Slotkin's Motives

Some folks .. even on the right had a concern with Mike Roger’s former National Security influence and connections. To…

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Michigan Politics

Ted Cruz for President

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Senator Ted Cruz is the best choice for the Republican nomination for President.
EXPERIENCE Cruz has a variety of government experience. He has been a Senator from Texas since 2012. Before that, he was Solicitor General of Texas, working on numerous high-profile legal cases, including winning eight cases before the Supreme Court. Before that, he was a member of the Federal Trade Commission, where he fought to protect free markets, including keeping the internet free from government regulation.
ISSUES Cruz is a solid conservative who is pro-life and pro-marriage. He supports gun rights completely. He is a free market conservative who supports cutting government spending, taxes, regulations, and bureaucracy. He is a patriot who advocates a realist foreign policy with a strong military willing to intervene when it is in American interests, but not to support a Utopian vision of imposing democracy and nation-building. He is an immigration patriot who opposes amnesty for illegal aliens and supports enforcing the law, securing the border with a real fence, and cutting back on legal immigration when it is not in America’s interest.
RECORD Lots of candidates talk conservative during the campaign, but don’t act that way in office. That’s why it is essential to examine their records. Ted Cruz ran for senate promising to be a solid conservative who led the fight on important issues. His voting record backs that up. He has lifetime ratings of 100% from the American Conservative Union, 98% form Heritage Action, 98% from Freedomworks, and 96% from Club for Growth. He was a leader of the successful effort to defeat President Obama’s 2013 gun control plan. He led the filibuster of Obamacare funding, and fought against budget-busting spending bills. Cruz was a major part of the successful opposition to the Gang of Eight amnesty bill.

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Republicans

Yet Another Government Triumph in Michigan

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Snyder Duggan Orr Image aMayor Mike Duggan startled Michigan yesterday by disclosing that Detroit found the actuarial accrued liability (AAL) in their pension plans to be $ 491 million higher than that calculated in their U.S. Bankruptcy Court Plan of Adjustment. The very expensive Detroit bankruptcy consultants used an outdated version of the IRS Static Mortality Table when calculating Detroit’s future pension payments. Detroit’s unfunded actuarial accrued liability (UAAL) was not the $ 731 million stated in the Plan of Adjustment, rather it was $ 1.222 billion. Big money in a city whose total governmental revenues were $ 1.415 billion in FY 2014. Mayor Duggan blames erstwhile Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr for this little oversight, but others were also responsible.

GLWA Detroit Seal ImageNo word yet from the Great Lakes Water Authority whether all those Detroit Water & Sewerage Department employees they absorbed from the City of Detroit have the same AAL calculation error in their pension funding schedules. You can bet they did, and the suburban geniuses politicians who spent a year doing due diligence also missed it. The DW&SD pension funding schedules were determined by the same very expensive bunglers who wrote the Detroit Plan of Adjustment.

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Michigan, Michigan Politics

How Could They Be So Cruel?

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Part of being in leadership, is to have a bigger picture of what might happen when certain decisions are made.

The scope of legislative authority carries with it great responsibility. A large part is to have an understanding of human nature, and the effect that some rules will have on people’s actions. So it is important to be able to step back and logically follow through on what might stem from a vote that is cast for any particular issue.

Rules made with the intention of limiting bad behavior often cross the line into the limiting of good or neutral behavior as well. Certain regulations and laws sometimes must necessarily encroach on an absolute freedom of the individual to do whatever is desired at the moment. Examples of this might be anti abortion measures, rules limiting the ability to marry (even those with consent) minors, drug and pornography laws, and poaching.

Our social fabric depends on certain limits and boundaries to ensure that ALL are equally protected under the law in ways that promote life, healthy families, safe communities, and maintain our vibrant resources. If all of the people in our communities behaved perfectly, had good hygiene, and gratuitously respected boundaries, such laws and rules might not be necessary.

