Conservative News, Elections, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Proposal 15-1, Taxes

Status Report-Recall

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previewBeen a little busy circling the wagons here…

We are now in the process of organizing volunteer circulators, have at least some in 6 of the 8 counties involved in the Schmidt recall. The good news…

“The minimum number of valid signatures required on a recall petition is equal to 25% of the total number of votes cast for all candidates for governor in the relevant Senate district in the most recent gubernatorial election. MCL 168.955. There is no requirement that a certain percentage of signatures come from each county that comprises the Senate district.

For the 37th State Senate District, the minimum number of valid signatures required is 23,384. For the 35th Senate District, the minimum number of valid signatures required is 22,491.”

The above quote is from the Bureau of Elections response to our e-mail concerning minimum requirements, this means that we could theoretically collect ALL 23,384 signatures from ONE county. Any one county come to mind? This alters our approach only slightly though, as circulators within and without Senate District 37 are hell bent on putting Wayne on an August recall ballot. So we will attempt to collect throughout the district.

In additional to the March 8th Presidential primary, in the first week of March, at least two of the candidates have scheduled visits to Traverse City. Donald Trump is one of them, and if previous crowds at his rallies are any indication, a few well placed circulators should have a field day roaming throughout the crowds. I would assume these same politicos will stop in Grand Rapids, aiding the folks running the Meekhof recall.

We have also scheduled an rVotes training session for our group(s) in mid-March to identify and contact likely signers and voters for reduction into highly ;localized walking lists. This system will allow us to contact and canvass the most likely signers of the petition, and these will be the most likely to vote to replace Schmidt.

We have reserved a domain name for the recall, which will be announced after the website has been established, along with a DBA, committee, and bank account for State and Federal (if necessary) accounting/reporting purposes. The site will also have a “Donate” button/page for contributions. Other campaign ‘goodies’ are in the works, but first we must establish a cohesive organization and business model.

2,000 petitions have been printed, and will be distributed shortly after Valentine’s Day (this one’s for you, Wayne)…Some basic training for new circulators will be accomplished at the same time, and signs/handouts distributed at these meetings. We have established County Captains (coordinators) in 4 counties to facilitate and monitor the petition process. We have 3 weeks to prepare for the signature launch, any volunteers may contact me at my e-mail: retvet242@yahoo.com, which has survived several hack attacks last month, or by phone: 231-709-0474.

Also of note, we have been warned to stay away from Charlevoix County by one John Haggard, which we take as a direct challenge of course.

Wish us good luck here in the second phase of this process. This is our chance to conduct a referendum on Wayne Schmidt’s performance as not only a State Senator, but a Rep in the 103rd and 104th. His record in the House is now also ”fair game”.

In pursuit of freedom,

Tom Backers

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Michigan, Philosophy

A Winter Interlude

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Oh.

I guess Kirk Steudle wasn’t the first propagandist within the roads department.  Apparently some of his predecessors also made films to let us know what a grand job the highways departments are doing. From “gay holiday crowds where everyone is having a good time” to the storm blasted snow drifting over our roads, this film teaches us what Michigan is all about.

How could we possibly know otherwise?

Enjoy.

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Cronyism, Fees, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Part Time Legislature, Philosophy, Proposal 15-1, Taxes

Time to Light These Clowns Up

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Roughly nine months ago, We the People of Michigan, by a record-breaking 4-to-1 statewide margin, told our elected nobility in Lansing “HELL NO” on a proposed tax increase, which they’d tried to sell as a road proposal, but which the voting public saw clearly as a political sausage job that produced a cronyist’s grab bag of goodies. Thus, every single county in this state, without exception and in no uncertain terms, clearly delivered a mandate-level message that we are no longer interested in extending the legislature a taxpayer-funded line of credit, until such time as they get their spending priorities in order. You would think that a statewide vox populi shellacking, with a turnout rate typical of the biennial congressional primaries, would clue in the GoverNerd, and the rest of the MRP/MIGOPe professional political establishment, that We the People are done being their ATM.

You would think that . . . but you would be wrong. Six months after that ballot box rejection, while most of us were tucking our children into bed (or monitoring local election results), the lords and barons in the Michigan Legislature essentially told we the proletariat that our opinion is irrelevant, and that “no” really means “don’t ask again” – which, of course, they didn’t – by passing a “road funding” tax package that was nearly identical to the core of Proposal 15-1, less the elements required to force it onto the ballot. In doing this, they flatly rejected the clear will of the people, imposed through legislative fiat that which they couldn’t persuade the electorate to publicly ratify, and took yet another step toward government by aristocracy.

