 billion tax hike in 2007 and the precipitous fall revenue has taken each year since).  

Never mind the fact that a $10 million-plus property tax hike in Macomb County only three months ago, while aimed at wiping out county government deficits long term, has done nothing more than administer steroids to the problem, producing a projected $32.2 million deficit in 2010 and 2011.

Never mind the fact no one has ever squeezed blood from a stone.  Yesterday afternoon the House Democratic leader made his intentions pretty clear... grab your wallets (those of you who can still afford them) because Lansing's coming calling.  Again.

Not that that's why Dillon called his presser... like a magician distracting you with one hand and hiding an object with the other the man just snuck that one in there and hoped no one was paying attention.  Abra-kadabra.  Poof!  He's going to make our bank accounts disappear.  

And while it certainly won't be worth the price of admission, the distraction coooooould wind up being pretty interesting.

Read on...

An early contender for the "most patently ridiculous quote of the year," Warren's embarrassing  attempt at quasi-ethical faux-reason was, apparently, an attempt to rationalize her support for House Bill 5164, legislation that ignores longstanding, bipartisan state and national standards and legally forces pharmacists to fill prescriptions for the "abortion pill" despite personal, moral or religious objections.

The bill is cosponsored by twenty-three other House Democrats.

Currently, health care workers, including the good folks who after a badly skinned knee fill the prescription for your child's antibiotics, are legally entitled to refuse to participate in procedures they object to ethically.  Like, say, killing kids.

That's not sitting "in judgment" of a doctor and a patient.  That's sitting in judgment of one's own conscience and actions, Representative.  

Unfortunately, that's not even the most insidious legislation just introduced by members of a political Party beholden above everything else to the multi-billion dollar abortion-on-demand industry.

Warren and twenty other House Democrats have also introduced House Bill 5158, effectively designed to drive crisis pregnancy centers out of business. The legislation creates fresh regulation that mandates each and every non-profit CPC in the state provide, in writing, information about where and how to acquire an abortion, including directions showing pregnant women how to get to the abortion clinic.

The real irony in all of this is just how patently ANTI-CHOICE each of these bills is.  Eliminating pharmacists' choice on whether or not to physically participate in a procedure they may consider anything from mildly objectionable to a mortal sin, all via government mandate and the threat of force doesn't exactly promote that whole "liberty" concept.

Meanwhile, the Crisis Pregnancy Center legislation is inarguably designed to force pro-life organizations to permanently close their doors, leaving hurting women with only one option... pro-abortion Planned Parenthood.

Each of the bills has been referred to the House Judiciary committee, chaired by Democrat Mark Meadows.  Meadows is the primary sponsor on the anti-CPC bill and a co-sponsor on the pharmacists-as-abortionists mandate.  We know where he stands.

There are two prominent Michigan Democrats whose opinion we still don't know, though.

House Speaker Andy Dillon, a man who has been endorsed by Michigan Right to Life in cycles past and one who is rumored to be considering a run at the Governor's office next year, has not commented publicly on the bills making their way through his chamber.

Similarly, Lieutenant Governor and 2010 Gubernatorial candidate John Cherry has been silent on his party's pro-abortion, anti-choice legislation.  

Michigan voters have a right to know where each of them stand.

Three listings follow.  No excuses.  Please find five minutes today... right now, on your lunch break, on the road in between meetings... whenever... and drop an email and CALL Mark Meadows, John Cherry and Andy Dillon.

Tell them what YOU think about the Democrats' anti-choice legislation, ask Meadows and Dillon to stop the insanity before it reaches the House floor and ask Andy Dillon and John Cherry whether or not they support their Party's shockingly anti-choice legislation, HBs 5158 and 5164.

Then swing back by and let everyone know what they said!

John Cherry

Phone: (517) 853-8050


Email: ltgovcherry@michigan.gov

Andy Dillon

Phone: (888) 737-3455


Email: andydillon@house.mi.gov

Mark Meadows

Phone: (517) 373-1786


Email: markmeadows@house.mi.gov

Going through the recorded roll-call vote something more than the Left's chronic trouble with intellectual consistency stuck out with a sore thumb. One member of the Democratic caucus with a particular rooting interest in this fight declined the opportunity to cast a vote.

