Rich Studley: "Lawmakers who think the condition of Michigan's roads can be improved with "fairy dust or wishful thinking or Monopoly money," rather than through raising new revenues, should be held accountable for taking that position,
I couldn’t agree with you more, Richard.
Michigan Motorists need not worry about Michigan Roads. Rich Studley and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce have got this one covered.
(4)Nuh Uh.
(0)Mary Whiteford - the Establishment's Revenge for Proposal 1's Defeat?
More campaign finance reports are trickling in to the Secretary of State’s Bureau of Elections and it is clear that an avalanche of money from establishment Republicans is backing Mary Whiteford in the State House of Representatives 80th District special election. You have to dig a little to figure out just how much money and from where, but most of the evidence is available. Let’s call this the ‘money poll’.
Ms. Whiteford’s official committee (BoE 516401) has collected $ 28,200, plus another $ 2,807.96 of in kind contributions (actually expenditures) by the candidate herself. Great Lakes Education Project, an IRS 527 political action committee, has been furiously mailing cards supporting Mary Whiteford and trashing Cindy Gamrat. – $ 15,477 worth. So a total of $ 46,484.96. Another group, Michigan’s Voice (LARA 71630M), has made at least one mailing on Mary Whiteford’s behalf, but little is known about this recently incorporated (10/26/15) group and they have made no filings with the SoS BoE. By law they have 10 days to file, so we probably won’t know anything further about their efforts until after the primary. A well targeted mailing in the 80th costs around $ 4,000, so the Michigan’s Voice effort elevates Ms. Whiteford’s total funding in this special primary above $ 50,000.
Only 26 of Ms. Whiteford’s contributions – $ 6,300 – came from within the 80th District (excluding the candidate’s own contributions), far less than the 200 plus contributions that came to her from within the District in her first election attempt last year. This year, 85% plus of her funding is coming from establishment Republicans from outside the 80th.
(20)Nuh Uh.(1)House Democrat turns on the heat.
Kirk Steudle was appointed long before Rick Snyder was the new sheriff.
Jennifer Granholm appointed Steudle to the Michigan Department of Transportation post in 2006. He did such a bang up job leading to our current road conditions across the state, that no local communities have had to pursue their own millages for road fixes, and the trunklines, bridges and arteries are in top notch shape. In fact, we have been able to lower taxes, return money to taxpayers and by-golly, put shock absorber companies at risk due to lack of business.
Now, [SARC OFF] a Democrat legislator is doing the job that any one of dozens of Republicans should have done LONG before ever asking taxpayers to bend over last May. From the Lansing State Journal:
In a news release late Wednesday, State Rep. Scott Dianda, D-Calumet, a former MDOT employee and state employee union official, said he’d introduced a bipartisan resolution citing numerous issues — from idle railcars that cost millions of dollars to state auditors’ repeated warnings about weak oversight of MDOT’s warranty program — that he says show Steudle is “unfit to lead the department.”
Huh, I wonder where we have seen that before?
(13)Nuh Uh.(0)Does anyone even proof this before it gets posted?!?
As if they were not already utterly clueless regarding what they allegedly stand for (Hint: I’ve included a small sampling below of what they have obviously forgotten/willfully chosen to ignore (source)):
I BELIEVE free enterprise and encouraging individual initiative have brought this nation opportunity, economic growth and prosperity.
I BELIEVE government must practice fiscal responsibility and allow individuals to keep more of the money they earn.
You need to see what came in my e-mail this morning on how the “conservative” republicans are trying to cover up the massive stench from their latest batch of stink-burger bills pertaining their road funding “solution” by releasing this nifty little informational graphic so that we can all drink the kool aid all look the other way and pretend that there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Michigan republicans and the democrats.
{No, you will not be able to un-see the horror, er, I mean, stop laughing at the patent hypocrisy below the fold}
(22)Nuh Uh.(1)Purportedly there is some “disagreement” between the Michigan House’s 600/600 plan (with built in perpetual tax hike) and the Michigan Senate’s plan.