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Fees, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Liberty, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

Emergency Managers, Emergency Management

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Darnell Early

Darnell Early

La victoria trova cento padri, a nessuno vuole riconoscere l’insuccesso
A victory finds 100 fathers, nobody claims credit for a failure.
Galezzo Ciano, 2o Conte di Cortellazzo e Buccari, Diary (1942)

The left wing meme on the Flint Water fiasco is that Governor Snyder seized absolute control of Flint and installed doctrinaire Republican viceroys who ruthlessly slashed Flint’s payroll and expenditures without any regard for the residents.

If only this were so.

Michael Brown

Michael Brown

The Flint emergency managers had only one common thread in their backgrounds, long records of administration in government and the nonprofit sectors. No productive experience. Experts at spending other people’s money. Well paid experts.  Outright Democrats or chameleons politically; typical politics of the bureaucratic class. Look at the backgrounds of the Flint emergency managers:

Edward Kurtz

Michael K. Brown

Edward Kurtz, again

Michael K. Brown, again

Darnell Early

Gerald (Jerry) Ambrose

Emergency managers are not viceroys with absolute powers. The evolution of emergency management in Michigan was frustrated by public union opposition. Five successive laws, one repealed by referendum. The law in force during the critical Flint water fiasco decisions is PA 436 of 2012. The powers it confers upon emergency managers are:

MCL 141.1549, Section 9

(2) Upon appointment, an emergency manager shall act for and in the place and stead of the governing body and the office of chief administrative officer of the local government. The emergency manager shall have broad powers in receivership to rectify the financial emergency and to assure the fiscal accountability of the local government and the local government’s capacity to provide or cause to be provided necessary governmental services essential to the public health, safety, and welfare. Following appointment of an emergency manager and during the pendency of receivership, the governing body and the chief administrative officer of the local government shall not exercise any of the powers of those offices except as may be specifically authorized in writing by the emergency manager or as otherwise provided by this act and are subject to any conditions required by the emergency manager.

The emergency managers replace the mayors, council, and chief administrative officers of the municipal governments. While this does indeed give them extraordinary powers of control, their control is anything but absolute. The municipal charter continues in effect and continues to protect the prerogatives of lesser bureaucrats. The vague statutory powers of emergency managers beyond replacing the mayor, council, and chief administrative officer poses unremitting legal jeopardy to emergency managers. Encourages timidity and bureaucratic subterfuge. Not absolute control.

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Cronyism, Fees, Michigan, Taxes

Speaking Of Headlee

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pig-collieOne might question the way in which money can be transferred to ‘cover’ other expenses.

We know that pensions are untouchable, but in times of financial distress, some governmental entities are finding out that health care is NOT off the table.  However, others are developing more abusive ways to maintain the ‘status-quo.’  From Bloomfield TWP:

Bloomfield Township taxpayers have been receiving higher and higher bills for water and sewer each year.  Yet in a controversial 5-2 vote in late 2015, Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees transferred  $2.76 million of the fees collected from the citizens water/sewer bills and deposited those millions into a Retired Employees Health Care Trust.

Can you say “turning a fee into a tax?”

Is there any wonder why some might say that creativity in government can be a bad thing?

You Betcha! (15)Nuh Uh.(0)

Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Republicans

No Chemists!

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Snyder Flint Press Conference 27 January 2016Governor Snyder announced the remaining members of the Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee today. No chemists. Not one person with a chemistry degree. Undoubtedly, a fine collection of worthy government officials. Four ‘field experts’, none of whom are chemists. Medical doctors are not chemists. Public health administrators are not chemists. Civil engineers are not chemists. Materials scientists are not chemists. Chemists are chemists. Chemists know things:

Thermodynamics
Kinetics
pH
Equilibrium
Redox

The lead in Flint drinking water is, at its core, an issue of water chemistry. Water chemistry was allowed to go completely berserk at the Flint Water Treatment Plant for 18 months. Flint’s distribution system has been severely damaged. Fixing that damaged distribution piping is a venture into uncharted territory. Only an inorganic chemist with a command of thermodynamics, kinetics, pH, ICP-OES analysis, and the equilibrium of redox reactions will successfully navigate this uncharted territory. Not another lying MDEQ clown, either. They had their shot and blew it. Why the Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee is necessary in the first place.