So its no surprise that when more stories of inhumane treatment of animals appear, the natural reaction of so many is to call for more laws to protect our animal friends from being at the hands of those who are disposed to cruelty and abuse. We love our pets.  Why wouldn’t we want to promote such legislation?

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Michigan, Opinion, Part Time Legislature

Time For Part Time?

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Today’s Hottest action in Lansing.  So far.

The excitement grows.  Using the RightMi.com Handy dandy legislative tracker in the bar above, we see that big things are afoot! Thoughts?

Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Introduced

HR 0229 of 2016 A resolution to declare February 21-27, 2016, as Family Medicine Week in the state of Michigan.
SCR 0024 of 2016 A concurrent resolution to create the Joint Select Committee on the Flint Water Public Health Emergency.
SR 0146 of 2016 A resolution to urge Michigan communities to pursue innovative policies that promote economic development by attracting young STEAM professionals to work in financially distressed communities.
SR 0147 of 2016 A resolution to designate May 2016 as Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month.
SR 0148 of 2016 A resolution to designate February 21-27, 2016, as National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

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Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion

Poll: Which Candidate Does Bush Exit Help Most?

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PollThe SC Republican presidential primary in 2016 had a nearly 25% greater turnout than in 2012.

The less than 8% showing by Jeb Bush was enough for him to declare “no mas!” and suspend his campaign.  Both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz will be expecting to see some of the support Bush formerly held.

Michigan establishment players had been strongly in the Bush camp even throughout the miserable polling and results of the first two voting/caucus events.  Only now have they been released to look at the other candidates.  We ask, “Who do you think will benefit from Jeb Bush dropping out?”

[poll id=”2″]
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Michigan Politics

Our Last Chance Dance…

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Most folks think we elect our governments, we do not…

Let’s look at this through the lens of reality for just a moment, and hope it sinks in…Money buys power, which in turn buys more money, through the trading of favors…Both parties hand pick their candidates for primary elections, which would appear to be ‘normal’ on its face, but they also provide these people with a well oiled mechanism not only to win, but also to destroy any and all competition…This was demonstrated with devastating effectiveness in the 2014 37th District Senate primary…Republican establishment lobbyists and support groups attacked Greg MacMaster with hideous ads and heralded the ‘virtues’ of Wayne Schmidt as a true ‘conservative’…When confronted (personally, by me) with the blatant lies and pandering of the campaign ads, Wayne simply said “I didn’t put those out.”…So I guess that made it just fine with him…

PastedGraphic-1There was also this mailer (again, “I didn’t put those out,”) that our ‘conservative’ Senator-to-be used to encourage ‘crossover’ voting in the primary…

Please note that the “League of Conservation Voters” (responsible for this, and many radio and TV ads) is NOT a ‘conservative’ organization, but Senator Schmidt had no problem embracing this support…and refuses to reject it and its venom…

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Democrats, Elections, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy, Republicans, Taxes

Because

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A while back this site left the rah-rah part of the neighborhood.

Rightmi.com stopped being the default cheerleader for the Michigan GOP as a matter of principle.  Particularly since the primary part of the MiGOP has all but abandoned its tenets and reason to exist.  What exists now is a shell of pseudo conservatism, and a mockery of the platform under which the party pretends to exist.  Arguably, we still prefer the Republicans who run on conservative platforms but the party mechanism makes it tougher to sort them out.

There is some seriously spoiled fruit in the party.  Snyder is no ‘Republican,’ yet his ‘purchasing’ of, and carrying the flag as one, is enough to fool the soft stupid on both sides of the aisle.  The machinery in place to keep Republicans in majority has corrupted the ability to recruit and retain true conservative leadership as well.  Ronna Romney does her part to keep those crazy doctrinaire Republicans in check using party money and resources.

In fact, its one of the reasons I am changing my phone service to a different carrier.  It allows me to block solicitations for the MiGOP, and these calls usually come from outside the state anyhow.