So, who is up for a Part-Time Michigan Legislature?
(9)Nuh Uh.(0)I cannot help but wonder if Sen Meekhof was ever given a copy of the MIGOP "Principles"?
“The senate passed a road funding plan this summer. The senate plan prioritizes state spending, generates new revenue for a long-term solution and returns tax dollars to hardworking taxpayers. ” – Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof (October 20, 2015).
Is it just me, or does that highlighted part of his quote contradict itself?
I’m going to keep this one short today.
{Click below to read more}
(15)Nuh Uh.(0)MAPSA Statement on Gov. Snyder’s Detroit Education Plan
The Michigan Association of Public School Academies (MAPSA) has been the voice of the public charter school movement in Michigan since 1996.
According to them, Governor Snyder’s Detroit Schools plan doesn’t work. Dan Quisenberry, President of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies (MAPSA), the state charter school association, says:
“We all agree that every child in Detroit – and every child in Michigan – deserves a great education in a great school. Everything we do should move us closer to that goal. Based on what we’ve seen, we have concerns with any plan that takes decisions out of the hands of parents, and puts them in the hands of a single, politically appointed person.
“We need to raise student achievement in Detroit and solve DPS’s financial situation, and from what we’ve seen and heard, this proposal does neither. ..
What? A new bureaucracy is bad?
Snyder outlined a plan in April that called for the creation of a new Detroit Education District to oversee traditional and charter schools.
Ahhh.. Emphasis engaged.
(4)Nuh Uh.(0)Albert Einstein Called Him "The Greatest Mind in American History."
Josiah Willard Gibbs
1839 – 1903
The second phase of Governor Snyder’s plan to restore Flint’s damaged water infrastructure was announced today. Michigan’s taxpayers will pay the pirates at Detroit Water & Sewerage $ 6 million to reconnect the Flint water system to DW&SD’s Lake Huron water supply. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation will ante up $ 4 million more and the City of Flint will will pay $ 2 million extra as well. Governor Snyder said: “The technical experts helping the city on its water advisory all agree this move back to the Great Lakes Water Authority provides the best public health protection for children and families.” Note that our devious Governor gives you the impression that the funds will be going to the GLWA. No, they will all be going straight to the pirates at DW&SD unless Flint’s new Karegnondi water pipeline is seriously delayed.
As we pointed out last week, the Flint water distribution system has been seriously damaged by 17 months of amateur chemistry and government incompetence after resourcing their water supply to the Flint River. Incompetent control of water chemistry after April 2014 has dissolved protective pipe linings, allowing lead, iron and steel corrosion which has released lead and iron compounds into Flint’s water on its way to customers. A process called leaching. The finished water coming out of the Flint Water Treatment Plant is seemingly fine, but it certainly isn’t by the time it arrives at their customer’s taps.
Because the damage to Flint’s water infrastructure commenced with this resourcing, a hue and cry went up to reconnect Flint to Detroit water. A logical fallacy. Detroit water did not damage Flint’s water infrastructure when it was used prior to April 2014, at least as far as we know. (Do we really know?) However it cannot – by itself – repair the damage done since. Flint pipes may not have been corroding before April 2014, but they certainly are now. Detroit water is controlled just enough to prevent damage to water infrastructure, but not enough to repair damaged infrastructure. Flint is going to require a distinctly different water chemistry than Detroit.
The technical experts are touting corrosion control plans to stop the corrosion in Flint’s water distribution piping. By corrosion control, they intend to load up Flint’s water with orthophosphate forming chemicals to prevent further corrosion and attempt to restore the protective scale linings in Flint’s water piping. This is the EPA’s stock recommended practice, derived from their statistical analysis of water systems across the nation. The problem here is those statistical analyses were made of more or less functional water distribution systems. Not a heavily damaged system like Flint’s. Flint’s water problems are an ex novo case. The only recent case of lead pipe leaching even close occurred in Washington, DC, but is enough different in its particulars that Washington’s corrective actions do not provide an assured plan of action for Flint.