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev Дми́трий Ива́нович Менделе́ев 1834 – 1907

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev
Дми́трий Ива́нович Менделе́ев
1834 – 1907

No one will trust Flint water until its chemistry is brought under control and that will require adult supervision – a genuine chemist. Detroit Water & Sewerage water is not a magic bullet. Detroit’s water works in Detroit’s distribution system. Detroit’s distribution system has not been damaged by 18 months of reckless water chemistry.

Flint’s water chemistry needs to be fixed, yesterday. New lawsuits against the State of Michigan are being filed every day. The latest filed this morning by the ACLU and a host of liberal pressure groups takes a new tack, alleging violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Suffice it to say, Michigan has no viable legal defense against this suit.

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Conservative News, Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy

Are there any other “past practices” that we should be made aware of?

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I’ve commented numerous times in the past regarding how I (or any rational-thinking person for that matter), would not (/should not) buy into the Kool Aid that Gov. Snyder & Co. have been doling out is massive quantities pertaining to the Detroit Bankruptcy and subsequent Michigan State Government forced takeover (and more importantly Michigan Taxpayer paid) “turnaround” of Detroit.

To even suggest that DECADES of ingrained, multi-generational self-destructive personal behavior was going to instantaneously disappear simply because a spreadsheet was balanced (sort of) is just naiveté taken to the Nth degree.

Unemployment is still a major problem within Detroit.

So is the marked lack of a stable family structure.

And let’s not forget the woefully under-reported, long-anticipated collapse of the Detroit Public School System.

A new detail came out yesterday that should make everyone’s BP shoot up through the roof (and give you yet another reason to oppose giving the children running ANY level of Detroit government any more of our hard-earned money).

{More below}

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Cronyism, Democrats, Detroit, Elections, Fees, Flint Water Fiasco, Government Incompetence, Michigan, Michigan Politics, Part Time Legislature, Proposal 15-1, Rent Seeking, Republicans, Taxes

Bureaucratic Capture In The Flint Water Fiasco, An Echo Of Proposal 1

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Snyder Steudle Image 1Governor Snyder went way out on a political limb supporting Proposal 2015-01. By the time this limb broke off at the polls on May 5th, his only remaining allies were MDoT, MITA, and Michigan’s nitwit media.

MDoT’s Director, Kirk T. Steudle, P.E. received lavish, flattering coverage in our nitwit media throughout the road funding proposal campaign. The Transportation Asset Management Council, an MDoT tool, packaged an avalanche of lies in glossy pamphlets for public consumption. An entirely fictitious Washington think tank, TRIP, used inside MDoT information to issue even more incredulous lies. Governor Snyder parroted these titillating lies thoughout his Proposal 1 media campaign. He was entirely comfortable promoting the agenda of his ‘technical experts’.

Pre SB 571 campaign finance law allowed us to watch MITA spend $ 5.4 million supporting this turkey, more than half the total spent by Safe Roads Yes! The Michigan Infrastructure and Transporatation Association is ostensibly a bunch of independent, competitive contractors. Somehow a fractious bunch of competitors planned and executed a well coordinated – if entirely devious – political campaign.

How did they coordinate?

How did this presage the Flint water fiasco?

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Michigan, Michigan Politics, Opinion, Philosophy

Inside Michigan Officially Falls On Its Side

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On the left side.

Susan Demas has hardly ever pretended to be fair or balanced, much less a fan of conservative or GOP causes in the state. Her liberal bent was often on display in her distorted reporting style, so when Bill Ballenger sold the subscription based newsletter he founded in 1987 to her it seemed to many, that the end had come to his labor of love.

Demas’ statement upon taking the successful newsletter Inside Michigan Politics on its last ride was

“Inside Michigan Politics is the gold standard for political journalism in Michigan.  I look forward to ensuring that IMP continues its tradition of fair and non-partisan reporting and analysis. Most of all, I look forward to the opportunity of working with Bill, who has been a friend and mentor to me for many years.”

A friend indeed.

She fired him for having an opinion that was not in line with her view of the Flint Water crisis.

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