Having said all that, I still believe today’s loyalist Democrats are the bane of intellectual development.  Even more so than the blind loyalist Republicans who still support bad apples no matter what..  Flint, Detroit, etc..  The inability to look at the results of generational liberal rule and deduce the higher incompetency rate is beyond mind blowing.

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Fees, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Republicans, Taxes

The Dismal Science Confutes Emergency Management in Flint

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The entire world now knows what crass bureaucratic stupidity, feeble political direction, and witless press coverage did to Flint. We have demonstrated that Flint’s politicians and financial managers made terrible decisions in an effort to replace plunging tax revenue, which had reached statutory and constitutional rate limitations.

Flint Water Bill 1The foremost source of revenue expanded was Flint’s water & sewerage charges. Annual free cash flow from water & sewerage charges was increased from nil to $ 28.7 million (bottoms of page 3-13) over the decade from 2004 [FY2005 CAFR, large file] to 2014 [FY2015 CAFR, large file]. The big jump in free cash flow from water & sewerage charges occurred in 2014 as a consequence of Flint River sourcing. Flint only had to pay the DW&SD pirates for water up to April 25th in 2014. Annual free cash flow from water & sewerage charges in 2013 [FY 2014 CAFR, large file] was only $ 9.4 million when they paid DW&SD all year. Why Flint resourced to the Flint River in one number: $ 19.3 million more in cash flow. And most of this $ 19.3 million is now gone with the return to DW&SD water. We will know how much gone later this year.

That $ 28.7 million in free cash flow during 2014 was a 77% markup on actual Flint water & sewerage costs. Only $ 7 million of it was used for infrastructure, mostly to prepare for the now abandoned Flint River sourcing. Only $ 2 million of it was used to pay off water & sewerage debt. The remaining $ 18.5 million was used by other Flint city departments and applied to other Flint obligations. That $ 18.5 million dollars became 22% of all Flint City revenues. Greater than any other source of revenue, greater than income tax revenue, greater than property tax revenue, greater than State revenue sharing, greater than Federal revenue sharing. That $ 28.7 million dollars was the only reason Flint was able to exit emergency management. That and a $ 65.3 million theft from restatement of Flint’s water and sewerage enterprise fund net positions, from their 2014 CAFR to their 2015 CAFR (compare ending 2014 to beginning 2015 net positions on the bottom of pages 3-13).

Let’s consider a counterfactual. Suppose that Michigan’s bureaucrats and political leaders were actually competent and, under the unrelenting scrutiny of a watchful press, arranged for proper chemistry controls of Flint River sourced water. No Flint residents were exposed to lead, no one died from legionella pneumophila, and Flint residents sang the praises of their new water. Its tough to ignore recent history, but do so for a moment so we can explore a very important question:

Would the financial reorganization of Flint under its popularly elected politicians and emergency managers have worked?

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Conservative News, Democrats, Firearms, Liberty, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Religious Freedom, Republicans, Taxes

Very Sad News

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Scalia 1

Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin G. Scalia was found dead this morning at Cibolo Creek Ranch, during a quail hunt in the Big Bend region south of Marfa, Texas. Natural causes are presumed.

Justice Scalia was the author of District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the landmark decision which held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to federal enclaves and protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes.

Justice Scalia was the most prominent advocate of originalism, the principle of constitutional law interpretation which finds the Constitution’s meaning was fixed at the time of enactment.  This philosophy has challenged the ‘living document‘ fraud promoted by lefties determined to reshape America in their socialist vision.

Justice Scalia’s legal wisdom informed innumerable Michigan court decisions and guided a generation of liberty oriented lawmakers across our entire country as well.  Historians will rank him with Oliver Wendell Holmes as the greatest two intellects ever seated on the U.S. Supreme Court.

We extend our deepest sympathies to his wife, Maureen Scalia,  and his nine children.  A terrible loss.

His passing will create a a legal (and political) vacuum, but for now let us thank God for allowing us 79 years of this great legal mind and wish him God Speed.

 

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