(25)Nuh Uh.(0)New Poll: Peabody Up, Courser Tied For Third in Historic Special Election
You may remember that, a few days ago, I had made reference to the Courser-Gamrat saga – at least from the perspective of Todd A. Courser – playing out very much like a classic six-act Shakespearean-style tragedy, in which the catastrophic resolution for TAC was the modern “ritual suicide” of a Nixonian-style resignation, right as it became obvious that republican leadership in the State House had finally brokered a deal with democrat leadership to tally the votes necessary to expel him from their membership. I also mentioned that, unlike the theatre, real life doesn’t end with the final curtain, as we saw play out a mere week later. To quote Brian Began from an Inside Michigan Politics press release from last Friday:
“Much like the residents of Elm Street and the campers at Crystal Lake, the Lapeer County Courser monster just won’t go away. It’s the sequel nobody wanted, and it’s coming to a ballot box near you this November,” said Brian Began, Elections & Research Director of Grassroots Midwest. “This is not a conventional primary, but a 30-day sprint. Courser has a steep climb, but should he convince enough of his allies to support him in November, Republicans could again be dealing with a nightmare scenario.”
So, instead of Romeus Montague, Began believes that we may rather be dealing with Freddy Krueger . . . yikes. Popcorn, anyone?
(10)Nuh Uh.(0)Amateur Chemistry, MDEQ Lies, All Around Government Incompetence, Social Justice Warriors => Everything Goes Wrong
Usually, when the words ‘Flint’ and ‘lead poisoning’ are used in the same sentence you get a mental image of homicides by gunshot. Likewise, in Michigan, ‘amateur’ and ‘chemistry’ conjures up images of an illegal meth lab fire. Now, however, we have allegations that the City of Flint’s amateur drinking water chemistry is causing high lead levels in children. This story has exploded over the last week and, as usual, the ignorati in the main stream media and Michigan politics are clueless.
Flint’s emergency financial manager switched the city’s drinking water source to the Flint River in April 2014, an attempt to save the ruined city $ 30 million a year – the vigorish being extracted by the pirates at the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department. The same extortion which motivated the Detroit suburbs to create the Great Lakes Water Authority. Using river water was an intermediate step, with the ultimate goal of Flint joining the new Karegnondi Water Authority and resuming Lake Huron sourcing after the new KWA pipeline is completed in 2016.
Unfortunately, Emergency Financial Manager Ed Kurtz did not realize that river water would require much different preparation than the Lake Huron water they had been supplied by DW&SD. He rose in life as the leader of a business school, not as a chemist. It doesn’t appear that Flint Water Treatment Plant’s staff water chemists had a clue, either. Comments made by Governor Snyder at the presser for his Supreme Court nominee Joan Larsen suggest he was neck deep in this decision and also completely oblivious to the technical issues.
Flint residents protested immediately, complaining of poor taste, foul odors, and turbidity (lack of clarity). Much of this unrest was part of a long term drive to oust the emergency financial manager running Flint, the paramount goal of the city’s social justice warriors. It didn’t help that Ed Kurtz raised water rates about 50%, emulating DW&SD’s obscene fees on top of maximum taxes piracy. Public outrage has increased in Flint ever since. Genesee Circuit Court Judge Archie Hayman enjoined Flint’s water rate hike, throwing Flint’s finances back into disorder. Since Judge Haymen’s order was left in place by the Appeals Court and went into effect, Flint water collections have dropped by $ 1.75 million a month.
In all fairness to EFM Kurtz, part of his rate increase was intended to replenish $ 15.7 million which had been transferred from the Flint water fund in 2007 to pay a sewerage overflow settlement. However this entire situation was almost certainly an attempt to quickly balance Flint’s books and wrap up emergency financial management. Lansing was certainly sweating EFM Kurtz to conclude Flint’s restoration in order to shut down the social justice warriors before our 2014 election.
So what is happening here, technically? Will Detroit water fix Flint’s problems? (Hint: No)
(30)Nuh Uh.(3)