Mike Huckleberry isn't just a freshman Dem legislator, he is also a restaurant owner. A ban on smoking in bars and restaurants would directly affect his own ability to draw a dinner crowd and maintain his non-legislative livelihood amid the ever-worsening Granholm-Cherry economic crisis.

So why no vote, instead of a no vote? Read on...

The Associated Press reports that the Democrats' bill carves out one not insignificant but highly incongruous exception.  Business is booming on casino floors across the Motor City and it would suffer were the legislature to eliminate patrons' right to light a square.  Banning smoking would cost the casinos more than a couple of jobs and the Democrats can't have that.  Killing jobs in bars and restaurants... that's OK.  Because apparently some jobs are more important than others.

"Last time I checked, picking and choosing what businesses fail in Michigan is not in our lawmakers' job description," said Lance Binoniemi, executive director of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association.

Representative Jim Stamas provided the lone dissenting voice in committee, but even some Lefties recognize the destructive nature of their Majority's legislation.  The AP:

Committee chair Bert Johnson, D-Highland Park, said he supports broadening the exemption to include bars, small businesses he said are struggling to survive "our tough economy." One approach would permit smoking in any business with an age requirement of 21 years. That would exempt some bars from the ban but not restaurants.

The rest of Johnson's Party disagrees.  And we've played this game before.  

We can go around and around about personal freedom, health, general welfare, the whole kit and caboodle.  Sadly, the concept of a smoking "ban" appears to be a settled issue in the legislature.  Last cycle the House did what they did yesterday, voting to kill jobs but only certain jobs.  The Senate at least managed a little consistency, voting to ban smoking inside public establishments across the board... no carve-outs for the Democrats' special interest pals.

Then again, maybe the elimination of personal freedom ISN'T a settled issue. Senate Republicans aren't idiots.  They know that an across the board ban on smoking would never fly in the House.  By approving a ban on smoking they're effectively ensuring a ban on smoking never becomes law.  Shrewd.

Dillon and the House Dems failed to move the Senate bill last year and if the Reg Reform Committee's actions this week are any indication they haven't learned a single new trick.  So round and round we go.  Which is pretty OK on this end.  In their zeal to kill SOME jobs while managing to protect their political donors and local cash cows, Team Dillon winds up accidentally protecting jobs and personal freedom.

Oops.

Who says Motown hasn't had a hit in years (Eminem not withstanding)?  We absorb more and more of them every day.

And thanks, especially, to Andy Dillon and legislative Democrats, cash-strapped Michigan families are about to take another punch to the gut.  The Detroit News reports this morning that Consumers Energy will raise rates again.  This week.  3.5 percent amounting to about $2.99 a month.

Consumers says it needs higher rates to upgrade power lines and equipment, reduce emissions, install software for improved billing and customer service, and develop metering technology to pinpoint outages.

Last June, regulators authorized Consumers to raise the average residential bill $2.64 a month. Detroit Edison, the state's largest utility, could raise electric rates in July, depending on what regulators decide.

In other words, in the last year Consumers has raised rates by 6 percent... ish... and by over $5 a month.  DTE is set to follow suit.  

Amazing what you can do when you've got a legislatively protected monopoly.

Dear Speaker Dillon, any interest in cutting me a $10 check from your personal account every month to cover these rate hikes?  I get that you're the government and I'm not.  You can (and do) use the coercive threat of force to compel $10 from my bank account every month and I don't have that same ability.  That's why I'm applying to your humanity and your sense of fair play. Just be warned... there are millions of Michiganders in line with me hoping you'll whip out that checkbook.

And either way, at least Michigan is maintaining her status as a nation leader in one category or another, even if that category is governmental absurdity and the price it lays on the shoulders of her citizens.  Well, that and Day Time Talk Show Hosts Per Capita... or DTTSHPC.  

Read on...